Bit Torrent is a great piece of technology that solves a very real technical problem (how to get a large amount of data from a place with limited bandwith to many users as quick as possible). It has created a whole new concept for software ("swarming"). It helps a lot towards keeping the internet a democratic place - where the ability to dissemate information does not depend on the money you are able to spend. This technic is as least as valuable as all Jackson Songs taken together and the inventor should be able to profit from his ingenuity.

Posted at June 28, 2005 2:29 PM in response to What's At Stake

It has been pretended by some, (and in England especially,) that inventors have a natural and exclusive right to their inventions, and not merely for their own lives, but inheritable to their heirs.

[...]

If nature has made any one thing less susceptible than all others of exclusive property, it is the action of the thinking power called an idea, which an individual may exclusively possess as long as he keeps it to himself; but the moment it is divulged, it forces itself into the possession of every one, and the receiver cannot dispossess himself of it.

[...]

Inventions then cannot, in nature, be a subject of property. Society may give an exclusive right to the profits arising from them, as an encouragement to men to pursue ideas which may produce utility, but this may or may not be done, according to the will and convenience of the society, without claim or complaint from anybody.



Thomas Jefferson about Article 1, Section 8 of the American constitution. Full text here.

Posted at June 28, 2005 2:19 PM in response to What's At Stake