(To prevent any confusion, this article is discussing intellectual property and not the Internet Protocol. My apologies to the techBloggers. Also, a standard disclaimer – I’m not a lawyer, and nothing in this post or on this site should be construed as legal advice. If you have a legal question, seek out the representation of a competent attorney.)

Laws pertaining to copyrights, trademarks, and patents are collectively called intellectual property. Since a good portion of the GDP of the United States and many other industrialized countries consists of information development and exchange, it makes sense that there should be laws that protect information so that it remains a valuable commodity.

While I have absolutely nothing against IP laws in theory, I’m very concerned about how they have been, and will continue to be, abused by corporations with multi-million dollar legal budgets. These corporations have been attempting to increase the time that IP laws protect their creations while simultaneously limit the fair use of individuals, schools, and other groups to protected work. As a result, each day it seems less and less likely that protected works will ever enter the public domain.

Rather than bore you with a lot of legalese, I thought I’d link some of the examples of how the law is being abused today, right now:

• Microsoft, along with other software companies, are implementing a copy-protection scheme that requires you to ask permission to use newly-purchased software.
• British Telecom, citing a 1980 patent, attempted to sue Prodigy, a unit of SBC, for using hyperlinks (yes, the blue-colored, underlined words that take you around the Internet.)
• The RIAA introduced a bill that would authorize many copyright owners to hack PCs suspected of being involved in peer-to-peer file sharing, and would nearly immunize them from resulting lawsuits.
• James Hooten received a cease & desist letter for unintentionally violating the registered trademark Bible Geek ®.
• Pepsi is trying to trademark the color they use in their products. (I hope that my copyright icon up there won’t turn out to be infringing.)

With examples of corporate charity as wonderful as these, I’m sure you’ll agree that I’m justifiably irritated.

(Some links by IntelliTubbie via Slashdot, and Bene Diction Blogs On!)