(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:

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That’s the number of people who signed up for the National Do Not Call Registry on the first day. (Think eight numbers every second.) The web site is still getting hit hard enough that availability is intermittent.

The telemarketers are worried that this will devastate their businesses. I’m not particularly worried about their profits. In fact, I don’t expect the 80% decrease in the number of calls that the FTC claims.

The reason is simple: there’s enough exemptions in the law to drive a tank through. Long-distance phone companies, banks, airlines, and insurance companies can still call, provided they don’t use a professional telemarketing agency. Political organizations, charities, and telephone surveyors can all call, as can any company you’ve given money to in the last 18 months.

That’s a lot of loopholes.

(Logo courtesy Federal Trade Commission.)

Lemonade stands are about the most obvious place to conduct a feel-good business transaction I can think of. (Not to mention the poster child of capitalism and democracy in the United States.) Where else can you find a thirst quencher and also help a good cause for pennies on the dollar?

It’s sad that these children, often attempting to earn money for very good reasons, are so often targeted. I don’t know who the nosy neighbor was that tried to cut short 6 year-old Avigayil’s attempt to raise money for college, or who stole $30 from 8 year-old Ami, who was trying to raise money to support her unemployed father. I don’t know why, either; but frankly, I don’t care.

What strikes me most about these two stories – from last Wednesday and 1997, respectively – is that these kids took the losses in stride, coming out ahead afterward due to the sympathy of their normal neighbors and the free international advertising on networks like CNN and Fox News. Now that’s the persistence and customer-first attitude that many Fortune 500 businesses still haven’t figured out.

Ladies, if either of you can ship to Hawai’i, let me know and I’ll gladly buy a cup.

(Lemon stock photo courtesy Ernest von Rosen.)

Martin Rees^*, Britain’s honorary astronomer royal, places the odds of an “apocalyptic disaster,” such as a nuclear attack or bio-tech boo-boo, at 50%. Gee, I could have told you that.

Care to try your luck?

^* LINK TENDING 1/11 – Relinked expired CNN article via Internet Archive.

According to Reuters, North Korea claims the reason it’s building nuclear weapons is to have a deterrent allowing the country to reduce the size of its conventional military forces, thereby allowing more money to be injected into the struggling economy.

Call me crazy, but I don’t expect the million-man army to suddenly disappear if the United States gives in. I don’t particularly relish the idea of metal containers full of radioactive material pointed at my home and only half an ocean away.

I often wonder if there’s a way to spread cultural and political tolerance beyond its current boundaries. Biblically, I’m not expecting world peace anytime soon, but it’s still something I long for. It feels like we’re in the middle of Cold War II. It’s very frustrating that we need sites like this. (I do not, however, believe we need the Patriot Act.)