The invention of intellectual property

The invention of intellectual property

Chapter 01 — Information • 01.01 — Material and immaterial information • Paragraph 10 • §01.01.10.00

The dematerialised information described in paragraph 8, enjoying the freedom (as in lack of control over the processing of it) as described in paragraph 9, became property (intellectual property), and thus under the control of humans, in the seventeenth century. In short, mechanical mass copying (through the invention of Gutenberg’s press) made it obvious to humanity for the first time that value lies in the (intellectual) creation of the dematerialised, intangible dataset and not in the (mundane, however tiring to produce, tangible) reproduction—a distinction that, like the one described in paragraph 8, has haunted us until very recently. A different kind of property, [[§24.01.0|intellectual property]], was thus invented by humans.

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