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Archiver > ESSEX-UK > 2004-04 > 1081453520


From: "Chris Goddard" <>
Subject: Re: 1851 LOOK-UPS - A BIG PROBLEM
Date: Thu, 8 Apr 2004 20:45:23 +0100
References: <00eb01c41d4e$b0eb6d10$bcc4fc3e@sn023886520432> <008401c41d9d$ebaef800$a8790650@packard>


Colleen wrote, understandably:

> I shall never understand copyright regulations, so many
> different interpretations are put on them.

It's not so much copyright, as intellectual property rights in general.

This is the way it was explained to me:

During the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries industrialised countries made money
by making THINGS. They protected these THINGS by patenting them so no-one
else could copy them.

Now that manufacturing has moved to other countries, the post-industrial
world is making its money from IDEAS and INFORMATION.

So it's the IDEAS and INFORMATION that the EFHS should be keen to protect as
they - rather than THINGS - are worth money to them.

To put it another way, it's not the fiches as THINGS, but the IDEAS and
INFORMATION contained within them that matters in the post-industrial world.


Chris

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