Michael Nesmith Quotes

I personally think intellectual property is an oxymoron. Physical objects have a completely different natural economy than intellectual goods. It's a tricky thing to try to own something that remains in your possession even after you give it to many others.

People have to respect intellectual property.

All intellectual property rights are just licenses granted by society because it was thought, rightly or wrongly, that society as a whole would benefit by granting them. But in any particular situation, we have to ask: are we really better off granting such license? What kind of act are we licensing a person to do?

The most important thing about intellectual property vs. creative expression is that copyright law was created not to stifle creativity but to encourage creativity.

I don't believe in the ownership of work.

Intellectual property is an important legal and cultural issue. Society as a whole has complex issues to face here: private ownership vs. open source, and so on.

I personally think intellectual property is an oxymoron. Physical objects have a completely different natural economy than intellectual goods.

An intellectual property worker will take copyright protection on everything he can get.

In the epic war over Silicon Valley's intellectual property, Bill Gates was on the side of licensing copyright and robust protections for intellectual property. He wasn't on the side of the hackers, and he didn't want information to be free.

The problem with copyright is it only protects that literal work. It doesn't protect the design and the ideas. That's unfortunate.

Intellectual property has the shelf life of a banana.

A free culture is not a culture without property; it is not a culture in which artists don't get paid.

The idea of a national digital library has been in the air for a long time, and there was a danger that some people would feel that it's their property, so to speak.

Notwithstanding the fact that the most innovative and progressive space we've seen - the Internet - has been the place where intellectual property has been least respected. You know, facts don't get in the way of this ideology.

Intellectual property is a key aspect for economic development.

A brainy person does not abuse copyright; instead they respect it and uphold it.

We're living in an age where we should be collaborating. Because it's the Internet now. It's hard to say who owns what.

[Intellectual property] cannot, in nature, be a subject of property. He who receivers an idea from me, receives instructions from me without lessening mine, as; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me.

If the only way a library can offer an Internet exhibit about the New Deal is to hire a lawyer to clear the rights to every image and sound, then the copyright system is burdening creativity in a way that has never been seen before

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 everyone.

Americans have been selling this view around the world: that progress comes from perfect protection of intellectual property. Notwithstanding the fact that the most innovative and progressive space we've seen — the Internet — has been the place where intellectual property has been least respected. You know, facts don't get in the way of this ideology.

Law and technology produce, together, a kind of regulation of creativity we've not seen before.

If there is anything in the world that can really be called a man’s property, it is surely that which is the result of his mental activity.

… the pursuit of civil rights by copyright.

There are people out there who don't see value in intellectual property, and so they're always going to have a problem if there are lawsuits involving intellectual property.