Z:gnu-www-ja-sco-gnu-linux--32d237-Another SCO tool of obfuscatio/en

Another SCO tool of obfuscation is the term &ldquo;intellectual property&rdquo;. This fashionable but foolish term carries an evident bias: that the right way to treat works, ideas, and names is as a kind of property. Less evident is the harm it does by inciting simplistic thinking: it lumps together diverse laws&mdash;copyright law, patent law, trademark law and others&mdash;which really have little in common. This leads people to suppose those laws are one single issue, the &ldquo;intellectual property issue&rdquo;, and think about &ldquo;it&rdquo;&mdash;which means, to think at such a broad abstract level that the specific social issues raised by these various laws are not even visible. Any opinion &ldquo;about intellectual property&rdquo; is thus bound to be foolish. (See our list of words to avoid for more explanation of the confusion caused by this term.)