Intellectual Liberation Front: Frequently Asked Questions and Facts.

The terms illustrated here could appear to the readers as no more than detailed specifications. However, Wrong or inaccurate definitions can result in wrong rules and laws.

What is the hardware (matter, body)?

What is knowledge (information, software, spirit, soul)?

Who is the author?

What is the "Intellectual Freedom"?

What does "property" mean?

Intellectual property does not exist.

Access to knowledge is a primary human need.

Nowadays, the laws that rule the exceptions to the right of intellectual freedom are wrong and must be changed.

Limitations to Intellectual Freedom never create innovation.

Patenting knowledge (software) is a non-sense.

There is no need for intellectual freedom limitations in order to obtain funds for artistic and scientific innovation.

The number of patents and papers are not real indexes to measure innovation.

The generation of knowledge is not an expensive operation.

Scientific research is not as active as it was in the past.

Copying knowledge is the way to learn how to produce knowledge.


What is the hardware (matter, body)?

Hardware (matter, body) is a physical entity made by atoms. Hardware is an object as such.

The matter cannot be created or destroyed, it can be transformed. It is possible to break or split a piece of hardware in several parts but the global amount of matter does not change. (More precisely: it is possible to transform matter into energy, the global amount of energy does not change. Energy is hardware in this sense).

You can apply the verb "to have" to hardware.

If I had a hardware entity (like an object) and I gave it to somebody or somebody stole it, I would not have it any more.

Hardware is always available in limited amount.

What is knowledge (information, software, spirit, soul)?

Knowledge (or information or software) is everything that is useful for the human thought.

Software/Knowledge can be created.

Different verbs can be applied to knowledge: to know, to understand, to be able to, to be.

If I know something (I know some knowledge entity) and I communicate with another person, both of us will then know/understand that knowledge.

Knowledge multiplies itself in a natural way, without the need for matter, and there are no natural limits to its amount or diffusion.

The more knowledge exists, the more new knowledge gets generated.

Examples of knowledge follow: Poetry, Music, Stories, Recipes, Fairy Tales, The skill of an artisan, Paintings, Sculptures, Economic strategies, Algorithms, Mathematical Formulae, Laws of Physics, Chemistry etc, Alphabets, Languages.

The digital revolution showed us that all these different things are nothing but knowledge: everything can be transformed into numbers and as such can be communicated, copied, broadcast.

In the following part of this document the term "knowledge" is used to name any kind of knowledge. We have not used "software" because "software" usually refers to computer software only, so it would not be representative of all the different kinds of knowledge we are speaking about. Anyway, "software" is a synonym for "knowledge", all the statements apply to software too.

Who is the Author?

The Author of an original element of knowledge is the person who generates it first.

Never confuse an author with a publisher. The latter does not create knowledge but provides shipment services for knowledge. In the past, and partly nowadays, publishers used hardware (like books, optical disks, tapes etc.) to bring the knowledge to users. In this way buying the hardware makes it possible to reach the knowledge recorded on it in a given code (an alphabet and a language for a book, an audio encoding for and audio disk and so on).

Hardware does not have an author. An object is composed of hardware (atoms) and knowledge. The building method or the shape needed for ergonomics or for a nice appearance are examples of knowledge related to a physical object. This knowledge has an author.

What is the "Intellectual Freedom"?

It is the right to communicate our knowledge to anybody.

What does "Property" mean?

It is a strong right related to the hardware. Being available in limited quantity, the possession of hardware must be ruled. Human history has been going through different political models for ruling the access, the use and the ownership of hardware in many different ways. Sometimes the model has given a central role to the individual property, sometimes to a collective property. In general, all the political models contemplate the existance of property applied to hardware.

Usually, Property is an unlimited lasting right. The owner loses its property only by a voluntary act or by limited, coded exceptions like the expropriation for public needs.

Knowledge has authors, not owners.


Intellectual Property does not exist.

It is a wrong term, it must be avoided. It confuses a right with its exception. For the knowledge the right is the "intellectual freedom". Rules like Copyright, Trademarks, patents etc. are just "exceptions to the right of intellectual freedom". As exceptions, they have limited scope and duration.

Access to knowledge is a primary human need.

Like air, water, vitamin D, and even more than these atom-made entities, knowledge is a primary human need. Scarcity of knowledge condemns young people to intellectual rachitism.

Nowadays, the laws that rule the exceptions to the right of intellectual freedom are wrong and must be changed.

They have been written to protect publishers and large companies and not for the citizens, their culture and real scientific research. Nowadays the scientific and technological progress should evolve very quickly, quicker than in the past. On the opposite, the exceptions to intellectual freedom last for the same time (like patents) or for much more time (copyright) than in the past. Patents get bought just to shut down competitors, literature simply cannot be read just because of some publishers. The exceptions to intellectual freedom were originally created to support the diffusion of knowledge. On the contrary, today, these laws protect publishers, limit or negate the knowledge, its use or communication, slowing down the scientific progress.

Limitations to Intellectual Freedom never create innovation.

Limiting the communication of knowledge is for science what limiting the monetary circulation is for economy. It is an inertial factor. With today's laws, submitting and owning lots of patents does not mean being innovative. Patents are just weapons used by layers to fight wars. When large companies fight against each other, patents are used just to "mark their territory". When one of the company is significantly smaller, patents are used to eliminate competitors.

Patenting knowledge (software) is a non-sense.

Patenting knowledge is nothing but a kind of censorship. Who has the knowledge to solve one specific problem covered by a patent can not use its knowledge if not authorized by the patent holder.

There is no need for intellectual freedom limitations in order to obtain funds for artistic and scientific innovation

Nowadays, the constraints to intellectual freedom are used to create close system, power systems where somebody decides what is art or science. In this way there is no guarantee that the best art or science is successful (in fact most of the time is the worst art and science that wins). Copyright and Patent are not necessary at all (as Boldrin and Levine state in their work "Against Intellectual Monopoly").

The number of patents and papers are not real indexes to measure innovation.

Patent offices get paid for each patent they grant, so they tend to approve everything coming from large companies. For what concerns papers, companies and organizations that give sponsorships to journals and conferences often "perturbate" the evaluation of the scientific value of papers.

The generation of knowledge is not an expensive operation.

The opposite statement is just an excuse. Before Wikipedia, the idea of Encyclopedia was related to high investments for experts, the need for big companies to give their capitals and require restrictions on the final result. Wikipedia has proven that there are different ways to create knowledge. The same methods can be applied and they are being applied to different kinds of knowledge like computer software, music etc. By freeing the knowledge from unnatural constraints it is possible to create a distributed way to create new knowledge. Everybody can be reader and author at the same time. By limiting the circulation of knowledge, the costs to access the knowledge get higher, as do the costs to generate new knowledge. The majority of the population is condemned either to ignorance or (at best) to be mere spectators of knowledge. It is common to use excuses hinting to reliability, security, quality, and to impose artificial costs just for limiting the offer of knowledge. Most of the "certifications" have exactly this meaning.

Scientific Research is not as active as in the past.

The real scientific progress is getting stuck in the mud of the limitations to intellectual freedom. How many historical inventions and discoveries happened in the last ten years? Not so many. However we have seen so many patents granted like never in the past. The golden era of scientific research, the beginning of the XX century (when radio, relativity, quantum mechanics were invented or discovered), has nothing similar today.

Copying knowledge is the way to learn how to produce knowledge.

Art students learn how to paint or sculpt by copying paintings and statues, masterpieces made by famous authors. Musicians play pieces from other authors, computer scientists must read the source code to learn the art of computer programming.


Verbatim Copying. 2007. Renzo Davoli