If exploration of space is eventually taken over by private companies, how will intellectual property laws affect the advancement of knowledge and science? Help it? Hinder it? Neither? I've never heard this topic discussed before, and I'm interested in what all of you think about it.

I don't know about intellectual property, but I don't think we're going to get very far in space colonization until private property is allowed in outer space.

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Well, as you know the UN has basically said that nobody can own a celestial object. At the time, they were trying to prevent the superpowers from claiming, for example, the whole moon. Remember, there was a time when European ships would land in South America and declare, "I claim this land, and all land it touches, for the king of XYZ." I guess someone at the UN had read a little bit of Heinlein and decided to prevent that from happening to the Moon.

It didn't matter though. America did the moon landings the right way. We "came in peace for all mankind" and even though we planted an American flag, no one ever said or implied that we were claiming ownership of the place. In the current world climate, where it's fashionable to hate the US, we don't get credit inclusive thinking like that.

The reason that nothing more has been said about the property issue is that no one can get to the Moon or Mars. If you could get there though, and if you could live there, I think you could just tell the UN to go screw themselves. They can't stop people on this planet from killing each other. I don't see how they could stop someone from settling on another world.

But I think what you were actually asking about was information. Right? So like, if megacorp creates a vaccine that everyone needs, but charges exorbitant fees for it, what can the governments of the world do. Presently, a government will only put up with so much extortion before they break down your door and take the information, then start making the vaccine cheaply. In other words, your right to intellectual property has certain limits. Just like the government can take your house under imminent domain laws if they need to build a highway.

So I think the question is, what happens if megacorp is based off-world and no one can get to them? Who do they answer to then? Personally, I think that they would never give up intellectual property in that case, because they wouldn't have to. You know, even here on Earth corportations rarely give up IP. Disney essentially bribed congress to extend the limits on copyright. They were worried about what would happen if that old Steamboat Willy cartoon featuring mickey mouse went into the public domain. To me, that's insane. Do you really think Disney would be harmed by having a 100 year old cartoon in the public domain??

I think it's not just the cartoon but Mickey Mouse himself that would have gone to the public domain.

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IP created in space is no different from that created in international waters, the owner is still the owner. The owner will still have to register their rights in a jurisdiction, and that jurisdiction will have reciprocal agreements with other jurisdictions. Problems arise (for example with the Soviet Union) where a jurisdiction refuses to acknowledge ownership.

If a corporation does something off-earth it will still be registered somewhere on earth.

Well, mickey mouse is not a "work" and cannot therefore be covered by copyright. I picture of mickey mouse or a movie with him in it are examples of works that fall under copyright.

What mickey mouse is, is a trademark. Trademarks last for as long as the trademark user continues to make use of them. So, even if (god forbid) it was legal to download steamboat willey, the mickey mouse trademark would still belong to disney, and disney would still be the only ones who could use that trademark. You wouldn't see mickey mouse on cans of coke or whatever.

Maybe a better example is the Ford logo. Like mickey mouse, it is a trademark. Ford has been around for over a hundred years, so anything they had that was under copyright would have expired by now (copyrights used to last for only 20 years, now it's 95 year). anyway, I cannot start building cars and slapping the ford logo on them. That would be illegal. Same for mickey mouse.

The issue here was that the disney company found it offensive that people might be able to get something for free. It's as simple as that. The irony though, is that if some of the old works had fallen into the public domain, they might see wider distribution and actually increase interest in newer works that disney actually makes money off of.

I kinda dig the line of thinking that was present in David Brin's "Earth".

No Secrets. You can register a secret at a bank and it will stay proprietary for a length of time, say 5 or 10 years.

In order to advance in space travel, the companies have share technical information. Especially right now while we are on the cusp of being able to travel and explore.

I would propose a regulatrory entity, similar to the way the SEC monitors the stock market.

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Mickey Mouse is indeed covered under copyright since as part of the film Steamboat Willie which is covered then so are all portions of the work. Disney lead a consortium including Sony that contributed around six million to the campaign funds of certain elected officials to obtain an extension of the act. They are now dangerously close to violating the constitution and are not likely to be able to buy further changes to the law unless the constitution is amended.

The ironic part is that Disney has made the majority of its income by making films of works soon after they fall out of copyright.

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