Janke, Yankee, and How Early America Was a Nation of Pirates

[Jorge]

Matt Mason, author of "The Pirates Dilemma," asserts "America only industrialized as rapidly as it did by counterfeiting European inventions, ignoring global patents and stealing intellectual property wholesale."
Matt Mason, author of "The Pirates Dilemma," asserts "America only industrialized as rapidly as it did by counterfeiting European inventions, ignoring global patents and stealing intellectual property wholesale."
I watched an interesting lecture yesterday afternoon online given by Matt Mason, author of "The Pirates Dilemma." It's worth noting because one of his assertions in it concerns the etymology of the word "Yankee," which describes the very heart and soul of the United States. From the storied "Yankee Doodle Dandy," a patriotic song that has long been synonymous with the US, to the famed New York baseball team, it's a word with much history and usage yet surprisingly misunderstood.

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[El Comandante]

I think industrialization throughout the world as well as enlightenment was brought forth through the free exchange of ideas. The first Americans sought to build a country. As a sovereign country the US treated knowledge as a public/social good and not a private right. I would have been ironic that a country that had fought for the right of free expression and thought would allow itself to be hobbled by European claims of property on ideas. A nascent economy would have been under the thumb of more developed European economies.

The Japanese strike me as a perfect example of "pirates". The copied everything they could get their hands on and sold those things right back to us.... sometimes improved ... sometimes not. Now they are world leaders in electronics and automobiles. These "global patents" that Mason refers to are a fiction. They never existed and they never will as long as there are sovereign countries that refuse to recognize a global intellectual property right. I guess my point is that early Americans were not pirates. They were pioneers who fought and won the right to make up their own rules.

[Jared Moya]

I think industrialization throughout the world as well as enlightenment was brought forth through the free exchange of ideas. The first Americans sought to build a country. As a sovereign country the US treated knowledge as a public/social good and not a private right. I would have been ironic that a country that had fought for the right of free expression and thought would allow itself to be hobbled by European claims of property on ideas. A nascent economy would have been under the thumb of more developed European economies.

The Japanese strike me as a perfect example of "pirates". The copied everything they could get their hands on and sold those things right back to us.... sometimes improved ... sometimes not. Now they are world leaders in electronics and automobiles. These "global patents" that Mason refers to are a fiction. They never existed and they never will as long as there are sovereign countries that refuse to recognize a global intellectual property right. I guess my point is that early Americans were not pirates. They were pioneers who fought and won the right to make up their own rules.

I think what he was trying to point out as that by OUR OWN 21st CENTURY DEFINITION we would have been pirates. It's important to note this because absent in the debate over patents, copyrights, etc. is the importance of the free flow of ideas and information. Is it really fair to create a new cure for a particular disease and then be allowed to charge a year's salary in many cases?

Is it fair to allow companies to hold the copyright on books, music, or other forms of artistic expression 50 years or more after the artists death?

"The Pirates Dilemma" should be everyone's dilemma.

[El Comandante]

I think what he was trying to point out as that by OUR OWN 21st CENTURY DEFINITION we would have been pirates. It's important to note this because absent in the debate over patents, copyrights, etc. is the importance of the free flow of ideas and information. Is it really fair to create a new cure for a particular disease and then be allowed to charge a year's salary in many cases?

Is it fair to allow companies to hold the copyright on books, music, or other forms of artistic expression 50 years or more after the artists death?

"The Pirates Dilemma" should be everyone's dilemma.

I took away a not so subtle suggestion that Europens refered to Americans as Yankees (a word used to refer to pirates) durring the Industrial Revolution. "Europeans began using the term to refer to all North Americans as a result of America’s national policies towards European intellectual property." Then he quotes a Doron S. Ben-Atar, a historical revisionist, who claims that the US Economy was built on stolen intellectual property. A critique of Ben-Atar's writings can be found here: http://www.hbs.edu/bhr/archives/book...s/79/cfisk.pdf

If you buy into Ben-Atar's theories (which Mason does and the article claims is an "important piece if history").. then you can make the case that "America has grown so transfixed by the economic concerns of multi-national corporations and conglomerates, that it's lost sight of the fact that we too went to great lengths to advance, to industrialize, and to enjoy the creature comforts of our European counterparts."

It suggests to me that we are a country built on piracy and we have lost sight of the value of "piracy".... Perhaps.

I do not disagree with some of the critique made of intellectual property laws. I tend to disagree, however, with the revisionist history that is masquraded as fact. I also find it intersting that neither author is American born. Perhaps that means nothing.