The medium doesn’t really change what the IP is. Listening to a song on the radio, video hits, a CD, iPod and you tube are all different embodiments of that IP. (As far as the music goes, video is another aspect.). This is an example of copyright, which is one form of IP, in a number of mediums.

I think what you are really talking about is the “business model” of giving something away for free to get something else in return. You get more back in business than what you would by selling that IP (copyright in the text).

I like the idea of being to attach a good business model to something ethical.

Matt’s 2 cents.

Thanks for your thoughts. I’m not necessarily right btw but here’s my view on it.

I think of Patents and Copyright more as a preservation technique applied to IP rather than as IP itself.

I’m using it in a literal sense. i.e. Property of type intellect. Mainly becuase I’m addressing mostly business people (and I’m not a lawyer). So intellect can mean different things to different people depending on context. To a business person it means more than patents or copyright in my experience. For example when I worked at Deutsche Bank we had trading models that we considered to have high IP value but obviously we never disclosed those models to anyone outside of our trading desk and so they didn’t require copyright or registration of patents because both would have decimated that property value. Their value then became a derivative of model performance.