My thesis here is simple: People with a strong desire to change a culture need to make their ideas as available as they possibly can. This means eliminating any barriers separating the message from the audience. All forms of intellectual property protection, whether it be limiting the duplication and distribution of a piece, limiting the uses to which a piece may be put, or even requiring others to attribute a work to someone--all of these restrictions effectively limit the effects of any work of art on the culture in which it is produced.

Intellectual property laws do not so much protect the artist as limit him. They offer the same protections against thievery as condoms against conception--financial security, perhaps, but no offspring.

At some point an artist must decide: Is my aim to have the largest possible influence on a culture, or am I merely seeking money? In the long run, those artists willing to abandon the gold-brick road will achieve a far greater influence than those who measure success only in dollars. Let those sham artists grasp for gratuities while the rest reach for greatness.

If you truly want your ideas to have a strong impact, you've got to do everything in your power to make those ideas available. Anything you can do to increase this availability also increases their impact. Ideas and expressions freely given to culture will be adopted according to their perceived usefulness. Water always takes the easiest path down the mountain, and people will adopt those ideas into their lives which require the least struggle.

As soon as people learn that admission is being charged to see the show, the majority of people will choose not to see it. Certainly, if the show is good, then some people will be willing to pay the price, but the artist has also paid his price--by presenting to a much smaller audience. That artist who has made no money yet been heard by millions is a far more powerful artist than that other who made a fortune yet was heard by thousands.

Our current ideology has helped protect itself by encouraging artists to think of themselves as engaged in a certain type of business. Musicians dream of "making it big" and signing a recording contract. Actors dream of landing a critical role in a major film. Writers dream of drafting the next best-seller. In all of these cases, artists measure their success based on their financial winnings rather than the influence they have had on their culture. At some point, one must realize that money is not power, but rather something substituted for actual power. Indeed, one is paid in exchange for giving up power.

Let us say that a garage inventor discovers a new type of solar cell that is a thousand times more efficient than any available on the market. Let us say that she rushes this news to a scientific journal and gives the discovery to the public domain. Anyone is free to develop these cells.

What a rush there will be among the industrialists to develop and market these cells, each making subtle improvements and falling over each other to create cheaper and more efficient production processes. The lure of the "free and useful" will offer the momentum necessary to ensure that the inventor's idea rapidly and effectively spreads across the matrix.

Now, let us say instead that she decides to patent the invention. This is a long, slow, expensive process. Once the patent is secured, she tries to sell it to the major industrialists, who will either try to compete for a monopoly on the solar cell or team together to smother the invention. Inventions that threaten to damage an existing infrastructure are definite targets for this type of repression.

In short, our inventor's greed will effectively reduce the effect of her invention. If her goal was to make a wad of cash, then perhaps she will be satisfied by this limitation. If her goal, however, was to create the strongest possible effect, then she has made a serious error of judgment.

In short, if she gives away the idea, she will have caused a very powerful effect. If she sells the idea, she "sells" the power to those who would use it either to oppress the masses or repress the invention.

Those ideas which require the strongest intellectual property protection are those same ideas which are rendered sterilie by that same protection. One does not win wars with solid protection, but strategic infiltration.

Next time you are about to release some ideas, consider whether your purposes might be better served by giving them away rather than trying to sell or protect them. If you do give them away, and your ideas are useful, then you may not enjoy riches or fame, but you can take great pride in observing the tremendous power you have wielded.

Watch carefully as these new artists take flight and soar far above those merchants and prostitutes squabbling and haggling in the dirty marketplace; what gods above, what slithering things below!