be staked out and fought over as the Americas in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.
In many ways the category, named intellectual property now dominates physical property, while also demanding a series of special laws, ever growing in their complexity. Yet like all property, it can be sold, leased, mortgaged, subdivided and fought over. We are in a new era of staking out territorial claims.
It is well recognized that portions of such intellectual property only represent innovations with limited potential and their protection may merely be a nuisance. However, the rest of this category may move us in a new direction and possess immediate or latent financial value. This paper will view intellectual property, in the light of Jewish tradition which has a long history of dealing with physical property, but has not treated intellectual creations in a parallel manner.
A World Without Intellectual Property Protection
As we look at the Jewish aspect of this, let us begin with the most ancient Jewish creativity, the book of the Bible . Here we see a major distinction between the Jewish and Greco/Roman world. The biblical authors had no pride of authorship. Even if a name was attached toa book, its content was attributed to God . The person who transmitted it was secondary, even in the case of Moses and clearly so with some late books, the Song of Songs , Proverbs , and Ecclesiastes along with some psalms. The attribution which may reflect Greek influence of simply an effort to attract readership through the attribution to a well known great individual. In other books of the Bible new ideas were introduced into older works by later writers as modern analysis has shown. This was in no way malicious as those involved wished t0 find a way of getting their ideas to the public and had no interest i personal identification. The ideas mattered, not their ego. Such new ideas may have conflicted with earlier passages. As we know the