Ars Technica: Intellectual Property and the Good Society
General IP Issues
[Some people have a hard time committing to an opinion on current IP law.] 'There's a reason why so many of us are caught in the middle. It's because the morally absolute language of rights leaves us too little wiggle room for holding a useful dialogue about the ways a fair intellectual property system should look and function. What I intend to do in the following editorial is argue for a new type of discussion, one focused more on larger systems and structures than on the rights of the individual actors governed by those structures. To that end, I'll describe the way that the existing intellectual property structures are developing, and I'll then talk about how we can visualize some alternatives to them.'

'The language of rights--the rights of creators, consumers, third parties who've invested in the creation and/or distribution process, etc.--while historically quite effective in bringing about change for the better, also has some severe shortcomings....'

Interesting article that parallels some of the thoughts I've had.