Greg London, author of the excellent “Drafting The Gift Domain " has a new essay out, this time an exploration and allegory of Intellectual Property law:
The GPL would fit into the metaphor as a neighbourhood watch, or the right of the individual to bear arms…
Both essays are highly recommended, “Gift Domain” was pivotal for me in gaining an understanding of how and why a Free Culture should work.
The bounty hunter metaphor is excellent for copyrights, but I don’t think it works for patents. Patents are more of a protection racket, or a way of declaring certain criminals untouchable. This is possibly an example of Stallman’s complaint that the idea of IP law leads us to make misleading generalisations, or possibly it’s just an example of me reading something too fast because I’m enjoying it too much. :-)