Quote:
Originally Posted by Namekuseijin
I think knowledge ought to be free, even when the result of years of intense funded research.
That's not the case for art, though. No one funds art, art is not useful to anyone: "All art is quite useless", as Oscar Wilde promptly noticed. Artists make a living from selling their dreams. Why is it ok for a baker to sell something you can do youself in your cheap hitech kitchen but it is not ok for an artist to sell something you can cheaply copy in your hitech home?
Why is it ok to pay to feed the body but it is not ok to pay to feed the soul?
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If the acquisition or creation of some knowledge requires years of intensely funded research, it is not free.
And just because Oscar Wilde says art is useless doesn't make it useless. To know the usefulness of art, we must first consult Shakespeare. If he has no answer, then we must consult Plato. After him, Aristotle, then Tolstoy, then the Beatles, then Bob Dylan, then Dr. Seuss. I don't know exactly where Wilde falls in the hierarchy of western culture, but he's definitely not ahead of the aforementioned men.