Quote:
Originally Posted by tubemonkey
To me, property is property; whether it's real, personal, intellectual, or whatever. I think ownership of said property should all be treated the same.
If an author's estate loses ownership of his works 70 years after his death, then a farmer's estate should lose ownership of his farm 70 years after his death.
Any law that extends copyright is therefore a good thing.
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But what makes any of these categories you mentioned species of the same genera other than a trick of language? How is my interest in an idea (a specific arrangement of letters and numbers forming the text of a novel, for instance) akin to my interest in a particular plot of land or a computer? And if the answer is that these are all government enforced monopolies, what then is the limit to what can become property? Can the government grant a monopoly on all water in a given area (such as the Bolivian government granted to Bechtel)? Can the air be assigned as property? If the rejoinder is that the monopolies have to be granted to ensure a public good (as is the case with copyright in the US), then it does not follow that perpetual copyright ought to be granted because this would not be in the public interest. Also, if we were to accept a definition of property as government granted monopoly, then said government can radically change the scope of property rights, leaving with you no rational grounds for complaint (there being no more fundamental concept of just ownership you can appeal to).
Luqman