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Originally Posted by HansTWN
Well, you can find minor differences with any example. You could also argue that copyright is the tool that allows you to create additional legal copies of the book.
Anyway, the rental building still works -- the building is what makes the money. And we can argue about minute differences (and whether they are important or not) for days. Tubemonkey's point was that you can pass on "profit creating" property to your offspring for an unlimited time --- why not IP? We know that a lot of people here won't agree with this premise, but he does make a point.
Not that I want to speak up in favor of unlimited copyright terms myself, but a case can be made. Rather looking forward to some free Hemingway, next year. But will the world be a better place because you can legally get his books for free? I don't think so.
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And I simply don't agree that you can compare any physical property rented out to a book rented out.
Ok, you can design and build a house. And rent it out and gain money from it.
Compare to designing and writing a book. But that's where the story ends for the author. He needs to make some advertising for his book (the same as that home owner who wants to rent out his house). But the home owner (and his heirs) will have to keep working on that home. Actually, 70 years after the original creator has died, I think the house will have had received countless of updates, fixes and maybe even extensions. You try to build a house, rent it out and leave the tenants all the work.
So, I'm fine with an author (and his heirs) "renting" out their book. But I demand updates as well. The paper will get yellow: hey, new paper please! The cover gets broken: new cover? The language will get outdated: please update it with the newest spelling rules! (I find reading Dutch books of 70 years old a pain to read, as there have been some major spelling changes before I was born...). But also: the format doesn't work on my reader anymore, can I please get one that does?