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Originally Posted by HansTWN
Good one about creating another human being 
Now as for private property, it is one of the most basic premises of the societies almost everyone on earth lives in these days (now that the other systems have virtually disappeared). You are, of course, free to question the system as such, but that is more of a matter for the politics and religion forum. |
Lets keep in mind however that private property rights are rarely absolute. Yes, in theory one may have perpetual ownership of a property, but in practice, property can be stripped for a variety of reasons. More than one person has found the state taking their homes or businesses to suit what it thought was a higher purpose (it would be bad enough if it was for roads, or military use, but these days it is likely for "economic development".
Intellectual property is also a totally different beast. Property in the traditional sense is a limited resource. Only one person can occupy a particular space or have physical possession of a physical object. In contrast, many people can have read stories or parse the design present in a patent application. Indeed, the very mechanism of copyright is to create artificial scarcity.
And this brings us back to the notion that copyright is a social contract. The more odious the terms of copyright, the less likely that people are going to perceive them as being fair. When a critical mass is reached people might decide it is better to just pirate because they don't believe the social contract is fair. In an age when information can be copied essentially for free, this would effectively end copyright.
In other words, it is ultimately in the interest of copyright holders to ensure that most everyone (but the most hard core pirate) see the terms of copyright as being fair to the general public. An author may believe his heirs should have perpetual rights to his work, but lets be clear, the public does not hold to such nonsense. Push too much nonsense on them and they will push back.
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Bill