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[QUOTE=latepaul;2028923]The natural law angle is a funny one because I think we're so immersed in the current system (which has obtained for hundreds of years now) that it's hard to see what's truly natural. However it doesn't take much imagination to think of some person in an earlier time in an oral tribal culture being totally baffled at the idea that your words can be controlled once they leave your mouth. The idea that the stories told around the camp fire somehow "belong" to the teller rather than to all or none. I'm reminded that some indigenous peoples would have a similar problem with the idea that you can own land. Land is where you live and move it's not something you can carry with you and put in your pocket.
So whilst it seems normal to us that a creator has "ownership" over their work I'm not sure how universal that is.
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There are still tribal peoples who within living memory would have also not understood ownership of something you can carry with you and put in your pocket.
I remember seing a documentary some years ago about a people in the Amazon who thought in exactly that way.
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