Quote:
Originally Posted by ApK
Irrelevant and also incorrect. You only 'own' land because we have real estate law and deeds and the artifice that says we can subdivide and own pieces of the planet surface. Ownership of farmland is not 'unlimited' as anyone who has moved, or been foreclosed on, or lost mineral rights, or been subjected to eminent domain will surely know.
Ownership of anything outside your own skin is an artificial social and legal construct and nothing more. The only difference with IP over physical property is that because it has a different nature, we created a different social and legal construct to deal with it.
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And that construct is not perpetual in definition and never has been. When you read a land title it is defined to be perpetual (terms like "forever", rather than "for the term of"), I.P. is much more like a lease - I (the government) give you this monopoly (nee property, if you insist on that term) for x years.
These distinction are there for a reason, they are not merely "figures of speech, signifying nothing".
(And I have had 3 of the 4 items above happen to my nuclear family...)