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Originally Posted by DMcCunney
Only physical works are property? Things that exist as concepts don't have a value and can't be owned?
Oh, dear.
Copyrights are like patents. They grow out of a recognition that creativity and innovation are necessary, and attempt to encourage that by providing the creators and innovators with an exclusive right to the proceeds of their work for a set duration. They explicitly recognize that ideas are property with a value.
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Oh dear, indeed.
What the copyright laws recognise is that ideas have a value to society and as such society ought to find a way to reward those producing them. So far, the Western way of doing so has been through copyright (monopoly over the right to sell the idea), thought as the best compromise between the inherent evilness of monopoly and efficiency.
You'll note that
nowhere in there is copyright defined as property.
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How great the value is is another matter: ultimately, something is worth what someone else is willing to pay for it, and having an exclusive right to something is no guarantee you'll be able to sell it.
But ultimately, people work for their own benefit, and lots of law revolves around ensuring that people do benefit from their work.
Should you come up with an idea that might have value and turned into something that can make money, you might have a different attitude on the matter.
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Maybe. Fortunately, although the voice of authors and other beneficiaries from these laws can be heard, they do not have the power to directly influence the way the laws are written. That is done by much cooler and wiser people, who only have the benefit of society as a whole at heart.
Oh! Wait...