Quote:
Originally Posted by dhbailey
But shouldn't a person be entitled to earn income from something he/she created? And leave that potential income to heirs?
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But if other types of property can be protected by law and left from generation to generation until they fall down or the universe ends, why not creative property?
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One of the more interesting things to do is to look into the history of copyright. I suspect that most people, who assume that things always have been the way that they currently are would be quite surprised. The term "Intellectual Property" was coined by a judge who was ruling in a patent case in 1845. The modern usage of intellectual property, i.e. that the idea is truly property that is owned by the artist, only dates back to 1967. The idea of copyright is purely a European idea that started as a monopoly granted by the king to make copies of works. It had nothing to do with paying the artist for his work. Ben Franklin got copyright put into the Constitution, but that was a very limited grant (20 year, if I recall correctly). For most of the world, the idea that an idea, or work is property is totally foreign. That is one of the reasons that piracy is so common in Asia, no one sees anything wrong with it.