Quote:
Originally Posted by axel77
Just a logic fallacy, say we consider ideas not to be processed output of given input to a human, but to come from elsewhere. Why should somebody own something, when it was god that touched him by having an idea?  |
Considering most of the men who developed the ideas of patent and copyright were believers in God, it's clear they simply ignored the fallacy you present (assuming they actually considered it) because of the nature of commerce, which owes no allegiances to religion. In other words, they were more concerned with the encouragement of ideas than with their egalitarianism, which they perceived as being counter-productive to commerce.
Of course, even those who believe in human (or Divine) inspiration also have to consider that the human-invented Scientific Method is also responsible for many "ideas," but arrived at in a more engineered sense. Edison's New Jersey facility is a textbook example of the process of starting with a desired result, experimenting thoroughly, developing provable conclusions, and refining until the desired result is reached... the famous "10% inspiration, 90% perspiration" that defined 19th and 20th Century innovation.
The "ideas" that came from such sources were more easily assigned ownership, simply because the first person/group to be able to demonstrate an idea was awarded ownership. Again, it may not have been completely accurate... maybe someone else thought of it elsewhere, but didn't build it... but as the point of patent and copyright was always to encourage commerce, the props were given to the person/group that could promote commerce.
Apparently there are many who believe we would be better off if the system was designed to "take" a patent or copyright from someone who cannot or refuses to use it, and "bestow" it upon someone who says they will. In other words, if someone else can profit better from my idea, they would have the legal right to take it.