Quote:
Originally Posted by HansTWN
That is just my point. It is unfair that to consider copyright to be "special protection". If you make a chair to sell you also need society's protection (or else someone could steal it or cheat you), there should not be a difference. Just because the product is different, you don't deserve less. The social contract is a smokescreen, since there is no such social contract for others.
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Prior to copyright there was no protection of written works. A good example is the Matter of Britain. How many different retellings of the King Arthur legend were created in the Middle Ages (And how many still today). If an author created a new story to add to the cycle, another author could immediately use that story as well. There was no effective way to stop them. This had benefits (i.e., the rich tradition of Arthurian literature we now enjoy) but also negatives.
I would point out that there is in fact a social contract for other types of property as well. That is what property law, patent law and copyright law are all about. But it is folly to pretend that each type of property is identical and it has never been treated as such. Thus, a chair is treated differently to a piece of land and both are treated differently than a creative work.
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Bill