[QuantumIguana]

Originally Posted by tubemonkey

Keep in mind that the power you have to protect your physical property exists only because government grants it. Without government, property of any kind doesn't exist.

The power you have to protect your physical property exists without government. Locks do not require the existence of governments. You can protect your property with a lock.

If you don't want to call it property, fine. Call it stuff. Even without government, you have the means to protect your physical stuff. You can lock it up. You can post guards. But you don't have any means to protect intellectual stuff. You make a hammer, you can control that hammer even without government. But if you sell that hammer, you don't have the means to prevent someone from duplicating it. You need a patent to do that.

Originally Posted by petrucci

As I noted in my previous post, one aspect of copying items is the ease with which it can be accomplished. In the past, copying an item involved much more labor and resources than copying an item does today. Thus in the past copying items did not undermine capitalism nearly as much as it does today.

The ease of copying is an argument to have copyright, but it is not an argument for continually increasing the period of copyright or for eternal copyright, which are really the same thing.

There are plenty of instances in which works have taken many years to be recognized. The works of Thoreau come to mind. Dickinson's poetry also took time to be recognized. Granted neither of these took 70 years after the death of the author. However, my argument is based on the value of a work. Once it is recognized as valuable, it should be copyright. If it is not, then it will undermine the sale of future works.

Granted neither of these took 70 years after the death of the author
Granted neither of these took 70 years after the death of the author
Granted neither of these took 70 years after the death of the author

You claimed that copyright needs to be even longer than it is now because there are "many" works which take years to be recognized. But you can site not a single work which was not recognized within 70 years of the death of the author! The copyright period could only be too short to accommodate works which took time to be recognized if and only if works are not recognized within the existing copyright term.

You keep claiming that the public domain undermines the sale of new books. If that were true, wouldn't we see people flocking to public domain works? Wouldn't English teachers be ecstatic about people reading the classics instead of complaining that people don't read them? People watch new movies a lot more than they watch old public domain movies.