Quote:
Originally Posted by HarryT
The law needs to be changed to grant the creators of intellectual property the same rights as the creators of "physical" property.
|
That's considerably less than IP currently gets.
Right now, copyrighted material is fixed in a tangible form. (Book, CD, canvas painting, video, whatever.) That material can't be copied without permission.
PHYSICAL property can be copied at will. Can be used in performances. Can be taken apart and mixed with other physical property. When you sell the bookshelf you made, you don't have the right to say "this must hold books; you may not use it as a ladder in your play; you may not chop it up for shingles; you may not make another that looks just like it."
What, exactly, is the "property" you'd want to protect? You don't own the language. You didn't invent grammar. In writing a story, you've assembled a set of parts you didn't make, in accordance with rules you didn't make, with tools you didn't make (a pencil, a keyboard)... why should that be treated any differently from making a chair from boards & dowels?
The purpose of IP law was to give intellectual "property" MORE protections than physical property has, because of the fact that, when you sell IP, you haven't lost it. You can sell it again and again.
But there is no innate, natural right to be allowed to exclusively sell it for your whole life, or longer. We invented that right. We could reconsider, and decide the benefits of that right are not worth the problems it causes.
It benefits YOU if you can keep the monopoly going for life + 50 years. It benefits your heirs. It does not benefit the rest of society. And sometimes, everyone else's benefits outweigh yours. The tipping point is when the incentive for one person has become a bigger roadblock to others--is it causing more damage to allow you this monopoly than to allow others to break it?
You, personally, probably not. However, there are a tremendous number of artistic and scientific works being stifled by IP law, a tremendous number of educational opportunities being prevented. (As noted elsewhere here--Diary of Anne Frank is not in the public domain; only those wealthy enough to afford the asking price can learn from it. However, anyone is free to learn from Shakespeare or Dickens; cheap paper versions & free ebooks abound. Think the Diary is so cheap anyone can afford a copy? Obviously, you've never worked for a cash-strapped school district.)
IP law should protect that monopoly just long enough to provide an incentive to create & release new works, not "as long as it could possibly bring any income to the creator & heirs thereof."