Quote:
Originally Posted by pwalker8
You are just trying to play internet gotcha games right now and totally ignoring my point.
The specific word property is laden with meaning for most people. It's a much more important word than asset in most people's minds. Property is something that I own and can't be taken away from me, asset is something that is of worth. Words as a rhetorical device are important. That is a big reason that, for example, why what blacks in the US prefer to be called has changed a number of times over the years. Negro, Afro-american, Black, African-american, all mean the same thing but the underlying emotional context and the subconscious assumptions behind the word is different.
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I hate to kibitz here, but quite bluntly, what "most people think" about the meaning of a word or phrase used in law really means
nothing. The man in the street approach to whether John Doe thinks of "copyright" is property, or an asset, or some type of instrument, is moot.
Copyright is property, because it is thusly defined at law. Period. It doesn't matter if someone doesn't
THINK it is, because their thoughts on the matter have no effect thereupon. Arguing that because Jane doesn't know that copyright is a property makes it okay for Jane to pirate is the old "ignorance of the law" excuse.
Terms at law and legal definitions don't change just because the populace is ignorant. It's not like the language, in which, eventually, if enough people think that "begging the question" means "ask the question," (which it does
NOT), the definition will change to mean, "poses the question." Because language is a living thing, that can and does change with popular usage. The law doesn't change in the same way.
I don't care if 10 million people think that copyright isn't property--that doesn't make it NOT property. It's an asset--but it's
not an asset that can be repossessed for failure to pay. It's property, even if you can't hold it in your hand.
Period.
Hitch