Quote:
Originally Posted by PKFFW
I find it hard to take seriously anyone who puts forward the argument that intellectual property is anything like Physical property and therefore should be treated the same. [...]
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PKFFW, there are a few issues in your explanation in terms of getting the right words for the right rights. Copyright doesn't protect ideas, that's what patents do (within certain constraints), copyright only protects the expression of an idea. It's a subtle but important difference (two people may well have the same idea, but it is much less likely that two people will express an idea in the same way).
The relative merits of different IP require different arguments, but at their core they do all come back to what you were saying: the ability/right to exploit (make money from) the IP. (You may actually be
required to exploit your IP if you want legal protection for it - see patents.) Whether, and for how long, you have a moral right to exploit particular IP is arguable (as we see here regularly), but as you point out, the ability exploit IP means putting it out where you can no longer protect it, which is where the law steps in. And the law is/was/should-be mainly interested the public good: enough protection to encourage people to actively exploit IP, but not so much that people can use it to impeded progress.
But you go too far when you say "it is clear IP and PP are
not at all comparable." Underlining mine, to show the point of argument. Just because IP and PP are not identical does not mean they are not at all comparable. They have various points of comparison, the most obvious and relevant being value: what can I sell it for? (Or the intimately related: how much money can I make by exploiting this asset?)
Also, your analogy between copyright and a home is not ideal, since most people don't try to exploit their home. Farm land would work better. But someone may come along with more and bigger shotguns and force you to give up your land. The fact is that even PP requires the rule of law to be upheld if we don't simply want to revert to survival of the fittest where PP is only a matter of what you have the strength to hang on to.
So part of the value of any property is the expectation that your right to it is protected: thus the value of PP, just as with IP, is partly based in law. Yes, there are differences between IP and PP, particularly in the ways that rights can be enforced, but there are definite similarities too. (To argue otherwise would ... see your own post for matching extremist rhetoric.
)
Despite some of the implications of your post, I don't imagine you are really arguing copyright should not exist, just as very few people (not bound by corporate self-interest) argue that copyright should extend forever. These extremes are like the extremes of "not at all comparable" versus "identical" - neither of which is sustainable.