[PKFFW]

Originally Posted by gmw

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).

This thread is about copyright and so I confined my comments to that.

I think I made the distinction as to what copyright protects in my post. Copyright doesn't protect an idea, it protects the right to make money from the work the creator did in expressing that idea in a specific format.

Originally Posted by gmw

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?)

Ok I admit using the words "not at all comparable" is too explicit. Of course anything can be compared with anything at all.

A better way of phrasing it would have been...
"Whilst, like anything at all, IP and PP can be compared to each other if one wishes to do so, IP and PP are so significantly different that to attempt to treat them the same under the law and have a workable and enforceable solution is simply not possible."

Originally Posted by gmw

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.

As Copyright doesn't protect IP it would be an inappropriate comparison to compare IP with only that PP that people attempt to exploit for monetary gain. Hence why my comparison was between IP and PP only. Not between the ability to exploit IP or PP.

Further, laws don't actually stop anyone from doing anything. Laws state what is allowed to be done and what is the punishment for doing something that is not allowed. However, words on a piece of paper and titled "LAW" don't stop people doing things.

The point of the comparison is that it is possible that PP can be protected through strength of arms and what not. Someone has the biggest guns or the biggest army etc. IP can not be protected at all. Someone can steal your idea and do whatever they want with it and you will not even know it until it has already happened.

Originally Posted by gmw

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. )

Yes, granted, to express it as "not at all comparable" was too much. Anything at all can be compared to anything at all. Chalk and cheese, apples and oranges, colour and sound. I would have thought my meaning was clear by context but obviously not. You are absolutely right that I mis-posted by using the words "not at all comparable".

I still contest that to suggest they should be treated the same by law is simply not possible to do and have any sort of usable outcome.

Originally Posted by gmw

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.

No I'm not suggesting it should not exist.

However, yes, at least two posters in this thread, have stated they are of the opinion copyright should extend in perpetuity.