Quote:
Originally Posted by PKFFW
[...] 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."
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.
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Copyright doesn't protect IP because it
is the IP. Copyright is what you can buy or sell or licence.
It is the law that defines what is property, and indirectly suggests its value (because law limits what you can do with your property). At one stage it was possible for people to be property! Arguing what is workable under law is a bit pointless, because the law made the definition in the first place. (You think you own the land on which your house sits, but that's only true within the constraints defined by law.)
Land isn't the same thing as water, isn't the same thing as farm produce and isn't the same thing as copyright. They can all be property, but they all have their own peculiarities and so differences in the way they are treated under law. Changing the law can change what is property, or can change what property is worth.
Quote:
Originally Posted by PKFFW
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.
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If you want to limit your conversation to copyright you must stop using phrases like "steal your idea".
Protecting ideas is very difficult, of course, but I can certainly protect copyright by strength of arms. I simply storm your house and burn all copies of the work you are not entitled to have, and take recompense for your theft in whatever form I like, because I have strength of arms.
Laws are used to protect property, they don't care much whether it's IP or PP. (Of course differences exist in the way the laws can be enforced.) When we say the law protects property it is indeed partly by the threat of strength of arms, because generally the government has the strongest arms in the area, although few will put them to the test.
Your distinction about protecting PP by force of arms is attractive, but it doesn't really hold up because I can choose to protect anything I like by force of arms - even ideas. That would be a worry because it is possible for two people to have the same idea, so I might invade a neighbouring country for having stolen our idea, when in fact they might have come up with it independently.