Quote:
Originally Posted by HarryT
No, I'm not saying it's the same right - it clearly isn't. But it is a right granted to you by the law. Without legal rights, all we're left with is the "law of the jungle".
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i don't think it's constructive to compare the two given they are fundamentally very different, and the only thing they have in common is that they have a legal basis. and technically, property rights have *more* than a legal basis, since they also depend on the physical act of possession (nine-tenths of the law, as the saying goes) whereas an idea cannot truly be "possessed" in the sense that once it is shared with someone else it begins to exist independently of the creator. if i have an idea, if i tell it to no-one, and never write it down, it will die when i die (unless someone else has the same idea). if i tell it to one other person, the idea is no longer dependent on me to exist and i don't control the other person's reaction to it ; they might expand on it and develop it in a way i never thought of, for example. if i die, my idea will still be out there in other people's minds, or in the case of writing / art / etc., enriching our collective shared culture.