Quote:
Originally Posted by kennyc
We must teach our children ethics instead of the current culture of 'whateveryoucangetawaywithislegal.'
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I teach my children that you don't own your ideas. You are granted certain controls over the use of those ideas, in order to encourage putting them out in public, but there's no "property" in a thought.
I also teach them that it's unethical to charge as much as you can just because the law will enforce your right to do so, if you could be helping people and charge a lot less. It'd be legal to create a pill that cures leukemia, and charge half a million dollars for the use of it--but if the pill only costs $5 to make, and was created in just two weeks of inspired labwork, that's not ethical.
Same with books that can inspire people. There's no reason for out-of-print books to remain unavailable except blatant greed or outright selfishness ("it's MINE and you can't have it!"); I teach my kids that neither of those is an ethical motive for behavior.