Quote:
Originally Posted by Elfwreck
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.
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This sounds so great-until your kids grow up & realize that you can't combat unethical behavior by being unethical yourself. (Hopefully you're teaching them that, along with these beliefs.)
An example of what I mean is the very common excuse: It's unethical that they charge so much so I'll just steal it. Even if it actually is unethical on the owner's part (questionable-do you also teach your children tolerance for people who have other beliefs?) it's also unethical on the thief's part.
And before somebody claims that copyright infringement isn't theft, this is about an excuse that's used as often for actual theft as it is for 'theft of IP'.
Doesn't matter whether the creator is ethical or not-the person taking it without payment is definitely unethical, IMO.