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Old 01-08-2010, 06:38 AM   #235
cian
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Quote:
Originally Posted by PKFFW View Post
Yes you are.

My point was not about what happens after the work is created. My point was about why a work may be created in the first place.

Just because an author may seek to profit from his/her creation does not in any way imply the only reason for the creation of the work in the first place was for financial gain. Further, even if that is the sole reason for creating the work in the first place, that is entirely the prerogative of the author and does not give any legal right to the consumer to obtain copyright infringing copies of the work.

To suggest such is wrong. To use such a suggestion as an argument for why file sharing is the same as borrowing from a library is, in my opinion, completely invalid.

Cheers,
PKFFW
But we don't respect the moral rights of an author. Nobody pays attention to them. We respect the legal rights. I don't think Thomas Merton wrote his books for financial gain, but so long as he didn't give up any of his legal copyrights (such as some people do through copyleft) then you still have to compensate his heirs. His intention is legally irrelevant. To reverse this, Cory Doctorow allows people to copy his work, but I'm fairly sure he seeks to profit from his creations. One could choose to honor that wish, but there's no legal requirement there.

Capitalist societies are indifferent to intent and morality (maybe they should care, but that's a separate argument). All they care about are contractually enforcable rights. So for example, I might improve a piece of common land hoping to profit from it, but I have no way of enforcing that intent. If the law changed so that copyright only lasted for ten years, would the morality change?

What you're talking about is a legal right.
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