Quote:
Originally Posted by cian
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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The only time I even mentioned rights was in simply mentioning that it is the authors right to write a book purely for financial gain. It was a turn of phrase. I never said anyone had to respect that right. I frankly don't care if people who want free stuff decide to respect an authors right or not as there is nothing I can do about it anyway.
Let me try to be very very very very very very clear for you so there can be no further misunderstanding.
My point(s) was this............
There is a difference between borrowing from a library and obtaining a copyright infringing copy from the internet. The reason for this difference is because of the laws that govern both libraries and copyright.
To claim there is no difference is simply wrong.
Why a person writes a book in no way grants another person the right to infringe the creators copyright. It does not matter if they write the book purely for financial gain or because they just love to create.
Using the supposed reason for the creation of the work as an excuse or rationalisation to infringe the copyright of the author is an invalid argument.
Now.........
Whether somone chooses to respect the copyright or not, whether the copyright is a moral right or legal right or any other such thing has nothing to do with my point.
You seem very caught up in those points and that is fine. Just don't confuse your point with my point.
Cheers,
PKFFW