Quote:
Originally Posted by HansTWN
Sure, if you pose the question as "do you want free stuff and stick it to those greedy corporations" most will say yes, without thinking. But if you turn it around and ask "do you think authors and all those involved in the book publishing and book selling industries should work for free" then the answer would turn out to be very different.
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I agree that the first formulation is not very neutral, but yours is not, either. I think a balanced question would be "do you think you should need an author's permission whenever you wish to make a copy of his/her work (where such permission in practical terms usually boils down to paying their asking price), except within the provisions of fair use, except if in order to engage in fair use you need to bypass DRM?" I think that's a pretty good summary of the current legal framework in the U.S. since the DMCA passed.
Of course, if you ask that, most people will give you a blank look. The vast majority of the populace neither knows nor cares for copyright; we who hold these intellectual debates on the internet are in the minority. In practice, publishing lobbies put pressure on politicians to pass laws to their liking since they are unchecked by their constituents in this not very prominent manner, while the same constituents go to limewire, bittorrent, and youtube in order to stream or download copyright content without permission, because there is no practical way to stop them.
Quote:
Originally Posted by HansTWN
Why make an arbitrary distinction between physical and digital goods?
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Because the difference could not be more pronounced, making the distinction non-arbitrary. Physical "goods" as you call them are
non-scarce; once created, everyone can have them with a negligible expenditure of resources, without denying the author of their original copy.
Quote:
Originally Posted by HansTWN
For books society has a great mechanism to help those who cannot afford them. They are called libraries. But you won't convince me that society advances if those who can afford to pay become free loaders.
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Those people are
not "free loaders", at least of society. Most must work in order to have the ability to pay, and we can assume the work of most contributes to creating utility for the people of the world. By freeing them from having to spend money in order to have goods that do not take money to copy, they will be able to spend or invest their money towards products and projects which DO require the capital and most of which, too, bring utility to people. What removing the artificial scarcity of copyright does is like eliminating the digging and filling of ditches by a paid crew.
Quote:
Originally Posted by kennyc
Laws (copyright, intellectual property, trade secret, etc) have been put in place to protect those natural rights. Without them nothing would be created or shared with others except by the creator intentionally giving it away or having it stolen.
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That's how it was for most of human history, before the advent of copyright. It wasn't too bad... folks like Homer and Chaucer seems to have wanted to compose their works under that system.
Quote:
Originally Posted by kennyc
Intellectual property laws are actually less artificial then physical property laws such as real estate or water rights.
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That's plausible, actually. Of course, just like there are people who think copyright shouldn't exist, there are also people who think "owning" real state one does not live should not be allowed by the state.
...
*looks at the posts above* Oi, I think there may be a couple of
duelists in the forum.