Quote:
Originally Posted by pwalker8
You keep asserting this without providing any argument about why it should be so. Physical property rights is necessary for people to live in close proximity to each other. While it can be argued, indeed it is embedded in the US Constitution, that copyright and patents, need short term protection to encourage the arts and sciences, it is more plan that for the arts and sciences to improve, society needs the ability to build on the previous works. You can't build a better mouse trap if the rights to all mouse traps for eternity belong to the guy who first patented a mouse trap. We would not be singing the US anthem if the copyrights to "To Anacreon in Heaven" were still in effect.
I can protect my house by being there with a shotgun. How do I prevent people from making a copy of a book I right or singing a song I write? That is why physical property and what you call intellectual property are treated differently.
|
Why shouldn't it? Why should Disney be forced to give away Mickey Mouse? There's nothing stopping anyone from creating their own anthropomorphic critter and making money off it. How is society benefited by stealing Disney's critter and depriving them of future profits? Is imagination is so limited that Mickey is the only mouse in the entire universe that people can write books and make movies about?
Putting Mickey in the public domain is nothing more than a greedy power grab to limit Disney's profits and allow others to profit off of his creation.