The Death of D. (Was Tango vs Phobos)

[Christopher Wright]

Jesse Phillips wrote:
> On Sun, 17 Aug 2008 03:59:08 +0300, Yigal Chripun wrote:
>> There are no inherit rights that allow the author to control
>> distribution. The way it actually works is this: a) you came up with new
>> exciting idea/poem/article/software/etc.. b) either you keep it to
>> yourself or you publish it. c) once it was published it is in the public
>> domain. you cannot tell me: I have an idea such as <some idea> BUT since
>> I just told you my idea it is mine alone and you cannot use it. If you
>> do not want me to use your idea just keep it for yourself and don't tell
>> anyone about it. This is what Coca-Cola does with its secret recipe.
>> (it's secret!)
> 
> Yeah, they are natural rights given by nature. A farmer produces corn, 
> and low and behold he has control over distribution of it.

Unless someone else decides to take away that corn by force. Which is my 
right, given by nature, if I can pull it off.

The notion of property requires some enforcing mechanism, whether it be 
brute force or legal convention (and the law is backed up by brute 
force). But physical property doesn't require any great amount of 
communication; I live in a place, and I actively prevent other people 
from living there.

Intellectual property is a much more recent invention. For example, 
William Shakespeare didn't publish any of his plays. One of the few 
early English playwrights to publish their own works, Ben Johnson, was 
ridiculed for having done so -- it was polite and properly modest to 
allow others to publish your works, with no compensation to you.

Intellectual property began, I believe, with Renaissance monarchs 
promoting particular manufacturers by giving them monopolies. If an 
enterprising entrepreneur created a new product, the rights to 
manufacture that might be restricted to one individual in the king's 
favor. This was not any notion of fairness or protection for inventors; 
it was simply nepotism.

In recent times, intellectual property has been extended to cover nearly 
everything you can think of, and it's transformed into a system intended 
to protect content creators. This is progress. One can argue that 
insufficient thought has been given to issues such as remixing 
copyrighted works, or orphaned copyrights, or patents intended only to 
generate lawsuits. (I would.)


(Also, it's "lo and behold", not "low and behold".)