The Death of D. (Was Tango vs Phobos)

[Jesse Phillips]

On Sun, 17 Aug 2008 09:47:46 -0400, Christopher Wright wrote:

> 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.

Ok, so you claim that stealing is your right if you can get away with it. 
This indicates we should start there with are argument.

> 
> 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.

Ok, so as long as you have some sort of force to use, you can claim 
anything to be yours.

> 
> 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.
> 

Who cares if it is recent or not. The US Constitution is a recent 
invention, and yet us Americans don't criticize it for that. Actually 
some may claim it is too old.

> 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.

See above.

> 
> 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.)

I'm not trying to defend how the legal system is set up to handle the 
issue. Many will agree the legal system is crap.

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

Thank you.