Re: "Against Intellectual Property"

On 7/31/2000, Eric Eldred <eldred[_at_]eldritchpress.org> wrote:
>
> [...]
> copyright is intended to promote a public good that otherwise
> would not be accomplished. It is not a mechanism for insuring
> authors enough money to live on, nor a way for authors to hide
> their works under a barrel because poor people can't pay for
> their light.
>
> [...]
> If you are saying that my fight to overturn the copyright term
> extension would deprive authors of the legitimate fruit of their
> labor please explain how it is going to do that 70 years after
> their death. But more importantly, please explain how this
> extension is going to accomplish the real purpose of copyright:
> to promote the progress of science and the useful arts by
> encouraging authors to publish new works.

Hi,

Maybe you don't own a car, or maybe you don't drive, but try to imagine this scenario as if you do. This is what I say to those who agree with Eric's position:

Would you turn a stranger away who asked to borrow your car? He says he doesn't have the money to buy one. If you loan him yours, he won't have to buy one. How about it?

How about this? Let's pass a law that everyone who buys a new car has to turn it in to a government depository when they make the last payment on their loans. The government will make these used cars available to everyone who doesn't have money to buy a car. Wow! What a brilliant idea! The poor get free cars.

Sure, the rich people have to pay for their cars if they want new ones, but we don't care about them. They mainly want their new cars so they can show off anyway. Then they whine about their cars getting stolen. Sheesh! If they didn't have new cars, they wouldn't be stolen. So if we just make them give up their cars after a few years, people won't need to steal their new cars.

We manage to get that law passed. Now it's 25 years later:

Can you believe that these fat cat car owners object to having a limit to their ownership term? They managed to get the term extended. Now they can give their cars to their teenagers for four more years before turning them into the depository. Well, isn't that special! It's not right! Those cars belong to the poor -- not those rich show offs' kids.

Well, sure, maybe some of them really aren't that rich. Some people need new cars because they are in a business that requires a lot of travel, but does that give them the right to hold on to their cars and pass them on to their kids? I mean, they got the use of their cars for the life of their loan. A car is not property. It's not an investment. It's not an asset. It's transportation. The public has the right to transportation.

We win the repeal of their term extension with this argument:

The poor have as much right to transportation as the rich. Those rich kids can either move out on their own and prove they are poor enough to qualify for the free, used car program, or their parents can buy them a new car. That will build the economy. Letting them keep their cars is not helping the economy. If they have to buy new cars for every family member manufactures will flourish and the poor will have more free cars. It's a primary obligation of the government to provide transportation for it's citizens.

Twenty-five years later:

Dang! There are hardly any new cars being made. The rich folks claimed they weren't going to take it any more. They said they were being singled out to give up their property. No one else in society has to invest their money in something and then have it taken from them without compensation. They quit buying new cars. The few who still needed new cars for their work switched careers because they got car jacked all the time. Plenty of folks coveted the newer cars and took them just because they wanted them. The poor took them too. They didn't have money nor skills to keep older cars in good repair when the depository stock dwindled. All the big auto manufacturers are in Chapter 11. Rural communities are drying up. Everyone is moving into cities.

There is a major economic depression. Even watching traffic from my cardboard box is depressing. Old junkers everywhere! I get excited if I see a vehicle that's newer than ten years old. I've been keeping track of them with hash marks on the side of my box. Six so far this year.

How did the government let our society get in such a mess? I yearn for the good old days when there were so many thriving auto makers. Lots of folks had jobs related to the car business. Now those jobs are all dried up too. I can remember when people drove lots of different models of new cars. Auto makers competed with al kinds of new models, new colors, new and innovative technology. Man, those were the days.

The End.

Why are copyright owners not compensated with fair market value like other citizens who are forced to give up their private property due to eminent domain? Why are we singled out to have to give over the fruits of our labor while others are not? Why shouldn't we have every right to fight to hold on to our copyrights for as long as we can manage?

In my view, the government had no right to take our private property rights without paying us to begin with. Not unless the government required an equitable sacrifice from all of it's citizens. At the very least, we should be compensated through lower taxation on earnings we make during the course of the copyright term. Then after a lengthy term, the government could say it has paid to take our property through eminent domain. A risk that all citizens face when the government wants something.

Linda G.

Linda Gruber

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Novel Art: Images of Fantasy and Reality
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