Re: "Against Intellectual Property"

On 08/03/2000, Linda Gruber <linda[_at_]novelart.com> wrote:
>
> 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.
>
> [... snip fable]
>
> 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 [...]

Sure, and in mine nobody should be permitted to claim for themselves a chunk of my cultural heritage, a particular slice of my language, an image, a melody, an aspect of the human condition presented as an arrangement of symbols, a character, a catchy name which has become part of my experience, worked itself into my memories; nobody should be able to prevent me re-using that art, those words, the ideas, the style, the technique, in any way I choose. As I see it, an artist fixes combinations of ideas, doesn't _create_ them, and ceding exclusive control to an individual of something which should be freely available to everyone is a very high price to pay for "encouraging the useful &c."

So can we get back to talking about the law?

CYa,
JEREMY Jeremy G. Byrne
<jeremy[_at_]iz.org> Received on Sat Aug 05 2000 - 06:11:15 GMT