Date: Sun, 14 May 2000 03:48:20 +0000 From: Anatoly Vorobey <mellon@pobox.com> To: adsharma@sharmas.dhs.org Cc: chat@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Why are people against GNU? WAS Re: 5.0 already? Message-ID: <20000514034820.A17455@happy.checkpoint.com> In-Reply-To: <200005140027.RAA17120@sharmas.dhs.org>; from adsharma@sharmas.dhs.org on Sat, May 13, 2000 at 05:27:06PM -0700 References: <391D71FE.1570F551@asme.org> <Pine.BSF.4.10.10005130735370.20100-100000@hydrant.intranova.net> <391D4DAD.FD80980A@picusnet.com> <003b01bfbcdc$6059fb40$a164aad0@kickme> <391D71FE.1570F551@asme.org> <20000513205610.A22103@physics.iisc.ernet.in> <3.0.6.32.20000513143506.00895650@mail85.pair.com> <20000514010614.A16058@happy.checkpoint.com> <200005140027.RAA17120@sharmas.dhs.org>
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On Sat, May 13, 2000 at 05:27:06PM -0700, Arun Sharma wrote: > In muc.lists.freebsd.chat, you wrote: > > It is reasonable to argue that today's legal view of copyright -- > > *grossly* extended beyond that envisaged in the 18th century when > > it was created, in many ways -- is in fact detrimental to the society > > in many cases. > > Detrimental to the society, but good for individual freedom (of making > money). Yes, but it would also be great for individual freedom if you could own a physical law you discovered, and charge anyone for things built using it. More money would be made. You could be very rich. It would be great for individual freedom if you could patent mathematical theorems. Why shouldn't you be able to? Is that restriction a Communist ploy? It is a fallacy to assume that capitalism only cares for "individual" and does not care for "society". It is even more patently not the case for democracy, which cares for "society" very much. > That's a core idea from communism. That's also the primary area > where capitalism and communism disagree. > > One can also argue that investing in a tobacco company is detrimental to > the society. Exactly. Capitalism (and democracy) argue that there are individual rights which should not be infringed upon by appeals to the good of society. For instance, the US constitution and the Bill of Rights list many of those rights. The right to intellectual property is *not* such a right historically or legally. It's not like the right for representation in a democracy, for instance, or a right to the freedom of speech. Rather, it was designed and codified as a *privilege* given to an author by the society because the society recognizes that granting this privilege *furthers the society's good*. If you look in the text of the US constitution, it uses similar words to express this idea. If you think that owning a piece of software is *exactly* like owning a piece of furniture, then you'd be hard-pressed to explain why copyright expires while physical ownership doesn't. The fact is, it expires because it is meant to be a temporary privilege. Material ownership shouldn't, and doesn't, expire. The society gives, the society may take away. When copyright was enacted in the US, its expiration was in 14 years after the first publication date. Now it's 70 years after the death of the author. It's like this now because it was made to be so by the society's will, as implemented by the elected Congress, rather than because it's some inalienable right to have exactly this term of copyright. To say that, for instance, reducing the term back would be a Communist act, is, in my opinion, absurd. Stallman would go further and abolish intellectual property altogether. Nor would *that* be a Communist act, and, in fact, it's not at all certain that it would lead to cultural stagnation (those who are sure of that are kindly asked again to explain how the world managed until the 18th century). It would simply enforce a different interpretation of the word "property", whereas Communism would like that word to be abolished altogether. -- Anatoly Vorobey, mellon@pobox.com http://pobox.com/~mellon/ "Angels can fly because they take themselves lightly" - G.K.Chesterton To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message
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