Apparently, you don't understand the issue either.

Just one example (right off the top of your rant):

While in a certain legal, strict sense it is true that the author of the article does "not own the text in the New Yorker any more than ... the music on a CD...", it is in precisely the same sense true that neither does the New Yorker. What is "owned" here is a government-granted monopoly license on commercial distribution.

The USA founding fathers had lengthy and extended debate as to whether such schemes (ie. copyrights and patents) -- being clearly contrary to "natural law" and the like concerns -- were even in principle justifiable in a democratic society. The final compromise was to let congress work out details of "limited and temporary" artificial monopoly rights as they found convenient -- if at all.

Also, "Intellectual Property" is hardly a "well established concept" in law; in fact the term has no actual legal meaning, and is mainly used by those wanting to aquire greater weight in the balance between the public's vs private party's interests than the current law or tradition allows.

[ reply ]

Link to this comment: http://www.securityfocus.com/comments/columns/390/33484#33484