3 ms·
I don't think it's sensible to refer to all ownership of land as monopolistic. In most cases land is fungible. There are many landowners in my town of plots of
by gnode 8y ago
I don't think it's sensible to refer to all ownership of land as monopolistic. In most cases land is fungible. There are many landowners in my town of plots of land which are largely interchangeable. Saying someone has a monopoly on their specific plot of land is about as relevant as saying someone has a monopoly on a specific cheeseburger. If one party were to own all the land in a particular region, like a feudal lord, that may be considered monopolistic.
The case with copyright is that copyrighted works are by definition not fungible; if you create a trivially similar work, you violate the copyright.
- ModernMech 8y ago> In most cases land is fungible. Err, there's a reason the first three rules of real estate are 1. location 2. location 3. location The key thing about land is that it's unique, there is no other place on the entire planet identical to the place you're standing. There may be similar places, and that may be fine enough for some people. But plenty of wars have been fought over a particular piece of land. Just ask the Palestinians if land is fungible.
- gnode 8y agoI was referring to a local basis. I.e. in most cases, plots of land of equal size on a given street are of similar value for similar purposes. My point is that people don't typically monopolise land to the extent that a prospective land buyer has one potential current owner they could deal with. Of course there are always exceptional cases where this breaks down.
- Dylan16807 8y agoAre the Palestinians being offered similar land? That fight seems pretty all or nothing. But more importantly, very few bits of land are all that special. Location, location, location means that if a business got its pick of nearby plots, most would happily switch, and reap the benefits!
- chimeracoder 8y ago> Just ask the Palestinians if land is fungible. That analogy would only make sense if Palestinians were being offered similarly-sized and similarly-resourced land, to compensate for what was taken away from them at the beginning of the Nakba 70 years ago. Except, they're not. The land was seized, with no new land provided in return. Over time, more and more has been occupied and taken away from Palestine.
- rayiner 8y agoYou don’t violate copyright by creating a “trivially similar” work. Maybe if you start with someone else’s work and make only trivial modifications.