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> If you believe ideas can be property, then you believe people can be property. Can you defend that? I generally think copyright isn't a great idea as it exis

> If you believe ideas can be property, then you believe people can be property. Can you defend that? I generally think copyright isn't a great idea as it exists, but this statement feels extremely dubious at best.

breck 5y ago
> Can you defend that? Yes. Though I'm not the sharpest tool in the shed, so the delivery may be less than ideal. Copyright gives PersonA legal control over a subset of PersonB's behavior, even when PersonA is not involved. This is hard to defend, unless you are fine with people being property. Slavery gives PersonA legal control over PersonB's behavior. Under Slavery, PersonB has one master with lots of control. Under Copyright, PersonB has lots of masters with small controls. Is there a way to believe that ideas can be property without it being a system of slavery? There's no logical way to make that work. Think about the moment that copyright "expires". At that instant, does matter disappear? Did property vanish? What changed? The only thing that changed was each person suddenly gained a little more freedom—the ability to share a new sequence that they couldn't share before. The property rights that the copyright holder had over other people went away. People became more free. Anyone who thinks for themselves should be able to quickly deduce that these laws are shades of slavery laws, and not about property rights. I figured that out before I could legally drink. It's not that complicated. The question is why are so many duped? I think it's probably a question of priorities (I would say Freedom of Speech and the Press are more fundamental, and then Freedom to Remix and Distribute would be next) or perhaps it's because before the Internet there wasn't enough uncontrolled bandwidth for the truth to get out, or perhaps it's that the people are bombarded over and over again by the big lie from the moment of childhood—look at the FBI Warnings at the beginning of Disney Movies, or the dozens of times per day that you see the phrase "All rights reserved".

breck 5y ago

> Can you defend that? Yes. Though I'm not the sharpest tool in the shed, so the delivery may be less than ideal. Copyright gives PersonA legal control over a subset of PersonB's behavior, even when PersonA is not involved. This is hard to defend, unless you are fine with people being property. Slavery gives PersonA legal control over PersonB's behavior. Under Slavery, PersonB has one master with lots of control. Under Copyright, PersonB has lots of masters with small controls. Is there a way to believe that ideas can be property without it being a system of slavery? There's no logical way to make that work. Think about the moment that copyright "expires". At that instant, does matter disappear? Did property vanish? What changed? The only thing that changed was each person suddenly gained a little more freedom—the ability to share a new sequence that they couldn't share before. The property rights that the copyright holder had over other people went away. People became more free. Anyone who thinks for themselves should be able to quickly deduce that these laws are shades of slavery laws, and not about property rights. I figured that out before I could legally drink. It's not that complicated. The question is why are so many duped? I think it's probably a question of priorities (I would say Freedom of Speech and the Press are more fundamental, and then Freedom to Remix and Distribute would be next) or perhaps it's because before the Internet there wasn't enough uncontrolled bandwidth for the truth to get out, or perhaps it's that the people are bombarded over and over again by the big lie from the moment of childhood—look at the FBI Warnings at the beginning of Disney Movies, or the dozens of times per day that you see the phrase "All rights reserved".