4 ms·

>> ...you are arguing that the government can force content creators to cede their works to consumers after a certain time has elapsed. That's like saying I fo

>> ...you are arguing that the government can force content creators to cede their works to consumers after a certain time has elapsed. That's like saying I force you to fall to the ground by not holding you up. Works are inherently copyable. Copyright is an artificial monopoly which society spends money to create and enforce. It does so in order to get the benefit of encouraging creation of works. The whole goal is to have more works available as a public good. This is exactly what the Constitution says: >> To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries. If those works are made less useful to society by remaining locked up forever, there is less benefit to society, and less reason to spend money and effort creating artificial monopolies. If it were shown that monopoly incentives were actually not very helpful in encouraging the creation of new works, copyright should be abolished. It would be a cost to society without a benefit to society. Notice that the creator never enters as a concern here. Society shouldn't make rules to protect the income of specific groups, be they bricklayers, nuclear physicists, or writers. We should work together only for the common good. If you want to work exclusively for your own good, that's fine, but do it by yourself and stop trying to get the laws to serve you.

javert 14y ago
I disagree with practically everything you say, but I'm only going to address part of it. Society shouldn't make rules to protect the income of specific groups, be they bricklayers, nuclear physicists, or writers. We should work together only for the common good. If you want to work exclusively for your own good, that's fine, but do it by yourself and stop trying to get the laws to serve you. I think that the proper purpose of government is to secure my individual rights, particularly property rights, so that I can pursue my happiness. Laws should serve me, and everyone, in that sense. (I also believe this brings the best overall outcome for society, but that's beside the point.) I do not have any duty to "serve the common good." If we keep going towards that model, to the point that my own productive work is no longer productive for me, I will literally "go on strike" and just do manual labor to survive. (Or go to a more free country, if there is one.) That's not out of dedication to ideology, it's out of a need for psychological survival. I can't make myself work hard to benefit a society that is mainly just extractive of my production (i.e., bad for me). As an aside, "To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts" != promoting the "public good". This is a distinction the Founders would have been aware of. But the Constitution isn't perfect, anyway, so it hardly matters.
- lmm 14y ago
  >I think that the proper purpose of government is to secure my individual rights, particularly property rights, so that I can pursue my happiness. Laws should serve me, and everyone, in that sense. (I also believe this brings the best overall outcome for society, but that's beside the point.) You can define anything equivalently as a right or an obligation. "The government should protect my right to own land" ~ "The government should provide soldiers (presumably funded through taxation) to evict other people from my land"; there's no qualitative distinction between property rights and e.g. a right to healthcare. Copyright law does not make individuals more free, quite the opposite. It gives a small number of powerful organizations the power to control the much larger number of individuals who would want to create derivative works. There seems to be this weird blind spot on the political right where they're perfectly happy for people to be oppressed as long as it's not by the government. (Of course, the left has the opposite problem). >I do not have any duty to "serve the common good." If we keep going towards that model, to the point that my own productive work is no longer productive for me, I will literally "go on strike" and just do manual labor to survive. I hope this bluff gets called. Every aspect of modern life is made possible by others serving the common good. And frankly, society would be better off without the "creativity" of those who are producing works just for the paycheck.
  - javert 14y ago
    there's no qualitative distinction between property rights and e.g. a right to healthcare. There is. A rational person pursuing his own good simply wants to be protected from the initiation of force, whence arises "negative rights," such as property rights, and any other legitimate right (this was the original meaning of the word "right" in this context). Any "positive right" (a right requiring the initiation of force) is not only qualitatively different (in that it requires the initiation of force instead of arising because the initiaition of force is barred), it is not a legitimate right. Copyright law does not make individuals more free, quite the opposite. Disagree. It gives a small number of powerful organizations the power to control the much larger number of individuals who would want to create derivative works. That's quite obviously untrue, unless you think that Time Warner owning Harry Potter counts as "control" or "oppression", or if you have a too-expansive view of copyright (e.g., conflating it with patents). Every aspect of modern life is made possible by others serving the common good. Most good aspect of modern life comes from people serving themselves; benefitng the common good is a nice side-effect. And frankly, society would be better off without the "creativity" of those who are producing works just for the paycheck. Really? That's an incredibly destructive and anti-life point of view.

javert 14y ago

I disagree with practically everything you say, but I'm only going to address part of it. Society shouldn't make rules to protect the income of specific groups, be they bricklayers, nuclear physicists, or writers. We should work together only for the common good. If you want to work exclusively for your own good, that's fine, but do it by yourself and stop trying to get the laws to serve you. I think that the proper purpose of government is to secure my individual rights, particularly property rights, so that I can pursue my happiness. Laws should serve me, and everyone, in that sense. (I also believe this brings the best overall outcome for society, but that's beside the point.) I do not have any duty to "serve the common good." If we keep going towards that model, to the point that my own productive work is no longer productive for me, I will literally "go on strike" and just do manual labor to survive. (Or go to a more free country, if there is one.) That's not out of dedication to ideology, it's out of a need for psychological survival. I can't make myself work hard to benefit a society that is mainly just extractive of my production (i.e., bad for me). As an aside, "To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts" != promoting the "public good". This is a distinction the Founders would have been aware of. But the Constitution isn't perfect, anyway, so it hardly matters.

lmm 14y ago
>I think that the proper purpose of government is to secure my individual rights, particularly property rights, so that I can pursue my happiness. Laws should serve me, and everyone, in that sense. (I also believe this brings the best overall outcome for society, but that's beside the point.) You can define anything equivalently as a right or an obligation. "The government should protect my right to own land" ~ "The government should provide soldiers (presumably funded through taxation) to evict other people from my land"; there's no qualitative distinction between property rights and e.g. a right to healthcare. Copyright law does not make individuals more free, quite the opposite. It gives a small number of powerful organizations the power to control the much larger number of individuals who would want to create derivative works. There seems to be this weird blind spot on the political right where they're perfectly happy for people to be oppressed as long as it's not by the government. (Of course, the left has the opposite problem). >I do not have any duty to "serve the common good." If we keep going towards that model, to the point that my own productive work is no longer productive for me, I will literally "go on strike" and just do manual labor to survive. I hope this bluff gets called. Every aspect of modern life is made possible by others serving the common good. And frankly, society would be better off without the "creativity" of those who are producing works just for the paycheck.
- javert 14y ago
  there's no qualitative distinction between property rights and e.g. a right to healthcare. There is. A rational person pursuing his own good simply wants to be protected from the initiation of force, whence arises "negative rights," such as property rights, and any other legitimate right (this was the original meaning of the word "right" in this context). Any "positive right" (a right requiring the initiation of force) is not only qualitatively different (in that it requires the initiation of force instead of arising because the initiaition of force is barred), it is not a legitimate right. Copyright law does not make individuals more free, quite the opposite. Disagree. It gives a small number of powerful organizations the power to control the much larger number of individuals who would want to create derivative works. That's quite obviously untrue, unless you think that Time Warner owning Harry Potter counts as "control" or "oppression", or if you have a too-expansive view of copyright (e.g., conflating it with patents). Every aspect of modern life is made possible by others serving the common good. Most good aspect of modern life comes from people serving themselves; benefitng the common good is a nice side-effect. And frankly, society would be better off without the "creativity" of those who are producing works just for the paycheck. Really? That's an incredibly destructive and anti-life point of view.