13 Feb
2013
13 Feb
'13
4:02 p.m.
Louigi Verona <louigi.verona@...> writes:
~~
"Anyway, if his point is that property theory
doesn't
govern intellectual creation, then why does he seem to say that property
theory
should rule out any and all protection for one's
intellectual work?"
Because copyright ends up invading actual physical property.You ask - what is
copyright? It is a legislative method to invade other people's
property without their consent. Just by writing
something, I instantly get a
partial ownership of your body (you cannot perform my
writing in public without
my permission), partial ownership of your pen, paper, computer
and printer (you cannot distribute my writing without
my permission). And you
did not agree to any of this.
~~
I do not like arguments that proceed from pure principles to absurd results.
(This is the very thing I have always abhorred in libertarian thinking.)
I suppose that makes me a utilitarian (a philosophy with its own absurd
results).
I keep asking why material possession trumps all other considerations, and you
and Kinsella have no answer except "It does." I'm getting bored, frankly.
Returning, for example, to the "repeating a joke" example: it's a straw man,
because repeating a joke around the water cooler at work earns me no profit. I'm
not cutting into the original comedian's compensation. If I get up on stage and
charge admission, that's different. No one should give this kind of
counterexample a second thought, but Kinsella does. Yawn.
Purity of political thought very often masks injustice. I see no exception here.
The entire libertarian argument about copyright privileges the lazy owner of
material goods over the industrious intellectual creator. That libertarians
can't see the absurdity of this tells me that there is simply no common ground
for further discussion.
hjh