Posted by isaac (68.63.80.7) on April 30, 2002 at 16:04:38:
In Reply to: Here's the hole in your argument... posted by froggyTheFrog (9w1) (158.114.92.201) on April 30, 2002 at 15:32:16:
the issue is that when you buy a car or a cd, you buy the rights to the physical object itself. ie, to the material manifestation of the intellectual property, the object itself. a "used song" doesn't even make sense. nothing about the information is at all affected by being "used", and when you share it, another copy is created and the first is not destroyed. when you buy the cd, you also buy the right to play it and make as many copies of it as you like, for yourself and your own use. and, since those rights are yours and belong to you, you can hand them over to someone else (give the cd to them.) however, you are specifically NOT sold the right to distribute duplicates of the intellectual property to others. in the same way, if you buy a volkswagon, you don't buy the right to start building and selling cars identical to yours.
of course, it's a lot easier to freely distribute music than volkswagons. and, it's easier to protect one's intellectual property that goes into a car than that which goes into a cd. i can keep the plans to build my super turbo ultra-compression cold fusion engine secret, and unless someone's smart enough to figure it out from the end product, they'll never steal my idea. i would do that so that i could corner the market. i could be the only one to offer stuccf engines, and my reward for the idea would depend on the brilliance of my idea. if a bunch of second-raters can force me to give up my specs for my engine, and they all start building them, how is that fair? they're selling MY product, and i'm not getting a cut!
if, of course, they BOUGHT the plans and the rights from me, then i would have nothing ot complain about. in many cases, that's perhaps the best course of action for an artist or inventor. lots of engineers work in industry, just cooking up ideas for a salary. in that case, the intellectual property is the express property of the company to do with what they will. musicians sign contracts like this all the time with record labels.
artists and intellectuals will starve or change profession if intellectual property rights are removed.
isaac