Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!watmath!looking!brad
From: brad@looking.UUCP (Brad Templeton)
Newsgroups: comp.misc
Subject: Re: New Communicational Morality (piracy)
Keywords: software, copyright, society, piracy, sleeze
Message-ID: <3093@looking.UUCP>
Date: 16 Apr 89 06:31:26 GMT
References: <754@infovax.lan.informatik.tu-muenchen.dbp.de> <3687@ficc.uu.net> <1672@orion.cf.uci.edu> <746@maths.tcd.ie> <7745@fluke.COM>
Reply-To: brad@looking.UUCP (Brad Templeton)
Organization: Looking Glass Software Ltd.
Lines: 19

While the pragmatic arguments for IP laws (the ones that correctly
describe how society benefits more from strong IP protection) are all
well and good, I would like to think they are *not* the reason for the
laws, merely a benefit of them.

We have laws that protect true property (intellectual property) because
we believe that it is wrong to expropriate the right of others to
control their own creations.

Sadly, if people don't get that fundamental concept into their heads,
and teach it to their kids, IP laws will never work fully, and we won't
get the strong benefits that they provide.

One of those benefits, by the way is that IP laws *increase* the flow,
spread and distribution of valuable intellectual works.  Removing
copyright hurts that flow, and as such would be an act against
the flow of information in society.
-- 
Brad Templeton, Looking Glass Software Ltd.  --  Waterloo, Ontario 519/884-7473