Path: utzoo!dptcdc!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!uflorida!gatech!udel!new
From: new@udel.EDU (Darren New)
Newsgroups: comp.misc
Subject: Re: New Communicational Morality
Keywords: software, copyright, society
Message-ID: <13304@louie.udel.EDU>
Date: 17 Apr 89 21:41:58 GMT
References: <754@infovax.lan.informatik.tu-muenchen.dbp.de> <3687@ficc.uu.net> <1672@orion.cf.uci.edu> <1038@afit-ab.arpa> <29140@apple.Apple.COM>
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Reply-To: new@udel.EDU (Darren New)
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In article <29140@apple.Apple.COM> desnoyer@Apple.COM (Peter Desnoyers) writes:
>
>What people may be forgetting here is that intellectual property is
>"created" by the legal system. Without laws governing intellectual
>property, it is worth little to nothing.* [more stuff]

For that matter, all property is created by the legal system.
Only laws keep you from breaking a window and climbing in and out with my TV.
Without laws, my money is worth little to nothing also.
Intellectual property is simply easier to not get caught stealing.
About the only thing worth anything at all without the legal system
defining it as property is a gun with better long-range accuracy.

>				Peter Desnoyers
>
>[* There are other ways to recoup investment without using the concept
>of intellectual property, mostly based on making the cost to steal
>higher than the cost to buy - e.g. copy protection or low-cost
>production. That is beside the point.]

Right. That is what safes are all about. Too big to move easily (usually),
steel on the outside so yoy can't chop them, concrete under that so
you can't drill them, and copper under that so you can't burn them.
However, I wouldn't want to live in a country where the only law
was "if it's in a safe, you're not allowed to steal it."
Ayn Rand has alot of problems, but much of what she says makes some sense.
		  - Darren New