Path: utzoo!dptcdc!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!ames!lll-lcc!mordor!joyce!cslb!fernwood!asylum!oli-stl!tekbspa!optilink!cramer
From: cramer@optilink.UUCP (Clayton Cramer)
Newsgroups: comp.misc
Subject: Re: New Communicational Morality (piracy)
Keywords: software, copyright, society, piracy, sleeze
Message-ID: <1231@optilink.UUCP>
Date: 17 Apr 89 17:21:21 GMT
References: <754@infovax.lan.informatik.tu-muenchen.dbp.de> <3687@ficc.uu.net> <3093@looking.UUCP>
Organization: Optilink Corporation, Petaluma, CA
Lines: 44

In article <3093@looking.UUCP>, brad@looking.UUCP (Brad Templeton) writes:
> 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

Adam Smith, in _Wealth_of_Nations_, cites the example of usury laws.
At the time he wrote, in the late 1700s, Islamic nations didn't
provide a legal process for recovering money lent at interest.
As a result, interest rates were typically 50-70% per annum, while
countries like Britain that provided such legal processes, had
interest rates below 10%.

The United States, when it created provisions for patents, was
a world leader.  Where patents in Britain and other European countries
were granted as favors by the king, patents in the U.S. were 
available to anyone with an innovation.  Not suprisingly, the
U.S. created a greatly disproportionate chunk of the world's
inventions in the nineteenth century.  Now, U.S. style patent
laws are the rule, not the exception.

For those of you are uncomfortable with the idea of rights,
remember this: protecting intellectual property seems be to the
most effective way to dramatically increase the amount of it.
-- 
Clayton E. Cramer                   {pyramid,pixar,tekbspa}!optilink!cramer
Governments that don't trust most people with weapons, deserve no trust.
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