Noah Roberts wrote: > On Apr 5, 2005 10:53 AM, Edward Barrow <edward@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote: > >>Worth googling for Kant >>on copyright, by the way). > > > All that did was turn up a bunch of copyrighted stuff about Kant. > More direct links might be more helpful. > > oh dear. Last time I tried it I got a load of good links, but "copyright" is always a difficult word to search on. Anyway, the essay concerned is "On the injustice of counterfeiting books" and it's an argument, not all of which I agree with, in favour of what is known as the natural theory of copyright, prevalent in Europe and anathema to US constitutionalists. Here's a key quote: "The author and the owner of the copy may both say of it with equal right: it is my book! but in a different sense. The first takes the book as a writing or a speech; the second as the mute instrument merely of the delivering of the speech to him or to the public, i. e. as a copy. This right of the author's, however, is no right in the thing, namely, the copy (for the owner may burn it before the author's face), but an innate right in his own person, namely, to hinder another from reading it to the public without his consent, which consent can by no means be presumed, because he has already given it exclusively to another" this from the full text at http://evans-experientialism.freewebspace.com/kant_counterfeiting.htm Of course, as a professional author himself, Kant was certainly not a disinterested observer.... -- Edward Barrow Copyright Consultant edward@xxxxxxxxxxxxx ***Important: see http://www.copyweb.co.uk/email.htm for important information about the legal status of this email
