On Tuesday 31 July 2007, tedd wrote: > At 7:28 PM -0500 7/30/07, Larry Garfield wrote: > >On Monday 30 July 2007, tedd wrote: > > > What about descendants of the author? When anyone dies, their > >> > >> descendants have a rightful claim on their parent's assets -- it been > >> that way since the dawn of mankind. Do you think you know better than > >> the practice of thousands of generations? > > > >Actually no, property law didn't really come in until civilization, some > > 5000 years ago, which is rather small on the scale of "dawn of mankind". > > Mankind has been on this Earth for more than a million years. > Mankind's first known works of art were published in the caves of > Altamira and Lascaux 15,000 to 10,000 B.C. Physical sculpted items > such as the "Venus of Willendorf" were things that certainly could be > passed down to descendants. > > Are you telling me that the son of that artist did not claim > ownership of that item after his father died? That doesn't seem > reasonable. If you're father died, wouldn't you want to inherit his > work? That seems more reasonable to me. ... Yes, I am telling you exactly that. Historically there was no concept of "property" until the development of civilization. The only restrictions on information from then until ~500 years ago where inter-national (don't tell the <insert other guys here> how our catapults work) and by the Church (don't let the lay people understand how it works, because then the priesthood isn't as cool). The concept of "publication" didn't exist for cave paintings. Nor did it exist for early songs sung around a camp fire, nor for the traveling minstrels of Europe. They shared songs regularly, because it improved their repertoire and because their songs also doubled as a news service. "Commercial publication" didn't exist as a concept until after the invention of the printing press, which is when copyright was invented in order to protect the business of the publishers. Seriously dude, read up on your history. > >But what you're suggesting is that legalized extortion should be > > inheritable. Copyright is, fundamentally, legalized extortion as a means > > of "promoting the progress of Science and the Useful Arts". > > Extortion? Are you saying that anyone who owes a copyright is > obtaining money through force or threats? That sounds strange. Yes, the force of the government and courts. That's why it's a government-granted monopoly. It's a government-granted monopoly that serves a legitimate purpose, but absent that force information flows freely and replicates itself as it passes from person to person. Restricting that flow of information to create a profit motive is an artificial creation of very recent legal systems. That's the point that we've been making all along. It allows authors (well, copyright holders) to extort money for their work for a limited time in return for making it public after that time has passed. > >Do you keep paying the guy who > >built your TV every time you watch something on it? Do you keep paying > > the company that built your house every time you move? Do you pay your > > teachers from college every time you use something you learned there? Do > > you pay your dentist every time you eat? > > No, I pay them for their service. The same way I pay for a book or > software. Your points are getting stranger. If a plumber fixes your toilet, he gets paid once. If a writer writes a book, he gets paid n times, where n is a (hopefully for him) ever-increasing number. His children then can continue to get paid n times, long after he's dead, having done absolutely nothing. The plumber's kids, however, have to go out and get their own jobs. You're saying that's fair and equitable? > In Geology there is an axiom that says "The present is the key to the > past" -- while it's not perfect, it does seem to work surprisingly > well. Well golly gee, good thing we're talking about geology. > I don't think that mankind 15,000 years ago was that much different > than today and if today's descendants are fighting over their > parent's processions now, then I don't think that it's unreasonable > to project that conduct back 15,000 years and make a statement to > that effect. So, it's not made up nonsense. Besides, that's the way I > remember it. You remember 15,000 years ago? That explains it, you must be getting senile! :-) And actually it is unreasonable to project modern social attitudes back thousands of years. It's a mistake that sham historians make on a regular basis. They're still wrong. In history, studying the past is the key to understanding the present, because you see where things developed from. No, people even 100 years ago did not think the same way we did. People today in other parts of the world do not think the same way we do in Euro-America. Taking the past out of its historical context is a guaranteed way to have no idea what you're talking about and to make claims that are completely and totally wrong. As you seem to be doing. Disclaimer: Yes, I was raised by a pair of college history professors. :-) -- Larry Garfield AIM: LOLG42 larry@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx ICQ: 6817012 "If nature has made any one thing less susceptible than all others of exclusive property, it is the action of the thinking power called an idea, which an individual may exclusively possess as long as he keeps it to himself; but the moment it is divulged, it forces itself into the possession of every one, and the receiver cannot dispossess himself of it." -- Thomas Jefferson -- PHP General Mailing List (http://www.php.net/) To unsubscribe, visit: http://www.php.net/unsub.php
