Utilitarianism vs Rights Based Ethics

[Keevan_Colton]

Yeah Copyright laws are a bit messed up. I think that a much more fair type of law should be, "If a creation (I.E. a cartoon series, video games, stories etc.) has not been expanded upon or the franchise of that creation has not been bothered or even touched within 5 to 10 years the said creation immediately goes into the public domain.". Do you think my idea sounds fair?

That's closer to Trademarks and Disney already have you there...a lot of direct to video shite that they produce is aimed squarely at maintaining trademarks.

[General Zod]

Yeah Copyright laws are a bit messed up. I think that a much more fair type of law should be, "If a creation (I.E. a cartoon series, video games, stories etc.) has not been expanded upon or the franchise of that creation has not been bothered or even touched within 5 to 10 years the said creation immediately goes into the public domain.". Do you think my idea sounds fair?

How would that affect writers who sometimes spend several years between sequels, or put down a series for awhile to work on other things and then pick it up later? (Such as Stephen King's Dark Tower).

[Panzer Grenadier]

So wait, we all agree that no intellectual property should not indefinitely stay in the hands of the creator? So isn't that how the law works now with stuff becoming public domain in like 95 years?

[General Zod]

So wait, we all agree that no intellectual property should not indefinitely stay in the hands of the creator? So isn't that how the law works now with stuff becoming public domain in like 95 years?

]

How many writers live for the full 95 years of their creation again?

[Keevan_Colton]

So wait, we all agree that no intellectual property should not indefinitely stay in the hands of the creator? So isn't that how the law works now with stuff becoming public domain in like 95 years?

Life of the creator plus between 50 and 80 years depending on where you are...interesting tidbit...Happy Birthday is still in copyright...and it dates from the 19th century.

Barring any more legal extensions (a pretty big fucking if) it wont expire until after 2030...

[Panzer Grenadier]

So should we change the amount of time? What would be fair 30 years? 10 years? What is wrong with 95 years? What is wrong with the author reaping full benefit from a good idea until they are dead and then it can benefit society. Is 95 years really that long in societal context? In this way both individual right to profit off of an idea, and societal benefit can be reconciled.

[Keevan_Colton]

So should we change the amount of time? What would be fair 30 years? 10 years? What is wrong with 95 years? What is wrong with the author reaping full benefit from a good idea until they are dead and then it can benefit society. Is 95 years really that long in societal context? In this way both individual right to profit off of an idea, and societal benefit can be reconciled.

It used to be 28 years long ago...the world has increased in pace, if anything the duration should be more akin to that of patents if you want to continue with the royalties model. Though I know there are quite a few artists that have tried using other models for their creative efforts, Momus for example has had pretty good success with a commission model of music creation, getting patrons to front up the money for the work...

Besides, the main area of contention for this at the moment is the music industry, where the current state of affairs is absurd. We've had the breakdown of the average proceeds off of an album in a standard contract...the artist effectively ends up owing the record label...since they recoup all their expense from the artists share of royalties, including the advance they are given initially, production costs, marketing costs and so on...as well as having a share of the royalities themselves...

If you want to end up broke, the music industry really is the way to go.

There needs to be some serious consideration about the sustainability of current models, and I say this as someone involved in an area dominated by intellectual property law, though fortunately, one where the model is effectively work once, get paid once for most involved...

[Kanastrous]

Well, I am not arguing that because creators own their work, that's why they should own their work (is that what I appear to have been arguing?)

No, you're arguing that they own their work because they own their work. In other words, you're justifying your premise by simply repeating it as a fact. I'm afraid that doesn't make the grade.

"My Ownership of work means that I own it," is not symmetrical with "My Creation of the work means that I own it." I will admit that I don't see how it's possible to parse the two different statements and come out with the same meaning.

If my creation of the work does not invest ownership in the work that I have created, then who has superior (or even equal) rights to the work, and why? This is not meant to describe cancer cures or other life-saving inventions; this is meant to cover entertainment product that does not save lives, feed the hungry, or house the poor.

We're making your cancer cure more widely and affordably available because people will then live, who otherwise would have died, is not congruent with We're making your music public domain, because people would prefer to listen to it free-of-charge, rather than pay a fee for the privilege.

you're simply saying that "it is because it is".

I'm not saying that "it is because it is" (that is, "A" because of "A"). What I am saying, is that "it is, because of what I did, to make it happen" ("A" because of "B").

This asserts that having created an original work that no one else has made, grants me special rights, by virtue of my having done what no one else has done to create that specific article of value (ie without my action this particular thing-of-value would not exist). And it presupposes that someone who creates something of value, has a superior right to benefit from that act of creation, than someone who did not participate in or contribute to creating it.

Are you aware that the entire field of scientific research is conducted based upon the idea that an idea, once discovered, should be shared with all of humanity?

Sure. I don't work within the scientific community; I work in the entertainment business. There is no reason to suppose that the guiding philosophy of the one field of endeavor, should inform the guiding philosophy of the other.

Didn't you ever wonder why Newton never patented reaction forces? Scientific principles and mathematical equations cannot be copyrighted or patented.

Yes, I understand that. Scientific principles are not original creative works (this statement is not intended to shortchange the overwhelmingly valuable work of scientists). They are immanent in the physical universe and are refined and codified by observation and experiment. Not ginned up out of whole cloth, as a novel, painting or film can be. Well, not the ones that stand any kind of peer review, anyway.

My understanding is that certain mathematical tools can in fact be patented. But if I'm mistaken about that, then, well, I must be mistaken about that (Yogi Berra moment).

patents were originally created as a concept because it was decided that it was a good idea to create monetary incentives to inventors to invent new things. Particularly since it often costs a lot of money to develop a new technology, and nobody would do it without this kind of incentive. In short, patents exist not because of some intrinsic "your idea, your property, nobody else can use it without paying you" ethical axiom, but because it was decided that society would benefit.

I don't believe that standard applies to entertainment products like films, books, etcetera.

An antiviral drug, an innovative crop-fertilizing system, an engine design that can save fuel and cut pollution - these are the sorts of things that one can safely describe as having to eventually get into expanded circulation because of the societal good that increased distribution and improved design of the products can bring.

A movie, on the other hand, is a diversion for a couple of hours. A novel is entertainment for a day or three. A song is pleasant to listen to, while you listen to it. There's no argument to be made, that more lives will be saved, more diseases cured, or more hungry people fed, by taking control of creators' work away from them after a few years' time. The highest good to come of that, is that some people will obtain some transient enjoyment, for free.

The good effects obtained from releasing patents to the public after 20 years, are not mirrored in releasing copywritten materials to the public, after 20 years. Or whatever time-frame one might propose.

But at the same time, it was deemed obvious that if you did not put limits on patent protection, then society would not reap the benefit of this policy because of the ensuing monopolistic and extortionist behaviour. See the parallels to the music industry?

I think the parallel is very strained. There's a compelling argument for a mechanism to improve public access to life-saving, famine-reducing, or efficiency-improving technology. There is no similar compelling argument for granting unrestricted access to entertainment product, which after all saves no lives, feeds no hungry people, and does nothing to improve the efficiency of any industry of which I am aware.

The whole concept was invented to create a social benefit, and not because there is some intrinsic or universal moral axiom that any original idea you have is some kind of exclusive "property" forever.

I'm not sure I agree. Reading documents and records regarding patent and trademark disputes, one concept that constantly comes up is the right of a creator or inventor to reap benefits from her creation or invention.

And again, there is no intrinsic social benefit in free music or movies, comparable to the social benefits deriving from medicines, fertilizers, engines, et all.

I'm afraid you've got this backward. In order to justify criminalizing something, you have to show that there is a social benefit to criminalizing it.

Well...by enforcing a patent or copyright against violation, you are protecting the rights that the patent or copyright was designed to protect, for the reasons that you laid out above (encouraging invention via monetary compensation, etc). So the social benefit to criminalizing copyright violation, is to protect and encourage copyright holders to continue creating new things, for the common benefit. That impresses me as a reasonable justification.

People don't have to show that there is a social benefit to not criminalizing it, since the act of criminalizing something inherently harms the interests of many members of society by definition.

I don't think it unreasonable to ask what social benefit you see, to taking the rights-to-their-work away from creative artists. Assuming that you do see a social benefit in it. If nothing else, I guess that I'm asking you to indulge my curiosity.

there is no real evidence that such a generous incentive as lifetime copyright is necessary in order to get artists to create; realistically, you know that there would still be art even if copyright were quite limited.

I think this nails the difference in our perspectives. You appear to be arguing that it's desirable to grant creators the minimum possible compensation, that will get them creating material and getting it out into the public domain as rapidly as possible, under an assumption that people's desire to enjoy the creative work trumps the interests of the people who hope to be compensated for having created it (if I have that wrong I expect you will correct me). I'm arguing that it's desirable to grant creators more generous compensation and rights to their own work, because their act of creating it grants them superior rights, to anyone else who might want to benefit from the work, who did not contribute to its creation and therefore has no claim to benefit from it without granting the creator that compensation.

It's possible that I am sufficiently invested in the creator's side of the equation, that I have difficulty seeing benefits to public ownership of mere entertainment products that trump the moral rights-to-the-work enjoyed by the creators. After all, we're not talking about vaccines or cancer cures; we're talking about movies and books, here.

In any case, everything hits public domain after the creator's death-plus-twenty years (I think it's twenty). I do believe it reasonable tha a creative person should benefit from their original creative work over the course of their life, so that doesn't bother me. Although public-domain-immediately-post-mortem strikes me as fair, and more sensible.

[Keevan_Colton]

Not twenty years anymore...in the US and the UK it varies between 80 and 50 years after the death of the creator...or to put it another way, life plus an extra lifetime...

Please note the fact that Happy Birthday will remain in copyright until after 2030, despire being composed originally in the mid to late 1800's.

[Kanastrous]

The material is the creator's property by virtue of being the creator's creation. I don't believe this is an is/ought fallacy. And if the material is the creator's property, then the creator has superior rights to control its distribution and to profit from it.

That isn't even really true for all artists. If someone made a sculpture and subsequently sold it, then it's sort of implicit that the new owner now controls all of the rights to the piece.

Yes, absolutely. The right-to-the work belonged to the creator who created it, until he assigned those rights to the purchaser, in exchange for whatever compensation the purchaser offered.

The fact that I believe the creator has rights-to-the-work ab initio, does not mean that she can't transfer those rights to someone else, at her discretion.

This is effectively what I do, on most any project I'm on. My agreement with, say, Universal or Lightstorm or Sony or whomever, is what transfers the rights to the work I create there, to them. Part of that agreement, includes my future compensation based upon MPIP contributions, etc based upon the value of the work to which I have granted them ownership.

The original artist doesn't get to continually profit from this work for the rest of his life.

That depends upon the terms under which they assigned the rights to their creative work, to the distributing entity who assumes control of it.

Nobody's saying that artists shouldn't be able to profit off of their works, we're just questioning whether it's reasonable for them to profit from them in perpetuity.

I agree with the premise that rights should not extend in perpetuity; I think they should be for the term of the creator's lifetime. Although when the 'creator' is an effectively-immortal corporation, the eighty-years-from-date-of-creation appears reasonable to me, too.

Moreover, a reframing of how copyrights work is more likely to benefit artists in the long run than the current system does.

That's possible. And welcome, if the revisions turn out to work that way.

[Zablorg]

What purpose is served by holding copyright laws on something when its creator is dead? Who is going to care?

[Kanastrous]

ALL property rights - and especially nebulous "intellectual property" rights - are not inviolate. It is established fact that a pressing public interest overrides them - after all, the government can seize with compensation your home for public infrastructure, schools, or defense. If the country is invaded or there is a rebellion they can take away your civil liberties.

So stipulated.

What pressing public interest requires violating creators' rights to control the distribution of and to benefit, from their work? Considering that we are talking about entertainment product that helps pleasantly pass the time, and not land for a school, or air space for national defense, or anything similarly pressing or vital.

[Zablorg]

But if the creator is dead, he or she is not actually going to care much whether their work is abused...

[TheKwas]

Well, I am not arguing that because creators own their work, that's why they should own their work (is that what I appear to have been arguing?)

No, you're arguing that they own their work because they own their work. In other words, you're justifying your premise by simply repeating it as a fact. I'm afraid that doesn't make the grade.

"My Ownership of work means that I own it," is not symmetrical with "My Creation of the work means that I own it." I will admit that I don't see how it's possible to parse the two different statements and come out with the same meaning.

I agree that it's not parallel, but it's still just as silly. Exactly why does the creator of an object automatically gain ownership of that object? Such an absolutist stance can be simply disproved by a single counterexample: Drake never actually owned the Drake equation, and it's a 'original creative work' just as much as anything else is.

You're missing the point made very early in this thread that 'rights' are social constructs (they have no objective existence). You can't argue a right based on the fact that it's a 'right'. Wong's dialogue on the first page illustrates that. Rights are constructed in order to increase overall utility, and are only valid to the extent that they do maximize utility.

In order for you to make the case that a creator of an object should be granted ownership of an object (and let me emphasis ownership is granted by the collective), you have to make the case that such a precedent will maximize utility. As it stands now, your premise doesn't support your conclusion.

For example: A farmer makes himself a hoe to dig with. Without the right of creator-ownership, his neighbour can walk over and take his hoe without it being stealing. With the right of creator-ownership, the farmer will be able to use that hoe without worrying about losing it to his neighbour. To decide whether or not the creator of hoes should be granted ownership over the product, you should decide whether or not that 'right' would increase utility or not. In this case, allowing the creator to claim ownership would increase overall utility because the farmer who is most efficient at making hoes can just make hoes for a living without worrying about having them taken away without payment. It's an incentive to make more hoes, and now all the farmers can benefit from specialization via comparative advantage.

However, just because granting the creator the right of ownership in this case, doesn't mean that all creators in all fields should automatically be granted ownership of their creations. Utilitarian analysis should be conducted first.

Scientific creations, such as formulas and equations, should obviously not be the sole property of their creators, as science would essentially come to a standstill. Utilitarianism dicates that scientists are not owners of their creations.

Sure. I don't work within the scientific community; I work in the entertainment business. There is no reason to suppose that the guiding philosophy of the one field of endeavor, should inform the guiding philosophy of the other.

Why not? If creators are granted ownership over their creations simply due to 'it's their right', that right would be universal. You have to tell us what the difference is between science and entertainment that leads to them having different philosophies.

Yes, I understand that. Scientific principles are not original creative works (this statement is not intended to shortchange the overwhelmingly valuable work of scientists). They are immanent in the physical universe and are refined and codified by observation and experiment. Not ginned up out of whole cloth, as a novel, painting or film can be. Well, not the ones that stand any kind of peer review, anyway.

Nonsense. There are many scientific equations and tools that are as original and as creative as any novel or painting. Drakes equation is the example I already gave, but there are hundreds of likewise examples. From my understanding of Quantum Mechanics (which, I admit, isn't very good), the entire field is a tool to explain phenomenon in the real world, rather than an ontological explanation of what the world actually is. Schrödinger's cat isn't actually dead and alive at the same time, nor is his cat actually just a probability distribution, it's either dead or alive.

I think the parallel is very strained. There's a compelling argument for a mechanism to improve public access to life-saving, famine-reducing, or efficiency-improving technology. There is no similar compelling argument for granting unrestricted access to entertainment product, which after all saves no lives, feeds no hungry people, and does nothing to improve the efficiency of any industry of which I am aware.

Music, however, still increases a person's utility. I'm not going to argue for Wong, but the argument should be whether or not reducing a musician's ownership over his music will maximize social utility or not. This far into your post it sounds like this is the case you are making, but everything above this was creating a social construct as absolute.

[Darth Wong]

"My Ownership of work means that I own it," is not symmetrical with "My Creation of the work means that I own it." I will admit that I don't see how it's possible to parse the two different statements and come out with the same meaning.

True, the former is a completely vacuous tautology while the latter is an unjustified premise. Either way, you have utterly failed to justify your claim that if you create an idea, you should be able to charge lifetime royalties to anyone who uses it. You simply state this as a fact, and never explain why it should be the case.

If my creation of the work does not invest ownership in the work that I have created, then who has superior (or even equal) rights to the work, and why?

Nobody. You are assuming that these "rights" exist. You still haven't justified that premise.

This is not meant to describe cancer cures or other life-saving inventions; this is meant to cover entertainment product that does not save lives, feed the hungry, or house the poor.

Would you please care to explain why the inferior importance of your product means it should gain superior protection to these other examples you mention?

You're completely missing the point, which is that those examples show that this "intellectual property right" you speak of is not inviolate or even intrinsic to the nature of ideas. Once you accept that, then you have to start answering these questions you keep dodging, about the social value of these policies.

I'm not saying that "it is because it is" (that is, "A" because of "A"). What I am saying, is that "it is, because of what I did, to make it happen" ("A" because of "B").

Of course you're saying "A because of B". What you're failing to do is explain why. That's why I characterized your position as "it is because it is".

This asserts that having created an original work that no one else has made, grants me special rights, by virtue of my having done what no one else has done to create that specific article of value (ie without my action this particular thing-of-value would not exist). And it presupposes that someone who creates something of value, has a superior right to benefit from that act of creation, than someone who did not participate in or contribute to creating it.

You seem to think that if you just keep repeating your premise, then I will accept its innate truthiness. Why?

Are you aware that the entire field of scientific research is conducted based upon the idea that an idea, once discovered, should be shared with all of humanity?

Sure. I don't work within the scientific community; I work in the entertainment business. There is no reason to suppose that the guiding philosophy of the one field of endeavor, should inform the guiding philosophy of the other.

Once again, you're missing the point that original ideas are NOT intrinsically owned by anyone. The example of an entire field of intellectual endeavour which does not follow that policy proves that this rule of yours is not absolute, not universal, and therefore not valid as an assumed universal premise, which is what you are treating it as. The fact that it's a different industry has no bearing whatsoever on this.

Didn't you ever wonder why Newton never patented reaction forces? Scientific principles and mathematical equations cannot be copyrighted or patented.

Yes, I understand that. Scientific principles are not original creative works (this statement is not intended to shortchange the overwhelmingly valuable work of scientists). They are immanent in the physical universe and are refined and codified by observation and experiment. Not ginned up out of whole cloth, as a novel, painting or film can be. Well, not the ones that stand any kind of peer review, anyway.

Wrong. The behaviour of the universe is innate. Coming up with a model to predict that behaviour IS a creative process; you are creating a model. Your ignorance of the scientific method is not a valid argument, and you are just using these made-up distinctions in order to evade the point I mentioned above.

I don't believe that standard applies to entertainment products like films, books, etcetera.

Of course it doesn't. What you have completely failed to do is explain WHY this should be the case.

The good effects obtained from releasing patents to the public after 20 years, are not mirrored in releasing copywritten materials to the public, after 20 years. Or whatever time-frame one might propose.

The fact that the benefit is not as large does not mean the same logic does not apply. In fact, the magnitude of the benefit is completely irrelevant to the logic of the argument, and is an obvious red-herring.

I think the parallel is very strained. There's a compelling argument for a mechanism to improve public access to life-saving, famine-reducing, or efficiency-improving technology. There is no similar compelling argument for granting unrestricted access to entertainment product, which after all saves no lives, feeds no hungry people, and does nothing to improve the efficiency of any industry of which I am aware.

The type and magnitude of benefit is completely irrelevant to the logic of the argument. Yet again you simply search for an excuse to evade the point.

The whole concept was invented to create a social benefit, and not because there is some intrinsic or universal moral axiom that any original idea you have is some kind of exclusive "property" forever.

I'm not sure I agree. Reading documents and records regarding patent and trademark disputes, one concept that constantly comes up is the right of a creator or inventor to reap benefits from her creation or invention.

A right created for the sake of social benefit, and limited for that same reason. What part of this do you not understand?

And again, there is no intrinsic social benefit in free music or movies, comparable to the social benefits deriving from medicines, fertilizers, engines, et all.

Bullshit. The fact that the social benefit is trivial by comparison (public enjoyment as opposed to public health) does not mean that it is nonexistent. And your logic leads to the perverse conclusion that people who develop important things deserve to be LESS compensated than people who develop unimportant things. Do you seriously think this makes sense?

I'm afraid you've got this backward. In order to justify criminalizing something, you have to show that there is a social benefit to criminalizing it.

Well...by enforcing a patent or copyright against violation, you are protecting the rights that the patent or copyright was designed to protect

Yet more circular logic. You cannot show that there is a social benefit to criminalizing violations of a certain right by pointing out that this will protect that right. Do you honestly not understand that the latter is just a re-phrasing of the former? You're just repackaging the idea in different words to justify itself.

I don't think it unreasonable to ask what social benefit you see, to taking the rights-to-their-work away from creative artists.

You are completely incapable of arguing this point without ASSUMING that this right exists, aren't you? Every single one of your statements is based on that assumption; you seem to be intellectually incapable of extricating it from your arguments even though the whole point of this discussion is to ask whether that right deserves to be considered a right.

In the course of this debate, you have proven my point about the dangers of rights-based ethics: they lead to the kind of reflexive thinking that you demonstrate, where you oppose any change to the system using exactly the same style of circular logic that is common to religious people. Every time I ask you to explain why this should be considered a right, you say that it's a right, and that's why it should be a right. Your latest tactic is to ask who gets that right if the creator doesn't, which still assumes that this right exists.

[Kanastrous]

It's true that I do believe in the existence of a creative artist's entitlement to superior rights to their own work, and as you observe I am unable to invest conviction in a position that doesn't recognize that right.

Which is not to suggest that you should have to recognize it; I'm just admitting to my own belief in it.

I still have problems with some of the individual arguments offered between this post and my last one, but since my insistence upon artists' rights is not something I'm prepared to discard, and since I don't have anything to suggest regarding a system of distribution that ignores those rights, I think I'll say "thank you" to everyone who was kind enough to discuss it with me, particularly Darth Wong, who displays patience worthy of a Sith Lord.

And I'll keep on the thread to see what else people have to say on the subject.

[Oni Koneko Damien]

Alright, steering clear of the copyright and 'intellectual property' argument going on...

I was wondering what all of you think on the subject of Utilitarianism vs Rights Based ethics.

Were utilitarianism says the whether an action is ethical really depends on the effects the action has (and somewhat the intent of the action.) Rights based ethics mainly focuses on whether the actor had the right to commit the act.

Utilitarianism says, if your action harms someone it is wrong (provided of course that greater harm wouldn't result from not doing the action, and there is no alternative action available that would not harm someone).

Rights based ethics says that an action is not wrong if you have the right to do it, and an action is only wrong if someone's rights are violated.

From what I've seen, it is possible to integrate some of the tenets of rights-based ethics with utilitarianism as a whole. Utilitarianism generally states that it is better to do thing with contribute to the greater good of all involved. It also states that it's bad to do things that ultimately harm those involved.

Why not simply make it a 'right' to do anything that does not directly physically, emotionally, or mentally harm others? This is flexible enough in that, if changing contexts make something that previously hurt no one start hurt people, then it is no longer a 'right'. Also it doesn't open any loopholes for any 'right to censorship' not only because no objective harm has been evidenced by free expression of one's self (within reasonable limits), and forcefully suppressing another person's ability to express themselves can lead to mental/emotional harm.

One major criticism people have is that it forces people to do things that they have the right not to do. Or in some cases says it's okay to violate other people's rights.

This is the main problem with stagnant rights-based systems: They are subjective. Utilitarianism, when properly applied, is based off of objective measures of harm and benefit, and thus innately much more reliable and flexible than any subjective system, which is why I advocate basing a mutable rights-based system based off of the same objective standards that Utilitarianism holds.

[Covenant]

It's true that I do believe in the existence of a creative artist's entitlement to superior rights to their own work, and as you observe I am unable to invest conviction in a position that doesn't recognize that right.

Thing is, the reason for this right is to allow people who come up with things the ability to get payment for them. The idea of "artist's rights" being seperate from everyone else's rights is dangerous, as it inherently undermines and weakens an Artist's ability to seek what you have already argued for: fair payment.

If an artist is indeed a craftsman, someone who puts himself to work to create something, shouldn't he be paid for that work, rather than how well someone else markets and moves the product? Why do we subject artists to some kind of profit sharing schenanigan when nobody else would consider that fair?

Intellectual Property is something seperate from Copyright. A revision of copyright is not inconsistant with really trying to protect intellectual property, since Copyrights have gotten rather distorted over time. A copyright is, at it's core, just a limited monopoly over the item for the purpose of reprinting the media. You can still print the media in other forms if it is a 'new expression' of the idea. Conversely, a Patent can restrict other people from recreating the innovations in a much wider context. Copyright IS, in that sense, a much weaker form of control than a patent, but it is the lasting nature of some copyrights--combined with their more potent IP protections--that makes them such a hassle today.

Why not normalize these standards? Why is owning an idea of expression any different from owning an idea of production or design? I don't see how that is at all inconsistant with the idea of rewarding the artist (or engineer) for their innovation, without facilitating and perpetuating a double-standard that hurts everyone except for a lucky few.

[Kanastrous]

True, the former is a completely vacuous tautology while the latter is an unjustified premise.

Well...I guess that's progress, in some direction.

Either way, you have utterly failed to justify your claim that if you create an idea, you should be able to charge lifetime royalties to anyone who uses it. You simply state this as a fact, and never explain why it should be the case.

I think for the moment I will have to admit to that being a belief. Which means that I need to think on it more, and absorb more of what people have to say on the matter, and hope to figure out a better way to defend it.

If my creation of the work does not invest ownership in the work that I have created, then who has superior (or even equal) rights to the work, and why?

Nobody. You are assuming that these "rights" exist. You still haven't justified that premise.

Yes. It is still an a priori assumption on my part.

You seem to think that if you just keep repeating your premise, then I will accept its innate truthiness. Why?

Poor technique on my part. Can't justify it; will just try to stop doing it.

The example of an entire field of intellectual endeavour which does not follow that policy proves that this rule of yours is not absolute, not universal, and therefore not valid as an assumed universal premise, which is what you are treating it as. The fact that it's a different industry has no bearing whatsoever on this.

I think different industries operating upon different principles does have a bearing.

Coming up with a model to predict that behaviour IS a creative process; you are creating a model. Your ignorance of the scientific method is not a valid argument

I have to agree to that. And am embarrassed that I let myself get spanked over something like the proper description of the scientific method.

The fact that the benefit is not as large does not mean the same logic does not apply. In fact, the magnitude of the benefit is completely irrelevant to the logic of the argument, and is an obvious red-herring.

I don't believe it to be a red herring.

The creator of, say a new medicine, and the creator of a novel, can make claims to the ownership of their respective creations, that are equal.

But the public benefit of infringing the creator's ownership of rights to a life-saving medicine, is gigantic compared to the public benefit of infringing the creator's ownership of rights to her novel.

So while both have claims to their work that are equal in dignity, there is sufficient reason to infringe the rights of the former, that doesn't exist to infringe the rights of the latter.

The whole concept was invented to create a social benefit, and not because there is some intrinsic or universal moral axiom that any original idea you have is some kind of exclusive "property" forever.

I don't believe that intellectual property should be 'forever,' I apologize if I appeared to be saying so. Life-of-the-artist, or eighty years, are good enough for me.

I'm not sure I agree. Reading documents and records regarding patent and trademark disputes, one concept that constantly comes up is the right of a creator or inventor to reap benefits from her creation or invention.

A right created for the sake of social benefit, and limited for that same reason. What part of this do you not understand?

It's not a matter of understanding, it is a matter of agreement. I don't agree with the premise that there is zero consideration contained in those laws, for a right on the part of the creator to hold some form of superior claim, at least for a specified time, to her creation. And not for the reason of social utility, but for the reason that the creator's role is recognized as singular, and important in the process of creating something valuable, and worthy of reward for its own sake.

Bullshit. The fact that the social benefit is trivial by comparison (public enjoyment as opposed to public health) does not mean that it is nonexistent. And your logic leads to the perverse conclusion that people who develop important things deserve to be LESS compensated than people who develop unimportant things. Do you seriously think this makes sense?

Okay, it's trivial. And I don't think that infringing what I regard as a creator's important rights for a trivial social benefit, is defensible in the way that infringing those rights is, for an important benefit.

You are completely incapable of arguing this point without ASSUMING that this right exists, aren't you?

Yes, at least for the time being, I am afraid so.

[Darth Wong]

I think for the moment I will have to admit to that being a belief. Which means that I need to think on it more, and absorb more of what people have to say on the matter, and hope to figure out a better way to defend it.

As I said, you are illustrating precisely the problem I spoke of earlier: once people think of something as a "right", they throw up a brick-wall and become incapable of debating its social merits. They would literally fight for it even if it can be shown to be harming society. That's the danger of rights-based ethics. We see it all the time; how many smokers complain about their "rights", with no regard whatsoever for how much harm their filthy habit is doing to society? How many Christian fundamentalists defend the Bush Administration's injection of religious dogma into public policy by saying that they have the "right" to do so, thanks to the religious freedom principle, with no regard whatsoever for whether this best serves the general welfare of society? Once people think that an idea is a "right", they put themselves on a pedestal beyond criticism from mundane earthly concerns. The world can burn for the sake of their "rights".

The example of an entire field of intellectual endeavour which does not follow that policy proves that this rule of yours is not absolute, not universal, and therefore not valid as an assumed universal premise, which is what you are treating it as. The fact that it's a different industry has no bearing whatsoever on this.

I think different industries operating upon different principles does have a bearing.

Not if you're defending a universal axiom.

I don't believe that intellectual property should be 'forever,' I apologize if I appeared to be saying so. Life-of-the-artist, or eighty years, are good enough for me.

And that number ... do you have some kind of rational justification for it? How about I say it should be 30 minutes, and then we meet somewhere in the middle? My number comes with just as much justification as yours.

It's not a matter of understanding, it is a matter of agreement. I don't agree with the premise that there is zero consideration contained in those laws, for a right on the part of the creator to hold some form of superior claim, at least for a specified time, to her creation.

You are arguing that copyright was created in order to make consideration for ... copyright?

Sorry my friend, but the idea that something was created in order to protect itself is completely absurd and you know it.

You are completely incapable of arguing this point without ASSUMING that this right exists, aren't you?

Yes, at least for the time being, I am afraid so.

Thus proving my whole point.

[K. A. Pital]

What "rights" are infringed, you moron? You have been told several times by now that rights are not "natural", they're granted by the social structure to maximize it's own well-being.

[Kanastrous]

The fact that I am told something, does not mean that I am required to agree with it.

I might as well suggest that you are a moron, because you do not agree with what I have told you.

Which I'm not interested in doing because (a) I don't have reason to think you're a moron, and (b) name-calling is basically noise, and a waste of time, even if I did.

[Darth Wong]

The fact that I am told something, does not mean that I am required to agree with it.

You are, however, expected to justify any positive claims you make. You keep claiming that the right to forcibly prevent royalty-free copying is intrinsic to the act of creation, yet you completely fail to justify that statement. Worse than that, you keep stating it over and over and over despite people pointing out that you should stop doing this unless you can justify it, not to mention the fact that it's against the rules of logic (not to mention the clearly posted rules of this forum).

I might as well suggest that you are a moron, because you do not agree with what I have told you.

Which I'm not interested in doing because (a) I don't have reason to think you're a moron, and (b) name-calling is basically noise, and a waste of time, even if I did.

Name-calling is indeed not particularly constructive or illuminating. But do you honestly feel that you have presented arguments of sufficient quality to command greater respect than you have been shown? Circular logic isn't exactly constructive either. In fact, it's worse than useless because it is an outright logic fallacy.

[Kanastrous]

But do you honestly feel that you have presented arguments of sufficient quality to command greater respect than you have been shown?

Apparently I haven't, so far.

One can only smarten up, so fast.

[TheKwas]

All the more time for you to develop a hide.