Originally posted by Persol
I can just as easily ask what obligation society has to the artist.
None at all. You're anthropomorphizing the concept of society too much. One does not become indebted to some faceless abstract concept of people living together, when he is born, or when he produces something of value. What's his is his, society owns nothing, not even in a socialistic or communistic society, in that situation government owns everything.
Originally posted by Persol
As soon as it is in the public. We aren't taking your original, only duplicating it. That said, an amount of time should be allowed for you to make money of duplicating your work.
So your answer, is that when someone produces a work of art, it belongs to you only just as soon as you take it? It's theft pure and simple. Knowing that something exists, seeing it, and understanding it does not entitle you to it.
Originally posted by Persol
Thoughts are not property. Why should they be treated as such?
So your thoughts are not your own? We aren't even talking about thoughts anyway, we are talking about the product of thought: Art and technology. I would also contests that my own thoughts belong solely to me, simply because I can't fathom who else they should belong to.
Originally posted by Persol
I disagree. I think it is more uncapatalistic and communism to control ideas. It inhibits free markets from forming.
It is uncapitalistic to alow someone to own that which he has created, and to let him make money usinig the product of his thought as he wills? Yet somehow it is capitalistic to steal that thing from him, and make it available to everyone with no consideration given to the creator all in the name of the "public good"? Perhaps you need to redefine your concept of capitalism.
Originally posted by Persol
The painting doesn't. The idea does. It should be fully within my right to photograph a painting in my house which I bought.... after all, when I bought it, it belongs to me too. What I then do with my property is, as you say, my business. The end effect is that as soon as it is sold to the public, the IDEA is public property.
Yes, the painting is yours, and if you bought it from the artist, and there were no special terms agreed upon when you bought it, then rightly it should be yours to do with as you please. It should be your right to make copies, alter it, or whatever, so long as no agreement to the contrary was made BEFORE you purchased it. That's why software comes with a licence agreement, saying that you are not buying the information on the disk, it does not belong to you, but rather you are buying permission to use it from the company which produced it.
Originally posted by Persol
Why should we protect your ideas from being used by other people? Don't I own something when I buy a copy? Can't I then do what I want with it?
That all depends on what you were really buying. If I were to sell you a print of my own artwork, then you wouldn't have any right to make copies or redistribute, you'd have a right only to own that one copy, because those are the terms which we set (and if you want to buy under other terms, then I would not sell, and if you wouldn't buy under those terms then we wouldn't have this hypothetical situation, so lets just assume for a moment that you did agree to buy). If I were to sell you the original, (or even just a print) and not give you specific terms as to the condition of the purchase, then I don't have any real legal legs to stand on if I want to get upset when you make copies, and sell them to others, or what have you.