Re:"Piracy" sounds too sexy, say rightsholders
by pbhjpbhj on Friday March 19, 2010 @09:48AM
(#1204097)
I don't think Murdoch is an idiot, far from it. Is he a liar, well I'm with Dr House (a fictional medical consultant) on that one - we all lie in some measure. Here Murdoch is spinning the standard lie equating theft (illegal) with copy infringement (tortuous) in order to enhance peoples guilt.
They are markedly different. Equating them is, as I rather cicuitiously said, intellectually dishonest. Theft denies a person the possession of the property, copyright infringement does not.
Copyright as it has been formulated, to encourage movement of works into the public domain in return for a limited monopoly, is a fantastic legal device. But the likes of Murdoch have perverted this deal - I don't deny content creators a right to profit from their work. However, the major corporations and the governments that have acceded to their demands have denied the free enjoyment of much work which should by now have entered the public domain.
The terms of copyright should have reduced in-line with lower cost reproduction methods but instead it has increased. If there is any theft involved in all this it is theft from the public domain.
Intellectual property is not really a "new class" of property it has been around for centuries and began precipitating into law with Queen Anne's Statute in the early 1700s. It is simply a reflection that a man should earn from the fruit of his labours whether they be physical or ethereal fruit.
They are markedly different. Equating them is, as I rather cicuitiously said, intellectually dishonest. Theft denies a person the possession of the property, copyright infringement does not.
Copyright as it has been formulated, to encourage movement of works into the public domain in return for a limited monopoly, is a fantastic legal device. But the likes of Murdoch have perverted this deal - I don't deny content creators a right to profit from their work. However, the major corporations and the governments that have acceded to their demands have denied the free enjoyment of much work which should by now have entered the public domain.
The terms of copyright should have reduced in-line with lower cost reproduction methods but instead it has increased. If there is any theft involved in all this it is theft from the public domain.
Intellectual property is not really a "new class" of property it has been around for centuries and began precipitating into law with Queen Anne's Statute in the early 1700s. It is simply a reflection that a man should earn from the fruit of his labours whether they be physical or ethereal fruit.