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A comment on In 'Sherlock Holmes' Rights Dispute, Conan Doyle Estate Slammed Again. Parent comment

Re:In 'Sherlock Holmes' Rights Dispute, Conan Doyle Estate S... by freehunter on Wednesday August 06, 2014 @09:27AM (#8142310)
Well, much in the way that the land we have today exists due to how it was shaped by history (1000 years ago, there probably wasn't a paved road and electric wires run to the plot of land you have now), no creative work exists in a bubble. If you're writing a story, you're building on generations of story tellers that came before you. As powerful and social creatures, there is nothing we can do that is not either directly or indirectly related to tons of other people's work. Nothing exists solely by virtue of your creativity, intellect, and effort.
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Re:In 'Sherlock Holmes' Rights Dispute, Conan Doyle Estate S... by rayiner on Wednesday August 06, 2014 @09:29AM (#8142315)
If anything that argument supports making copyright stronger than other property rights. Even though my story, movie, or computer program builds on the past, it's still much more the result of my own effort than any land I own. I did very little of the work involved in stealing my back yard from Indians, clearing it, leveling it, running electricity, sewer, and water to it, etc.
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Re:In 'Sherlock Holmes' Rights Dispute, Conan Doyle Estate S... by lmm on Wednesday August 06, 2014 @11:53AM (#8143108)
> I did very little of the work involved in stealing my back yard from Indians, clearing it, leveling it, running electricity, sewer, and water to it, etc.

But you paid people for that, or paid other people who paid people for that, or so on. You don't pay the people who created the culture you participate in (I mean, you might buy a few specific works - but the common cultural language, standard symbolisms, the very notion of the structure of a novel...). How could you fairly pay for those? And if you were charged for every iota of culture you osmosed, how could that possibly be done justly, without making you suddenly liable for charges every time you had a casual conversation, or even walked out your door and looked around?

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