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?