There's some history that copyright came from religions, to control access to scripture and especially scripture that diverged church's official versions. Government and religion were not so partitioned at the time of the first copyright laws, and preaching heresy or blasphemy have had lethal consequences since as long as history has existed. Shall we count those, even when they were merely spoken and not published by the speakers?
Capitalism is a good tool, nothing more. (Score:5, Insightful)
The end result of unfettered capitalism is wealthy organisations eating everything and everyone else.
The power of wealth must be reigned in.
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Weird that you blame "capitalism" for an unnatural right to imaginary property invented by the government.
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Weird that you blame "capitalism" for an unnatural right to imaginary property invented by the government.
It wasn't invented by the government, it is just enforced by it (after sufficient lobbying efforts)
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It wasn't invented by the government, it is just enforced by it
Are you seriously claiming that, in the absence of government, authors would have no problem being compensated for their work?
Copyrights, patents, and trademarks exist only because governments say that they do.
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Are you seriously claiming that, in the absence of government, authors would have no problem being compensated for their work?
No he said the opposite: that governments enforce copyright so that authors get paid.
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Which is why their statement incoherent, because government constructs can't be invented in the absence of government.
And whether we're talking about letters patents or the US constitution, all of those ideas came from within governments.
Re:Capitalism is a good tool, nothing more. (Score:3)
There's some history that copyright came from religions, to control access to scripture and especially scripture that diverged church's official versions. Government and religion were not so partitioned at the time of the first copyright laws, and preaching heresy or blasphemy have had lethal consequences since as long as history has existed. Shall we count those, even when they were merely spoken and not published by the speakers?