Re: Copyrights and patents
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Regardless of whether or not ideas can be considered scarce. This is still simple contract law. In any market system you would like to operate in other than pure chaos contracts should and will exist. Your not advocating a world without contracts are you? And when you purchase music or art you are entering a defacto contract. I provide you with my IP (music) for a price. As the seller I define the limits of that contract and you can either accept or refuse it. If I want to sell a record for $500 or throw them from the back of speeding truck in bundles of 1000 that's my business. If you copy and distribute that music then you are violating our contract and harming me.
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This is why some in this thread have already acknowledged that copyright can be voluntary and workable, but patents cannot. You can only copy Shakespeare if you buy it first, and he can refuse to sell it to you unless you agree not to copy it. That's fine and dandy. But you can copy a light bulb if you just see one, or hear about it, and figure out how it works. Also you may come up with it on your own independently, unaware that there is a patent filed for it somewhere. In these cases the lightbulb inventor does not have any claim against you imo. Sure he could be like Shakespeare and make his customers agree to his copyright, but this is more workable for records, movies, etc. than it is for drugs and technology.
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03-08-2007, 03:02 PM
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