Yuckypoo, Brady! Your metaphor's a bummer on every level. First off, what I want to protect by copyright is something I created, not something allotted to me by the guv. Second, what I created is unique, not absolutely like every other allotted plot. Third, the public should only over-graze it! Come by their thousands to partake of its provisions. Fourth, ain't no WoA ever been hurt by being seen by too many people. (Pace the critics who may be inclined to disdain a work solely on the grounds that it's so popular -- if the masses love it, it must be infra-dig.) Grazers may come away with something they didn't have before contemplating the WoA, but the work is not diminished in the least.
Okay, Michael, now display your nimble mind by listing ways in which the metaphor you just made up is a damn good one. > In discussions of individual v. community rights, private property > rights v. public interests, etc., there is a well-known "Problem of > the Commons," used as an example of how certain concomitants of each > position manifest themselves. It goes like this: > > In the village, there arose a dispute about who should take care of > the large pasturage in the middle of the residences. Should the > village control the Commons and allow everyone to pasture their own > stock in the open? Or should it be divided among the villagers who > lived adjacent to it. They tried it first as an open area, owned in > common, i.e., no individual controlled it or any part. Soon, they > discovered that it had been overgrazed, the ground eroded by rains > that washed away the soil that now had not grass to anchor it, etc. > Since no one owned it, no one took care of it nor took care not to > overgraze (because it was the other stock that were overgrazing the > grass, not mine). They decided to divide the Commons into equal sized > lots give them to each landowner. The landowners put up fences or > hedgerows, tended their own small part, and made sure that their own > stock did not overgraze their land (because they were not permitted to > graze anywhere else). The land recovered, the grass grew, the place > looked good again. > > Private copyrights protect creative works from their own form of > defilement in the Commons. They can be protected, their completeness > and integrity better secured, etc., in private ownership rather than > with Jack Sparrow and the Plagiarizers of the Caribbean. (Like that > metahpor? It's kinda clever, I think. I just made it up. Yeah, that's > the ticket.) > > > ************** You're invited to Hollywood's biggest party: Get Oscars updates, red carpet pics and more at Moviefone. (http://movies.aol.com/oscars-academy-awards?ncid=emlcntusmovi00000001)
