On 12/4/06, Lan Barnes <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
When the printing press was invented, which coincidentally made it possible for authors of original and entertaining works to profit from their creations, it also made it possible for them to get ripped off.
And *I* question whether it was a "ripping off" or not.
A man has to have pretty big cajones to say he knows better how things should be run than the remarkable men who wrote the Constitution.
They were very wise people, for sure. Their achievment was astounding, to say the least. But with the benefit of two centuries of hindsight, I think I can say that some things they did were wrong.
So without copyright, who is to profit from the creative effort and financial sacrifice of the creator?
It's a leading question. Why must someone profit? Why must our first question be "who profits?"
But if someone lives on cat food in a freezing garret for years writing plays, novels, or screen plays, and then hits it big, I think that person has a perfect right to collect the just profits of his work
And I think that a person's right has nothing to do with the effort involved in the act of creation. Effort and return are questions of economics, not rights.
Saying that copyright should be abolished because it's been abused recently in our pay-for-play form of government strikes me as a childish snit.
I agree. And I think you're responding here to someone else, or to some general vibe you've gotten, and not to the email you're actually replying to.
But what you're really doing is having a tantrum over a symptom of a problem and ignoring the root cause
Hear hear! Yes, Lan! -todd -- [email protected] http://www.kernel-panic.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/kplug-list
