On 9/8/00 3:01 PM, Lizard ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) wrote
>
>Ah, but the issue isn't what you paid for it -- it's the source.
>
>If I pick an apple from a tree in an unclaimed forest, I am taking
>nothing from anyone, and incur no ethical debt. On the other hand, if
>someone in an act of generosit gives me an apple he owns, I feel there
>is an ethical obligation involved -- either to the giver, or, in a
>spirit of giving, to some other person down the line.
>
><deletia>
Rather funny that your "deletia" included an explanation of how the
"public domain" is something from everyone, therefore owed back to
everyone. Culture is a societal debt and obligation, if you believe that
using something necessarily creates an obligation (I don't).
If Farmer Brown lets me pick his apples, and I grow a tree from the
seeds, I don't have to give away my apples. It's nice if I do, but not
an obligation.
>It is unattractive and unethical, but not illegal.
And why is it unethical to do so with somethingly freely given from
someone, but not unethical to do so with something freely given by
society?
Either taking something freely offered creates an obligation, or it does
not. You can not have it both ways.
I would note that Ryan Dancey's views on the issue _are_ consistent, he
just happens to have an opposite opinion from mine (that is an an
obligation, rather than a matter of being nice).
>But it is not a boon granted by anyone. It's the beginning of property
>rights.
"Public Domain" use is in fact a boon granted by the government, not an
implied right.
>That is, ownership is granted by taking unowned material and adding
>value to it. An empty field, an unmined mountain, or an idea passed into
>the public domain is material in a state of nature. When you add value
>to it, you gain rightful ownership of it -- and may then do with it as
>you please, subject to the usual blend of law and ethics.
Public domain material includes a TREMENDOUS body of work created in this
lifetime. It's one of the places you can put something you create into
-- and government material is one of the areas that happens to fall into
it.
So discard this illusion that public domain material is by anonymous,
long-dead people. It's a living, breathing body, being added to by
society each and every day. And as a property owned by everyone, it
would indeed create an obligation when you draw upon in IF DRAWING FROM
AN INDIVIDUAL DOES AS WELL.
And while you're at it, discard yourself of the notion that no one owns
that mountain in the state of nature -- property rights are a good deal
more complicated than that. The "yours if you settle it" doctrine had to
be granted by the government explicity, it was not that way wihout act of
congress.
>I have no more obligation to share with you my take on 'Snow White' than
>I do to share the takings from a mine I dug myself. However, if I choose
>to LET you use my property, I feel you have aquired an ethical, though
>not legal, obligation to pass this along.
And I have no obligation to share my material I created from WotC's
online policy. I did the work myself, I changed it myself, I wrote the
web page material myself. The policy says I can't sell it, it doesn't
say I can't keep it for myself and not let you copy it.
If there's an ethical obligation for using individual or corporate
property, there's just as much of one for using community or collective
property. It's that simple. It's a song and dance to claim they are
different.
>Not really, since you used this argument above when you invoked the
>cultural gestalt. One cannot 'owe' anything to nonexistent entities,
>such as 'society', 'the people', 'humankind', etc. Nor can one BE OWED
>something by same.
Society is nonexistant? Interesting. The founding fathers would love to
take you up on the idea that no one can "owe a debt" to the people.
--
Russ Taylor (http://www.cmc.net/~rtaylor/)
CMC Tech Support Manager
"No more fun of any kind!" -- Dean Wormer
-------------
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