On Wed, Oct 3, 2012 at 4:34 AM, Russell Wood <[email protected]> wrote: > > People seem to be making the whole IP/copyright/piracy thing > a great deal more complicated than it needs to be, arguing that this is > justified, that’s not a crime, the reasons for the other are….all of which > seems > to completely miss the point. It’s worth > returning to some fundamental principles:
Sure...except that there are many reasons for having such discussions that have nothing to do with justifying "piracy," but with considering whether some of the forces that contribute to the piracy that so concerns some in this community aren't at least as nefarious, malignant, and misguided as some of those piratical actions. It's not that easy for many of us to sit in the US and witness the kind of travesties that occur in the world of copyright and IP (and I suspect many on the opposite side of me in the debate feel the same), but it shouldn't be easy at all to sit in our privileged culture and try to explain away that privilege as having nothing to do with the discussion. Intellectual property is a fiction; the rights of ownership are not inalienable or natural rights, but agreed upon conventions. Not everyone feels those conventions make sense, regardless of what your "fundamental principles" might be. The case of origami is of particular interest to all sides of the debate because it falls smack in the middle of a number of interlocking concerns. Which isn't to say I'm in support of piracy, but I understand that the system in which it happens is deeply flawed and contributory to those actions and it isn't a bad thing to allow for discussion of the same. c -- Chris Lott <[email protected]>
