[secretwhistle]

I've always thought this is one of the more brilliant quotes concerning intellectual property rights/copyright, in response to those who feel that they "deserve" or are somehow entitled to the protection of IP rights:

"Wise assessment of copyright policy should have nothing to do with how you feel about the person or entity who holds the right at any particular time, because copyright policy is not about identifying wonderful and meritorious people and ensuring—certainly not as an end in itself, anyway—that their income is proportioned to their intrinsic moral desert—or lack thereof. We are all the massive beneficiaries of millennia of accumulated human scientific knowledge and cultural output, and not one of us did anything do deserve a jot of it. We’re all just extremely lucky not to have been born cavemen. The greatest creative genius alive would be hard pressed to create a smiley faced smeared in dung on a tree trunk without that huge and completely undeserved inheritance.

So banish the word “deserve” from your mind when you think about copyright. Nobody “deserves” a goddamn thing. (I say this, for what it’s worth, as someone who makes his living entirely through the production of “intellectual property.”) The only—the only—relevant question is whether a marginal restriction on the general ability to use information incentivizes enough additional information production over the long run to justify denying that marginal use to every other human being on the planet, whether for simple consumption or further creation."

http://www.juliansanchez.com/2011/03/30/4457/

[throwaway64]

This point cannot be stressed enough, ideas owe everything to that which comes before it, acting like somebody brilliantly creates in a bubble without outside inspiration and help, therefore deserves to take away all the reward is toxic.

Its the tragedy of the commons at an idea level really.

[rue]

I think it'd be useful to separate the fundamental idea of copyright, and what it means in reality: I certainly believe that the author of an idea ought to be recognized for it (be it that there're surely other people involved in some manner); the question is only what it entitles one to.

In a non-capitalist society, recognition would be enough since needs are cared for otherwise, but here and now it's still necessary to allow the authors to profit from their ideas.

Still, given that most other people have to work continuously rather than benefit from past work for years to come, it might make sense to limit actual copyright of a work intended for sale to, say, 5 years (private works like personal photographs would retain theirs). Subsequent to this, the author's right to be recognized would naturally still remain, but the work itself would enter public domain.