There is a huge gap between someone pirating a book and one of the richest corporations on the planet pirating seven million books to train their for-profit stuff on.
To be clear, I think copyright should not exist, as I don't think it follows from the basic principles on which our governance is founded. Regardless of my view on the matter, the state will still enforce copyright. Under the written law, this allows people to treat my work as if copyright did not exist (to a reasonable approximation).
Maybe a different, even more permissible license (public domain like) would be more fitting, but I am a practical person and understand that a more common and well understood license is better for this purpose.
If you think copyright shouldn't exist, you're free to ignore any rights afforded you for your work, "the state" is not going to enforce anything unless you bring a case to a court.
I understand the MIT licence as convention, and it makes sense. It's just you're opining on a public forum about copyright being somehow antithetical to "basic principles on which our governance is founded" whilst attaching copyright notices to your work.
Much of common law is specifically about property, upon which a good portion of modern day governance is founded. So your objection to copyright seems somewhat misinformed.
What is it about copyright that you think is a negative in today's society?
> If you think copyright shouldn't exist, you're free to ignore any rights afforded you for your work, "the state" is not going to enforce anything unless you bring a case to a court.
That doesn't give other people who would like to use my work any useful guarantee, though. Without a license, they would be taking a lot of risk, even if they knew my views on copyright.
> Much of common law is specifically about property, upon which a good portion of modern day governance is founded. So your objection to copyright seems somewhat misinformed.
Physical property has exclusive use. Multiple people cannot use 100% of something at the same time. "Intellectual property" has no such trait. Multiple identical copies of the same work can be used by multiple people at the same time.
Ownership defines who has exclusive use of a thing. Copyright actually defies common law by requiring state power to enforce monopolies on certain information, even on property owned by parties with no association to the originator of a work.
> What is it about copyright that you think is a negative in today's society?
Copyright is sold as "promoting the arts" but in net slows innovation and decreases artistic freedom. Especially in its current form with extremely long lifetimes, it primarily enables rent-seeking by publishers at the expense of the public. There are other ways for artists to make money, and many artists already make most of their money by performing live shows, working on commission, selling early access subscriptions, etc.
The difference is in the real consequences of the action. Which exist regardless of the abstract notions that precede it and which exist regardless of whether anyone accepts those notions.
Yes, unequal enforcement of the law is inherently unjust and ripe for abuse. That doesn't mean the law shouldn't be changed, but a legal system that arbitrarily picks and chooses when it enforces the law is corrupt and has a built in method to persecute and target select people and groups. It undermines the very principle of Rule of Law and allows unjust laws to remain on the books ready to be selectively enforced.