[krispyfi]

You have it precisely backwards. Culture belonging to the people is the default, natural state, and copyright is an unnatural legal fiction that should only be tolerated insofar at it produces a net positive in terms of promotion of the arts and sciences. Unfortunately, the whole intellectual property concept has been co-opted by big business for rent-seeking. I don't think the Konami execs are at a board meeting saying, "we can't fund another Metal Gear sequel because it will just become public domain in 20 years."

[charcircuit]

Culture may belong to people, but intellectual property like source code doesn't. It's protected by NDAs for the express fact that it doesn't become part of what the people have. Copies of the game have been released for people to play to directly experience the game.

>unnatural legal fiction

It is extremely natural for someone to have ownership over what one has created. If you make a beautifully designed pendant someone can't just steal it from you and claim that they are "archiving it" and want to experience culture.

[bit-anarchist]

> Culture may belong to people, but intellectual property like source code doesn't.

> It is extremely natural for someone to have ownership over what one has created.

Intelectual property is an oxymoron, and no oxymoron can be natural. Only scarce things can be property. Making non-scarce things (e.g. binary code) act as property is conflict-seeking behavior that often results in the violation of real ownership of others.

> It's protected by NDAs for the express fact that it doesn't become part of what the people have.

NDA do not protect IPs. While they restrict the flow of information, they are still contracts, and bounded by their limits as such.

> If you make a beautifully designed pendant someone can't just steal it from you and claim that they are "archiving it" and want to experience culture.

Yes, someone can "steal" (copy) my beatiful design on the basis that they own their own pendant materials. To prevent that is to violate their private property rights and, in some cases, their right to live.

[charcircuit]

>Only scarce things can be property.

Abundant things can be property too. Property is about ownership. Intellectual property is a subcategory of property. It isn't an oxymoron.

>NDA do not protect IPs.

But they do indicate intent.

>someone can "steal" (copy) my beatiful design

I was talking about the physical object. They may think it is of such importance that it should live in a museum instead of as your private property. Other people believe that a museum could preserve it better and they think they know how best the pendant should be used than its actual owner.

[bit-anarchist]

> Abundant things can be property too. Property is about ownership.

The legally and ethically relevant concept of ownership is about dealing with mutual exclusivity of material resources and avoiding its conflicts. Abudant things, in this context, do not have mutual exclusivity and, as such, are not ownable in a natural sense.

> But they do indicate intent.

And?

> I was talking about the physical object.

Sure, but we are talking about IPs, not real property, so I fail to see how this example is relevant.