[bradleyjg]

It's awfully convenient that this fundamental right you are positing allows you to use other's work without doing anything at all yourself.

Like so many unrealistic libertarian positions the grandparent demands the fruits of civilization while rejecting the very rules that made them possible.

There exists even to this day places where you can freely live in something very much like a state of nature, where life continues to be nasty, brutish, and short but you have maximal FREEDOM!

[phaemon]

I didn't posit the right to freedom of expression. It's been around a long time. And I don't pirate anything, and do produce work that would qualify for copyright, so how is it convenient for me?

As for your second point: I should support bad laws because otherwise I must be supporting anarchy? Is that seriously your argument? Perhaps you should give it more thought...

[bradleyjg]

The original post in this thread wasn't talking about supporting or not supporting bad laws, he was talking about ignoring them ("much simpler and cleaner to acquire the source"). Ignoring laws because you disagree with them is anarchy.

Also while applications of copyright impact freedom of expression (i.e. The Wind Done Gone, there are plenty that don't. There's nothing expressive about pirating software, and very little expressive in redistributing unmodified or barely modified proprietary software.

[phaemon]

I didn't reply to the original post. I replied to your statement: "If you disagree with it, you are free not to copyright your own works."

Any restriction on sharing information is a restriction on freedom of expression. After all, stopping people from repeating other people's speech is precisely the kind of censorship freedom of speech laws are intended to fight. Censorship is almost never used to suppress the original statement, only its repetition...