I hope not to start a war or have this topic locked. However I believe it is a HUGE issue today with the popularity of the interent and relatively cheap electronic gizmos, and could either now or in the future affect most if not all of us here.
I have very strong opinions on this subject and have broken them down into different parts. I do believe that one has the right of say-so to a creation of theirs. However, how far does this say so go? My thoughts are that one can not own a concept or idea or method. These belong to the world. If someone was to write “see spot run”, they could then copyright that. But now days they could possible make a court battle as that the concept of ‘spot running’ is theirs as well.
I for one, like the business model of the linux company RedHat, their creation is free, however you must pay for the implementation. Each market has it’s own arguments. Take the music industry for example, they don’t like people downloading songs, however this argument could take many forms. One would be to look at the sales data and see if it is even having a negative affect to begin with. I believe that this helps them in ways of free advertising and expanding a market of followers that would otherwise not exsist. As for them complaining about people copying CDs, if someone breaks in your house, do you A: complain that people shouldn’t break in your house…or B: spend more on a security system or a gun. These companies have money and can afford innovation, so I think they should use it. Like they are complaining now about DVD copiers (and even the VCR a little while back), I believe this only inhibits society, by putting resrictions on conduct, instead of furthering their own technology and security.
Security companies will never be able to beat the hackers and crackers, I mean, they just beat the protection with a magic marker…come on!!! There is two sides to everything, of course in this world the side with the most money and lawyers is gonna win, or at least come closest. But that dosn’t change the fact that there will always be two sides, and one will end up being drivin by greed. How I look at intellectual property rights situations is, does it promote knowledge, intution, and general expansion of thought ? does it tangibly affect or harm the other party ? what is the balance and the predictable outcome of this course of action ?
People are entitled to their share of what they do, but where does it cross the line? then who decides where the line is? Sure there is right and wrong. It is wrong to steal, but where is the line drawn on intangible property? It would be easy to say it is wrong if someone steals a CD, but what about downloading it ? If it is in magnetic form, does it exsist, or is it just interpreted as exsisting? If that is the case, then what about thought. If you think about killing someone, that action exsists in your head as chemical and eletrical impulses, yet is it killing ?
I believe that the tangibility of intangible property would emerge once the actions of the ‘pirater’ caused noticable change or damage to the other party situation, or the ‘pirater’ benefitted ‘tangibly’ from the aquisition without having done anything for it. But like they say, if a tree falls, and no one hears it, did it make a sound?