> Ownership is a bundle of rights. > Granted, but a distinction can be made between those rights which would be commonly recognized even in the absence of government and law, and those rights which exist only because they are decreed and enforced by the state. Intellectual monopolies fall into the latter category. Just look how writings and inventions were treated prior to the creation of C&P laws.
>But an author's property includes the income from the property, and copyright violation steals that. > This does not usually extend to prohibiting competition for that income stream by providing identical goods or services. C&P laws are an exception to this rule for pragmatic, not intrinsically moral, reasons. >If I own bonds and I still possess the bonds but you took the interest on the bonds, would that not be theft? > You are the buyer/customer of the bond, and the interest paid by the seller is what you have actually purchased when you paid for the bond. This would be as if I paid in advance for a music CD and received a receipt, with the CD to be delivered later. Of course, the CD has to be delivered to the buyer, just like the interest. The CD seller can't give the CD I purchased to someone else, although he could give the other person an identical CD, although I don't know whether this free distribution of CD's would be legal. (Can a retail merchant sell for any price he chooses, even below his cost? Or is this illegal?) So what does your analogy have to do with intellectual monopoly laws? I think it breaks down. A bond buyer has a contract with the seller, but a musician does not have a pre-existing contract with his potential customers. What he does have is monopoly rights granted by the state, and generally recognized _only_ because they are granted by the state. This is because the state wants to increase the incentive to innovate. >> If GM is not permitted to > have a monopoly on auto manufacturing, thus depriving them of some > opportunities to profit, is this stealing their property? >> >That is a different issue from a patent on something they invented. Why? See my grocery store analogy in my other post of the same date as this one. >> Monopolies, such as copyrights and patents, are granted > solely for reasons of superior social utility--namely, to encourage > creative work which might not otherwise be performed. >> >Some would argue that it is also a matter of moral right. To the creator belongs the creation. > One might also argue that to the copier belongs the copy! Historically, who has argued that copyrights and patents are moral or natural rights? Do you have any information about the historical pedigree of this idea? ~Alypius
