A Great Idea Lives Forever. Shouldn’t Its Copyright?
By MARK HELPRIN
Published: May 20, 2007
WHAT if, after you had paid the taxes on earnings with which you
built a house, sales taxes on the materials, real estate taxes during
your life, and inheritance taxes at your death, the government would
eventually commandeer it entirely? This does not happen in our
society ... to houses. Or to businesses. Were you to have ushered
through the many gates of taxation a flour mill, travel agency or
newspaper, they would not suffer total confiscation.
Once the state has dipped its enormous beak into the stream of your
wealth and possessions they are allowed to flow from one generation
to the next. Though they may be divided and diminished by inflation,
imperfect investment, a proliferation of descendants and the
government taking its share, they are not simply expropriated.
That is, unless you own a copyright.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/20/opinion/20helprin.html?
_r=1&oref=slogin
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