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> Intellectual property is _property_, just as material objects are.
Unfortunately, no. And this is the crux of the problem, in fact.
You cannot say that intellectual property is property, just like a
house, or a boat, or a car. If so, then that "property" is subject to taxes
and the same levies as "real" property is. Would you like to have to pay a
yearly "tax" on your music purchases? After all, it's someone "else's"
intellectual property, right?
Intellectual property most-certainly is not property like physical
property, but that doesn't mean there aren't laws (in the US, at least) that
make an attempt at helping you protect it.
> Redistribution of copyrighted intellectual property with the express
> permission of the rights holder is _theft_, pure and simple.
It's not theft, it's a violation of copyright. Huge difference.
Theft, stealing, piracy, etc. by definition have very different meanings.
You are depriving the author of due-revenue, but you are by no means guilty
of theft. Theft deprives the owner of something. Theft, as with "stealing",
means you have taken something tangible, leaving nothing in it's place. If I
steal your bicycle, there is now the _lack of_ a bicycle, where there used
to be one.
With electronic media such as ebooks and other formats (mp3, et al),
the original is still in place, but there is a digitally-perfect _copy_ in
possession, against the copyright and license of the original. This is not
"theft". You have not "deprived" the creator or owner of his copy, he still
has the original and the ability to make and distribute copies of it for
profit.
The courts look at this very differently than you'd think.
In any case, I'm completely against violating the copyrights of
people who have worked hard to provide you something useful. I'm also
against the whole "Information wants to be free" bandwagon (really only
exists to try to justify electronic piracy and copyright violation, and yes,
I've never yet downloaded a single mp3 or dvd movie from the web, and I
actively support the eradication of the (MP|RI)AA corporations).
I do, however, believe strongly in sharing information which
benefits others, and which benefits the growth and adoption of techology
into new industries. This is not the same thing as "share everything without
cost or attribution".
People who do hard work, and provide you with something useful,
should be recognized or compensated in some way. Simply taking what they've
created without even saying as much as "thanks" is downright rude and
unjust, not to mention a violtion of copyright in some cases.
But now we've diverged way off-topic, and probably should continue
this off-list.
To sum up, adding owner_id to Plucker does not, in any way, restrict
what Plucker can do, nor does it turn Plucker into a DRM-only application.
Anyone could have added this feature, either by us, or commercially, and
used it. The source is available, make the changes you want, or don't. The
choice is up to you.
d.
perldoc -qa.j | perl -lpe '($_)=m("(.*)")'
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iD8DBQE9mXnTkRQERnB1rkoRAsVJAJ9kWgdaSnhu4C+f0j/Z05UQRnP2kgCfSbhM
G9/1WS691oZILletS1kjuXw=
=g8Tl
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