On Fri, Mar 11, 2005 at 12:34:55PM -0600, Michael Chaney wrote: > It is created by law, yes, but I think we all agree that if I write a > book, paint a picture, write a program, whatever, I should have the > exclusive right to make money from that creation in whatever way I see > fit.
That depends. If giving you that exclusive right has a better effect on society than not giving you that exclusive right, then yes. If abridging society's liberty in order to give you that right is more detrimental to it, then you should not have that right. There is no real ownership of ideas: that exists only insofar as governments allow it to exist. It should be maintained while it is useful to the society that the government serves, and discarded once it has outlived its usefulness. For digital media it is beginning to look like the increasingly draconian measures required in order to maintain this kind of propertarian control over creations is harming, rather than helping, society... http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html -- Debugging is twice as hard as writing code in the first place. Therefore, if you write the code as cleverly as possible, you are, by definition, not smart enough to debug it. http://stormwyrm.blogspot.com/ -- Philippine Linux Users' Group (PLUG) Mailing List [email protected] (#PLUG @ irc.free.net.ph) Official Website: http://plug.linux.org.ph Searchable Archives: http://marc.free.net.ph . To leave, go to http://lists.q-linux.com/mailman/listinfo/plug . Are you a Linux newbie? To join the newbie list, go to http://lists.q-linux.com/mailman/listinfo/ph-linux-newbie
