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Comment by gnaritas | Hacker News Reader

> If you create software, you are copyright owner of that software, which means I can not take it, sell it and take credit for it.

Ug.. it's pointless to state how things currently work in a meta discussion about whether the current method makes sense.

I'm asking you to justify copyright, not explain it. I repeat, why do you think you should get to control what other people do with information?

> I don't think I get to control what other people do with information, but you should have the right to control what others do with your work.

And I say you shouldn't, so justify your belief. You should be able to control yourself, that's it; not the products of your labor when copied. Information is not property, you don't have less of it if I copy it and you should have no say over me copying it regardless of who produced it.

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As I said copying is only one part of copyright. If you spend a year in production and spending a large amount of money in the process. You should be the owner of the product, or anyone could just make a copy and sell it at a heavy discount with no associated costs of production.

The interesting thing is that the same argument can in fact be made for property. How can you claim to own something at all? It's related to labor, having spent x amount of time working to buy something.

> If you spend a year in production and spending a large amount of money in the process. You should be the owner of the product, or anyone could just make a copy and sell it at a heavy discount with no associated costs of production.

You're still assuming a world where copyright exists. Are you unable to think outside of those bounds? Do you not see that perhaps you wouldn't even attempt to do this in a world without copyright because you'd know up front you can't make money selling it?

> The interesting thing is that the same argument can in fact be made for property.

No it can't. Property is physical, if I steal your car, you no longer have it. If I copy your novel, you don't even know it happened. Physical property and intellectual property aren't at all the same.

> It's related to labor, having spent x amount of time working to buy something.

No, it really isn't.

You can copy my car if you want, if you steal my novel I don't have it anymore. But seriously, why do you think that physical things costs money at all? Is this an inherent property of something being physical, or is the cost related to salaries payed for processing and production? If everyone worked for free, nothing would cost money. Are you unable to think outside of those bounds? I'm not arguing for this mind you, but the decision to protect property or the notion of property as such, is arbitrary and a human convention at the core.

Still not an argument for why intellectual property should be allowed. Physical property is different, you can try and say it isn't all you want, but you're wrong, it is. I can't copy your car, I can copy your novel in milliseconds; these things are radically different. One deserves to be called property, one doesn't.

Sure you can, first you measure the parts then you manufacture identical parts and assemble a car that is a copy of mine. I wouldn't have any issues with this, but you would violate similar laws and the car manufacturer might sue you if you went on producing and selling that car.

Physical property is not different, your argument is: "it is" (in italic). But just to show you that a similar argument can be made that includes physical property I leave this Rousseau quote here.

"The first man who had fenced in a piece of land, said "This is mine," and found people naïve enough to believe him, that man was the true founder of civil society. From how many crimes, wars, and murders, from how many horrors and misfortunes might not any one have saved mankind, by pulling up the stakes, or filling up the ditch, and crying to his fellows: Beware of listening to this impostor; you are undone if you once forget that the fruits of the earth belong to us all, and the earth itself to nobody"

> Sure you can, first you measure the parts then you manufacture identical parts and assemble a car that is a copy of mine.

OK, if you're just going to be ignorant, goodbye.

It's a pretty common cause for law suits actually and is known as reverse-engineering. It touches on exactly what we are talking about here. You seem to believe that the inherent value of something is exclusively associated with the cost of the material, but of course it's not. Let me give you some examples. Dirt doesn't have any value to most people, but if someone creates pottery from it that people deem valuble, then it becomes a commodity that can be sold. The difference between the dirt and the pottery is the labor and the skill of the creator, that is what creates value. Similarly with a book, what creates it's value is not the paper or the ink but the narrative, it's what makes you pick one book over another or even an empty notebook.

You're still being ignorant or you're just really dense, in either case, I have no interest in continuing a conversation with someone who continually almost intentionally misses the point.

I'm providing arguments, all you are able to do at this point is to insult. Pathetic.

You're refusing to acknowledge the difference between intellectual property and physical property, something that everyone, including the law, acknowledges are different. That's not an argument, that's ignorance. As I already said earlier when you pulled this, goodbye.

The idea that it's unfair to take other people's ideas and works and use them as you like without their permission predates the idea of copyright.

That's not an argument.

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