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Comment by breck | Hacker News Reader

> Above a certain level of creativity people do produce novel or exceptional things that are worthy of protection.

Name your very best example that will prove me wrong. It should be so simple. One example, that's all it takes. Take your time, make sure you've got a good one. I'll tell you that not once, not a single time in over 17 years, have I ever seen a single example of this argument hold up under scrutiny.

Oh wait, you already did:

> Because naked men are a shared concept Michelangelo's David is not protect-worthy?

Ah yes, Michelangelo's David. A work free of copyright built under commission! Thank you for again pointing out the futility of the defense of copyright.

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Okay, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone. I’m legitimately trying to understand. Do you think after that book was published it should have no copyright protection? That it should be totally legal for me to print and sell my own copies?

Yes. Our government should not be in the business of regulating the distribution of a sequence of words about imaginary wizards.

JK is a talented and hard working writer, and though I'm not a fan personally of those books I respect that they likely are great pieces of work, but I believe we are getting the scraps of what we could get in the Intellectually Oppressed world compared to an Intellectually free world. I'd rather have a world without cancer, a world with 100x more people able to provide medical care, a world with less pollution, than a world of artificial scarcity where a few who go along with a system of oppression get to be billionaires.

> Our government should not be in the business of regulating the distribution of a sequence of words about imaginary wizards.

So not imaginary wizards then. What should be regulated? Is it nothing? Does your statement become "Our government should not be in the business of regulating the distribution of a sequence of words"?

> Does your statement become "Our government should not be in the business of regulating the distribution of a sequence of words"?

Yes. Your lungs is a tree that needs healthy air. Your brain is a tree that needs healthy ideas. When people are not free to clean the ideawaves, they fill with pollution, and that is where we find ourselves.

By analogy, are you saying government should not regulate and protect air quality?

Sure why not? Do you think JK Rowling needs more money?

Maybe the state could grant protection for 10 years after publishing to give the author a chance to recoup their investment. I don't know why the protection extends to the author's grandchildren.

The argument is whether copyright should exist at all, not if it should be shortened. They are very, very different discussions.

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