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Comment by avz | Hacker News Reader

> the creator should be defined as the entity that paid...

No. The existing definition of "creator" as the person who did the creating is perfectly fine. Various supporters, such as those who provided the creator with lodging, food, salary or other provisions are themselves not the creator.

If you pay an engineer to create a psidget, you haven't created anything. The engineer did. You simply exchanged your money for the engineer's creation. This is similar to how paying a farmer for their crops does not turn you into a farmer.

> not the engineer / tools that were used to create

Do not conflate people and tools.

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Farmers plant crops to sell speculatively in a market. Paying a farmer for the crops makes you a customer. If you own some land and decide to grow carrots and then pay somebody to plant the seeds and harvest the crop, you are absolutely a farmer. (You might do other things, but that doesn't make you any less of a farmer)

If you have an idea for a widget, and think there might be a market for it, describe what it should do and what it should look like, then pay an engineer to work out the details and pay them, you are undeniably the creator of the widget.

If Netflix decides they want a show that appeals to 10 year old kids who are into pokemon and video games, then pays people to go work up some concepts, then evaluates the concepts, and green lights the project, then gathers together a team of experts to make it, then there is no question Netflix created the show.

People can be used as tools. It's ridiculous to suggest anything else.

Yes. Under the current laws, people can be used as tools for pay. Also, without intellectual property, people could be used as tools in the same way. But under the current laws, people can be used as tools to produce something that might prevent them from plying the same skills in the future, if their practices get captured as IP. I do not support laws that tip the balance of power further in favor of extracting value from labor, as this is already the way the power dynamic naturally goes and if we need laws to intervene, it is decidedly in the other direction

The problem with our intellectual property laws are not who owns what. (as you suggest in some places). The problems are with our implementation. (as you have hinted at, but not clearly articulated)

Patents are being granted for trivial things, and the courts are to big and too expensive for individuals to be able to exercise the rights they already have.

All people should have equal power under the law (regardless of wealth), whether its an intellectual property dispute, a malpractice lawsuit, or some development application.

There are several problems with both the implementation and the principles underlying intellectual property laws, some of which pertain to who owns what, many of which pertain to how ideas can be separated out from each other, still yet more pertain to abusable mechanisms for the acquisition of intellectual property that subverts its ostensible purpose, and a whole category of issues that pertain to the special legal powers we seem to be willing to grant private corporations (Such as installing a rootkit on your personal computer) because we prioritize its protection. A few of the big problems do have to do with the general cost of litigation, which is a separate problem but like most things makes this worse

>People can be used as tools. It's ridiculous to suggest anything else.

This is a dehumanizing viewpoint.

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