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Message: <blockquote data-quote="prosfilaes" data-source="post: 6373622" data-attributes="member: 40166">Ultimately it's a definitional game, but when you say that copyright is property, that's part of what I'm arguing against. One essence of property is that it's exclusive; if you have two apples, and I take one, you only have one left. Copyright is not like that; if I make a copy of a book, the owner of the copyright still has everything they started out with. If you only "own" property for a limited time, then you don't really own it; you're leasing it, but when a work goes into the public domain, it doesn't become property of the government or anyone else; the property-like aspects of it just disappear. It strikes me more akin to libel in some ways; you have a limited legal right to prevent other people from printing something. You could make an analogy treating your reputation as a form of property, but it's not usually done.Again, the US Constitution does not treat copyright as property. Property is something just assumed in the Constitution; copyright gets its own article and gets called out as being of limited time and for a specific purpose. And when Congress did get around to passing a copyright law, it was for maps, charts and books for 14 years, and another 14 if the author is still alive. Yes, there's a lot of variety in how property is handled, but a limited duration that varies depending on the lifespan of someone who is not necessarily the owner? That's bizarre and unique when thinking about it as a form of property.</blockquote>

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