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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pawsplay" data-source="post: 5101535" data-attributes="member: 15538">You're missing the point. Even without the concept of private property, I can steal land. I can walk up to your hut, knock it over, and announce I am taking over. Theft merely requires taking an object to which one is not entitled. Are voting rights property? Is the right to receive emergency medical aid property? Is a baby property? The terminology came about because someone decided to make an analogy between property and what is now called IP.It's a terrible term. Even if infringement were theft, which it is not, the issues are so different that it would be beneficical to emphasize the differences between them. Yes. I do not understand why this is not completely obvious. Imagine if you still had to pay royalties to publish Plato's The Republic because the Athenean League decided to extend copyrights for 3000 years. Imagine if the King James translation of the Bible was still under copyright. Imagine if someone was still collecting patent royalties on the invention of the wheel.The whole point of IP is so we get Mickey Mouse. To get Mickey Mouse, we need Disney, and for Disney, our system currently relies on IP. Mickey should have been in the public domain a long time ago. We are glad we have Mickey, but I don't see how Disney is entitled to millions of dollars forever because they can say, "Well, you know, we invented Mickey, back in the day... well, Walt Disney did, and we have lots of money so we own it now."There used to be huge commerce around child labor, too. There's huge commerce around selling alcohol to minors. Nigerian bankers do a fair amount of commerce, too."People can become billionaires on this!" does not mean it should be protected. I do not regard concentration of wealth, without regard to its use to society, as an absolute good, but rather, an intrinsic inequality to be avoided.Copyrights lasting longer than 25 years is too far. Longer than 50 years is just ridiculous.Disney is pretty much the epitome of what's wrong the with system. Want to watch "Song of the South" in a history class, or a film history class? Too bad! Disney won't distribute it. Want to include segments of the world's first talking cartoon at your technology museum? Too bad! Steamboat Willie was protected from entering the public domain thanks to heavy lobbying, not the least thanks to Sonny Bono.And Disney? Imagine, if you will, that IP had been extended on such original works as Pinnochio, Sleeping Beauty, Snow White, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, The Little Mermaid, and Beauty and the Beast? Does Disney pay royalties to the descents of Hans Christian Anderson, or to Victor Hugo, or the the brothers Grimm? How does society benefit from things entering into the public domain, again? Hmmm....  But at least I can tell you how Disney benefits!It's the worst hypocrisy imaginable for Disney to cry over their works moving into the public domain. They built their empire on creating origional works, based on material in the public domain.None of that equates to doing away with IP law. All that relates to attempts, well-reasoned or not, to make IP law something good instead of something bad.</blockquote>

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