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Originally Posted by Yakk
Because I refuse to give someone else unlimited ownership of my thoughts.
Once you express an idea, it is in the mind of all who listen to it.
You have the natural right to not express an idea, and retain your monopoly over it. Your choice to express an idea gives you no natural right to control what I do with your expression once you express it.
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See, I can agree to an extent with all of this. I hate the idea of anyone being charged for singing someone else's song.
But a recording is not an idea. It's a physical thing. And making copies of that physical thing in order to freeload off the production costs of it is, well, piracy.
Go ahead and copy the idea, but make your own recording.
'Course, I'm a hypocrite here, but I'm fond of Ghandi's view on that.
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But do not lose track of the fact we are relegating everyone else's ability to express ideas -- the harm caused by intellectual monopolies is real, so such monopolies should be restricted.
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I look at it more as a regulation of everyone else's ability to copy the products of ideas.
Or did you formulate all the necessary computer code for that mp3 in your mind?
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Oh, and yes, the US constitution does restrict government granted intellectual monopolies to limited times, for the explicit purpose of encouraging creativity and supporting creators.
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And actually, I don't view this as necessary for the actual musical ideas (read: not mp3s, ideas) that the music community puts out there. A song being used in a cover band is vastly different from a knockoff copy of a drug that took millions or more to develop.