It’s worth remembering that in Jefferson’s draft of the Declaration of Independence, he wrote “life, liberty and the pursuit of property,” which was changed by others later to “pursuit of happiness.” As the link at the end of the post shows, Jefferson didn’t go quietly, but he lost the argument nonetheless: intellectual property and physical property were considered different by the founders.

It’s interesting, however, to note where Jefferson was coming from, that is, how he was, in fact, copping the intellectual property of John Locke. Cribbing from here: http://www.philosophypages.com/hy/4n.htm

From the outset, Locke openly declared the remarkable theme of his political theory: in order to preserve the public good, the central function of government must be the protection of private property. (2nd Treatise §3) Consider how human social life begins, in a hypothetical state of nature: Each individual is perfectly equal with every other, and all have the absolute liberty to act as they will, without interference from any other. (2nd Treatise §4)

…Everything changes with the gradual introduction of private property. Originally, Locke supposed, the earth and everything on it belongs to all of us in common; among perfectly equal inhabitants, all have the same right to make use of whatever they find and can use. The only exception to this rule is that each of us has an exclusive right to her/his own body and its actions. But applying these actions to natural objects by mixing our labor with them, Locke argued, provides a clear means for appropriating them as an extension of our own personal property. (2nd Treatise §27) Since our bodies and their movements are our own, whenever we use our own effort to improve the natural world—the resulting products belong to us as well.

The same principle of appropriation by the investment of labor can be extended to control over the surface of the earth as well, on Locke’s view. Individuals who pour themselves into the land—improving its productivity by spending their own time and effort on its cultivation—acquire a property interest in the result. (2nd Treatise §32) The plowed field is worth more than the virgin prairie precisely because I have invested my labor in plowing it; so even if the prairie was held in common by all, the plowed field is mine. This personal appropriation of natural resources can continue indefinitely, Locke held, so long as there is “enough, and as good” left for others with the gumption to do the same. (2nd Treatise §33)

Within reasonable limits, then, individuals are free to pursue their own “life, health, liberty, and possessions.” Of course the story gets more complicated with the introduction of a monetary system that makes it possible to store up value in excess of what the individual can responsibly enjoy. (2nd Treatise §37) The fundamental principle still applies: labor is the ultimate source of all economic value. (2nd Treatise §42) But the creation of a monetary system requires an agreement among distinct individuals on the artificial “value” frozen in what is, in itself, nothing more than a bit of “colored metal.” This need for agreement, in turn, gives rise to the social order.

The thing I’ve started to notice in all the FUD when comparing copyright on ideas to real property is that (as expected) they only compare the points that help them and not all of the points. The biggest hole from my point of view is property taxes.

In Connecticut, we pay approximately 2% of the current market value on our houses each and every year. If Mr. Helprin wants to compare a book idea to a house and receive royalties forever, he also should be required to pay property taxes on those items as well… forever.

Additionally, perhaps he should have to make sure his ideas don’t discrimanate according to age, sex, race, etc. according to the Fair Housing Act. No more books geared to a target audience as that would be perceived as discriminatory.

If he wants to follow this analogy, he needs to follow it all the way through to the end, not just stop where he wants. Of course, since it appears as if he’s just being a mouthpiece for the corporate copyright machines, we know that’ll never happen.

Pardon me, but who is Mark Halprin?

I’m not entirely illiterate… For instance, I’ve read Huckleberry Finn, The Adventure’s of Tom Sawyer, A Connecticut Yankee In King Arthur’s Court, Life On The Mississippi, and other books. Why, I’ve even read “The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calveras County.”

But who is Mark Helpren?

I know “The Grey Lady”. That’s the rag what brung us George’s Excellent Adventure In Iraq.

But who is Mark Hilpron compared to even Sonny Bono’s widow—the Congresswoman whasshername?

But what

I know this continues the incorrect equality of non-scarce property and scarce property, but it should be noted that our society doesn’t allow completely inheritance either.

That’s the point of the inheritance tax, after all, to prevent people from hoarding things based strictly on who they were born to.

So, if the current limit is 90 years for copyright, and the person wrote it near death, then that’s 1-3 generations… at 50% tax per generation, leaving the heirs with ~12% of the copyright at 90 years.

Eh, but things don’t work that way anyways.

They are not advocating the abolishment of copyright, they are saying that permanent copyright is a bad thing.

Do you realize that nothing has truely entered the public domain since about 1920. Many corporations who have these copyrights are not using them in any form, but refuse to release them becasue the released works could be brought back by someone else then and would then compete with their existing newer works. I think our existing copyright laws are way to long.

Lets look at it a diffrent way, should patents be made permanent? Should a drug company be allowed to to charge a high price for a drug for the next 150 years becasue they discovered it? The basis is to give the holder time to recover their invesment in the creation of the work, with some reasonable profit, not to grant someone an eternal monopoly.

There, copyright for eterenity, the letter “e”. As a matter of fact, I’m going for the whole alphabet and the numbers 0-9. ;-P Think of the royalties! buahhhahahahaha!

That this is welfare is something I have had to point out to people who cannot understand why copyright should be limited. Very limited in fact. I see children of artists whining that they should be able to profit from their dead parents’ work. I say get a job you lazy slobs. In no other area of endeavour do people expect to be paid over and over for the same work. My clients would throw me out the door if I demanded they pay me in perpetuity for the same work. Those in the entertainment industry have developed a sense of entitlement and laziness.

I saw your article page. very nice about copyright rules. its quietly good for me. all the points are very nice informative.its a well secure system. my heart full thanks for you……
————-
Muthu

MLS

Shakespeare’s plays were “works for hire,” transferred to the Globe Players (The Lord Chamberlain’s Men, Lord Hunsdon’s Men, The King’s Men) before being put into production. The company owned the plays, and arranged for their printing at its own convenience, not that of the author. This was the customary arrangement. The actors were not going to go to the trouble of producing a play they didn’t own. There were only three to eight theaters in London in Shakespeare’s time, and rather more authors, so one can imagine how that turned out. In due course, the plays were sold to a printer, a member of the Stationer’s Company. The Stationer’s Company had a legal monopoly of printing, and of course this meant that the chosen printers within it could drive a hard bargain as an ordinary matter of course. They didn’t do royalties. The Globe Players got a fixed sum of money for the plays, again, as was the normal custom. Finally, the Globe Players adopted the eminently practical custom of buying out retiring partners. Shakespeare got everything he was entitled to, in the form of money, which he used to buy real estate.

Large corporate entities always like to preserve their freedom of action by owning everything outright, and they use their economic leverage to do so at a reasonable price, eg. by enforcing “work for hire” employment. Large items of capital, such as printing presses and stages tended to count for more than the author’s “thought-stuff.” It was inevitable that perpetual copyright eventually worked out to a big corporation owning everything. That is just as true of Microsoft and of the movie studios as it was of the Globe Players and the Stationer’s Company.

it’s more similar to someone building an identical building and not paying the owner of the first building. That brings it more in line with the other side of the comparison but unfortunately leaves the identical question on both sides

there is a reason for set terms that can extend beyond the individual’s lifetime. say a person makes a movie himself. he uses high quality expensive equipment, hires many people and ends up borrowing large amounts of money. the movie is highly anticipated and will be very successful on release. he dies. now anyone can release the movie without paying him or his family a dime. his family is in extreme debt and lose their home, college funds, etc.

i see how your argument could be used for a guaranteed minimum regardless of authors death but not how it means there has to be time after the authors death in all situations. say it was 15 years regardless of authors death. that would meet your requirements but a lot of copyrights would expire before death of the holder

property is a concept, not any particular thing. regardless of what rights the creator had to it the chair would continue to exist once created barring destruction of course. property is a concept that someone has specific rights to a thing for some reason. the reason why this concept was created was that not everyone could use the chair. so they decided the most orderly way to do it was to say that a specific person had the right to use the chair. then you ran into the problem that someone could create more chairs than they could use, so we created the idea of the right we created earlier being able to be transferred. this created the barter system and allowed human civilization to develop. if you notice both components of this concept revolved around how to settle how to divide the use of the chair since not everyone could use it at the same time. nothing inherent in that idea means that someone else couldn’t create their own chair and use it. patents and copyright are meant to encourage people to try to create new things because new things being created benefits society. we are all better off because someone created the chair in the past. now imagine the person who created the chair had an infinite patent on the chair. he doesn’t want to work hard so he only produces 1 or 2 chairs a year and then charges extremely high amounts because everyone wants a chair and no one else is allowed to make one. then when he dies his son does the same thing and so on for thousands of years. very few people in the world would have chairs and as a whole society would be worse off because people having chairs is generally a good thing overall. compare that with the chair the man created being passed down in the family for generations. his family still has the chair but plenty of other people now make chairs and everyone in the world owns chairs. this situation is better for the world than the previous. property is a concept created by society to allocate the chair. the chair is not property