(no subject)

From: Megan <mbg_at_TheWorld.com>
Date: Fri Jan 17 02:22:03 2003

>Now that's total BS .... If I copy a program/video/song you still have
>the darned thing, unlike if I walk off with your computers. Somebody

Ah, but why are you taking a copy? Is it perhaps because it has
value to you? That it entertains? If so, then someone had to
go through the process of creation to produce it. Not unlike
building a house. They deserve something to compensate them.

>that makes a copy of something *may* be depriving an author of possibly
>income, but if someone is too cheap or really can't afford to buy it in
>the first place, "lost income" is just BS.

That seems to be the general argument of the recent and current
generations... that just because they can't pay for something
shouldn't preclude them having it... "they are entitled to it".

WRONG! If it has value to you, then pay for it.

This is not to say that I support the RIAA... they have been
excessivly draconian in the measures they have taken. I don't
think they should be able to get a greater amount of fees from
internet stations which carry a song than a FM radio station
would have to pay for the same song. It should be no different.

The laws already exist to protect against copyright infringement,
they don't need to add NEW laws to protect against specific
forms of CI, just enforce the old ones.

>Ideas and physical objects are totally different!!!

How physical is physical... an idea in your head which hasn't
been realized isn't physical, but once you have realized it
through generation of a song, like writing it on paper, you
have a physical product (and the performance is physical).

If you develop a computer program, it exists as magnetic
domains on a disk, or as patterns of electrons in a bit
stream... electrons are just as physical.

>That said I believe if you find a program/video/song useful that
>somebody else created they deserve some sort of compensation, but the
>whole idea of "Intellectual Property" is bullshit.

You're entitled to your belief... but I won't shed a tear if
you steal IP and are caught...

                                        Megan
Received on Fri Jan 17 2003 - 02:22:03 GMT