I agree. Laws are *usually* special interest giveaways or prohibitions.
>Copyrights do nothing but reward duplication and mediocrity at
>the expense of true creativity and artistry. Patents do nothing
>but reward pointless novelty at the expense of workmanship and
>quality. Writers and inventors should not be afraid of losing
>their jobs to their abolition--they should cheer for losing their
>jobs, and being freed to use their talents more profitably in
>a thousand other ways that the laws have stifled for too long.
>
Here I have a problem. How exactly doesw my having a copyright or patent
prevent you from developing your own unique copyrightable or patentable
product? These laws have no effect on creativity, except possibly in the
area of discovering ways to make a patented thing faster or better than the
patent owner can..
I will agree that the existing patent laws (which are flaunted by
organizations like NASA who patent many public domain devices and also
software) must be thrown out and rewritten with a free market in mind.
>Your argument, like many others in this subject, is in the form
>of "The current system has X, Y, Z, A, B, and C; and books get
>published, movies are made, etc. Without copyright, you can't
>do Y and B, therefore no books will be made, no songs recorded,
>and authors will beg in the streets." Nonsense. In a new world
>without copyrights, we lose Y and B, but we gain D, E, F, P, Q,
>and R, and the whole industry changes, adapts to the new model.
>Writers will be no less creative, consumers will no less desire
>their services, and more--not less--money will be made, but it
>will be made in very different ways that today's publishers
>just don't have to brains to imagine or the courage to do.
>
Even so, the free market will evolve protections analogous to patents and
trademarks. It is inevitable that rules of some sort will be made to prevent
theft and fraud.
Chuck Kuecker