From: Zero Powers (zero_powers@hotmail.com)
Date: Sat Aug 12 2000 - 19:31:44 MDT
>From: Dan Fabulich <daniel.fabulich@yale.edu>
>Lorrey wrote:
>
> > > It is irrational to try to enforce intellectual property rights on a
> > > world containing encryption.
> >
> > Sorry, that is a morally vacant statement. Its like saying its
> > irrational to enforce one's right to life in a world where killing
> > people is easy.
The word "right" gets bandied about quite a bit, as if it were some sort of
God-given entity. The fact is that the "right" to anything is nothing more
than a man-made fiction. It is *really* perplexing to me when people who
deny the existence of “God” nonetheless talk about human rights as if they
were bestowed by God.
None of us has any right which we don't have the power to enforce. In
essence, "might makes right." For instance, at one point in time it was the
law in the U.S. that the black man “had no rights which the white man was
bound to respect.” Why? Because the black man was utterly without any
power to enforce any rights he might like to take unto himself. Did the
black man like that state of affairs? No. Was it fair, perhaps not. But
that’s the way it was.
And that’s the way it is. If you have no power to prevent me from making
use of content you create, you have no “right” to do so either. You can
piss and moan all day about what rights you think you have, but its no
different from me claiming that I have the right to inherit the moon. Get
used to it and get over it.
-Zero
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