• FaceDeer
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    21 year ago

    Because it’s no different from what people have been doing since time immemorial - learning concepts and styles from things that they can see in public. To place restrictions on this is going to require a whole new category of intellectual property and it leads in very dubious directions.

    “Intellectual property” is inherently a restriction of peoples’ rights, and you need to have a very good reason to apply any such restriction that balances those restrictions with public benefits that derive from it. Copyright, for example, promotes the progress of science and the useful arts by making it “safe” to publish stuff rather than keeping it squirrelled away. Trademarks benefit people by making the providence of goods clear. Patents ensure that inventions aren’t lost.

    Rights are not restricted by default, they are unrestricted by default. When something new comes along it’s up to the people who want to restrict it to make their case. The default state of the world should be freedom, not prohibition and control.

    Trying to restrict the right to learn is an extremely dark place to be going. I strongly oppose that.

      • FaceDeer
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        11 year ago

        No problem. People often assume the worst about their opponents in debates (I succumb to that too, even though I try to avoid it), thank you for asking for an explanation of my position.