Some memories were preserved in the myth of Theseus and the Minotaur. To the primitive Greeks of the time, the palace of Knossos must have seemed like a maze. The Minoans also demanded tariffs on all shipping in the Mediterranean, and as we know, the ancient Greeks loved to dramatize trade disputes, thus the legend of having to send virgins to slake the hunger of the Minotaur.
I used to live on Crete, Greece, and was amazed at the sophistication of ancient Minoan culture. By 2,000 BC, the Minoans had huge, multi-level palaces with running water and sewers. The Minoan civilization was wiped out when Santorini erupted. To the proto-Greeks of 2,000 BC, Minoan technology must have seemed almost magical.
I've read a theory that Plato's description of Atlantis is based on memories of the Minoans. The description fits, except for the location (Crete is in the Mediterranean, while Plato thought Atlantis was in the Atlantic.) Plato knew of Crete and the Minoans, though, but perhaps the stories were unclear or ambiguous.
Ah, the 'go slit your wrists fucktard' troll. Classy. Here's a tip: I never post AC. And there is a poster here who LOVES the phrase 'go slit your wrists fucktard.' So all we need to do to find out who this REALLY is is search on that phrase. I've never used it, but SOMEONE uses it quite frequently.
Nice try, dimwit. I thought you'd at least be entertaining, but no. You are the lamest cyber-stalker I've ever met. When are you going to downmod me into oblivion? I'm shaking in my boots, LOL.
Buddy, I'm a anarcho-syndicalist. I know far more about libertarianism than you do. I dislike libertarians because they give anarchism a bad name. I give libertarians more grief than anyone else because they should know better, not because they are really as bad as I make them out to be. Libertarians refuse to look at the likely but unintended consequences of their plans. Libertarians have a very rigid definition of freedom, based on the ludicrous concept of natural rights, rather than contract. 'Natural rights' as a concept is mere appeal to authority, and a dodge around the simple fact that rights derive from society, not from individuals. The concept of 'rights' is meaningless to a lone castaway.
If you think you are using logic, I suggest you go back and read your own posts, and try to seperate the 'logic' as you call it, from the attacks and emotional blather. Maybe you could try to explain what parts of your previous posts contain logic, because I'm not seeing it. This post, on the other hand, ups my esteem of you at least a little bit.
Doesn't it suck when you throw out unsupported allegations like "In the US & Canada for search (perhaps Europe too?), yes it is close. [to being a monopoly]" when the post a little above yours proves, with references, that you are wrong? Google has 23.7% online market share. In what way is 23.7% close to a monopoly?
And how were they to confiscate her phone when it was hidden in her ass? What staff member is going to frisk a 14 year old in today's litigious society?
You have a particularly rigid world view, don't you? I am not whining about others having more than me. I have more than enough, because I don't care about material things. I care about my close personal relationships, helping people, art, science, and having fun.
I honestly questioned whether I was just fooling myself at one point and got into the corporate game. I made a lot of money but I hated it. So I don't do that now.
Your ignorance and dogmatism are incredibly amusing. All of Europe mixes socialism and the free market successfully. You don't even really understand what socialism or the free market actually mean.
Libertarians hate freedom because they think they are better than everyone else and should have a natural right to oppress others through financial coercion. From your tone, it is obvious you'd love to be a kind of feudal lord, bossing around your subjects. Most libertarians are just like you, frustrated that 'the system' doesn't recognize your greatness, desperate for a system that will put you in your 'proper' place. Unfortunately, your system will only let the real sociopaths dominate you. You should be thankful that those of us with half a brain won't let you put your moronic ideas into practice, because you would not be the slave-master, you'd be the slave.
Cool as a cucumber? Really? Do you read your own posts? The fact that you can not even acknowledge your own anger, when it is obvious to anyone reading your froth-filled posts, just shows how immature you really are. That's why I like pissing you off. Maybe you'll learn something. Glad to see you're still obsessing over me though, it makes me feel pretty good!
First, who's living off of others? Second, Micro and macro economics have nothing to do with whether a business is evil or not. Which I never said they are. I also never said I want government to make all my decisions for me. Finally, I may dislike both conservatives and libertarians, but I know more about the differences than you do.
In closing, let me just say thank you. Pissing off small minded idiots is one of my true pleasures in life. Your level of powerless, frothing rage is like a fine wine or a gourmet meal to me. Please, by all means, keep raging. You're obviously so mad you can't even think straight, you're obsessing over me and coming back to discussions days later. It's astounding, but gratifying.
No, because it's a euphemism for "let's find a way to take this previously free thing and charge people for it." It is a deceptive phrase, spoken by pointy haired bosses and marketroids with black little hearts and the morals of rabid weasels.
It's not that profit is evil, and money itself is not the root of all evil. The desire for money is the root of all evil, and this phrase is used by people who get a stiffy thinking of all the ways they can screw you out of yours. They fall asleep dreaming of ways they could monetize breathing. "Hmmm, zzzzz, poison the atmosphere... znurk, hmph, sell oxygen.... yeah... zzzzzzz"
I know, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to conflate relatively sane beliefs like 'the moon landing was a hoax,' 'God buried dinosaur bones to confuse us' or 'the earth is flat' with completely insane beliefs like 'an unregulated market is the best for everyone.'
Nice strawman. Why don't you open a book once in a while and actually learn about the ideas you're trying to discredit rather than trolling on slashdot?
Libertarian ideas are toxic to well organized minds. Nobody sane wants to damage their brains that badly. Also, as libertarian ideas do not have any credit to begin with, there's nothing to discredit. But a lot to make fun of, kind of like making fun of people who believe other incredibly dumb things, like creationism, the moon landing was a hoax, or the earth is flat.
Yeah, I wrote that AFTER Marble68 said my post was 'interesting as a trainwreck.'
As for free markets, we are not suited to them. Not because we try to subvert them, but because we simply are not rational. You seem to have an outdated view of human nature, especially considering all of the fascinating recent research economists have been doing. As someone majoring in the field, I would think you'd be more up to date. The economic games research is fascinating, and proves that people are NOT naturally selfish. Most people are far more motivated by notions of fairness and reciprocity than self interest. Unfortunately, sociopaths do exist. And the ranks of the rich and powerful hold far more sociopaths than the general population. Our free market system is designed to reward and encourage sociopaths, not normal, unselfish people.
I am not depriving someone of their property by copying it. If you argue that I am depriving them of potential income, then you need to differentiate that lost income from other, similar situations. For instance, instead of downloading an illicit copy of a CD, say I purchase a different CD. Or perhaps I spend my money on a movie. Am I not depriving them of potential income? What if I have a perfect memory of their songs, and can essentially listen to them any time I like in my own head. Or perhaps I'm a musician myself, and can make my own music. Again, how are those different cases of denying them income from copying their music?
It is a gross simplification of things to conflate copyright infringement with theft. It ignores the real issues and attempts to stifle honest dialogue. The 'copyright infringement is theft' argument is what is known as a thought terminating cliche. Like 'because I said so,' 'freedom isn't free,' or 'that's just a thought terminating cliche.' But in this case, it's true.
The thing is, I haven't broken any copyright laws in decades, except for a few times friends have given me illicit copies of CDs they thought I would like. I haven't downloaded music since the mid nineties. I'm comfortable now and can afford to support artists I enjoy, so I do. I think that's true of most people. But I don't think copyrights and patents are property, and I don't think that 'duplication not sanctioned by a government' is the same thing as theft.
Without a government willing to enforce its laws through violence, you have absolutely no right to put something out into the world we all share and tell people that only you can profit from the concept of it. How would that even work, would you go around beating people up for copying your stuff?
You need to understand that there is a contract at work here. I agree to give up some of my natural rights in order to gain certain benefits. Those benefits include both a benefit to all of society through the encouragement of the arts and sciences, and a personal benefit that only accrues to me if I, in fact, create something. That is an important point, because contracts must provide benefit to both parties in order to be valid, and this contract applies to both creators and non-creators. Without the whole 'benefit to society' part, the contract can't be applied to non-creators.
So what is the harm in exercising my natural rights to sense and represent my world, in regards to something someone else put out there? It isn't that I've denied them potential income, it's that I've broken a contract. I have received the benefits of the contract, in the form of the 'promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts,' clause in the Constitution. The US has a flourishing artistic community and is a technical leader. Having received the benefit, not complying with my part of the bargain at this point would be wrong. As the benefit I received was not tangible property, it is not remotely correct to call breaking the contract theft. But it is still wrong.
If we turned it into a government mess, we would stand a better chance of controlling the costs and cutting down the bureaucracy than we do now. I agree that the insane overhead is the real problem. But the free market has proven itself incapable of removing insane overhead. Every niche, no matter how useless to society as a whole, is exploited and defended. Sure, government protects its entrenched interests too. But this won't be an entrenched interest. So in the process of publicizing health care, we can destroy the current bureaucracy, and with a tiny bit of clever legislation, as well as ongoing citizen oversight, we can keep it from becoming an entrenched government bureaucracy.
Bisexual actually. I'll suck cock if I'm really into the guy, but no anal. I have piles, so it's kinda uncomfortable. Oh wait, you were trying to insult me. Seriously, 'gay' ceased being an insult some time last millennium. All the use of the term 'gay' does now is announce to the world that the user of the term is a backwards troglodyte. But you've already established that, so once again you are just wasting our time.
That is funny to anyone who knows my posting history. I've posted that link dozens of times over the years. Sure, property is theft, but it is also freedom. Really, you need read the book to understand the critique Proudhon is leveling against private property. It is more complicated than the title makes it out to be. Any anarchist or libertarian should be aware of the arguments Proudhon presents, whatever their stance on the topic.
I present reasoning to back up my assertions. Maybe you buy it, maybe you refute it, but at least it's there. So, your little snark misses the mark, unless perhaps you could point to examples in my posts here in this thread where I have used insults or appeals to emotion? No? Didn't think so.
It really bums me out that Slashdot used to be a place where people could engage in actual debates. Instead, we have inane, thought terminating cliches like 'pot, meet kettle' foisted off on as in lieu of real logic and reasoning.
I mean, agree with me or don't, but you couldn't have more perfectly illustrated my point. "Pot meet kettle," indeed.
As another example, lets say everyone decides that your band sucks monkey balls and they decide to buy albums of Slim Whitman, which sounds better. That is loss of revenue to you. Does that make it theft?
Calling infringement theft is making it MORE than it is. It is all part of the 'intellectual property' propaganda campaign which is designed to get people to think of intellectual works as property instead of what they are: a government enforced monopoly primarily granted to benefit we, the people, not you, the creator. You would have NO POWER to compel us not to copy your work without government enforcement.
With real property, you do not absolutely need the government to protect it, you could do it yourself. Not so with intellectual works. The moment you sell or share them, everyone can see and copy them. The only way that you, as an individual, can keep that from happening is for you not to share them at all, which obviously keeps you from deriving any value whatsoever from your creations. THAT is the only reason that we Americans have copyright and patents.
Other countries may take a different attitude and assert that creators have a 'natural right' to control their creations. Not only does this fly in the face of any sane definition of natural right, it is completely irrelevant to discussions of American copyright and patent law.
Let me ask you then, is any case where someone loses value theft? Is fraud theft? Is vandalism theft? How about slander and libel? If I take your life, is that theft? Are all crimes theft?
Why then do we have different names for them all?
Taking a different angle, what if I buy a different brand of calculator? I have denied the first company revenues just as if I had copied their calculator. Am I now a thief? Perhaps I discover that my phone works as a calculator, now I don't even need one. And I didn't even pay for it! Again, I have denied the calculator company any profits and yet here I am, calculating away. Obviously, either I or the phone's manufacturer are stealing from them. Right? What's worse, there is a completely free calculator available in my head. By doing math in my head, I am denying that poor, poor company the revenues they would have received if I didn't know how. Obviously, we need to outlaw math!
This 'Copyright is Theft' argument is intended to bypass reasoned debate. It is also intended to support the idea that intellectual works are property, without actually saying so. People understand property. They understand theft. If the industry can twist the language, they don't even have to win the argument that infringement is immoral. Copyright is property, infringement is theft, therefore infringement is immoral. It's a classic example of deliberate manipulation and propaganda.
Copyrighted or patented works are not property, as they behave very differently from real property. We do not prosecute copyright infringement for the same reasons we prosecute theft. Put another way, we do not protect intellectual works for the same reason we protect property. Theft and vandalism are similar, they are harm to property. Copyright or patent infringement are not harm to property.
Why do we protect intellectual works? Is it because the creator has some moral right to the work? No. The creator of an intellectual work has NO innate rights to a monopoly on that work. In fact, in order for them to have such a monopoly which isn't an innate right, each of us must give up an innate right, that is the right or ability we all naturally have to sense our environment and reproduce what we sense.
We protect intellectual works in order to encourage their creators to share them. That is the only reason outlined in the Constitution. Intellectual works are not property, therefore they can not be stolen.
It is far easier to conflate vandalism with theft than it is to conflate piracy with theft. With vandalism, the person actually suffers a tangible loss. Yet we do not think to call vandalism theft. Why should we call piracy theft?
You can argue whether it is wrong or right without even bringing theft into the picture, so why do so? Why the campaign to relabel intellectual works as intellectual property? Propaganda, pure and simple. The *IAA and other players in the IP game don't want us to discuss the right and wrong of the actual situation. They want us to consider intellectual works as property, and infringement as theft because we are all familiar with those terms and believe theft to be wrong.
I'm not saying infringement is morally right, I'm just saying that the interested parties are trying to bend language in order to curtail any discussion of whether it is or not. You could have backed up your assertions that infringement is wrong without even using the words 'theft' or 'stealing.' Instead, your self righteous and angry blather discredits your own cause.
Citizens don't control corporations, but we do control our government. We don't have to be afraid of 'losing our government,' because no one but US can take it away from US. I'm not sure I'm following your logic. Could you try to explain it in a little more depth? And could you give an example of a system that would, in your opinion, give people a guarantee of access to health care?
Slashdot Mirror
Some memories were preserved in the myth of Theseus and the Minotaur. To the primitive Greeks of the time, the palace of Knossos must have seemed like a maze. The Minoans also demanded tariffs on all shipping in the Mediterranean, and as we know, the ancient Greeks loved to dramatize trade disputes, thus the legend of having to send virgins to slake the hunger of the Minotaur.
I used to live on Crete, Greece, and was amazed at the sophistication of ancient Minoan culture. By 2,000 BC, the Minoans had huge, multi-level palaces with running water and sewers. The Minoan civilization was wiped out when Santorini erupted. To the proto-Greeks of 2,000 BC, Minoan technology must have seemed almost magical.
I've read a theory that Plato's description of Atlantis is based on memories of the Minoans. The description fits, except for the location (Crete is in the Mediterranean, while Plato thought Atlantis was in the Atlantic.) Plato knew of Crete and the Minoans, though, but perhaps the stories were unclear or ambiguous.
That's okay, my post in response to yours came out WAY more snarky than I intended it to, so I can see why you might have thought that was me.
Ah, the 'go slit your wrists fucktard' troll. Classy. Here's a tip: I never post AC. And there is a poster here who LOVES the phrase 'go slit your wrists fucktard.' So all we need to do to find out who this REALLY is is search on that phrase. I've never used it, but SOMEONE uses it quite frequently.
Nice try, dimwit. I thought you'd at least be entertaining, but no. You are the lamest cyber-stalker I've ever met. When are you going to downmod me into oblivion? I'm shaking in my boots, LOL.
No, some asshole is trying to make me look bad. I never post AC. Whoever it is isn't very creative, they use the exact same lame phrase on me.
Buddy, I'm a anarcho-syndicalist. I know far more about libertarianism than you do. I dislike libertarians because they give anarchism a bad name. I give libertarians more grief than anyone else because they should know better, not because they are really as bad as I make them out to be. Libertarians refuse to look at the likely but unintended consequences of their plans. Libertarians have a very rigid definition of freedom, based on the ludicrous concept of natural rights, rather than contract. 'Natural rights' as a concept is mere appeal to authority, and a dodge around the simple fact that rights derive from society, not from individuals. The concept of 'rights' is meaningless to a lone castaway.
If you think you are using logic, I suggest you go back and read your own posts, and try to seperate the 'logic' as you call it, from the attacks and emotional blather. Maybe you could try to explain what parts of your previous posts contain logic, because I'm not seeing it. This post, on the other hand, ups my esteem of you at least a little bit.
Doesn't it suck when you throw out unsupported allegations like "In the US & Canada for search (perhaps Europe too?), yes it is close. [to being a monopoly]" when the post a little above yours proves, with references, that you are wrong? Google has 23.7% online market share. In what way is 23.7% close to a monopoly?
And how were they to confiscate her phone when it was hidden in her ass? What staff member is going to frisk a 14 year old in today's litigious society?
You have a particularly rigid world view, don't you? I am not whining about others having more than me. I have more than enough, because I don't care about material things. I care about my close personal relationships, helping people, art, science, and having fun.
I honestly questioned whether I was just fooling myself at one point and got into the corporate game. I made a lot of money but I hated it. So I don't do that now.
Your ignorance and dogmatism are incredibly amusing. All of Europe mixes socialism and the free market successfully. You don't even really understand what socialism or the free market actually mean.
Libertarians hate freedom because they think they are better than everyone else and should have a natural right to oppress others through financial coercion. From your tone, it is obvious you'd love to be a kind of feudal lord, bossing around your subjects. Most libertarians are just like you, frustrated that 'the system' doesn't recognize your greatness, desperate for a system that will put you in your 'proper' place. Unfortunately, your system will only let the real sociopaths dominate you. You should be thankful that those of us with half a brain won't let you put your moronic ideas into practice, because you would not be the slave-master, you'd be the slave.
Cool as a cucumber? Really? Do you read your own posts? The fact that you can not even acknowledge your own anger, when it is obvious to anyone reading your froth-filled posts, just shows how immature you really are. That's why I like pissing you off. Maybe you'll learn something. Glad to see you're still obsessing over me though, it makes me feel pretty good!
First, who's living off of others? Second, Micro and macro economics have nothing to do with whether a business is evil or not. Which I never said they are. I also never said I want government to make all my decisions for me. Finally, I may dislike both conservatives and libertarians, but I know more about the differences than you do.
In closing, let me just say thank you. Pissing off small minded idiots is one of my true pleasures in life. Your level of powerless, frothing rage is like a fine wine or a gourmet meal to me. Please, by all means, keep raging. You're obviously so mad you can't even think straight, you're obsessing over me and coming back to discussions days later. It's astounding, but gratifying.
No, because it's a euphemism for "let's find a way to take this previously free thing and charge people for it." It is a deceptive phrase, spoken by pointy haired bosses and marketroids with black little hearts and the morals of rabid weasels.
It's not that profit is evil, and money itself is not the root of all evil. The desire for money is the root of all evil, and this phrase is used by people who get a stiffy thinking of all the ways they can screw you out of yours. They fall asleep dreaming of ways they could monetize breathing. "Hmmm, zzzzz, poison the atmosphere... znurk, hmph, sell oxygen.... yeah... zzzzzzz"
I know, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to conflate relatively sane beliefs like 'the moon landing was a hoax,' 'God buried dinosaur bones to confuse us' or 'the earth is flat' with completely insane beliefs like 'an unregulated market is the best for everyone.'
Nice strawman. Why don't you open a book once in a while and actually learn about the ideas you're trying to discredit rather than trolling on slashdot?
Libertarian ideas are toxic to well organized minds. Nobody sane wants to damage their brains that badly. Also, as libertarian ideas do not have any credit to begin with, there's nothing to discredit. But a lot to make fun of, kind of like making fun of people who believe other incredibly dumb things, like creationism, the moon landing was a hoax, or the earth is flat.
Yeah, I wrote that AFTER Marble68 said my post was 'interesting as a trainwreck.'
As for free markets, we are not suited to them. Not because we try to subvert them, but because we simply are not rational. You seem to have an outdated view of human nature, especially considering all of the fascinating recent research economists have been doing. As someone majoring in the field, I would think you'd be more up to date. The economic games research is fascinating, and proves that people are NOT naturally selfish. Most people are far more motivated by notions of fairness and reciprocity than self interest. Unfortunately, sociopaths do exist. And the ranks of the rich and powerful hold far more sociopaths than the general population. Our free market system is designed to reward and encourage sociopaths, not normal, unselfish people.
I won!
I am not depriving someone of their property by copying it. If you argue that I am depriving them of potential income, then you need to differentiate that lost income from other, similar situations. For instance, instead of downloading an illicit copy of a CD, say I purchase a different CD. Or perhaps I spend my money on a movie. Am I not depriving them of potential income? What if I have a perfect memory of their songs, and can essentially listen to them any time I like in my own head. Or perhaps I'm a musician myself, and can make my own music. Again, how are those different cases of denying them income from copying their music?
It is a gross simplification of things to conflate copyright infringement with theft. It ignores the real issues and attempts to stifle honest dialogue. The 'copyright infringement is theft' argument is what is known as a thought terminating cliche. Like 'because I said so,' 'freedom isn't free,' or 'that's just a thought terminating cliche.' But in this case, it's true.
The thing is, I haven't broken any copyright laws in decades, except for a few times friends have given me illicit copies of CDs they thought I would like. I haven't downloaded music since the mid nineties. I'm comfortable now and can afford to support artists I enjoy, so I do. I think that's true of most people. But I don't think copyrights and patents are property, and I don't think that 'duplication not sanctioned by a government' is the same thing as theft.
Without a government willing to enforce its laws through violence, you have absolutely no right to put something out into the world we all share and tell people that only you can profit from the concept of it. How would that even work, would you go around beating people up for copying your stuff?
You need to understand that there is a contract at work here. I agree to give up some of my natural rights in order to gain certain benefits. Those benefits include both a benefit to all of society through the encouragement of the arts and sciences, and a personal benefit that only accrues to me if I, in fact, create something. That is an important point, because contracts must provide benefit to both parties in order to be valid, and this contract applies to both creators and non-creators. Without the whole 'benefit to society' part, the contract can't be applied to non-creators.
So what is the harm in exercising my natural rights to sense and represent my world, in regards to something someone else put out there? It isn't that I've denied them potential income, it's that I've broken a contract. I have received the benefits of the contract, in the form of the 'promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts,' clause in the Constitution. The US has a flourishing artistic community and is a technical leader. Having received the benefit, not complying with my part of the bargain at this point would be wrong. As the benefit I received was not tangible property, it is not remotely correct to call breaking the contract theft. But it is still wrong.
If we turned it into a government mess, we would stand a better chance of controlling the costs and cutting down the bureaucracy than we do now. I agree that the insane overhead is the real problem. But the free market has proven itself incapable of removing insane overhead. Every niche, no matter how useless to society as a whole, is exploited and defended. Sure, government protects its entrenched interests too. But this won't be an entrenched interest. So in the process of publicizing health care, we can destroy the current bureaucracy, and with a tiny bit of clever legislation, as well as ongoing citizen oversight, we can keep it from becoming an entrenched government bureaucracy.
Bisexual actually. I'll suck cock if I'm really into the guy, but no anal. I have piles, so it's kinda uncomfortable. Oh wait, you were trying to insult me. Seriously, 'gay' ceased being an insult some time last millennium. All the use of the term 'gay' does now is announce to the world that the user of the term is a backwards troglodyte. But you've already established that, so once again you are just wasting our time.
That is funny to anyone who knows my posting history. I've posted that link dozens of times over the years. Sure, property is theft, but it is also freedom. Really, you need read the book to understand the critique Proudhon is leveling against private property. It is more complicated than the title makes it out to be. Any anarchist or libertarian should be aware of the arguments Proudhon presents, whatever their stance on the topic.
I present reasoning to back up my assertions. Maybe you buy it, maybe you refute it, but at least it's there. So, your little snark misses the mark, unless perhaps you could point to examples in my posts here in this thread where I have used insults or appeals to emotion? No? Didn't think so.
It really bums me out that Slashdot used to be a place where people could engage in actual debates. Instead, we have inane, thought terminating cliches like 'pot, meet kettle' foisted off on as in lieu of real logic and reasoning.
I mean, agree with me or don't, but you couldn't have more perfectly illustrated my point. "Pot meet kettle," indeed.
As another example, lets say everyone decides that your band sucks monkey balls and they decide to buy albums of Slim Whitman, which sounds better. That is loss of revenue to you. Does that make it theft?
Calling infringement theft is making it MORE than it is. It is all part of the 'intellectual property' propaganda campaign which is designed to get people to think of intellectual works as property instead of what they are: a government enforced monopoly primarily granted to benefit we, the people, not you, the creator. You would have NO POWER to compel us not to copy your work without government enforcement.
With real property, you do not absolutely need the government to protect it, you could do it yourself. Not so with intellectual works. The moment you sell or share them, everyone can see and copy them. The only way that you, as an individual, can keep that from happening is for you not to share them at all, which obviously keeps you from deriving any value whatsoever from your creations. THAT is the only reason that we Americans have copyright and patents.
Other countries may take a different attitude and assert that creators have a 'natural right' to control their creations. Not only does this fly in the face of any sane definition of natural right, it is completely irrelevant to discussions of American copyright and patent law.
Let me ask you then, is any case where someone loses value theft? Is fraud theft? Is vandalism theft? How about slander and libel? If I take your life, is that theft? Are all crimes theft?
Why then do we have different names for them all?
Taking a different angle, what if I buy a different brand of calculator? I have denied the first company revenues just as if I had copied their calculator. Am I now a thief? Perhaps I discover that my phone works as a calculator, now I don't even need one. And I didn't even pay for it! Again, I have denied the calculator company any profits and yet here I am, calculating away. Obviously, either I or the phone's manufacturer are stealing from them. Right? What's worse, there is a completely free calculator available in my head. By doing math in my head, I am denying that poor, poor company the revenues they would have received if I didn't know how. Obviously, we need to outlaw math!
This 'Copyright is Theft' argument is intended to bypass reasoned debate. It is also intended to support the idea that intellectual works are property, without actually saying so. People understand property. They understand theft. If the industry can twist the language, they don't even have to win the argument that infringement is immoral. Copyright is property, infringement is theft, therefore infringement is immoral. It's a classic example of deliberate manipulation and propaganda.
Copyrighted or patented works are not property, as they behave very differently from real property. We do not prosecute copyright infringement for the same reasons we prosecute theft. Put another way, we do not protect intellectual works for the same reason we protect property. Theft and vandalism are similar, they are harm to property. Copyright or patent infringement are not harm to property.
Why do we protect intellectual works? Is it because the creator has some moral right to the work? No. The creator of an intellectual work has NO innate rights to a monopoly on that work. In fact, in order for them to have such a monopoly which isn't an innate right, each of us must give up an innate right, that is the right or ability we all naturally have to sense our environment and reproduce what we sense.
We protect intellectual works in order to encourage their creators to share them. That is the only reason outlined in the Constitution. Intellectual works are not property, therefore they can not be stolen.
It is far easier to conflate vandalism with theft than it is to conflate piracy with theft. With vandalism, the person actually suffers a tangible loss. Yet we do not think to call vandalism theft. Why should we call piracy theft?
You can argue whether it is wrong or right without even bringing theft into the picture, so why do so? Why the campaign to relabel intellectual works as intellectual property? Propaganda, pure and simple. The *IAA and other players in the IP game don't want us to discuss the right and wrong of the actual situation. They want us to consider intellectual works as property, and infringement as theft because we are all familiar with those terms and believe theft to be wrong.
I'm not saying infringement is morally right, I'm just saying that the interested parties are trying to bend language in order to curtail any discussion of whether it is or not. You could have backed up your assertions that infringement is wrong without even using the words 'theft' or 'stealing.' Instead, your self righteous and angry blather discredits your own cause.
Citizens don't control corporations, but we do control our government. We don't have to be afraid of 'losing our government,' because no one but US can take it away from US. I'm not sure I'm following your logic. Could you try to explain it in a little more depth? And could you give an example of a system that would, in your opinion, give people a guarantee of access to health care?