Oh, come on! Stop giving your reasoning with respect to copyright law. You have already indicated that if copyright law did not exist, your position would not change. It is entirely not helpful then to argue what copyright law says and doesn't say in this context.
How many times do I need to say I am talking in the absence of copyright law. And I am talking simple copying, not plagiarism? Would you like me to go back and count?
"No. You've said that the act of publication means the general public has full rights to do with it as they please."
In the absence of copyright law, yes, with copyright law, no. Is it that tough for you to get this?
The license was written in a time and place where copyright law is in effect.
"And I thinks that's wrong. Copyright neither creates or destroy rights."
Yes, I know what you think, but you fail to answer in that context many times.
"That's actually a validation of copyright. If I wanted to invalidate cppyright, I'd argue against the entry of works into the public domain."
I don't see how you get there logically. If I make a model plane, when do I rightfully lose my rights in that like you indicate I will in my written works.
Now, in my world view, I don't think this is a valid example, but it would seem to be one in yours.
Would the creator of a dance step, who records the new dance byway of diagrams in a book and a video showing the dance, get rights to stop others from dancing that dance?
How about a person who defines a new genre of music?
One last question here that I have asked before but I don't recall you touching...
What about patents. Inventions. Do people have the same rights in these as in works that fall under copyright.
"But, again, talking about copyright law is only a diversion from my point."
But you seem to keep answering in that context. Why?
"Because you keep asking questions about plagiarism. As I've said, it's peripheral."
Ah, no, you keep giving as examples, plagiarism instead of simple copying. That has muddied the waters for a good time. You just did it again recently.
"Your right to quote a work is protected by that previous legal arrangement known as copyright law."
No, once again, we are discussing things in the absence of copyright law. Please, give your position relative to this state of affairs unless I specifically ask for how it works with copyright law.
So, if there were no copyright law, would a person have the right to quote from the book of another? Verbally? As written works?
"I think I've been very clear. I've stated my postion over and over and over. You keep bringing up peripheral issues."
You may think you have been, but it is far from clear what your position is.
"To continue with the example of a book: A book is a physical object. At some point in time it does not exist. At another point of time it does. The person who creates that unique entity -- that particular combination of language and medium -- owns it and has all rights in it"
You problem arises when you maintain that he has rights to the combination of words absent as physical entity. I have tried to explore this. Asking about reciting, singing songs, and what not. Trting to see if you think someone owns the words / ordered sequence of words seperate from the physical entity. I thought you had said no. Now it seems you are saying yes. Your actual position is entirely unclear.
"A joke is not an object. A book of jokes is. You can tell every joke in that book. You can't start printing your own copies of it."
A single one liner written down on a single piece of paper is an object as much as a novel written on many pieces of paper is an object. If you dispute this, please give your metrics as to where the line is crossed.
How can I not put on a play, but I can tell jokes?
"I don't get the point about lieing about a work. Claiming authorship of something you didn't write is more than a simple lie, it's fraud. Plagiarizing is simply a form of copying. Can you legitmately make use of fair use and still plagiarize? Of course. Is it plagiarism if you copy an entire work and claim it as your own? Of course."
Plagiarism is actually a red herring that you keep throwing in the mix. Let us confine our discussion to copying without claiming authorship shall we? I have never said that plagiarism was OK.
"I know all about the GPL. Claiming Stallman's code as your own would violate the GPL, and my argument, as well."
Here you go with the same red herring again, give it up already. I am talking strictly claiming it is his code and copying it while giving him the credit. If that is not totally clear by now, I doubt I will ever be able to make it clear.
"If not, why would he need to craft a license to specifically transfer to people rights that would otherwise not be theirs?"
Oh, just as a guess... Because of copyright law. But I tell you what, it is easy enough to find his email address, why not send him your theory for his evaluation and comment.
"You are arguing that they acquired those rights as soon as he released the code."
No. Listen up carefully. I argue that they would have those rights in the absence of COPYRIGHT LAW. Since we have copyright law, they don't have those rights and hence the GPL.
"Your argument does invalidate copyright law, because you say all rights to a work belong to the general public upon publication."
Well, gee, so does yours since you saythat it takes the rights an author has in his works and places them into the public domain after a time.
I think I am fine, as a basic concept, with it as it is a temporary creation of rights for a particular purpose. I also have the right to build whatever I please on my land, and yet zoning laws abrogate this.
"Plagiarism: You can't plagiarize unless you copy."
I don't actually know. If I claimed to have written MacBeth, what is that called in the absence of my making any copies of it. In any case, that is beside the point and I think we both know it. The point is that it is entirely possible to copy without plagiarism and yet you constantly put the plagiarism aspect into you examples when I have said over and repeatedly that I do not claim anyone has the right to plagiarise, only to copy. Why are you doing this?
"Obviously, I think that would be wrong, and I would do everything to stop you."
I know you think it is wrong. That much is clear now. What right would you have to try and stop me if I were making copies of "A Midsummer Night's Dream" I wonder?
"My position is simple: The source of all rights to such a work is the work's creator, even those rights of the public that are protected by copyright law. I contend that there can be no other origin for those rights."
See, this is what confuses me, if I understood you correctly, you have previously said that it is within my rights to recite / quote a work, that the problem would arise if I tried to make copies.
Please elaborate furhter on your position then.
You have also said that you don't own the words. Now, unless you were playing word games, please explain in light of that.
If you don't have any ownership rights in the words in the order they are in, how does this work. Or were you being tricky and meant that you didn't own the words as in an alphabetical listing of all the words in your work, but you do have ownership rights in those words in that particular order.
Now further, can you explain by what magic you get the rights when writing these words down but you do not get those rights when speaking those words for the first time should you do so in public nad they not be recorded? (I think I have that as you position, if it is not, please clear up that misunderstanding as well.)
"Don't waste time think of "Gotcha" examples. It won't change my position."
That is not at all what I am trying to do. I am trying to get you to clarify what to me are inconsistent position so that I can be confident that I at least correctly understand what you are saying.
I suppose you'll go through the text of the law and nitpick out-of-context zingers. Remember that copyright law could disappear and my argument would stay the same."
So, from that link, am I to imply that you are from the US?
Not at all, and I am not from the US, but from what I have been lead to believe, your countries founders and you constitution do not support your views.
If you have contrary evidence, I am happy to learn.
"By the way, you've never explained the source of the rights you say we all get when someone publishes a book. Where do they come from?"
They just exist, they are natural rights.
I have a natural right to tell my family a joke I heard at work when I get home at night. That seems basic enough to me.
"Why doesn't a prospective publisher acquire these rights when he first reads a copy of the manuscript made by the author?"
Well, let's assume there is no historical precedence for a minute. He would not get the right because I would not let him see it without a contract. It is my secret work. I have not published it.
Look, let's just leave the middle man out for a bit to make things cleared.
Let's assume authors publish their own works. One's they freely choose to publish. The ones they want to keep secret, they keep secret. When an author puts his sorks out in public, the public hasthe right to do what they will with them other than lie about them. (Unless we need to give the right to lie.)
"Stallman wrote emacs. He published the code. Does that give people who've never heard of emacs the same rights as you seem to argue that everyone acquires when a book is published? Why shouldn't I slap my name on emacs, repackage it, and start selling it?"
You can't leave off with the "slap my name on it" part in your examples. Why? Do you need that part for your argument to hang together?
No, you do not have the right to 'slap your name on it' as I have said numerous times. That would be plagiarism, or to use the language above, lieing about the work.
But Stallman believes you should have the right to make copies and derivatives of it and has written the GPL and released his work under that license to ensure that you have just such rights in the face of copyright laws which say that you don't. (Speaking for myself on what I believe his actions and writings to mean and not for him.)
I am giving out just such rights to you and anyone else who should care to excercise them on many of my works as well. This trend is a growing one.
"I'd respond to the inevitable lawsuit by making your argument, which invalidates both copyright law and Stallman's license."
Good luck in trying to invalidate copyright law. Let me know how far you get. In your estimation, is copyright law legal and / or moral?
"Huh? Plagiarism is copying. Someone copies someone else's work and claims it as their own."
Perhpas so, but plagiarism can still be wrong while simple copying was not.
If plagiarism must always include copying, then it is more than just copying, it is copying and then claiming authorship.
You putting in the claiming authorship angle muddies the waters of the discussion. That was the point I attempted to make. Do you grant that at this point?
"I haven't been discussing legalities. But, wrong? Yes. A violation of another's rights? Yes. If the law says it is illegal, then it is. If not, the law is wrong."
You are right here, I mis-remembered your statement there.
So, to answer it properly:
Yes, without copyright law, and leaving out the claiming it as something you wrote, you would be fine making copies of a book on your shelf and selling them. As many as you wanted to try and sell.
In fact, this is done all the time today with works that have expired copyrights. Or so I am led to believe.
"I don't understand that."
Right, sorry, also based on the same mis-remembering of your one statement/question.
So, to try and get back on a proper track:
What about the case of a playwright and a repertory company.
Do you think it would be wrong for a repertory company to put on someone else's plays without permission or compensation?
["By the way, my position isn't radical. It's the commonly accepted position. An opinion that rights to a work pass to everyone else upon publication is certainly the radical stance."
What country are you from?
Can you point to links where this view is held and expounded?]
Why did you not bother to adress your mixing up plagerism and copying?
Please do so.
"Because you haven't been qualifying your assertions in that manner."
It is how it started and how it continues, I have been trying to be careful to indicate when I mean with copyright law. The other way around is a bit much.
"In any case, my argument has no dependencies on copyright."
Yes, but when you ask me directly if something would be legal?
So, if there was no copyright law of any kind, you maintain that it would still be illegal to make those copies?
In that case it it would seem it must have been illegal to make such copies before there was any copyright law. Can you point to any successful cases on this issue before the first copyright law?
"By the way, my position isn't radical. It's the commonly accepted position. An opinion that rights to a work pass to everyone else upon publication is certainly the radical stance."
What country are you from?
Can you point to links where this view is held and expounded?
"It seems you are still using the act of seeing somethng as the act that gives you all rights in it."
Read this even more carefully this time:
Read this carefully. No, not at the moment they see the author's work.
"In any case, the world is full of published manuscripts. You are arguing that I am fully within my rights to pull a book off my shelves, make 10,000 copies listing me as the author, and put them up for sale."
Stop purposefully mixing up issues. I have made it abundently clear that I am not talking about listing yourself as an author of a work you are not the author of. If you are having an honest debate here, go back and see that this is so and please try to remember that.
As to making 10,000 copies and putting them up for sale under the name of the proper author... presently, if the book is still in copyright, no, if copyright has expired, yes. If there were no copyright laws, yes.
"After all, it was already published, which you say is "the moment" at which we all acquire rights to that book."
How hard is it for you to remember that I am making these statements supposing that there were no copyright laws. Are you doing this on purpose?
"If somone recites words from the work, that is not copying it. No object has been created. If someone memorizes the work and then transcribes it from memory onto another object, that is copying."
This is one of your fundamental ppoblems...
If someone has never seen your object and you don't own the words themselves, then when they write down what they have only heard, they cannot have copied your object in any reasonable of the word.
"You, and many others, seem to be arguing that others acquire rights in an author's work at the moment they see the author's work."
Read this carefully. No, not at the moment they see the author's work. At the moment the author publishes his work. If he does not publish it but keep it private, someone seeing it would not have those rights. Trade secrets work something like this. As long as you keep it secret, it is protected, if you let the secret out, it is not protected.
"If that's true, why don't publishers gain all those rights when they first read an author's manuscript?"
Because it is an unpublished manuscript?
Now, in the face of your radical position, I would claim that if things indeed worked like you imagine, you have no right to make anything public that you do not intend to share freely as that would constitute polluting the minds of the public with your works which would forever prevent them from writing down those words, or a derivative based on those words.
Now, we have been talking writing.
If someone was standing on a street corner in a tourist town and reciting one of your poems that he has read in a book, would it be illegal / imoral for a tourist making a video tape of his vacation to pause and tape this person?
"Are you arguing that this is a monopoly in any meaningful sense of the word?"
Yes indeed. It is a monopoly in a meeningful sense of the word. And a valuable one at that, if it were not, people would not mind giving that monopoly up.
"I just don't understand why people get so worked up about DRM around here to the point of often advocating that the government pass various silly laws. Instead, they should just not buy the product."
Possibly because of the other silly laws that have already been passed at the request of various entities in positions of power? (To use your phrasing.)
it is indeed. And I note you do not try and dealwith examples which I feel will be difficult to explain in your view.
You want to know how people get the right to copy an authors words. They get it when the author chooses, of his own free will, to make his words public. You may not like this fact, but that is the answer.
You never try to answer how an author, who recites a short poem to others around a camp fire, somehow then gains the right to control what they do with those words that are in their head for the rest of their lives. Including, in your words, the right to go around bopping them on the head if they violate his supposed rights.
You never address how writing down your words gives you rights to them that speaking them don't. Does a person who only speaks in public never get any rights to his works? I know this is how copyright law seems to work in that you have to fix your works to get copyright, but you are not talking copyrights, but rather what you think are natural rights.
You also never answer the question of what happens if one person puts his words down initially on the property of another.
You say that you don't get to control if another sings your song in public. This would indicate that you do not own the words. And yet you say you can control if they write those words down. This would indicate that you do own the words. (OK, certain rights to the words that would allow one and not allow the other.) This is not explained.
But, honestly, feel free not to respond. It has gotten old. I think part of the issue though has been the serious misreading of the terminology being used on each side early on.
[Thag tells a story around the campfire about the moon god. He mostly just makes it up as he goes along.]
"This is your example of an intellectual creation? Of course Thag won't care about something he made up almost instantly and gave away for free"
Honestly, whoare you to say that someone will never care about something they create on the spot in a period of sudden inspiration while interacting with others.
"You cannot "write an idea down". The only thing you can write are words and numbers. Those are not ideas."
I see a little clearer a part of this confusion. So maintain that it only exists in the mind.
So, you really need to explain yourself better in these sorts of discussions and / or make a better effort to understand what the others you are discussionwith are saying so as to try and give clarification.
Really. to do otherwise is a big waste of time. I would hope that is not your real intent.
So. An idea or a a thought cannot be shared. Why? Is it only the expression of the idea that can be shared? Wouldit surprise you to hear me say that I think in words andthat my ideas come to me in words? To my way of using the words, I have never been able to picture anything in my mind while awake. I dream visually but I daydream in words.
So, when I speak my ideas, I am basically getting my body to put the words in my head out into the world as vibrations in the air. And why exactly deos that not qualify as sharing my ideas?
Now, if you think you can indeed own the words, why do you only own the ones you fix and not the ones you just speak? That would make little or no sense in your world according to the principals I have seen you put forth here recently.
"You cannot own an idea. Nor can you share an idea. Ideas are thoughts in our heads. We can use language and other symbols in an attempt to cause other people to have similar thoughts, but no ideas pass from one person to the next (unless you believe in telepathy."
So, let me get this clear. You do believe that you own the words and symbols that you put out in public or write down. (As a sequence, not jumbled up individually.)
Then we have an astoundingly different idea of right and wrong regarding ideas made public. In fact, you seem to disagree with the founders of the US who created copyright law. While I also find him to have an astoundingly different idea of right and wrong regarding ideas made public when compared to myself, I think you may just be incorrect on the founders of the US creating copyright law.
However, if the two of you are both living in the Us / US citizens, the Us constitution is the governing document for you both when it comes to copyright.
If I make something and you copy it without my permission, that's wrong. Copyright has nothing to do with it.
Getting away from silly rock analogies, if I write a book, publish it, and you buy it, you have those rights I transferred to you via the publisher plus whatever rights copyright law says you have. No more. This is not hard to understand. It is not hard to understand what you are saying. It is just hard to believe that you say it with conviction considering how wrong it is.
So, is it your contention that copyright laws remove rights from authors that they would otherwose have in the absence of copyright laws?
If so, why is it that authors are not calling for copyright law to be done away with? If they would have more rights without it that is.
You yourself have said that there would not be as many making works without copyright laws. How do you explain this strange circumstance.
I'm not talking about " something as insubstantial as a story." As I've said, ideas cannot be possessed. Once again, this is wild. Probably because it seems so inconsistent.
A story is a sequence of words. Unless you have some other definition as to what a story is. Do you instead mean a plot?
If Thag carves his story on a boulder, then Thag owns that physcial representation of his story. Not the story. If Grod starts making duplicate boulders without Thag's permission, Thag has the right to bop him on the head with a big stick. Thag doesn't need copyright law to understand that. Why? You cannot seem to explain this. Thag only owns his boulder with some words on it according to you. If not, what else does he own? If Thag does not own the story and if Grod makes the copies on his own boulders and not boulders to which Thag has any claim, how can Thag have any rights to Grod's boulders? You yourself maintain that he does not own the story! What is it about Grod's boulders that Thag owns then?
What if in the first instance, Thag can't find a suitable boulder of his own and uses one of Grod's boulders without Grod's express written permission? Who owns what in that case in your world view?
"But as you've already stated that you don't own the ideas in other people's minds, specifically including the case where these ideas were created based on reading your manuscript, it would appear that you're attempting to say that "(unowned ideas, or ideas owned by A) + (property owned by A) --> (property owned by B)", which doesn't correspond to any theory of natural rights that I'm aware of. On what basis are you making such an extraordinary claim?"
If I get his right, I think he is saying that if he puts his words down on his physical object then he gets all rights to that object including some rights that I don't believe exist and find to be fantastic. (As in unbelievable.)
He things you can read his words and are free to recite them including in public. (This would imply that he thinks there is no right to control public performance. I guess he is not a playright.)
The thinks you have no right, after having memorised them so that you can recite them, to write down what you have memorised on paper which you yourself purchased. I can't actually figure this thinking out.
If I have misunderstood anyhting, I would appreciate clarification to the above statements.
I find your position very radical and over the top. I imagine you might feel the same way with respect to what I have written.
"I see no way for anyone else to acquire any rights to any created work unless those rights pass to them from the work's creator."
How do you imagine a person has the right to control what another does with information that is in his memory no matter how it came to be there>
"That doesn't exist. Individual members of society do not have some kind of a priori right to do as they wish with a work created by someone else simply because they have access to it or a copy."
Stop setting up straw men and arguing against a position I do not hold. Once again. When a person takes something that he has made and kept private and then makes it public, it is now public. That is my position re natural rights. That is also how things went until copyright law came into effect.
"If the world operated without copyright law for most of its history, I'd just point out that the world existed without any law for most of its history."
This point and the explanation that follows is basically on point. That said, it takes extra explanation if you want to dispute such history.
You also fail to address how the world can possibly function if your view is correct. Like I say, I find it so over the top it amazes me.
Yes indeed. And even reallocate would seem to from what I can gather of his writing in this thread, and until I read your post, he wasthe most over the top person I had ever encountered when it comes to copyright.
Reallocate would say that you can tell the story, you just can't make physical copies.
However, I do consider your proposition that caveman Bob would ask for permission to retell a story amusing.
Please. Give us examples from history where the world functioned as you propose.
However, if you think it is imoral. I suggest that nothing is stopping you from doing the moral thing as you see it. Each time you tell a joke, send some money to the creator or his heirs. Each time you use the number zero, send some money to an arab charity. Each time you use some geometry (fudge here, I think you get the point, I don't wish to do the research now, I am not well) send some money to a greek charity. Don't watch or purchase anything by Disney, etc. where they waited for a work to pass into the public domain before making their adaptation. I could go on.
Honestly, the world you guys envision would be stagnant and repressive.
I find your position a bit over the top and certainly not in keeping with history as I mentioned.
You also argue against my points about how things would work in the absence of copyright by sometimes explaining how they work with copyright.
I appreciate your responses though and perhaps we will finally come to some better understanding if we keep going.
"1. No. I'm saying that copyright law has nothing to do with the creation of rights. All rights in a work emanate from the work's creator."
No, this is not so. One right you do not have naturally when you create a work is tghe right to stop others from copying it after you publish it. This is how the world worked for thousands of years.
"2. In other words, a monopoly -- posession of all rights inherent in a work -- comes into existence when the work is created and that monopoly of rights is possesed by the work's creator."
Nope, see 1.
"3. The act of publishing is the act of transferring limited rights in return for royalties."
Nope, the act of publishing is the act of making something public that was private. At that point, all bets are off. Copyright law steps in and alters this fact.
If you don't buy this, please explain how people publish Shakespeare's works today without paying royalties to his descendants.
"4. Re: Slashdot -- I mean an exact duplicate..... Absent that grant, I presume their lawyers would contact me about copyright violations."
You have every right to do so as per copyright law and the licesne if ti is the GPL. Their lawyers may indeed contact you but it would not be about copyright violations but about other laws you would be violating.
"4. I'm not defending or attacking copyright law. I'm explaining how, and why, all rights to a work are originally sourced to the work's creator."
But I maintain that you are incorrect in thinking that the right to prevent others from copying after publishing is a natural right that comes into existance on creation of a work. What you get is the right to the physical copy of the work. The right to keep the work secret. The right to reveal the work privately under terms that you negotiate with those you reveal the work to. You don't naturally get the right to prevent people making copies should you choose to publish. (I knowthis is the heart of one of our main disagreements.)
"5. If I publish in the absence of copyright law, then I am constrained only by the terms I impose on the publisher. Rather than the public acquiring more rights, they would acquire only those rights I specifiy."
Wrong. In the absence of copyright law, you could try to do what you say by distributing privately with contracts and perhaps non-disclosure agreements or trade secret agreements at each transfer. Should you choose to publish instead, then you would have no right to stop members of the public from copying your work.
"For example, absent copyright law, there would be no fair use unless I said so."
Can you give any example of anytime or place in history where there were no copyright laws in effect and things worked like this?
"(Importantly, if publishing meant giving up all rights to a work, then how can a member of the public be assured that the book they are buying is the actual, unaltered, work written by the author? )"
They might not be able to. Although perhaps laws of fraud might let them.
Do you really believe that copyright laws are put in place to take rights away from creators?
Can you give any reasons why fashion designers and auto body designers don't get copyrights.
Can you explain why inventors get such a shorter time of protections for things that they patent than authors get for works they write?
"6. >>"...Rights transfer when the author publishes. " Only those rights that the auther specifies ( or accepts via prior legal arrangement, i,e., copyight law)."
What do you think of the idea of granting interviews under copyleft terms?
I'm for it but whether Journalist would agree to it would be another point.
To be honest i'd dont really trust journalists. If you need a writer with a english degree to tell you 'THIS IS NEWS' and a man called Rupert Murdoch to approve it then theres more to news than that.
I would imagine it would come down to who wanted what more. Do you want to be interviewed, or does the person want to interview you?
I have been thinking lately about "copyright pollution" where the copyrighted works of others gets in our heads and pollutes them to to point where what then comes out of us is "tainted" as it were. You're not the only one. George Harrison and Michael Bolton got burned by this too. Look up Bright Tunes Music v. Harrisongs Music and Three Boys Music v. Michael Bolton. Yes, well, I knew about George but not about Michael. Thanks for the info.
"Nope. I sold him -- not you -- limited rights to publish and market the book. You don't acquire that right when you buy the book."
Sorry, you are right, you sold him the right to publish, you did not give him the right to publish. But please, let's try not to nitpick if it is obvious we are in agreement and speaking loosely. Asking to tighten up on the language is not a problem.
However, you are wrong in the next part. In the absence of copyright law, if you publish your own work, the pubic has just these rights to copy it and make derivatives that you claim they would not aquire on publication. Since you sold the right to publish, when the person who has the right to publish publishes, then the public gats the same rights on publication that they would have gotten had you published yourself.
You are of course free to not poblish and so keep your property.
"The law can't grant what already exists."
So? Since it doesn't already exist, it is copyright law that grants it.
"I can't imagine how you could dispute my statement. How is it possible that if I create something that has never before existed that, at the moment it is created, someone other than me can own it?"
Please listen carefully to where I agree with you and where I disagree with you. It is not helpful for you to act like I disagree with you in those places where I actually agree with you. Unless, of course, you are a troll. At hte moment of creation, when you finish writing the great american novel in your garret in paris, it indeed belongs to you and only you. Should you keep it locked away in your steamer trunck until you die, it will pas to your estate and thence to whomever your will or the law says. If they do the same, the same will be the case. Once you publish though, the public gets certain by your very act of publishing. it is copyright law which steps in and overrides this natural law for a period of time.
"Do I have a right to the meal you cook this evening?"
Please, if we want to make headway here, let's not equate the physical with the non-physical. I am sure we all know that if I make a copy of your poem, you still have your original. Likewise, I am free to make a copy of your meal for myself. What I cannot do is take your copy or your meal.
"I see nothing in human history to dispute that."
Honestly, are you looking hard enough or with an open enough mind?
"If people can make a career from free sofrtware, it is because they have found a way to derive income from their code, something that is made possible by copyright law."
Actually, no. People could still make an income from coding even where they could not obtain a copyright to the code they write.
"No software license would be worth anything if it wasn't buttressed by copyright law."
I am not sure that we could not write softwae contracts/licenses that would not depend on copyright law for teeth, but I cartainly agree with you that all of the current Free Software licenses I am aware of depend on copyright law to function.
I also agree that Free software of the copyleft type would be dealt a fairly hard blow by copyright laws being done away with. It is copyright that gives the source code requirement of the GPL its teeht for instance.
"Re: Slashdot -- The point is not that I can get the code. The point is that their transfer to me of the right to acquire the code does not include the right to launch a duplicate of Slashdot unless Slashdot says it does."
I am not sure what you mean by a duplicate of slashdot. If you mean another site calling itself slashdot but with a misspelled domain name like slashdat.org, then no, it is not copyright law which would deal with this. More like trademark or business name I would guess. If you mean something else, please explain.
"Production of art: Of course, art predates copyright law. That does not invalidate the purpose of copyright law or its effectiveness."
Slashdot Mirror
"Whatever copyright law says is fair use."
Oh, come on! Stop giving your reasoning with respect to copyright law. You have already indicated that if copyright law did not exist, your position would not change. It is entirely not helpful then to argue what copyright law says and doesn't say in this context.
How many times do I need to say I am talking in the absence of copyright law. And I am talking simple copying, not plagiarism? Would you like me to go back and count?
"No. You've said that the act of publication means the general public has full rights to do with it as they please."
In the absence of copyright law, yes, with copyright law, no. Is it that tough for you to get this?
The license was written in a time and place where copyright law is in effect.
"And I thinks that's wrong. Copyright neither creates or destroy rights."
Yes, I know what you think, but you fail to answer in that context many times.
"That's actually a validation of copyright. If I wanted to invalidate cppyright, I'd argue against the entry of works into the public domain."
I don't see how you get there logically. If I make a model plane, when do I rightfully lose my rights in that like you indicate I will in my written works.
Now, in my world view, I don't think this is a valid example, but it would seem to be one in yours.
Would the creator of a dance step, who records the new dance byway of diagrams in a book and a video showing the dance, get rights to stop others from dancing that dance?
How about a person who defines a new genre of music?
One last question here that I have asked before but I don't recall you touching...
What about patents. Inventions. Do people have the same rights in these as in works that fall under copyright.
"But, again, talking about copyright law is only a diversion from my point."
But you seem to keep answering in that context. Why?
all the best,
drew
"Because you keep asking questions about plagiarism. As I've said, it's peripheral."
Ah, no, you keep giving as examples, plagiarism instead of simple copying. That has muddied the waters for a good time. You just did it again recently.
"Your right to quote a work is protected by that previous legal arrangement known as copyright law."
No, once again, we are discussing things in the absence of copyright law. Please, give your position relative to this state of affairs unless I specifically ask for how it works with copyright law.
So, if there were no copyright law, would a person have the right to quote from the book of another? Verbally? As written works?
"I think I've been very clear. I've stated my postion over and over and over. You keep bringing up peripheral issues."
You may think you have been, but it is far from clear what your position is.
"To continue with the example of a book: A book is a physical object. At some point in time it does not exist. At another point of time it does. The person who creates that unique entity -- that particular combination of language and medium -- owns it and has all rights in it"
You problem arises when you maintain that he has rights to the combination of words absent as physical entity. I have tried to explore this. Asking about reciting, singing songs, and what not. Trting to see if you think someone owns the words / ordered sequence of words seperate from the physical entity. I thought you had said no. Now it seems you are saying yes. Your actual position is entirely unclear.
all the best,
drew
"A joke is not an object. A book of jokes is. You can tell every joke in that book. You can't start printing your own copies of it."
A single one liner written down on a single piece of paper is an object as much as a novel written on many pieces of paper is an object. If you dispute this, please give your metrics as to where the line is crossed.
How can I not put on a play, but I can tell jokes?
"I don't get the point about lieing about a work. Claiming authorship of something you didn't write is more than a simple lie, it's fraud. Plagiarizing is simply a form of copying. Can you legitmately make use of fair use and still plagiarize? Of course. Is it plagiarism if you copy an entire work and claim it as your own? Of course."
Plagiarism is actually a red herring that you keep throwing in the mix. Let us confine our discussion to copying without claiming authorship shall we? I have never said that plagiarism was OK.
"I know all about the GPL. Claiming Stallman's code as your own would violate the GPL, and my argument, as well."
Here you go with the same red herring again, give it up already. I am talking strictly claiming it is his code and copying it while giving him the credit. If that is not totally clear by now, I doubt I will ever be able to make it clear.
"If not, why would he need to craft a license to specifically transfer to people rights that would otherwise not be theirs?"
Oh, just as a guess... Because of copyright law. But I tell you what, it is easy enough to find his email address, why not send him your theory for his evaluation and comment.
"You are arguing that they acquired those rights as soon as he released the code."
No. Listen up carefully. I argue that they would have those rights in the absence of COPYRIGHT LAW. Since we have copyright law, they don't have those rights and hence the GPL.
"Your argument does invalidate copyright law, because you say all rights to a work belong to the general public upon publication."
Well, gee, so does yours since you saythat it takes the rights an author has in his works and places them into the public domain after a time.
I think I am fine, as a basic concept, with it as it is a temporary creation of rights for a particular purpose. I also have the right to build whatever I please on my land, and yet zoning laws abrogate this.
all the best,
drew
"Plagiarism: You can't plagiarize unless you copy."
I don't actually know. If I claimed to have written MacBeth, what is that called in the absence of my making any copies of it. In any case, that is beside the point and I think we both know it. The point is that it is entirely possible to copy without plagiarism and yet you constantly put the plagiarism aspect into you examples when I have said over and repeatedly that I do not claim anyone has the right to plagiarise, only to copy. Why are you doing this?
"Obviously, I think that would be wrong, and I would do everything to stop you."
I know you think it is wrong. That much is clear now. What right would you have to try and stop me if I were making copies of "A Midsummer Night's Dream" I wonder?
"My position is simple: The source of all rights to such a work is the work's creator, even those rights of the public that are protected by copyright law. I contend that there can be no other origin for those rights."
See, this is what confuses me, if I understood you correctly, you have previously said that it is within my rights to recite / quote a work, that the problem would arise if I tried to make copies.
Please elaborate furhter on your position then.
You have also said that you don't own the words. Now, unless you were playing word games, please explain in light of that.
If you don't have any ownership rights in the words in the order they are in, how does this work. Or were you being tricky and meant that you didn't own the words as in an alphabetical listing of all the words in your work, but you do have ownership rights in those words in that particular order.
Now further, can you explain by what magic you get the rights when writing these words down but you do not get those rights when speaking those words for the first time should you do so in public nad they not be recorded? (I think I have that as you position, if it is not, please clear up that misunderstanding as well.)
"Don't waste time think of "Gotcha" examples. It won't change my position."
That is not at all what I am trying to do. I am trying to get you to clarify what to me are inconsistent position so that I can be confident that I at least correctly understand what you are saying.
all the best,
drew
"http://www.copyright.gov/title17/
I suppose you'll go through the text of the law and nitpick out-of-context zingers. Remember that copyright law could disappear and my argument would stay the same."
So, from that link, am I to imply that you are from the US?
Not at all, and I am not from the US, but from what I have been lead to believe, your countries founders and you constitution do not support your views.
If you have contrary evidence, I am happy to learn.
"By the way, you've never explained the source of the rights you say we all get when someone publishes a book. Where do they come from?"
They just exist, they are natural rights.
I have a natural right to tell my family a joke I heard at work when I get home at night. That seems basic enough to me.
"Why doesn't a prospective publisher acquire these rights when he first reads a copy of the manuscript made by the author?"
Well, let's assume there is no historical precedence for a minute. He would not get the right because I would not let him see it without a contract. It is my secret work. I have not published it.
Look, let's just leave the middle man out for a bit to make things cleared.
Let's assume authors publish their own works. One's they freely choose to publish. The ones they want to keep secret, they keep secret. When an author puts his sorks out in public, the public hasthe right to do what they will with them other than lie about them. (Unless we need to give the right to lie.)
"Stallman wrote emacs. He published the code. Does that give people who've never heard of emacs the same rights as you seem to argue that everyone acquires when a book is published? Why shouldn't I slap my name on emacs, repackage it, and start selling it?"
You can't leave off with the "slap my name on it" part in your examples. Why? Do you need that part for your argument to hang together?
No, you do not have the right to 'slap your name on it' as I have said numerous times. That would be plagiarism, or to use the language above, lieing about the work.
But Stallman believes you should have the right to make copies and derivatives of it and has written the GPL and released his work under that license to ensure that you have just such rights in the face of copyright laws which say that you don't. (Speaking for myself on what I believe his actions and writings to mean and not for him.)
I am giving out just such rights to you and anyone else who should care to excercise them on many of my works as well. This trend is a growing one.
"I'd respond to the inevitable lawsuit by making your argument, which invalidates both copyright law and Stallman's license."
Good luck in trying to invalidate copyright law. Let me know how far you get. In your estimation, is copyright law legal and / or moral?
all the best,
drew
"Huh? Plagiarism is copying. Someone copies someone else's work and claims it as their own."
Perhpas so, but plagiarism can still be wrong while simple copying was not.
If plagiarism must always include copying, then it is more than just copying, it is copying and then claiming authorship.
You putting in the claiming authorship angle muddies the waters of the discussion. That was the point I attempted to make. Do you grant that at this point?
"I haven't been discussing legalities. But, wrong? Yes. A violation of another's rights? Yes. If the law says it is illegal, then it is. If not, the law is wrong."
You are right here, I mis-remembered your statement there.
So, to answer it properly:
Yes, without copyright law, and leaving out the claiming it as something you wrote, you would be fine making copies of a book on your shelf and selling them. As many as you wanted to try and sell.
In fact, this is done all the time today with works that have expired copyrights. Or so I am led to believe.
"I don't understand that."
Right, sorry, also based on the same mis-remembering of your one statement/question.
So, to try and get back on a proper track:
What about the case of a playwright and a repertory company.
Do you think it would be wrong for a repertory company to put on someone else's plays without permission or compensation?
I am trying to understand your position.
all the best,
drew
Once again then:
["By the way, my position isn't radical. It's the commonly accepted position. An opinion that rights to a work pass to everyone else upon publication is certainly the radical stance."
What country are you from?
Can you point to links where this view is held and expounded?]
Please answer the question.
all the best,
drew
Why did you not bother to adress your mixing up plagerism and copying?
Please do so.
"Because you haven't been qualifying your assertions in that manner."
It is how it started and how it continues, I have been trying to be careful to indicate when I mean with copyright law. The other way around is a bit much.
"In any case, my argument has no dependencies on copyright."
Yes, but when you ask me directly if something would be legal?
So, if there was no copyright law of any kind, you maintain that it would still be illegal to make those copies?
In that case it it would seem it must have been illegal to make such copies before there was any copyright law. Can you point to any successful cases on this issue before the first copyright law?
all the best,
drew
"By the way, my position isn't radical. It's the commonly accepted position. An opinion that rights to a work pass to everyone else upon publication is certainly the radical stance."
What country are you from?
Can you point to links where this view is held and expounded?
all the best,
drew
"It seems you are still using the act of seeing somethng as the act that gives you all rights in it."
Read this even more carefully this time:
Read this carefully. No, not at the moment they see the author's work.
"In any case, the world is full of published manuscripts. You are arguing that I am fully within my rights to pull a book off my shelves, make 10,000 copies listing me as the author, and put them up for sale."
Stop purposefully mixing up issues. I have made it abundently clear that I am not talking about listing yourself as an author of a work you are not the author of. If you are having an honest debate here, go back and see that this is so and please try to remember that.
As to making 10,000 copies and putting them up for sale under the name of the proper author... presently, if the book is still in copyright, no, if copyright has expired, yes. If there were no copyright laws, yes.
"After all, it was already published, which you say is "the moment" at which we all acquire rights to that book."
How hard is it for you to remember that I am making these statements supposing that there were no copyright laws. Are you doing this on purpose?
all the best,
drew
"If somone recites words from the work, that is not copying it. No object has been created. If someone memorizes the work and then transcribes it from memory onto another object, that is copying."
This is one of your fundamental ppoblems...
If someone has never seen your object and you don't own the words themselves, then when they write down what they have only heard, they cannot have copied your object in any reasonable of the word.
"You, and many others, seem to be arguing that others acquire rights in an author's work at the moment they see the author's work."
Read this carefully. No, not at the moment they see the author's work. At the moment the author publishes his work. If he does not publish it but keep it private, someone seeing it would not have those rights. Trade secrets work something like this. As long as you keep it secret, it is protected, if you let the secret out, it is not protected.
"If that's true, why don't publishers gain all those rights when they first read an author's manuscript?"
Because it is an unpublished manuscript?
Now, in the face of your radical position, I would claim that if things indeed worked like you imagine, you have no right to make anything public that you do not intend to share freely as that would constitute polluting the minds of the public with your works which would forever prevent them from writing down those words, or a derivative based on those words.
Now, we have been talking writing.
If someone was standing on a street corner in a tourist town and reciting one of your poems that he has read in a book, would it be illegal / imoral for a tourist making a video tape of his vacation to pause and tape this person?
all the best,
drew
"Are you arguing that this is a monopoly in any meaningful sense of the word?"
Yes indeed. It is a monopoly in a meeningful sense of the word. And a valuable one at that, if it were not, people would not mind giving that monopoly up.
"I just don't understand why people get so worked up about DRM around here to the point of often advocating that the government pass various silly laws. Instead, they should just not buy the product."
Possibly because of the other silly laws that have already been passed at the request of various entities in positions of power? (To use your phrasing.)
all the best,
drew
"This is getting tiresome."
it is indeed. And I note you do not try and dealwith examples which I feel will be difficult to explain in your view.
You want to know how people get the right to copy an authors words. They get it when the author chooses, of his own free will, to make his words public. You may not like this fact, but that is the answer.
You never try to answer how an author, who recites a short poem to others around a camp fire, somehow then gains the right to control what they do with those words that are in their head for the rest of their lives. Including, in your words, the right to go around bopping them on the head if they violate his supposed rights.
You never address how writing down your words gives you rights to them that speaking them don't. Does a person who only speaks in public never get any rights to his works? I know this is how copyright law seems to work in that you have to fix your works to get copyright, but you are not talking copyrights, but rather what you think are natural rights.
You also never answer the question of what happens if one person puts his words down initially on the property of another.
You say that you don't get to control if another sings your song in public. This would indicate that you do not own the words. And yet you say you can control if they write those words down. This would indicate that you do own the words. (OK, certain rights to the words that would allow one and not allow the other.) This is not explained.
But, honestly, feel free not to respond. It has gotten old. I think part of the issue though has been the serious misreading of the terminology being used on each side early on.
all the best,
drew
[Thag tells a story around the campfire about the moon god. He mostly just makes it up as he goes along.]
"This is your example of an intellectual creation? Of course Thag won't care about something he made up almost instantly and gave away for free"
Honestly, whoare you to say that someone will never care about something they create on the spot in a period of sudden inspiration while interacting with others.
all the best,
drew
"You cannot "write an idea down". The only thing you can write are words and numbers. Those are not ideas."
I see a little clearer a part of this confusion. So maintain that it only exists in the mind.
So, you really need to explain yourself better in these sorts of discussions and / or make a better effort to understand what the others you are discussionwith are saying so as to try and give clarification.
Really. to do otherwise is a big waste of time. I would hope that is not your real intent.
So. An idea or a a thought cannot be shared. Why? Is it only the expression of the idea that can be shared? Wouldit surprise you to hear me say that I think in words andthat my ideas come to me in words? To my way of using the words, I have never been able to picture anything in my mind while awake. I dream visually but I daydream in words.
So, when I speak my ideas, I am basically getting my body to put the words in my head out into the world as vibrations in the air. And why exactly deos that not qualify as sharing my ideas?
Now, if you think you can indeed own the words, why do you only own the ones you fix and not the ones you just speak? That would make little or no sense in your world according to the principals I have seen you put forth here recently.
"You cannot own an idea. Nor can you share an idea. Ideas are thoughts in our heads. We can use language and other symbols in an attempt to cause other people to have similar thoughts, but no ideas pass from one person to the next (unless you believe in telepathy."
So, let me get this clear. You do believe that you own the words and symbols that you put out in public or write down. (As a sequence, not jumbled up individually.)
all the best,
drew
However, if the two of you are both living in the Us / US citizens, the Us constitution is the governing document for you both when it comes to copyright.
all the best,
drew
Getting away from silly rock analogies, if I write a book, publish it, and you buy it, you have those rights I transferred to you via the publisher plus whatever rights copyright law says you have. No more. This is not hard to understand. It is not hard to understand what you are saying. It is just hard to believe that you say it with conviction considering how wrong it is.
So, is it your contention that copyright laws remove rights from authors that they would otherwose have in the absence of copyright laws?
If so, why is it that authors are not calling for copyright law to be done away with? If they would have more rights without it that is.
You yourself have said that there would not be as many making works without copyright laws. How do you explain this strange circumstance.
all the best,
drew
A story is a sequence of words. Unless you have some other definition as to what a story is. Do you instead mean a plot? If Thag carves his story on a boulder, then Thag owns that physcial representation of his story. Not the story. If Grod starts making duplicate boulders without Thag's permission, Thag has the right to bop him on the head with a big stick. Thag doesn't need copyright law to understand that. Why? You cannot seem to explain this. Thag only owns his boulder with some words on it according to you. If not, what else does he own? If Thag does not own the story and if Grod makes the copies on his own boulders and not boulders to which Thag has any claim, how can Thag have any rights to Grod's boulders? You yourself maintain that he does not own the story! What is it about Grod's boulders that Thag owns then?
What if in the first instance, Thag can't find a suitable boulder of his own and uses one of Grod's boulders without Grod's express written permission? Who owns what in that case in your world view?
all the best,
drew
"But as you've already stated that you don't own the ideas in other people's minds, specifically including the case where these ideas were created based on reading your manuscript, it would appear that you're attempting to say that "(unowned ideas, or ideas owned by A) + (property owned by A) --> (property owned by B)", which doesn't correspond to any theory of natural rights that I'm aware of. On what basis are you making such an extraordinary claim?"
If I get his right, I think he is saying that if he puts his words down on his physical object then he gets all rights to that object including some rights that I don't believe exist and find to be fantastic. (As in unbelievable.)
He things you can read his words and are free to recite them including in public. (This would imply that he thinks there is no right to control public performance. I guess he is not a playright.)
The thinks you have no right, after having memorised them so that you can recite them, to write down what you have memorised on paper which you yourself purchased. I can't actually figure this thinking out.
If I have misunderstood anyhting, I would appreciate clarification to the above statements.
all the best,
drew
"I'm in fundamental disagreeement."
We are indeed in fundamental disagreement.
I find your position very radical and over the top. I imagine you might feel the same way with respect to what I have written.
"I see no way for anyone else to acquire any rights to any created work unless those rights pass to them from the work's creator."
How do you imagine a person has the right to control what another does with information that is in his memory no matter how it came to be there>
"That doesn't exist. Individual members of society do not have some kind of a priori right to do as they wish with a work created by someone else simply because they have access to it or a copy."
Stop setting up straw men and arguing against a position I do not hold. Once again. When a person takes something that he has made and kept private and then makes it public, it is now public. That is my position re natural rights. That is also how things went until copyright law came into effect.
"If the world operated without copyright law for most of its history, I'd just point out that the world existed without any law for most of its history."
This point and the explanation that follows is basically on point. That said, it takes extra explanation if you want to dispute such history.
You also fail to address how the world can possibly function if your view is correct. Like I say, I find it so over the top it amazes me.
all the best,
drew
"You consider that moral?"
Yes indeed. And even reallocate would seem to from what I can gather of his writing in this thread, and until I read your post, he wasthe most over the top person I had ever encountered when it comes to copyright.
Reallocate would say that you can tell the story, you just can't make physical copies.
However, I do consider your proposition that caveman Bob would ask for permission to retell a story amusing.
Please. Give us examples from history where the world functioned as you propose.
However, if you think it is imoral. I suggest that nothing is stopping you from doing the moral thing as you see it. Each time you tell a joke, send some money to the creator or his heirs. Each time you use the number zero, send some money to an arab charity. Each time you use some geometry (fudge here, I think you get the point, I don't wish to do the research now, I am not well) send some money to a greek charity. Don't watch or purchase anything by Disney, etc. where they waited for a work to pass into the public domain before making their adaptation. I could go on.
Honestly, the world you guys envision would be stagnant and repressive.
all the best,
drew
I find your position a bit over the top and certainly not in keeping with history as I mentioned.
.... Absent that grant, I presume their lawyers would contact me about copyright violations."
You also argue against my points about how things would work in the absence of copyright by sometimes explaining how they work with copyright.
I appreciate your responses though and perhaps we will finally come to some better understanding if we keep going.
"1. No. I'm saying that copyright law has nothing to do with the creation of rights. All rights in a work emanate from the work's creator."
No, this is not so. One right you do not have naturally when you create a work is tghe right to stop others from copying it after you publish it. This is how the world worked for thousands of years.
"2. In other words, a monopoly -- posession of all rights inherent in a work -- comes into existence when the work is created and that monopoly of rights is possesed by the work's creator."
Nope, see 1.
"3. The act of publishing is the act of transferring limited rights in return for royalties."
Nope, the act of publishing is the act of making something public that was private. At that point, all bets are off. Copyright law steps in and alters this fact.
If you don't buy this, please explain how people publish Shakespeare's works today without paying royalties to his descendants.
"4. Re: Slashdot -- I mean an exact duplicate.
You have every right to do so as per copyright law and the licesne if ti is the GPL. Their lawyers may indeed contact you but it would not be about copyright violations but about other laws you would be violating.
"4. I'm not defending or attacking copyright law. I'm explaining how, and why, all rights to a work are originally sourced to the work's creator."
But I maintain that you are incorrect in thinking that the right to prevent others from copying after publishing is a natural right that comes into existance on creation of a work. What you get is the right to the physical copy of the work. The right to keep the work secret. The right to reveal the work privately under terms that you negotiate with those you reveal the work to. You don't naturally get the right to prevent people making copies should you choose to publish. (I knowthis is the heart of one of our main disagreements.)
"5. If I publish in the absence of copyright law, then I am constrained only by the terms I impose on the publisher. Rather than the public acquiring more rights, they would acquire only those rights I specifiy."
Wrong. In the absence of copyright law, you could try to do what you say by distributing privately with contracts and perhaps non-disclosure agreements or trade secret agreements at each transfer. Should you choose to publish instead, then you would have no right to stop members of the public from copying your work.
"For example, absent copyright law, there would be no fair use unless I said so."
Can you give any example of anytime or place in history where there were no copyright laws in effect and things worked like this?
"(Importantly, if publishing meant giving up all rights to a work, then how can a member of the public be assured that the book they are buying is the actual, unaltered, work written by the author? )"
They might not be able to. Although perhaps laws of fraud might let them.
Do you really believe that copyright laws are put in place to take rights away from creators?
Can you give any reasons why fashion designers and auto body designers don't get copyrights.
Can you explain why inventors get such a shorter time of protections for things that they patent than authors get for works they write?
"6. >>"...Rights transfer when the author publishes. " Only those rights that the auther specifies ( or accepts via prior legal arrangement, i,e., copyight law)."
Wrong. Please give examples from history.
"If you want to convince me ot
I'm for it but whether Journalist would agree to it would be another point.
To be honest i'd dont really trust journalists. If you need a writer with a english degree to tell you 'THIS IS NEWS' and a man called Rupert Murdoch to approve it then theres more to news than that.
I would imagine it would come down to who wanted what more. Do you want to be interviewed, or does the person want to interview you?all the best,
drew
all the best,
drew
Here we go...
"Nope. I sold him -- not you -- limited rights to publish and market the book. You don't acquire that right when you buy the book."
Sorry, you are right, you sold him the right to publish, you did not give him the right to publish. But please, let's try not to nitpick if it is obvious we are in agreement and speaking loosely. Asking to tighten up on the language is not a problem.
However, you are wrong in the next part. In the absence of copyright law, if you publish your own work, the pubic has just these rights to copy it and make derivatives that you claim they would not aquire on publication. Since you sold the right to publish, when the person who has the right to publish publishes, then the public gats the same rights on publication that they would have gotten had you published yourself.
You are of course free to not poblish and so keep your property.
"The law can't grant what already exists."
So? Since it doesn't already exist, it is copyright law that grants it.
"I can't imagine how you could dispute my statement. How is it possible that if I create something that has never before existed that, at the moment it is created, someone other than me can own it?"
Please listen carefully to where I agree with you and where I disagree with you. It is not helpful for you to act like I disagree with you in those places where I actually agree with you. Unless, of course, you are a troll. At hte moment of creation, when you finish writing the great american novel in your garret in paris, it indeed belongs to you and only you. Should you keep it locked away in your steamer trunck until you die, it will pas to your estate and thence to whomever your will or the law says. If they do the same, the same will be the case. Once you publish though, the public gets certain by your very act of publishing. it is copyright law which steps in and overrides this natural law for a period of time.
"Do I have a right to the meal you cook this evening?"
Please, if we want to make headway here, let's not equate the physical with the non-physical. I am sure we all know that if I make a copy of your poem, you still have your original. Likewise, I am free to make a copy of your meal for myself. What I cannot do is take your copy or your meal.
"I see nothing in human history to dispute that."
Honestly, are you looking hard enough or with an open enough mind?
"If people can make a career from free sofrtware, it is because they have found a way to derive income from their code, something that is made possible by copyright law."
Actually, no. People could still make an income from coding even where they could not obtain a copyright to the code they write.
"No software license would be worth anything if it wasn't buttressed by copyright law."
I am not sure that we could not write softwae contracts/licenses that would not depend on copyright law for teeth, but I cartainly agree with you that all of the current Free Software licenses I am aware of depend on copyright law to function.
I also agree that Free software of the copyleft type would be dealt a fairly hard blow by copyright laws being done away with. It is copyright that gives the source code requirement of the GPL its teeht for instance.
"Re: Slashdot -- The point is not that I can get the code. The point is that their transfer to me of the right to acquire the code does not include the right to launch a duplicate of Slashdot unless Slashdot says it does."
I am not sure what you mean by a duplicate of slashdot. If you mean another site calling itself slashdot but with a misspelled domain name like slashdat.org, then no, it is not copyright law which would deal with this. More like trademark or business name I would guess. If you mean something else, please explain.
"Production of art: Of course, art predates copyright law. That does not invalidate the purpose of copyright law or its effectiveness."
I have no desire to invalidate copyrig