P.S. Perhaps I should add that most Americans I talk to do have a sensible view of their relations to other countries. Unfortunately, the US foreign policy seems dominated by short-sighted retributionism.
CIA did pick up two Swedish citizens allegedly suspected for terrorism, but it was with the cooperation of the Swedish authorities. If the CIA had just walked in and grabbed them, there would have been a huge outcry. But in this case, it was the Swedish authorities themselves who chose to overlook Swedish law.
You are in your full rights to believe it was wrong of Julian Assange to release the documents, but it is ridiculous to claim that he is "aiding and abetting terrorists". I haven't seen any proof that the documents will harm USA in any serious way, but even if they did, it doesn't make Assange an accessory to terrorism. Everything that is morally wrong is not illegal.
Are you by any chance US-American? As a European, I'm pretty tired of Americans who expect the rest of the world to bend to their wishes. USA doesn't extradite Americans if what they've done is not a crime in the USA. Don't expect other countries to punish their own citizens just because they've done something that damages USA.
As I see it, the reactive solution to crime is usually harsher punishments. A proactive solution would be, for example, to deal with young delinquents quickly and effectively, so you get them on the right track before it's too late.
A reactive solution to terrorism would be rigid airport controls, keeping files on all travellers, hunting down and imprisoning known terrorists, etc. A proactive solution would be to win over young people and destroy the recruiting base for the terrorists.
Then why were we almost completely unaware of the various operations of Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan and others? Regarding Al-Qaeda, we knew they were planning many things, but had so much incorrect information that the important intelligence was overlooked. Perhaps the problem was that we were too aware. Regardless, a lot of old information cannot be relied upon. Everything we know must be verified again.
Do you think the restrictions in freedom since 9/11 have helped against these problems? Do you think they're proportionate to the security gained?
For example, has extended wiretapping and the indexing of 200 million americans' phone conversations helped the intelligence agencies weed out incorrect information?
I wouldn't be surprised if the so-called safety measures have actually increased the amount of incorrect and irrelevant information that confuses intelligence.
The reason we were in the middle east 30 years ago was to counter the threat of the USSR. The USSR had nuclear weaponry, and was expanding its influence over more natural resources, in an effort that appeared to be fueling its war machine. The USSR had suffered embarrassment in World War II, and seemed poised to take over where Germany had failed. We know now that the USSR was collapsing already, but at the time, intervening in the middle east looked like the best option to prevent World War III.
And it turned out to be wrong. Before that, it was Central America, and before that, it was Vietnam, and before that...
If one's good intentions fail time and again, maybe it's time to step back and admit defeat. To admit that predicting world politics to the best of one's abilities and then deploy military force doesn't work that well - because it's not really possible to predict the outcome.
It's a good thing, overall. Yes, there are some innocent folks getting detained, deported, and denied entry, but in time those will work out.
I'm afraid it's not just a temporary problem. Usually, big scares (like terrorism) are used to justify legislation wanted for other reasons. For example, the police or intelligence agency wants to eavesdrop on phone conversations without a warrant, but it won't pass. Then a terrorist attack happens, and they get their chance. Once the legislation is passed, it's very hard to get rid of. The nation moves further and further towards a repressive police state.
Why? A crime occured... classified documents were given to unauthorized group, and the government is looking for both who leaked them, and who helped the leaker get the classified documents out. Asking him his opinions on the wars... a prime motivation for the leakers, almost certainly, is no different from investigators asking a suspect opinions like "Do you think the victim deserved it?"...
Except he wasn't suspected of that crime, or any other crime. If he had been, he would have had the right to a lawyer.
I can understand the government sometimes need to detain people at the border without just cause, if the matter is urgent - for example, if someone is suspected to be an actual terrorist about to commit a terrorist act in person. But there is no need to detain someone who is merely suspected of supporting a terrorist organisation, or suspected of already having committed a crime, or suspected to be vaguely connected to terrorism in some way. In those cases, there is no urgency, and the normal due process (arrest, lawyers, trial) would work just as well.
You're saying free market capitalism precludes renting of hammers on a daily basis, or leasing them under a per-tap contract?
No, I'm saying there is no "right to one's work" built into the market system. It is everyone's own responsibility to make sure they get income from the goods they are producing.
For example, I can stand in a street corner and play music which is enjoyed by all who pass by, but that doesn't give me a right to income. Even if people stop and listen, I don't have a right to demand payment from them. I can't call the police and ask that they arrest anyone who stops to listen without paying the fee I've decided. It's my own responsibility to find a way to get paid for my music.
IFPI and RIAA, however, are of another opinion. They believe the mere fact they they produce valuable goods gives them a right to income. If there were significant money to be made in the street musician business, I'm sure we would see people being carted off by the police for stopping to listen without paying.
If the hammer industry was run like the recording industry, hammer producers wouldn't just rent out their tools. That would be far too inefficient for them. No, they would run to the government and ask them to make it illegal to use an ordinary, store-bought hammer in a commercial setting, forcing other companies to use the leased hammers instead. Further, they would insist that it was unfair they only got paid for the sale of a hammer once if it was used by two people, and try to outlaw the resale of hammers.
If someone has invested lots of time and money in creating software, it would indeed be unfair to abolish copyright over night, depriving them of their income.
If, however, copyright does not exist to begin with, it's the programmer's own choice if they want to write the software. If they believe they can make a profit without copyright, it's their gamble. They know the rules.
There are lots of ways to work without getting paid. For example, I can start a commercial radio station, only to discover that people filter out the commercials and only listen to the music, using some kind of TiVo-like device, depriving me of my income. Should I then demand legislation that makes it illegal to listen to radio without listening to the commercials, or should I find another source of income?
FYI: The Patronage system was one where music, art, etc... were custom made by a patron, who paid the composer, artist, etc...
This is actually how most commercial software is produced these days... it's custom-made or customised for a specific company. Unfortunately, it's only usable by other parties if it's free software.
Copyright was a legal construct created to control the mass market system to prevent anyone being able to create their own copies of books, which became somewhat easy with the introduction of the printing press.
Not originally. The Statute of Anne, the original copyright statute in he anglosaxon world, was a censorship device. Basically, publishing a book was forbidden without a written permission from the Crown.
You would think the publishers would oppose this, but the publishers guild actually loved it. This way, only one publisher was allowed to print each book, so there was no risk of undercutting each other. Above all, there was no competition from pesky upstart publishers who insisted on selling books cheaper. The publishers loved it so much they lobbied for an extension when the Statute of Anne expired, and that's how the modern copyright, where the creator of a work is assigned exclusive, transferable publishing rights, came into being.
Just like today, it was the big media companies of the time who pushed for copyright, while the creators and political debaters were divided on the issue.
Joe Public didn't have a printing press in their homes, so copyright was meant to stop competing publishers, not private copying.
The sheer intellectual vacuum around the scum who pirate games never ecases to amaze me.
You might get a different perspective if you studied economics. If you take a bird's-eye view on the economy, you quickly realise that the benefit to society as a whole of cheap copies is huge. For example, every time someone copies a game and plays it, a value is produced (their own amusement). The value produced is not affected one whit by whether the person pays for it or not.
The only societal disadvantage to free copying is if the software producer's revenue decreases so much that they stop producing the software. As long as that doesn't happen, society only benefits from pressing the price down so close to zero as possible, so the software benefits as many people as possible.
Perhaps games like Starcraft II would no longer be produced if we abolished copyright. Would it matter?
There would still be lots of people who choose to produce games because they could make a profit on them even without copyright. They wouldn't have dozens of artists, tens of musicians, and heavy marketing behind them, but they would still be good. And they would benefit a larger number of people.
So the important thing is not making sure the producer gets paid, but to make sure people don't get anything for free?
If I become a published writer (which I'm working on), I would be happy if 100 people bought my book, but I would be absolutely thrilled if 100 people bought my book and 10 000 read it for free.
No, but if you had decided to charge people for admittance, it would be wrong for them to climb over your high garden wall to see it,
That's trespassing, so it's wrong for a different reason.
If I set up a big sign in my garden saying, "Anyone who watches this garden must pay a fee of $1 per day", would I be in my rights to demand money from anyone who deliberately stopped to look at it (without trespassing)?
Yes, but the products would be cheaper and available in many more formats and places, so they could be used by more people. Society as a whole would probably benefit.
The original producer would have to compete by offering the product first, guaranteeing its authenticity and quality, and offering added value. The big artists stand to lose the most; they would face fierce competition from all the copycats. The small artists may not be affected at all.
Where do I make the money to create further works? Without copyright people can distribute my work for free and I'd have to resort to things like ridiculous amounts of product placement to attempt to make up the costs.
I'm not so sure of that. A substantial part of the revenue from a movie comes from the very first weekend it's running. The producer of a movie gets a headstart, and doesn't face substantial competition until the copycats have obtained a high-quality copy and had time to distribute it to a large number of cinemas.
Fiction writers are in a similar situation. Publishers are usually only interested in first publishing rights; very few novels are so succesful they are worth doing a second print run. Unless the novel is hugely succesful, it means neither the publisher nor the writer need to fear that a competing publisher picks it up the for free after the initial publishing. The headstart - the difference in financial success between the first and second publisher - is actually far greater in the book industry than the movie industry.
Still, having a copyright with reasonably short terms might simplify the process of producing and selling movies/books/music/whatever. Without any copyright at all, a writer, for example, would need to bind everyone he showed his novel for with a non-disclosure agreement - including the prospective publisher.
Your neighbors paid for a house near your house, so they are not getting something for free.
They are, if I improved on my house after they bought theirs.
You paid for something (education, a book, whatever) that contained Newton's equations, so again not free.
And how much of the money is paid to Isaac Newton or his descendants when I buy a physics textbook?
Nothing, you say? Then someone along the chain (the bookseller, the publisher, or the writer) MUST have been freeloading on Isaac Newton's work.
When we buy a book containing publicly available knowledge, we only pay for expressing, publishing and printing the knowledge in this specific form. The discovery of the knowledge itself goes unrewarded. And there are numerous free sources to obtain the same knowledge, like asking a friend.
Inspiration also generally comes from something you paid for or created yourself, so yet again is not free.
It can, but it doesn't have to. Writers get their inspiration from anywhere: people they've met, conversations they've overheard, plots which authors have borrowed from other authors who have borrowed them from Homeros and Gilgamesh.
We can't avoid getting ideas from others for free unless we lock ourselves in a room with no TV.
I don't think it's in any way unreasonable to give artists, writers and software engineers fair compensation for their work, but in general, I don't think makes much difference for the average artist/author/engineer, and as copyright is designed today, with the absurd lengths of term, it is more hamrful than beneficial.
Of course there were many authors who supported copyright, just like there are today. But it was the publishers that had the most to gain from copyright and the political power to lobby for it. From Wikipedia
:
When the statutory copyright term provided for by the Statute of Anne began to expire in 1731 London booksellers thought to defend their dominant position by seeking injunctions from the Court of Chancery for works by authors that fell outside the statute's protection. At the same time the London booksellers lobbied parliament to extend the copyright term provided by the Statute of Anne.
It wasn't exactly a grassroots movement among authors.
Work is not owned. I could spend years of my life developing a new business idea (for example, making home deliveries of ice cream), but that doesn't give me any exclusive right to it. I can't prevent competitors from copying my business idea, even if they admitted they got the idea from looking at my business, and it ruined all the work I spent building it up.
There is no general right to protect the work put into something. There are only rights to a limited list of things which may result from work, like physical property, artistic and literary works, and inventions. The debate is over what should be included on this list.
Society doesn't own work any more than individuals do. If, for example, the state builds a new motorway, and the improved communications happen to double the price of my land, the state doesn't claim any rights to the price increase it caused through the labour put into the motorway.
Claming a general right to the fruits of one's labour would create a morass of intangible claims. For example, making my own house and garden more beautiful could cause a slight price increase in the entire neighbourhood, giving me a right to the price difference in my neighbours' properties. Conversely, letting my own house and garden decay could cause the prices in the entire neighbourhood to drop, resulting in my neighbours suing me for the value they lost.
There are simply a number of things in this world which are not, and cannot be, owned.
Ultimately, all social conventions are arbitrary, but some of them are either so ingrained into our morals or so essential for the function of society, that they cannot conceivably be abolished. Taboos against murder and theft, for example, have been along since at least the stone age, and it's hard to imagine society functioning without them.
That is not true for copyright. We went along perfectly well without copyright until the 18th century. There is no general consensus that copyright is necessary. In many cases, copyright goes against people's sense of right and wrong, for example, when they are prevented from singing songs that have become a part of their culture. We could decrease the copyright term to one year, or extend it to 1000 years, and nobody could supply a decisive argument as to why one length is better than the other, except if you subscribe to the economist view that copyrights should be beneficial for society as a whole, and then the shorter term would win.
Slashdot Mirror
P.S. Perhaps I should add that most Americans I talk to do have a sensible view of their relations to other countries. Unfortunately, the US foreign policy seems dominated by short-sighted retributionism.
CIA did pick up two Swedish citizens allegedly suspected for terrorism, but it was with the cooperation of the Swedish authorities. If the CIA had just walked in and grabbed them, there would have been a huge outcry. But in this case, it was the Swedish authorities themselves who chose to overlook Swedish law.
You are in your full rights to believe it was wrong of Julian Assange to release the documents, but it is ridiculous to claim that he is "aiding and abetting terrorists". I haven't seen any proof that the documents will harm USA in any serious way, but even if they did, it doesn't make Assange an accessory to terrorism. Everything that is morally wrong is not illegal.
Are you by any chance US-American? As a European, I'm pretty tired of Americans who expect the rest of the world to bend to their wishes. USA doesn't extradite Americans if what they've done is not a crime in the USA. Don't expect other countries to punish their own citizens just because they've done something that damages USA.
Can you elaborate?
As I see it, the reactive solution to crime is usually harsher punishments. A proactive solution would be, for example, to deal with young delinquents quickly and effectively, so you get them on the right track before it's too late.
A reactive solution to terrorism would be rigid airport controls, keeping files on all travellers, hunting down and imprisoning known terrorists, etc. A proactive solution would be to win over young people and destroy the recruiting base for the terrorists.
Then why were we almost completely unaware of the various operations of Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan and others? Regarding Al-Qaeda, we knew they were planning many things, but had so much incorrect information that the important intelligence was overlooked. Perhaps the problem was that we were too aware. Regardless, a lot of old information cannot be relied upon. Everything we know must be verified again.
Do you think the restrictions in freedom since 9/11 have helped against these problems? Do you think they're proportionate to the security gained?
For example, has extended wiretapping and the indexing of 200 million americans' phone conversations helped the intelligence agencies weed out incorrect information?
I wouldn't be surprised if the so-called safety measures have actually increased the amount of incorrect and irrelevant information that confuses intelligence.
The reason we were in the middle east 30 years ago was to counter the threat of the USSR. The USSR had nuclear weaponry, and was expanding its influence over more natural resources, in an effort that appeared to be fueling its war machine. The USSR had suffered embarrassment in World War II, and seemed poised to take over where Germany had failed. We know now that the USSR was collapsing already, but at the time, intervening in the middle east looked like the best option to prevent World War III.
And it turned out to be wrong. Before that, it was Central America, and before that, it was Vietnam, and before that...
If one's good intentions fail time and again, maybe it's time to step back and admit defeat. To admit that predicting world politics to the best of one's abilities and then deploy military force doesn't work that well - because it's not really possible to predict the outcome.
It's a good thing, overall. Yes, there are some innocent folks getting detained, deported, and denied entry, but in time those will work out.
I'm afraid it's not just a temporary problem. Usually, big scares (like terrorism) are used to justify legislation wanted for other reasons. For example, the police or intelligence agency wants to eavesdrop on phone conversations without a warrant, but it won't pass. Then a terrorist attack happens, and they get their chance. Once the legislation is passed, it's very hard to get rid of. The nation moves further and further towards a repressive police state.
Since when is the public classified as an enemy of the state ?
Since they started demanding rights.
Why? A crime occured... classified documents were given to unauthorized group, and the government is looking for both who leaked them, and who helped the leaker get the classified documents out. Asking him his opinions on the wars... a prime motivation for the leakers, almost certainly, is no different from investigators asking a suspect opinions like "Do you think the victim deserved it?"...
Except he wasn't suspected of that crime, or any other crime. If he had been, he would have had the right to a lawyer.
I can understand the government sometimes need to detain people at the border without just cause, if the matter is urgent - for example, if someone is suspected to be an actual terrorist about to commit a terrorist act in person. But there is no need to detain someone who is merely suspected of supporting a terrorist organisation, or suspected of already having committed a crime, or suspected to be vaguely connected to terrorism in some way. In those cases, there is no urgency, and the normal due process (arrest, lawyers, trial) would work just as well.
If they didn't want Wikileaks to expose their crimes, they should have followed the law in the first place.
You're saying free market capitalism precludes renting of hammers on a daily basis, or leasing them under a per-tap contract?
No, I'm saying there is no "right to one's work" built into the market system. It is everyone's own responsibility to make sure they get income from the goods they are producing.
For example, I can stand in a street corner and play music which is enjoyed by all who pass by, but that doesn't give me a right to income. Even if people stop and listen, I don't have a right to demand payment from them. I can't call the police and ask that they arrest anyone who stops to listen without paying the fee I've decided. It's my own responsibility to find a way to get paid for my music.
IFPI and RIAA, however, are of another opinion. They believe the mere fact they they produce valuable goods gives them a right to income. If there were significant money to be made in the street musician business, I'm sure we would see people being carted off by the police for stopping to listen without paying.
If the hammer industry was run like the recording industry, hammer producers wouldn't just rent out their tools. That would be far too inefficient for them. No, they would run to the government and ask them to make it illegal to use an ordinary, store-bought hammer in a commercial setting, forcing other companies to use the leased hammers instead. Further, they would insist that it was unfair they only got paid for the sale of a hammer once if it was used by two people, and try to outlaw the resale of hammers.
If someone has invested lots of time and money in creating software, it would indeed be unfair to abolish copyright over night, depriving them of their income.
If, however, copyright does not exist to begin with, it's the programmer's own choice if they want to write the software. If they believe they can make a profit without copyright, it's their gamble. They know the rules.
There are lots of ways to work without getting paid. For example, I can start a commercial radio station, only to discover that people filter out the commercials and only listen to the music, using some kind of TiVo-like device, depriving me of my income. Should I then demand legislation that makes it illegal to listen to radio without listening to the commercials, or should I find another source of income?
FYI: The Patronage system was one where music, art, etc... were custom made by a patron, who paid the composer, artist, etc...
This is actually how most commercial software is produced these days... it's custom-made or customised for a specific company. Unfortunately, it's only usable by other parties if it's free software.
Copyright was a legal construct created to control the mass market system to prevent anyone being able to create their own copies of books, which became somewhat easy with the introduction of the printing press.
Not originally. The Statute of Anne, the original copyright statute in he anglosaxon world, was a censorship device. Basically, publishing a book was forbidden without a written permission from the Crown.
You would think the publishers would oppose this, but the publishers guild actually loved it. This way, only one publisher was allowed to print each book, so there was no risk of undercutting each other. Above all, there was no competition from pesky upstart publishers who insisted on selling books cheaper. The publishers loved it so much they lobbied for an extension when the Statute of Anne expired, and that's how the modern copyright, where the creator of a work is assigned exclusive, transferable publishing rights, came into being.
Just like today, it was the big media companies of the time who pushed for copyright, while the creators and political debaters were divided on the issue.
Joe Public didn't have a printing press in their homes, so copyright was meant to stop competing publishers, not private copying.
The sheer intellectual vacuum around the scum who pirate games never ecases to amaze me.
You might get a different perspective if you studied economics. If you take a bird's-eye view on the economy, you quickly realise that the benefit to society as a whole of cheap copies is huge. For example, every time someone copies a game and plays it, a value is produced (their own amusement). The value produced is not affected one whit by whether the person pays for it or not.
The only societal disadvantage to free copying is if the software producer's revenue decreases so much that they stop producing the software. As long as that doesn't happen, society only benefits from pressing the price down so close to zero as possible, so the software benefits as many people as possible.
Perhaps games like Starcraft II would no longer be produced if we abolished copyright. Would it matter?
There would still be lots of people who choose to produce games because they could make a profit on them even without copyright. They wouldn't have dozens of artists, tens of musicians, and heavy marketing behind them, but they would still be good. And they would benefit a larger number of people.
Free (as in beer) Is Good.
So the important thing is not making sure the producer gets paid, but to make sure people don't get anything for free?
If I become a published writer (which I'm working on), I would be happy if 100 people bought my book, but I would be absolutely thrilled if 100 people bought my book and 10 000 read it for free.
Good point.
No, but if you had decided to charge people for admittance, it would be wrong for them to climb over your high garden wall to see it,
That's trespassing, so it's wrong for a different reason.
If I set up a big sign in my garden saying, "Anyone who watches this garden must pay a fee of $1 per day", would I be in my rights to demand money from anyone who deliberately stopped to look at it (without trespassing)?
Yes, but the products would be cheaper and available in many more formats and places, so they could be used by more people. Society as a whole would probably benefit.
The original producer would have to compete by offering the product first, guaranteeing its authenticity and quality, and offering added value. The big artists stand to lose the most; they would face fierce competition from all the copycats. The small artists may not be affected at all.
Where do I make the money to create further works? Without copyright people can distribute my work for free and I'd have to resort to things like ridiculous amounts of product placement to attempt to make up the costs.
I'm not so sure of that. A substantial part of the revenue from a movie comes from the very first weekend it's running. The producer of a movie gets a headstart, and doesn't face substantial competition until the copycats have obtained a high-quality copy and had time to distribute it to a large number of cinemas.
Fiction writers are in a similar situation. Publishers are usually only interested in first publishing rights; very few novels are so succesful they are worth doing a second print run. Unless the novel is hugely succesful, it means neither the publisher nor the writer need to fear that a competing publisher picks it up the for free after the initial publishing. The headstart - the difference in financial success between the first and second publisher - is actually far greater in the book industry than the movie industry.
Still, having a copyright with reasonably short terms might simplify the process of producing and selling movies/books/music/whatever. Without any copyright at all, a writer, for example, would need to bind everyone he showed his novel for with a non-disclosure agreement - including the prospective publisher.
Reducing the copyright terms to ten years seems like a very reasonable compromise to me, and would vastly improve on the current system.
I'm not sure copyright is needed at all, but in any case it's safest to reduce it gradually.
Your neighbors paid for a house near your house, so they are not getting something for free.
They are, if I improved on my house after they bought theirs.
You paid for something (education, a book, whatever) that contained Newton's equations, so again not free.
And how much of the money is paid to Isaac Newton or his descendants when I buy a physics textbook?
Nothing, you say? Then someone along the chain (the bookseller, the publisher, or the writer) MUST have been freeloading on Isaac Newton's work.
When we buy a book containing publicly available knowledge, we only pay for expressing, publishing and printing the knowledge in this specific form. The discovery of the knowledge itself goes unrewarded. And there are numerous free sources to obtain the same knowledge, like asking a friend.
Inspiration also generally comes from something you paid for or created yourself, so yet again is not free.
It can, but it doesn't have to. Writers get their inspiration from anywhere: people they've met, conversations they've overheard, plots which authors have borrowed from other authors who have borrowed them from Homeros and Gilgamesh.
We can't avoid getting ideas from others for free unless we lock ourselves in a room with no TV.
I don't think it's in any way unreasonable to give artists, writers and software engineers fair compensation for their work, but in general, I don't think makes much difference for the average artist/author/engineer, and as copyright is designed today, with the absurd lengths of term, it is more hamrful than beneficial.
Of course there were many authors who supported copyright, just like there are today. But it was the publishers that had the most to gain from copyright and the political power to lobby for it. From Wikipedia
:
When the statutory copyright term provided for by the Statute of Anne began to expire in 1731 London booksellers thought to defend their dominant position by seeking injunctions from the Court of Chancery for works by authors that fell outside the statute's protection. At the same time the London booksellers lobbied parliament to extend the copyright term provided by the Statute of Anne.
It wasn't exactly a grassroots movement among authors.
Work is not owned. I could spend years of my life developing a new business idea (for example, making home deliveries of ice cream), but that doesn't give me any exclusive right to it. I can't prevent competitors from copying my business idea, even if they admitted they got the idea from looking at my business, and it ruined all the work I spent building it up.
There is no general right to protect the work put into something. There are only rights to a limited list of things which may result from work, like physical property, artistic and literary works, and inventions. The debate is over what should be included on this list.
Society doesn't own work any more than individuals do. If, for example, the state builds a new motorway, and the improved communications happen to double the price of my land, the state doesn't claim any rights to the price increase it caused through the labour put into the motorway.
Claming a general right to the fruits of one's labour would create a morass of intangible claims. For example, making my own house and garden more beautiful could cause a slight price increase in the entire neighbourhood, giving me a right to the price difference in my neighbours' properties. Conversely, letting my own house and garden decay could cause the prices in the entire neighbourhood to drop, resulting in my neighbours suing me for the value they lost.
There are simply a number of things in this world which are not, and cannot be, owned.
Ultimately, all social conventions are arbitrary, but some of them are either so ingrained into our morals or so essential for the function of society, that they cannot conceivably be abolished. Taboos against murder and theft, for example, have been along since at least the stone age, and it's hard to imagine society functioning without them.
That is not true for copyright. We went along perfectly well without copyright until the 18th century. There is no general consensus that copyright is necessary. In many cases, copyright goes against people's sense of right and wrong, for example, when they are prevented from singing songs that have become a part of their culture. We could decrease the copyright term to one year, or extend it to 1000 years, and nobody could supply a decisive argument as to why one length is better than the other, except if you subscribe to the economist view that copyrights should be beneficial for society as a whole, and then the shorter term would win.