You think (traditional) publishers are still going to be around for 'future paper publishing'?
"Oooh. I'm blacklisted. How will I get my writing out to my readers when no-one will print it on paper for me?"
Try http://Lulu.com for them quaint old folk who can't use these new fangled webtablet thingies. You bung the PDF on your own site and the readers download it, and give it to Lulu to get it printed on paper.
This is the future, and may http://VoDo.net have every success - before a jealous publishing lobby convinces the corrupt state to tax the Internet to 'compensate' their cartel buddies for the loss of their 18th century monopoly they thought would last forever.
The funny thing is the publishers of this eBook: Privilege and Property – Essays on the History of Copyright have prohibited me from selling it at a price greater than zero (per CC-NC). So I can't just undercut them by a penny, I have to undercut them by the full eBook retail price of £4.95. If I could undercut them by 5p, I'd be incentivised to sell copies at £4.90, but no, I have to sell it at £0.00. Very strange. Presumably they expect to sell more copies if they oblige their competitors to give them away rather than sell them.
I guess it has something to do with the stats, e.g. "We sold more copies than anyone else - if you accept our definition of 'sold' as being for a price greater than zero".
Who'd have thought that a quirk of the English language (sale @ 1p vs gift @ 0p) would blind people to maths?
I blame Lawrence Lessig for either or both of the following:
a) not understanding the commerce of cultural exchange.
b) understanding that the vast majority of people are easily fooled ("NC means no-one else can sell copies of your work - and you'll be the only one who can sell copies, so will be rich!").
Mr Wilson, of course the law did grant the privileges of copyright and patent, but it had no constitutional sanction to do so (and could not be given such sanction).
The law SHOULD NOT grant privileges.
The law SHOULD protect rights.
The Constitution provides power from the people to the government (strictly limited) and recognises and enumerates the (natural) rights of the people that the government is empowered to secure. The Constitution CANNOT GRANT rights or privileges, nor can it empower the government to do so.
By definition the Constitution precedes law. It cannot reference the law that follows it, just as you cannot refer on your resume to employment you haven't done yet, e.g. "In five years time I will have completed a two year stint working for BP until I narrowly escaped a blowout". So the Constitution cannot say "Oh, and in reference to those privileges that you'll be enacting in three years time, well, by all means help those privileged enjoy their privileges to the full because they're bound to greatly benefit the public who so graciously sacrificed their liberty, but you should at least ensure they're not perpetual".
I guess a lot of people think the Constitution could and did refer to copyright and patent in the progress clause.
I've given you enough information Mr Wilson. Anything more and I start providing you with a free education.
1) Read my quote of Edison about Thomas Paine to realise you need to read him in order to grok the Constitution.
2) Read Thomas Paine (Rights of Man) to understand the purpose, language, natural rights philosophy, and the constraints of what the Constitution could and couldn't do.
3) The Constitution was sufficiently explicit in 1787. It is the corruptions of our language and conception of rights vs privileges today that allows people to read the progress clause and misunderstand it as sanction to grant copyright and patent.
4) Understand that although some (such as Madison) wouldn't have hesitated in explicitly granting monopolies in the Constitution, even they recognised that they could not do so.
5) Understand that even though Jefferson suggested Madison put monopolies in the Bill of Rights (because they couldn't be put in the Constitution!), they couldn't even be put in the Bill of Rights (because they weren't rights).
6) That copyright and patent were legislated does not mean that they actually had Constitutional sanction. There was considerable interest by those concerned to see the privileges enacted, and this is why they were enacted without complaint (or any pedant pointing out a lack of Constitutional sanction).
No, laws do not grant rights (or rather, they can have no Constitutional sanction to do so), laws protect rights.
The Constitution is of course the basis for the legislation that followed it, and thus the legislation must refer to the Constitution, but it's a logical impossibility for the Constitution to refer to that legislation. Come on, think about it.
If you research it you will find legal argument concerning whether copyright is a natural right, and the distinction between an author's natural exclusive right and the privilege of copyright.
I wouldn't say I was obsessing. Just curious as to whether Mike's ever thought to substantiate his oft repeated claim that copyright was designed to promote the progress.
Paine effectively had direct input into the intellectual rigour and semantic integrity of the Constitution - even if he didn't pen each clause. Otherwise, instead of a constitution it would have simply been a wishy washy political charter full of vacuous guarantees, obligations, aspirations, platitudes and assurances, much like state institutions and corporations now so faux-righteously give to their 'stakeholders' as part of a PR/customer relations exercise.
Compare with the ECHR (exuding a far more 'designed by committee' aroma than the US Constitution).
"Homeland Security was supposed to be about stopping terrorist threats to our country. Now Homeland Security is taking on a mission that has nothing to do with keeping us safe."
Such is the way of pretext.
Copyright was enacted to enable the crown via a self-regulating press to suppress sedition ('stopping insurrectionist threats to our country'), but had the pretext of encouraging learning.
Homeland Security actually has the same mission as copyright and that's why it seeks to institute measures to regain control of communication from an uncontrolled public (pirates, terrorists, paedophiles, homosexuals, muslims, communists, etc.).
So, really all we're complaining about is the use of pretext. The missions are essentially the same.
Homeland Security is about wresting control of communications technology from the public.
Copyright is about wresting control of communications technology from the public.
Even in proposals for network neutrality regulation it always says 'no discrimination of LEGAL communications'.
Legal, authorised, licensed, regulated, permitted by the state. This is what it's all about. The state wants the power from control, and the publishing corporations want the wealth from control. That's why they're in it together and always have been.
But, the Internet in the hands of the people might just be too big for the state and the corporations to master. It's a civil cyberwar and hardly anyone's noticed.
The Statute of Anne 1710 begins:
"An act for the encouragement of learning, by vesting the copies of printed books in the authors or purchasers of such copies, during the times therein mentioned."
US Copyright Act of 1790 begins:
"An Act for the encouragement of learning, by securing the copies of maps, Charts, And books, to the authors and proprietors of such copies, during the times therein mentioned." http://www.copyright.gov/history/1790act.pdf
How unsurprising that the US version insinuates Constitutional sanction by using the term 'securing' in order to imply it secures an author's natural exclusive right to their writing - instead of representing the granting of a legal right to exclude others from making copies (the granting of a reproduction monopoly).
But bear in mind that as with the church's fiercely protected support for geocentricity (denouncing heliocentricity as heresy), the corporately sponsored consensus view IS that the 'copyright & patent clause' came first, and then copyright and patent being so explicitly sanctioned were duly designed and legislated accordingly. It is only thanks to those privileges that we have enjoyed such cultural and technological progress.
That the Constitution couldn't grant or empower Congress to grant monopolies (and didn't) is heresy and only whispered in dark corners, as is the proposition that laws against the sharing and improvement of culture or technology can only impede progress.
It's one of those red pill/blue pill paradigm shifting dichotomies.
Note that what you quoted concerns Jefferson's recognition that the issue of monopolies should be included in the discussion of a Bill of Rights (and that without agreement they're probably best dispensed with).
However, that is a separate matter to the drafting of the progress clause.
The Constitution cannot recognise a privilege (since if it doesn't yet exist it cannot be recognised), and therefore cannot specify that it be secured.
The Constitution cannot empower Congress to grant privileges (monopolies) because they must necessarily derogate from rights (see Paine).
I don't doubt that Madison hoped for some way in which the Constitution could empower Congress to grant the privileges of copyright and patent, but it could not be achieved as it was a logical impossibility. If they empowered Congress to grant monopolies they would have invalidated the Constitution. The most that could be done was to specify the securing of the individual's natural right (that already exists). That's why the clause had to be written as it was, and not blatantly "to grant monopolies lasting for limited times".
Monopolies couldn't be added in the Bill of Rights for a similar reason, but at least if they had been, it would have been easier to rescind later. And Madison probably recognised that too.
Copyright and patent weren't legislated to promote the progress, but because powerful bodies wanted these very lucrative privileges enacted (as soon as possible and permanently).
The natural exclusive right is very poorly protected. It is not enough to prevent someone stealing my manuscript as a material object. My natural right to exclude others from making copies of my manuscript must also be secured, i.e. my exclusive right to exclude others from the intellectual work fixed upon it.
I am not going to be a happy bunny if the judge says "But, you haven't lost anything. You still have your manuscript. The burglar simply made a copy".
The point is, I naturally prevent the burglar making a copy by putting locks on my doors and sitting up all night laying in wait to accost any intruders. The problem is, sometimes the burglar defeats my physical abilities. That's why I empower a government to secure my right.
However, if I give five of my friends a sheet of paper with a poem I've written on it, I have no natural ability or right to continuously monitor each one and arrest them the moment they even think of scribing a copy to share with others. That's why copyright is unnatural (and obviously highly prized by publishing corporations).
No, rights do not become natural through being referenced in the Constitution. It is that the Constitution cannot refer to privileges (rights granted by future legislation), and therefore can only refer to (natural) rights it recognises (as imbued in man by nature).
Bear in mind that we've had over two centuries to get used to the linguistic corruption that copyright is an exclusive right (insinuating itself as the natural exclusive right that the Constitution can only refer to).
Copyright, as Jefferson might put it, is 'a legal right to the exclusive use of an original work', and 'legal right' is short for 'legally granted right' NOT 'constitutionally recognised'. It's easy to see how this gets contracted over the years into 'exclusive right'. And then it's easy to see how people happily allow themselves to be lulled into the belief that copyright is the natural exclusive right recognised by the Constitution in the 'progress clause'. From our perspective copyright already exists when we read the Constitution, but then that's because we and copyright are in the future from the Constitution's perspective, but do try to remember that whilst the past is known to those in the future, the future is not known to those in the past.
If you still believe that the Constitution can refer to 'rights' legally granted years later, then you've left the realms of logic.
Because Jefferson was not all that sure about the copyright clause in the first place? Mike even wrote about it here.
Mike should check the timeline of those quotes. Jefferson will seem to vacillate like a yoyo if his views of 1813 are presented as if preceding the drafting of the 'progress clause' in 1787.
People have a natural right to intellectual property, to exclude others from the intellectual works in their private possession, because this is as self-evident as a natural right to exclude others from the material works in their private possession. To get your hands on my writings or discoveries (fixed in a physical medium), just as on my material possessions, you have to burgle my house or pick my notebook from my pocket. I have a natural right to prevent and exclude you, and that right should be secured.
What I do not have any natural power or right to is to give you my writing and suspend your liberty to copy or further communicate it. It takes the grant of a privilege to do so, an instrument of injustice. The monopoly of copyright suspends the right to copy from the many to give it to the few (the press).
The US Constitution could only refer to (natural) rights because it certainly can't refer to privileges (legally granted rights). A constitution cannot refer to future legislation.
Mike, you're evidently still a passionate believer in the notion that the 'progress clause' gave rise to copyright, rather than that the later import of copyright (no doubt strenuously lobbied for) simply insinuated its sanction to that clause.
"By a declaration of rights, I mean one which shall stipulate freedom of religion, freedom of the press, freedom of commerce against monopolies, trial by juries in all cases, no suspensions of the habeas corpus, no standing armies. These are fetters against doing evil which no honest government should decline." --Thomas Jefferson to Alexander Donald, 1788. ME 6:425
So, a year after the Constitution when drafting the Bill of Rights, why would Jefferson be against monopolies if Congress had only just be empowered to grant them?
Congress had NOT been empowered to grant monopolies.
ONE YEAR LATER (when who knows what Machiavellian machinations were afoot), Jefferson feels inspired to propose some further amendments, including rather perversely:
"Article 9. Monopolies may be allowed to persons for their own productions in literature, and their own inventions in the arts, for a term not exceeding -- years, but for no longer term, and no other purpose." -- Thomas Jefferson to James Madison, 1789. ME 7:450, Papers 15:367
Rather strange don't you think, for Jefferson to propose monopolies? Anyway, the reason this article never made it into the Bill of Rights was because it would have undermined Madison's intention to enact England's copyright and patent by revealing that such monopolies weren't previously sanctioned by the Constitution (indeed would have raised the question as to whether they could even be granted in the Bill of Rights).
Instead of explicitly granting monopolies via the Bill of Rights, Madison knew that it would be far better if they were simply legislated as a fait accompli, and Constitutional sanction left as implicit (insinuated by the progress clause).
And another year later, the rest, as they say, is history.
On reflection 25 years later Jefferson concludes:
"Accordingly, it is a fact, as far as I am informed, that England was, until we copied her, the only country on earth which ever, by a general law, gave a legal right to the exclusive use of an idea. In some other countries it is sometimes done, in a great case, and by a special and personal act, but, generally speaking, other nations have thought that these monopolies produce more embarrassment than advantage to society; and it may be observed that the nations which refuse monopolies of invention, are as fruitful as England in new and useful devices." -- Thomas Jefferson, Letter to Isaac McPherson, Monticello, August 13, 1813
That emboldened bit explains that patent was a legal right given or granted by statute (and imported from England - not designed to fulfil the 'progress clause'). It was NOT the inventor's natural exclusive right that the Constitution empowered Congress to secure.
The Constitution cannot empower Congress to secure a right that hasn't even been granted yet. That's why Jefferson proposed the amendment that granted them in the Bill of Rights - which couldn't be admitted by Madison because he knew that Congress had no Constitutional power to grant monopolies.
It was all one big corrupt fudge on Madison's part - to grant England's lucrative monopolies to the US and hope no-one noticed they were unconstitutional.
Copyright and patent should be abolished, and Congress replace them with legislation that properly secures the individual's natural exclusive right to their intellectual work and property as much as their material work and property. If this is secured then the individual reports a violation to the police. They do not transfer a reproduction monopoly to a publisher for them to sue infringers. The difference between having a right secured and paying lawyers to prosecute a privilege should be another clue as to the fundamental difference between rights and privileges.
Another Founding Father that people should read is Thomas Paine. See Wikipedia on his "Rights of Man":
Human rights originate in Nature, thus, rights cannot be granted via political charter, because that implies that rights are legally revocable, hence, would be privileges:
It is a perversion of terms to say that a charter gives rights. It operates by a contrary effect — that of taking rights away. Rights are inherently in all the inhabitants; but charters, by annulling those rights, in the majority, leave the right, by exclusion, in the hands of a few . . . They . . . consequently are instruments of injustice.
The fact, therefore, must be that the individuals, themselves, each, in his own personal and sovereign right, entered into a compact with each other to produce a government: and this is the only mode in which governments have a right to arise, and the only principle on which they have a right to exist.
Government's sole purpose is safeguarding the individual and his/her inherent, inalienable rights; each societal institution that does not benefit the nation is illegitimate — especially the Monarchy, the Nobility, and the Military
An author's exclusive right to their writings is their natural right to exclude others from them. This is a right imbued in the author by nature (not granted by statute), and is self-evident in that any author has the mortal power in their body to physically exclude others from those writings in their physical possession or in their physically secured property. It is this natural right that Congress is empowered to secure.
Copyright is a reproduction monopoly granted by statute. People are not naturally able to prevent pirates making illicit copies of published works. Congress is not empowered by the Constitution to grant such monopolies. But it did anyway. And given only a tiny few had printers in their garages, who cared?
The Constitution empowered Congress - and that power comes from the people to protect their rights - not to grant privileges that derogate from them.
Moreover, the Constitution only empowered congress to secure the individual's exclusive right. It said nothing about granting monopolies. The Framers weren't exactly unfamiliar with the term, so one can only marvel at people's willingness to believe that securing a natural right means having the power to grant monopolies. That is the predictable insinuation of those who covet monopolies - and far too many are happy to believe it as gospel.
On the post: Big Name Authors Realize Their Old Contracts Don't Cover eBooks; Route Around Old Publishers To Release New Versions
Re:
You think (traditional) publishers are still going to be around for 'future paper publishing'?
"Oooh. I'm blacklisted. How will I get my writing out to my readers when no-one will print it on paper for me?"
Try http://Lulu.com for them quaint old folk who can't use these new fangled webtablet thingies. You bung the PDF on your own site and the readers download it, and give it to Lulu to get it printed on paper.
On the post: Big Name Authors Realize Their Old Contracts Don't Cover eBooks; Route Around Old Publishers To Release New Versions
Re: The end digital slavery?
Slavery is not an inappropriate term, differing only in scale.
Both copyright and slavery represent legal suspensions of the individual's natural right to liberty.
On the post: Yes Men Release Movie Via BitTorrent To Avoid Legal Hassles
Here's the TORRENT
This is the future, and may http://VoDo.net have every success - before a jealous publishing lobby convinces the corrupt state to tax the Internet to 'compensate' their cartel buddies for the loss of their 18th century monopoly they thought would last forever.
On the post: Big Name Authors Realize Their Old Contracts Don't Cover eBooks; Route Around Old Publishers To Release New Versions
Re: so is the price cheaper
I guess it has something to do with the stats, e.g. "We sold more copies than anyone else - if you accept our definition of 'sold' as being for a price greater than zero".
Who'd have thought that a quirk of the English language (sale @ 1p vs gift @ 0p) would blind people to maths?
I blame Lawrence Lessig for either or both of the following:
a) not understanding the commerce of cultural exchange.
b) understanding that the vast majority of people are easily fooled ("NC means no-one else can sell copies of your work - and you'll be the only one who can sell copies, so will be rich!").
And yes, I am selling copies of the eBook at the bargain price of £0.00 - here: http://www.digitalproductions.co.uk/index.php?id=250 (and it doesn't even have DRM, so it's even more useful/valuable!).
On the post: Homeland Security Decides If It Just Keeps Interchanging Counterfeiting With Copyright Infringement, Perhaps No One Will Notice
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Category errors
US English of 1787 and US English of 2010 are two languages separated by a common nation.
On the post: Homeland Security Decides If It Just Keeps Interchanging Counterfeiting With Copyright Infringement, Perhaps No One Will Notice
Re: Re: Re: Re: Category errors
The law SHOULD NOT grant privileges.
The law SHOULD protect rights.
The Constitution provides power from the people to the government (strictly limited) and recognises and enumerates the (natural) rights of the people that the government is empowered to secure. The Constitution CANNOT GRANT rights or privileges, nor can it empower the government to do so.
By definition the Constitution precedes law. It cannot reference the law that follows it, just as you cannot refer on your resume to employment you haven't done yet, e.g. "In five years time I will have completed a two year stint working for BP until I narrowly escaped a blowout". So the Constitution cannot say "Oh, and in reference to those privileges that you'll be enacting in three years time, well, by all means help those privileged enjoy their privileges to the full because they're bound to greatly benefit the public who so graciously sacrificed their liberty, but you should at least ensure they're not perpetual".
I guess a lot of people think the Constitution could and did refer to copyright and patent in the progress clause.
I've given you enough information Mr Wilson. Anything more and I start providing you with a free education.
1) Read my quote of Edison about Thomas Paine to realise you need to read him in order to grok the Constitution.
2) Read Thomas Paine (Rights of Man) to understand the purpose, language, natural rights philosophy, and the constraints of what the Constitution could and couldn't do.
3) The Constitution was sufficiently explicit in 1787. It is the corruptions of our language and conception of rights vs privileges today that allows people to read the progress clause and misunderstand it as sanction to grant copyright and patent.
4) Understand that although some (such as Madison) wouldn't have hesitated in explicitly granting monopolies in the Constitution, even they recognised that they could not do so.
5) Understand that even though Jefferson suggested Madison put monopolies in the Bill of Rights (because they couldn't be put in the Constitution!), they couldn't even be put in the Bill of Rights (because they weren't rights).
6) That copyright and patent were legislated does not mean that they actually had Constitutional sanction. There was considerable interest by those concerned to see the privileges enacted, and this is why they were enacted without complaint (or any pedant pointing out a lack of Constitutional sanction).
On the post: Homeland Security Decides If It Just Keeps Interchanging Counterfeiting With Copyright Infringement, Perhaps No One Will Notice
Re: Re: Category errors
The Constitution is of course the basis for the legislation that followed it, and thus the legislation must refer to the Constitution, but it's a logical impossibility for the Constitution to refer to that legislation. Come on, think about it.
If you research it you will find legal argument concerning whether copyright is a natural right, and the distinction between an author's natural exclusive right and the privilege of copyright.
I wouldn't say I was obsessing. Just curious as to whether Mike's ever thought to substantiate his oft repeated claim that copyright was designed to promote the progress.
On the post: Homeland Security Decides If It Just Keeps Interchanging Counterfeiting With Copyright Infringement, Perhaps No One Will Notice
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Category errors
Paine effectively had direct input into the intellectual rigour and semantic integrity of the Constitution - even if he didn't pen each clause. Otherwise, instead of a constitution it would have simply been a wishy washy political charter full of vacuous guarantees, obligations, aspirations, platitudes and assurances, much like state institutions and corporations now so faux-righteously give to their 'stakeholders' as part of a PR/customer relations exercise.
Compare with the ECHR (exuding a far more 'designed by committee' aroma than the US Constitution).
On the post: Homeland Security Decides If It Just Keeps Interchanging Counterfeiting With Copyright Infringement, Perhaps No One Will Notice
Such is the way of pretext.
Copyright was enacted to enable the crown via a self-regulating press to suppress sedition ('stopping insurrectionist threats to our country'), but had the pretext of encouraging learning.
Homeland Security actually has the same mission as copyright and that's why it seeks to institute measures to regain control of communication from an uncontrolled public (pirates, terrorists, paedophiles, homosexuals, muslims, communists, etc.).
So, really all we're complaining about is the use of pretext. The missions are essentially the same.
Homeland Security is about wresting control of communications technology from the public.
Copyright is about wresting control of communications technology from the public.
Even in proposals for network neutrality regulation it always says 'no discrimination of LEGAL communications'.
Legal, authorised, licensed, regulated, permitted by the state. This is what it's all about. The state wants the power from control, and the publishing corporations want the wealth from control. That's why they're in it together and always have been.
But, the Internet in the hands of the people might just be too big for the state and the corporations to master. It's a civil cyberwar and hardly anyone's noticed.
On the post: Homeland Security Decides If It Just Keeps Interchanging Counterfeiting With Copyright Infringement, Perhaps No One Will Notice
Re: Re: Category errors
The Statute of Anne 1710 begins:
"An act for the encouragement of learning, by vesting the copies of printed books in the authors or purchasers of such copies, during the times therein mentioned."
US Copyright Act of 1790 begins:
"An Act for the encouragement of learning, by securing the copies of maps, Charts, And books, to the authors and proprietors of such copies, during the times therein mentioned."
http://www.copyright.gov/history/1790act.pdf
How unsurprising that the US version insinuates Constitutional sanction by using the term 'securing' in order to imply it secures an author's natural exclusive right to their writing - instead of representing the granting of a legal right to exclude others from making copies (the granting of a reproduction monopoly).
On the post: Homeland Security Decides If It Just Keeps Interchanging Counterfeiting With Copyright Infringement, Perhaps No One Will Notice
Re: Re: Category errors
The two things that are very closely related are the US Copyright act of 1790 and the 1710 Statute of Anne.
On the post: Homeland Security Decides If It Just Keeps Interchanging Counterfeiting With Copyright Infringement, Perhaps No One Will Notice
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Category errors
But bear in mind that as with the church's fiercely protected support for geocentricity (denouncing heliocentricity as heresy), the corporately sponsored consensus view IS that the 'copyright & patent clause' came first, and then copyright and patent being so explicitly sanctioned were duly designed and legislated accordingly. It is only thanks to those privileges that we have enjoyed such cultural and technological progress.
That the Constitution couldn't grant or empower Congress to grant monopolies (and didn't) is heresy and only whispered in dark corners, as is the proposition that laws against the sharing and improvement of culture or technology can only impede progress.
It's one of those red pill/blue pill paradigm shifting dichotomies.
On the post: Homeland Security Decides If It Just Keeps Interchanging Counterfeiting With Copyright Infringement, Perhaps No One Will Notice
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Category errors
However, that is a separate matter to the drafting of the progress clause.
The Constitution cannot recognise a privilege (since if it doesn't yet exist it cannot be recognised), and therefore cannot specify that it be secured.
The Constitution cannot empower Congress to grant privileges (monopolies) because they must necessarily derogate from rights (see Paine).
I don't doubt that Madison hoped for some way in which the Constitution could empower Congress to grant the privileges of copyright and patent, but it could not be achieved as it was a logical impossibility. If they empowered Congress to grant monopolies they would have invalidated the Constitution. The most that could be done was to specify the securing of the individual's natural right (that already exists). That's why the clause had to be written as it was, and not blatantly "to grant monopolies lasting for limited times".
Monopolies couldn't be added in the Bill of Rights for a similar reason, but at least if they had been, it would have been easier to rescind later. And Madison probably recognised that too.
Copyright and patent weren't legislated to promote the progress, but because powerful bodies wanted these very lucrative privileges enacted (as soon as possible and permanently).
On the post: Homeland Security Decides If It Just Keeps Interchanging Counterfeiting With Copyright Infringement, Perhaps No One Will Notice
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Category errors
I am not going to be a happy bunny if the judge says "But, you haven't lost anything. You still have your manuscript. The burglar simply made a copy".
The point is, I naturally prevent the burglar making a copy by putting locks on my doors and sitting up all night laying in wait to accost any intruders. The problem is, sometimes the burglar defeats my physical abilities. That's why I empower a government to secure my right.
However, if I give five of my friends a sheet of paper with a poem I've written on it, I have no natural ability or right to continuously monitor each one and arrest them the moment they even think of scribing a copy to share with others. That's why copyright is unnatural (and obviously highly prized by publishing corporations).
On the post: Homeland Security Decides If It Just Keeps Interchanging Counterfeiting With Copyright Infringement, Perhaps No One Will Notice
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Category errors
Bear in mind that we've had over two centuries to get used to the linguistic corruption that copyright is an exclusive right (insinuating itself as the natural exclusive right that the Constitution can only refer to).
Copyright, as Jefferson might put it, is 'a legal right to the exclusive use of an original work', and 'legal right' is short for 'legally granted right' NOT 'constitutionally recognised'. It's easy to see how this gets contracted over the years into 'exclusive right'. And then it's easy to see how people happily allow themselves to be lulled into the belief that copyright is the natural exclusive right recognised by the Constitution in the 'progress clause'. From our perspective copyright already exists when we read the Constitution, but then that's because we and copyright are in the future from the Constitution's perspective, but do try to remember that whilst the past is known to those in the future, the future is not known to those in the past.
If you still believe that the Constitution can refer to 'rights' legally granted years later, then you've left the realms of logic.
On the post: Homeland Security Decides If It Just Keeps Interchanging Counterfeiting With Copyright Infringement, Perhaps No One Will Notice
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Category errors
Mike should check the timeline of those quotes. Jefferson will seem to vacillate like a yoyo if his views of 1813 are presented as if preceding the drafting of the 'progress clause' in 1787.
People have a natural right to intellectual property, to exclude others from the intellectual works in their private possession, because this is as self-evident as a natural right to exclude others from the material works in their private possession. To get your hands on my writings or discoveries (fixed in a physical medium), just as on my material possessions, you have to burgle my house or pick my notebook from my pocket. I have a natural right to prevent and exclude you, and that right should be secured.
What I do not have any natural power or right to is to give you my writing and suspend your liberty to copy or further communicate it. It takes the grant of a privilege to do so, an instrument of injustice. The monopoly of copyright suspends the right to copy from the many to give it to the few (the press).
On the post: Homeland Security Decides If It Just Keeps Interchanging Counterfeiting With Copyright Infringement, Perhaps No One Will Notice
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Category errors
On the post: Homeland Security Decides If It Just Keeps Interchanging Counterfeiting With Copyright Infringement, Perhaps No One Will Notice
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Category errors
So, a year after the Constitution when drafting the Bill of Rights, why would Jefferson be against monopolies if Congress had only just be empowered to grant them?
Congress had NOT been empowered to grant monopolies.
ONE YEAR LATER (when who knows what Machiavellian machinations were afoot), Jefferson feels inspired to propose some further amendments, including rather perversely:
Rather strange don't you think, for Jefferson to propose monopolies? Anyway, the reason this article never made it into the Bill of Rights was because it would have undermined Madison's intention to enact England's copyright and patent by revealing that such monopolies weren't previously sanctioned by the Constitution (indeed would have raised the question as to whether they could even be granted in the Bill of Rights).
Instead of explicitly granting monopolies via the Bill of Rights, Madison knew that it would be far better if they were simply legislated as a fait accompli, and Constitutional sanction left as implicit (insinuated by the progress clause).
And another year later, the rest, as they say, is history.
On reflection 25 years later Jefferson concludes:
That emboldened bit explains that patent was a legal right given or granted by statute (and imported from England - not designed to fulfil the 'progress clause'). It was NOT the inventor's natural exclusive right that the Constitution empowered Congress to secure.
The Constitution cannot empower Congress to secure a right that hasn't even been granted yet. That's why Jefferson proposed the amendment that granted them in the Bill of Rights - which couldn't be admitted by Madison because he knew that Congress had no Constitutional power to grant monopolies.
It was all one big corrupt fudge on Madison's part - to grant England's lucrative monopolies to the US and hope no-one noticed they were unconstitutional.
Copyright and patent should be abolished, and Congress replace them with legislation that properly secures the individual's natural exclusive right to their intellectual work and property as much as their material work and property. If this is secured then the individual reports a violation to the police. They do not transfer a reproduction monopoly to a publisher for them to sue infringers. The difference between having a right secured and paying lawyers to prosecute a privilege should be another clue as to the fundamental difference between rights and privileges.
Another Founding Father that people should read is Thomas Paine. See Wikipedia on his "Rights of Man":
On the post: Homeland Security Decides If It Just Keeps Interchanging Counterfeiting With Copyright Infringement, Perhaps No One Will Notice
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Copyright is a reproduction monopoly granted by statute. People are not naturally able to prevent pirates making illicit copies of published works. Congress is not empowered by the Constitution to grant such monopolies. But it did anyway. And given only a tiny few had printers in their garages, who cared?
On the post: Homeland Security Decides If It Just Keeps Interchanging Counterfeiting With Copyright Infringement, Perhaps No One Will Notice
Re: Re: Category errors
Moreover, the Constitution only empowered congress to secure the individual's exclusive right. It said nothing about granting monopolies. The Framers weren't exactly unfamiliar with the term, so one can only marvel at people's willingness to believe that securing a natural right means having the power to grant monopolies. That is the predictable insinuation of those who covet monopolies - and far too many are happy to believe it as gospel.
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