Re: Dungeons and Dragons 4th edition

In article <afebf72c-77c7-46d6-ad43-
6bf176f5a16c@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>, pfhoenix@xxxxxxxxx says...
This has nothing to do with beliefs. It has everything to do with law.

Copyright law is focused on the preservation of intellectual property,
in relation to physical property. Even though copyright law protects
both music and written text (and often at the same time), what works
for music works for text *with the same limitations*. Change enough
words and you have a different story, regardless of how similar the
plot is. Change enough notes and you have a different song, regardless
of how similar the melodies are. You cannot copyright an equation just
as much as you cannot copyright the note "a" at 440 hertz.

Patent law, however, is different - it's function (however erroneous)
is to provide property-like rights protection to ideas and concepts.
You don't copyright an engine design; you patent it. That patent
ensures you the ability to profit from your idea for a period of time,
*whether you've actually made anything or not*. This is the primary
point - patents say nothing about functionality of the design
patented. And while it initially sounds good to allow people to profit
from their own ideas, patent law is inherently wrong. You can't sell
ideas. You can only sell products and services - things that are
transformed from ideas by capital, time, and labor. If you haven't
produced something, what are you protecting? That someone had an idea
first? Ideas and concepts can have industrial importance, yes, but
their actual value is nothing, unless you're in the job of selling
technological information, in which case you are providing a service,
not selling products.

But if there is a patent system, you *can* sell ideas, at least in a
manner of speaking. So I don't see how your conclusions follow, except
as an expression of your opinion on how society should be non-
erroneously organised.

On the philosophical grounds for open source software - it's not about
philosophy until you attempt to force people to do with their property
what you want them to do with it. At that point, you're in the wrong,
period. People have the right to give away for free their software and
source if they choose; they have the same right to require others to
pay them for use of the software and give away no source at all. It's
about property, and the second you restrict how one person uses their
property (minus infringing on the rights of others with it), everyone
suffers in the end. The current open-source licensing, in the face of
a free market where consumer behavior rules all, is a natural solution
- use the license you like for releasing your software (or you have
agreed to use as part of a contract for using someone else's
software), or come up with a license that stipulates everything you
want it to. Rights aren't about what's practical; rights are about
fundamental right and wrong - they're limitations *on others'
behavior* with respect to you and your property.

The difficulty is that rights really *are* to some extent about what is
practical, and will allow people whose views may differ on what is
fundamentally right or wrong to work together in society without too
much conflict.

- Gerry Quinn

.

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