The Double-Dip Mentality

[kandrathe]

See you didnt pay attention.

No. Also, don't get confused because I am addressing both yours and Docs positions simultaneously.

I am drawing parallels between tangible property and intellectual property. Since you believe in protecting a persons tangible property, I am attempting to get you to see that it is equally germane to protect their intellectual property. IP takes many forms from design, photographs, writing, lyrics, sheet music, formula, trademarks, and inventions.

As I said the protections should only be removed for individual use.

What if the intention of the product(music in this case) is personal use? How would it change the music industry? Well, if I were a musician I would stop selling digitally recorded music. Since the first person who obtained the music could legally distribute it to the world for free (personal use), preventing the musician from ever getting compensation for their work.

You can't reproduce my widgets because they are patented. Do you believe you should be able to make widgets for private use and distribute them to anyone who wants a widget for cost? You are denying the inventor of any compensation for your use of their invention.

Generally, if you went out and bought a widget and it wore out and you were facile enough to build one from your defunct model, then no one would really care or be the wiser. This does happen often in the farming area where I grew up. Technically, you are violating the patent protection of the inventor of the widget, but no one I know has ever been charged with making a widget for their own personal use.

You bought the Captain and Tenille's, Love Will Keep Us Together LP album in 1975 and you wanted to play it in your car, so you made a tape copy until you wore it out. Technology changes and so today you digitized it and burned it onto a CD for your CD player, etc. Technically, making a copy is a violation of the copyright, but no I know has ever been charged with making a copy of an album for personal use.

I see no difference between widgets, music, and IP. I think without IP protection the world would be a much more dishonest, paranoid, and secretive place. IP protection allows people to share their creativity openly without the risk of their creations being co-opted by the unscrupulous.