From: Sam Norton (elizaphanian@tiscali.co.uk)
Date: Sun Aug 01 2004 - 18:19:08 BST
Hey all,
Last month Horse suggested the question, "How does the MoQ see the open source software movement?'
In a broader context, the issue in this question seems to be how the MoQ evaluates legal controls
over the flow of ideas. In particular, copyright and patent laws. The Constitution itself calls
for a system of copyrights and patents to encourage innovation and artistic achievement. It is
generally believed that authors and inventors should have exclusive rights to their creations for at
least a limited period time because if imitators were able to saturate the market with royalty-free
copies, the creator would never be able to recoup the investment he made in the creative process,
much less profit off of it. However, it also generally believed that ideas and inventions should
eventually come into the public domain because the cash-free flow of ideas also promotes innovation
(it's easier to stand on the shoulders of giants when the giants aren't collecting a fee for it).
In LILA, Pirsig explicitly states that ideas are the highest form of evolution there is and given
that, social-level legal controls over their availability would seem to be immoral. However, if
those legal controls encourage the creation of newer and higher quality ideas, they would seem to be
moral (I note that Pirsig has his own works copyrighted).
With that as a background, I'd like to re-propose Horse's inquiry as....
How does the MoQ evaluate the idea of "intellectual property"?
take care
rick
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