From: Valence (valence10@hotmail.com)
Date: Thu Jul 29 2004 - 04:49:51 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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