🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <RJC.91May5084257@brodie.cstr.ed.ac.uk> rjc@cstr.ed.ac.uk (Richard Caley) writes:
   ajr> Copyrights and patents are economic incentives, and not moral
   ajr> rights. [argument about the US constitution deleted]

   Many (including me) would disagree. Your argument does not adress the
   point you seem to want to make, what you support is more like
   `copyrights and patents are economic incentives not constitutionally
   recognised rights' which is very different.

   Many people would argue that the ability to control what happens to
   the things which one produces _is_ a basic right and also a
   responsibility. For instance it is one of the few things that
   liberatarians and marxists seem to agree on.

You have a perfect right to control your intellectual products: you
can keep them to yourself, or you can publish them. Once you make them
public, however, there is no a-priori reason why you should be able to
control them any further. Only in particular areas, society has found
it advantageous to give you some additional rights in the form of
copyrights and patents.