To: TimF who wrote (3314 ) 4/28/2004 3:10:54 PM From: Neocon Read Replies (1) | Respond to There is nothing I can object to, although I am interested in the question of property alluded to. After all, property rights are founded above all in the right to one's labor. Thus, if one puts something to use, like clearing and cultivating land, or uses the convertible result of labor (i.e., cash) to pay for something, it belongs to you. A claim is not generally acknowledged if it is arbitrary, for example, if one says "I am the proprietor of the valley up to the mountain", but it may be prior to cultivation if it is reasonable to think that the person can put his stamp on the property. From that standpoint, intellectual property is the purest form of property, that is, a result of personal invention. The harm that is done, then, is to not allow the person to reap the reward of his ideas, insofar as they have value in the marketplace. Many instances are considered trivial, and therefore considered fair use or are not expected to be enforced, but other occasions are not so trivial. If I sneak into a movie theater, I am stealing from it. One can argue that it is harmless if there are empty seats, but if everyone decided to follow suit, the theater would go bankrupt. The rule is that when one makes use conditional upon payment, use without payment is fraud/theft.
