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Comment by mrebus | Hacker News Reader

Just because you use the word property doesn't make intellectual monopolies property.

If you don't like the words, good, go look at the moral foundation that underlies the idea.

It is a fact of reality that it is morally right to give people ownership rights for things they produce (besides, again, being the basis of society). And why not? Paying for something rather than stealing it (or changing the law so it's not officially "stealing" anymore), just isn't that big of a deal.

A "fact of reality", like physics? You need to justify your arguments using logic, not incredible assertions.

Yes, precisely, like physics.

I can't justify that claim on HN, for the same reason I can't prove the contents of Physics 101 on HN. If you're curious about my claims, you'll have to go investigate more on your own.

> It is a fact of reality that it is morally right to give people ownership rights

> precisely, like physics.

There is no place in the universe where the laws of physics do not apply, however there were and are societies without a notion of property, much less the moral right to property, thus property rights are nothing like the laws of physics. They are a product of your provincial worldview. Of course, property is a useful human invention, but it's nothing more than that.

While in some deep (and silly) sense you can't prove the laws of physics, the whole point of science is that the scientific method lets us confidently infer that the laws of physics are a good model for reality through experiments. So in that sense, you can "prove" them, and people have. There is no similar justification for copyright, and claiming copyright as an axiom proves nothing.

In the case that I am not replying to a troll, can you provide any links or references? If I wanted to research your point of view, where should I begin?

You may not be able to prove Physics 101 on HN, but you could link you to Feynman's lectures on Physics which would get the interested layman started. That's the sort of thing I'm asking for, for this pro-IP viewpoint.

I'm an Objectivist, i.e., I agree with Ayn Rand. Here is a good reading list: [1].

Honestly, IP rights aren't a special case (setting aside patents, which isn't the topic of this thread); they're straightforward if you understand AR's theory of rights and property.

Another good reference is [2], but since AR's claims are hierarchial, you can't get the "whole story" very well from just looking up some specific topic.

[1] http://www.aynrand.org/site/PageServer?pagename=objectivism_...

[2] http://aynrandlexicon.com/

Feel free to get in touch if you want to follow up.

If you were the only person left on the earth, copyrights wouldn't matter anymore. You can't say the same for the laws of physics.

True. I'm not saying that property rights are the same as physics.

"javert 1 day ago | link

Yes, precisely, like physics."

But you are.

The kind of copyright you're talking about was invented ~400 years ago. There are buildings near me older than that.

I'm not sure I've seen anything like the phrase, "fact of reality that it is morally right" outside of a religious context.

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