[plug] Re: "stealing"?

[Colin Muller]

> Copyright infringement == stealing.

The notion of copyright did not always exist. To include it as a given
in a statement which is presented as an immutable truth is to beg a
bunch of questions.

I'll accept an argument for respecting copyright on the basis that,
well, it's the way our societies currently do things, and until or
unless we come up with something better, it's one of the things we
observe and respect for the sake of social and economic order. I
observe copyrights myself, for that sort of reason. But copyright is
just one of the possible ways in which we could deal with intellectual
property while maintaining social and economic order and producing
mighty works of intellectual production; and some of the greatest
works of the human intellect have been produced under conditions in
which copyright played no role.

Colin