Copyfascism Watch

No one can own copyrights. They are a perversion of true property, which is a system to resolve conflict over scarce resources.

Ideas are not scarce so there is no need for Intellectual Property, other than to cause some to profit at the expense of others.

If you do believe copyrights to be valid, for whatever reason, than anyone able to own real property is eligible to own copyright.

what a can of worms! The Catholic Church in the US makes big bucks from its copyrights and its publishing arms and enforcing them against its own members who would dare publish a word of even the tiniest portions of its liturgy without approval and payment. Talk about the mixing of church and state! But here is an irony: not all the oldest texts are copyright protected, particularly not the Latin ones. So guess which form is growing? A good example is that massive set of books called the Catholic Encyclopedia. The 1912 edition is online for free, while the ones from the 1970s is copyright protected. So of course it is the old one that has all the influence and pull, while the new one is gathering dust in libraries.

"The Catholic Church in the US makes big bucks from its copyrights and its publishing arms"

Though I oppose religion, I disagree with this statement. Just because churches have big bucks, it does not mean that they stole the money. They got their money from the buyers of their books. Only the buyers are the ones that are losing their money and giving them to the church. Wealth is not zero-sum. Copyrights do not restrict wealth of non-consenting individuals (unlike patents when ideas can duplicate)

"and enforcing them against its own members who would dare publish a word of even the tiniest portions of its liturgy without approval and payment.""

I see them as legitamate, as equivalent to trade secrets.

"Ideas are not scarce so there is no need for Intellectual Property, other than to cause some to profit at the expense of others."

Yes, most forms of IP is zero-sum, but most forms of copyright is not. Copyright is a voluntary agreement between the seller and the buyer. So copyright does not really gain one at the expense of others. Even though copyright holders are rich, their money only comes from their sellers.

if you think that copyright is part of the market, try a mental experiment. abolish the U.S. copyright office and think what would happen.

What's more, it is not merely an agreement between buyer and seller. If I find an abandoned book published in 1975 on a park bench and walk away with it, I cannot republish it legally. I must hunt down the claimant not to the physical property but to the word and letter arrangement. I'm not free to do with it what I want.

Taxes, regulations, etc. are a more significant infrigement of rights than copyright.

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