Quote:
Originally Posted by Timo
What is Intellectual Property?
A capitalistic attempt to control the spread of ideas. In ancient times, there was no need for this, but for the sake of argument, if the Phoenicians copy-writed the Alphabet, the greeks would have continued to use the troublesome Linear B Script, based on syllabary and logograms. Though even Linear B is a blatant rip-off of Linear A Script. Hell, would the early hominids even have been able to develope tools, if the first person to make a tool, copy-writed it, and sued all that tried to copy it.  
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Sure. But humans are developing, so I see no need why we should live like 3000 (or more) years ago. Capitalism and greed for money are the problem, not 'intellectual property' as such. In these times we live now, where everyone wants his share of the capitalist cake, people are (like it seems) capable for everything, including stealing. What greeks did in ancient times was for the sake of their development as a whole (honest, no backthoughts), while todays use of the ideas of others will most likely bring profit to just one person, or a small group, but is going to bring harm to others.
So I see no evil in protecting the righst on ones Intellectual Property. We could arguee, though, about what should fall into this category, under wich circumstances, and what kind of intellectual property needs to be protected etc. etc.