Mabfan's Musings

Well, there's software, too, and certain components of graphic design (which you may consider art). This is just a theory, but I think it may have to do with the tangible vs. intangible divide. I can touch a shoe, or a car, or a widget, and most people would have second thoughts about transporting any of those out of a sales location without payment. But then some people will turn around and think that if they're able to duplicate software, or rely on someone else's biography research, or play a videotape/DVD of a movie and charge 30 people to attend in order to fund their student group, or play commercial music over the school sound system instead of ringing bells to signal class changes ... why should they have to pay for any of that? They aren't stealing a physical software DVD, or the actual written biography, or the videotape/DVD, or the music CD, so they aren't doing anything wrong, right? There's a systemic lack of regard for intellectual (or any non-physical) labor or property. Many people are very stubborn in their refusal to accept that if they did not create it, they don't automatically own all rights to use it; or that if they buy one format, they don't automatically have all rights to all uses of that format, even those that involve duplication and propagation, even those that reap monetary benefits.

And in (over?)reaction, some companies try to shut down all forms of fair use, and other companies patent genes to ensure they can make money off their research related to the genes ....