Bob Hilliard wrote: > On Tue, Jan 28, 2003 at 11:16:24PM -0500, Branden Robinson wrote: > > > Now, then, do > > you think Euclid held a copyright in the _Elements_? Did the apostles > > of Jesus hold a copyright in the gospels? If so, when did these > > copyrights expire, or have they? > > Neither the Ancient Greeks or Romans had copyright provisions in > their laws. Anyone was free to copy a work and sell the copies. Exactly. You are treating copyright as a matter of law, not some sort of eternal, absolute "right" that exists a priori or by divine fiat. (Speaking of which, do you all remember in Mel Brooks' movie 'History of the World, Part I' that Moses originally had 15 commandments before he dropped one of the stone tablets? I wonder if one of the lost five commandments was, "Thou shalt not copy thy neighbor's works without a license.") I think this was Branden's point -- copyright is not an unchanging idea, nor is it a moral issue as such; rather it is purely a legal concept defined and redefined by law and judicial interpretation of that law. Craig
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