That is defined by you as work? If what they do is original, it is their property.

And your point is? They chose to do that. Also, if they didn't die of starvation, they obviously made enough to eat... therefore worked for a salary/reward of some sort, right?  

Children are supported by their parents or by society (if orphans): Therefore a non metaphor, and not valid as an examnple of anything.

After the crayon example, don't you really think you should have said that to yourself? 

and they make an income elsewhere.

What reward system?  Newcomers to the market are frequently crushed by pre-existing structures running off long standing copyrights they lobbied congress to extend.  Art was created just fine without having post-life copyright protection, it is instead a detractor, not an aid, to the current state of things.

Imagine the modern music industry, comprised almost entirely of ripoff work from earlier pieces, if the copyright situation of today had existed in the 1600's.  Some large corporation would own the rights to Pachelbel's Canon, and they'd have been sure as shit to make damn certain they kept that right over the centuries.  Numerous famous composers from the 1700's would have been in court over it as well having used parts in their own compositions.  Disney wouldn't exist, they'd have gone bankrupt shortly after they ran out of actual new ideas and started reworking fairy tales that were long out of copyright, if ever.

Vast swaths of modern culture would never have existed under the perpetual copyright of today.  That it hasn't ground to a halt already is simply because there is that vast historical base of uncopyrighted works for reference in combating challenges to the authenticity of the modern artists when they end up having a hundred songs all using the same damn melody.  If not for Pachelbel's work getting published more than a century after he died, artists from every genre we've made a name for would be crucifying each other in court.

I have a hard time getting up in arms over a bit of piracy when our own governments have sold society down the river all so a few corporations can continue making money off dead people.  By comparison, piracy appears to have absolutely no effect on the creation of new works, as the copyright industry is the fastest growing sector on the planet despite ridiculously massive rates of infringement.

I am pretty sure if Shakespears scum sucking lawyers were chasing them they would have starved or at least givin up art all together.

In fact, this is clearly not the case. In several Supreme Court rulings, the opinion of the court has held that the private property and contracts can not be allowed to negatively effect the progress of the public good. The power of imminent domain clearly shows that the nation has such authority, which it exercises.

Now, to your point that a property-less society somehow has no value/reward system, this argument has little merit as it relies on a completely the incorrect assumption that without a concept of ownership nothing would have value. While this assumption seems to have merit when examined in conjunction with our current capitalist system, it fails to account for natural value. If we start from an assumption that life has value and thus any labor promoting the expansion of life also has value, then we find that many human enterprises still have incredible value. Raising crops, building houses, and maintaining good utilities are all enterprises which have value and reward for their effort. You are correct that in this system art itself has little intrinsic value to society, but it still has great value to the artist and those who are moved by the artwork.

To say that this value/reward system is necessary for people to work instead of being lazy ignores the thousands of years of human endeavors which had little reward for their creators. For instance, Socrates was a poor man in Athens whose work ultimately lead to his own death, yet even without the great intrinsic rewards of monetary payment or proprietary control of his ideas, he still labored quite diligently in pursuit of his ideas and their value to him. Socrates was not a lone instance in the course of history, as many individuals throughout time have labored tirelessly for the sheer value of their own satisfaction.

This point here is not that we should do away with all reward systems and move to a property-less society. The point is simply that the more we take from the public good, the less people care about the public good. This is something that must be avoided at all cost. The truth is that artists have existed for thousands of years without the type of staunch controls that have been proposed in the last hundred years. These artists made a living and were given reward and due credit for their labors, while at the same time we constantly pushed to produce greater and greater works of art. If Mozart was alive today, what would push him to continuously produce higher and higher quality art?

Spoken by someone protected by the anti piracy statutes. Just wondering: Ever create art of any sort and post it only to have it ripped, claimed by someone else and sold by that person?

If there were laws governing IP at the time.

Actually, Shakespeare on lawyers:

"The first thing we do," said the butcher in Shakespeare's Henry VI, is "kill all the lawyers." Contrary to popular belief, the proposal was not designed to restore sanity to commercial life. Rather, it was intended to eliminate those who might stand in the way of a contemplated revolution -- thus underscoring the important role that lawyers can play in society. It was taking a sarcastic and ironic view of a Utopia (literally "nowhere") given by a thief and murderer. Take your choice a court room or a battle field.

The surest way to chaos and tyranny even then was to remove the guardians of independent thinking and truth.

They might or might not occupy places of honor today, but society would be impossible without them, and laws to protect people and their property. BTW, the current Bill being offered is FAR less invasive than COICA was.

kenata: Feet back on the ground. We are talking about IP. Not the value of human life.

Butcher, not potter. And that's a terrible reading of that passage.

Can be read the opposite... hard to know how they saw it then, although there are those who read it to mean actually kill the lawyers. 

I don't think that's a correct interpretation of how Shakespeare meant it, either. More likely a condemnation of poor laws and corrupt lawyers. But, there's room for the three lines of thought.

The main thing is that people who want to live in peace with others had best respect their property - real and intellectual.

This current Bill is neither draconian nor is it designed to shortcut justice. If that were the case, you can count on the Judiciary to take an axe to it pretty quickly. 

So, for the people who like this bill - what about all the Sins modders paying tribute to the great space franchises - Star Trek, Battlestar Galactica, etc.?  Did they get licenses to do that?  No.  Should the big network execs be able to kick them off the Internet?  

Because that's what this bill does. 

We need to protect artists, yes, absolutely.  But ask yourself -- what sites are going to get blacklisted?  The ones screwing little guys, like you, or the ones that upset the Hollywood bigwigs, who have lots of lobbyists in Washington to complain?

By the way, the difference between real property and the government granted monopolies that we have re-branded as "intellectual property" is that if I eat your apple, you have no apple.  But if I sing your song, I don't prevent you from singing.  And, if you hold your apple, I can't hold it at the same time.  But we can both hold your idea in our head at the same time.

If I take your "intellectual property rights," I don't prevent you from using them.  I prevent you from selling them - to me, and to anyone else I give them to.   I'm taking away your opportunity to cut future deals - an opportunity that you have only because bureaucrats in Washington say you should.  It's Medicare, Social security - they're all government entitlements.  A good one, by the way, but not property.  

LOL - Hypothetical headlines.

Wincustomize shut down due to hosting links to copy writed material.

Iron clad shuts down modding section due to the amount of people linking to mods with copy writed material.

Ironclads new expansion loses money. "Sins player base is mostly due to the amount of modding content. Once we lost the ability to have a modding forum and host mods we lost a lot of customers and had to lay off 30% of the work force."

US Copyright Law makes references to 'fair use' and 'fan art' [something not mentioned in other countries' statutes] so you'll be safe as you are now.

On occasion we [Stardock/Wincustomize] have been required to remove specific works due to concerns/complaints of the IP holder....and we comply....on the proviso that the specific 'issue' is pursued equally and thus fairly with ALL alleged 'transgressing' sites.

All of this 'property rights' issue isn't like Steve Jobs openly STEALING the Beatles' trademark [Apple] [because he liked their music].  It's juat a name, afterall.

It isn't even about the poor Hamburger shop owner whose surname was MacDonald who was screwed from trading under his OWN DAMN NAME by some other 'entity'.

Nor is it about the profiteering idiot in the US who decided to Trademark a generic term in existence for half a century [Ugg Boots] just so he could eliminate the competition and buy his inferior crap for the US market from China and so sell it at an absurd profit.  [Internationally the Trademark registration is NOT recognised].

It's about physical property being reproduced for OTHERS' gain, and not that of its owner.

Sure, there are plausible and implausible interpretations, but there are also implausible interpretations that are endlessly duplicated without citation. But, like you said, it's impossible to know Shakespeare's considered view.

Oh, heck...."ownership".

We're not supposed to do that, aren't we.  Marxist socialism won.  Let's all get into neat little lines and march stoically into the MACHINE a-la Metropolis.

The Western world asserts that Capitalism is God...that it works.  It's supreme example is the great US of A.  The world is climbing into every rat-infested boat just to get there and be part of the GRAND DREAM....

Yet who is it who demands it's all no good?  The Taliban who hate Western intrusion/world domination?  No, they're probably just eager for a slice of Capitalist success themselves.  It's the bleeding hearts who HAVE IT ALL that simply want MORE.

Everything should be FREE for the taking.  People get shitty because it's easier to take a life than it is to take a person's IP?

Tough tits, kiddies.

I can't say I have much time for the opinions of people who perhaps neither work at all to earn an existence nor actually use their own creativity to make a living.  All they can do is pontificate and proselytize.

The 'my' in 'my creative work' is self-explanatory and undeniable by definition.  I have an inalienable right to sell it...give it away...do nothing with it or simply just piss on it.  No-one else does, no matter how they legislate to legalize its theft.

@Jafo #72:

Maybe you can point me to where in U.S. copyright law it says anything about "fan art", because I don't think you'll find it. Fair use, yes, but then, I don't know if the copyright owners of properties would agree that all these fan art mods are fair use.  (FWIW, I think they're fair use, but then, I won't be the one in Washington deciding whether a modder's site gets blacklisted, so my opinion doesn't really matter.)

But given all the examples you describe about big companies screwing people with trademarks, I honestly am not sure if you're arguing against me or if you're agreeing with me.  (Also, I'm pretty sure we're not talking about "physical" property here, right?  The very nature of what we call 'intellectual property' is that it is intangible.)

My two cents: if it weren't for copyright, we wouldn't all be on this forum sharing a common interest in the amazing creative achievement that is Sins.  It doesn't necessarily follow from that that's its a good idea to have any government start censoring Internet sites.