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Why does Disney have an "ill-gotten" monopoly? The people who worked for the company created something. Why shouldn't they get to control how it's used. Do you feel like you should have control over what you create? Why not others?



Circular reasoning. If you assume your ideas are your own, and nobody else can benefit from them without your permission, then the point of your rhetorical questions follows. The reality is that IP laws are a grafting of property-like attributes onto something that absolutely isn't property.

Do I feel I should have control over what I create? I make hammers for a living. I sell them for $10. I don't expect any control over what people do with "my" hammers once I sell them. I don't even expect to stop my neighbor from buying one, teaching herself to build hammers, and then manufacturing and selling identical ones for $9. Do you?

(To anticipate the rest of this tired conversation, the temporary monopoly tradeoff ("securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries") is facially reasonable. But it's important to recognize that the "shouldn't" and "feel" in your questions are based on a very recent recharacterization of these temporary monopolies as "intellectual property," which is probably the most financially successful propaganda term ever devised. Start with "temporary monopoly" instead, and then the better rhetorical question for you to be asking is "when should Disney's temporary monopoly end?")


The people who worked for the company created something.

The people who work for the company collect rent on things they didn't make.




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