If we are to reduce this to a vacuum in which we don't exist in a modern society with expectations and agreements, I'd accept your philosophising. Otherwise it's a distraction to the issue. No one has these arguments when their car is stolen. The purchase and disappearance of that car are nothing but manifestations of thoughts according to you.
You're contrived example is contrived and not at all a comparable thing, because a car first of all is not a thought it is physical property as opposed to this intellectual property. Property rights as in physical property rights have been a thing for as long as humans have formed into a society. This concept of intellectual property or the continued ownership of thoughts that you have released into the world have not been a concept since humans have formed societies. It is absolutely a legal fiction that has been created and it is a fairly modern development the idea that you can not only own a thought but continue to exert control over it post sale.
Intellectual property rights attempt to exert continued control of the creator post sale or post delivery of that intellectual property. Even to the point of controlling that in the terms of selling it again it's saying that if I purchase your creative work I don't own that I can't control it I can't do what I want with it. Now if we relate this to your car example car companies have tried this nonsense and you know what it has failed miserably for them. We don't even have to use the idea of an automobile as an example because again it's not really comparable this manufactured thing. Instead we have a very analogous example that has happened in modern times relating to the sale of intellectual property. This comes in the form of books. Authors and publishers of books attempted to exert control of what they believe is their intellectual property post sale. Even to the point of restricting the sale of that book to another person. Even to the point of saying people couldn't modify said book and then sell that item again. This was all thrown out as laughably ridiculous because it is. Yet your argument is somehow you want to exert control of your thing when it's been sold or resold or resold again. This is an absolutely constructed legal fiction and I'm very confident you have lost the reason why society allowed this legal fiction to be constructed.
Societies didn't come up with this concept of copyright and patents and ownership of intellectual property is a legal fiction because they thought it was a good idea for the creators to have some sort of orwellian control in the minds and thoughts and actions of people who chose to consume it. The reason for this is clearly stated when you study history it was so a creator could realize a profit from their work for a limited time to ensure that they would be encouraged to make more works. The key there is for a limited time it is not in perpetuity or effectively in perpetuity and it is not to continue to exercise control of it once it has been sold to another. It is the limited time function that we can say it must be sold but after a while this should return to the public good to enrich the public culture as a whole. Content creators seem to believe that they don't have to honor this deal because we've allowed it to be corrupted and twisted so that it is effectively an infinite thing where you can exercise infinite control over the actions of other people once you've sold it to them. They also seem to believe like you do that there is no bargain with society you have forgotten that it is a legal fiction to encourage you to create more but ultimately creative works are about enriching a society and a culture as a whole and so if those works never return to the culture and to the society at large there is no bargain anymore. Content creators have become Petty slumlord rent collectors who are simply regurgitating trash because they don't have to innovate because of this infinite copyright and this idea you can continue to exercise control over everything that you've ever put out into the world.
If our patent system functions like our copyright system you wouldn't have 90% of the tools you use to create your content. And I don't have any great love for our patent system that has been twisted a bit but it has not gotten to the extent of the idiocracy that we have allowed the copyright system to turn into. Content creators are the court jesters but somehow it has been twisted into them thinking they're the king and so they're going to make the rules and edicts on how their content is used after it's given away.
So absolutely your thoughts are only yours while they remain in your head. Once you share them society is okay with the bargain but not the bargain that you twisted it into. You're attempting to control and destroy a culture by thinking you can control other people and how they want to use the content you're creating. The hubris of someone like that is mind-boggling.
It is a physical property manifested from a collection of thoughts. Much like anything else we create. You wrote a lot but you accept and reject my premise in the same breath because goalposts and personal agenda.
You also seem to miss the fact that I have no concern over thoughts. My concern is over property and military use.
I absolutely hope once copyright expires, and my ability to create more based on the sale of previous runs its course, the work should benefit the public. My distinction is that benefiting the public/society at large is an acceptable argument. But it is not the same as benefiting a military. That is not benefiting a greater good, it benefits the good of the group who wish to exploit it. I argue there should be a distinction... but only for long enough that I have a pulse. Beyond that, I'm dead.
Also, I ask you this. At what point in your mind does something created go from 'manifested thought' to 'physical'.
Why is a bolt physical but a painting not?
Why is a roll of film nothing more than thoughts but a car wheel is property?
I have done neither but you are being mentally obtuse in thinking physical property and intellectual property are the same thing. You seem to be missing the basic idea that has permeated all of history physical property and this concept of intellectual property are different. Physical property rights have been a thing since the beginning of time and all societies at some level have understood and respected physical property rights. Intellectual property rights are a modern legal fiction. These two things are fundamentally different.
500 years ago no one would have thought that if they sang a song that somehow they are the exclusive owners of that song and no one can ever repeat it. It is a fundamentally bizarre concept. Creative works as in the intellectual property are intended to enrich a society as a whole because there is zero cost to sharing a concept and resharing a concept over and over and over. And as that concept is shared it grows and it is enriched by every person it passes through. This is not the same for physical property the fact you're trying to relate these two things as being the same shows a fundamental lack of understanding around what property rights are.
I suggest you study and review history and understand why societies have decided that it is okay to have intellectual property rights for a limited time. Because you're assertion seems to be to exert orwellian control in the minds of others. That has nothing to do with it. It is solely about allowing people who are creative and thinkers to realize a profit so they can create and think more. It is not about producers because producers of physical things already have the self-limiting of the thing that they produced can be sold and cannot be easily reproduced. Because as a society having creative works be part of the society in riches the culture as a whole and so it is necessary to encourage this. So answer this for me how many years after Martin Luther King's death has he continued to provide us with inspirational great works? Yet the copyright and the ownership remain. This fundamentally breaks the bargain of saying we want you to realize a profit so you can give us more. Your attitude of trying to control something after the fact is the same because we want you to give us more. We don't want you to try and dictate how we consume it what we think about it or where it's used after we purchased it.
I appreciate you arguing so far past me that you fail to see we agree on half of your points. I'll leave it there. Suggest less, empathise more -- you might find a halfway point where both people have valid points.
> We don't want you to try and dictate how we consume it what we think about it or where it's used after we purchased it.
I didn't sell it to you. That's the whole point. Buy it? Take it. But you've so far missed my argument that you should start again. Art doesn't exist in a 'purchased' state by the entire world. Otherwise, Netflix is free. Please, stop trying to school me.
Your original post was asking how an artist can avoid his work being weaponized. That's your words that's what you. If I purchase your work I should be able to do with it what I want short of duplicating it and passing it off as my own or otherwise during a limited copyright window. But after I purchased your work you don't have any control nor should you and if I decide to weaponize it or not. That's the point you're missing your original statement is what I'm arguing against that you're not getting you don't get to exercise orwellian control over my thoughts on something I've purchased.
Because I'm not arguing for piracy as a blanket thing I'm arguing for limited copyright control but not for this idea you have in your head which is I want to prevent consumers from doing what they want with things that they purchased from you. There is no halfway point when you're trying to willfully exercise control of what someone else purchased. If you don't want someone to do with what they want with something you created and they bought from you don't sell it. But when you don't tell me what to do with it.
I know this is very difficult concept in the age of iPhone and this weird belief in intellectual property. But no one would think twice if someone decided they wanted to take a book cut up the pages and rearrange the sentences and paste them back inside that same book and then sell that book to a friend. The author might get pissed but this is settled case law that this is totally normal and allowed to do. And the author doesn't have any control over that. Somehow you seem to be arguing for the point that whatever your media is someone can't buy it cut it up repaste it back together and then redistribute that singular thing. Because they're using it in a way that you and your hubris don't like as in weaponizing it.
