>society had a culture 5, 50, 500, and even 5000 years ago //
Society like now used story and music as central elements of cultural expression. 500 and 5000 years ago that was freely shared. 500 years ago in my country (UK) there were poets and playwrights making a living without copyright (though minstrels had closed guilds at at least one point). If you heard a song then you were free to sing it to your friends, make performances of it or whatever.
On the DRM point, the works that are "protected" can't freely enter the public domain. The copyright deal is that the people will - via the government - grant you a monopoly on reproduction/modification (and associated actions) on your work for a limited period in exchange for the work entering the public domain. In order to enter the public domain a work should be free to be enjoyed by all without let or hindrance (beyond that inherent in the format). The point of the DRM is to ensure that the work is never able to be freely used/copied etc., it can't enter the public domain unless it is side-loaded in some way and I can't see any current media corp paying for archiving of all works DRM free and then releasing them at the appropriate time to ensure they keep their end of the bargain. Such a guarantee would be necessary, eg lodging copies with a sort of escrow, for DRM-ed works to be able to provably uphold their end.
>I don't think I have a fundamental right to access or own things created by other people. //
I'm not being as terse at it may seem, but, food? Do you have a right to be fed? If you're not a food producer and don't have the means to produce food, do you still have a right to be fed?
Some will say that one dies without food. I'd argue our form of humanity dies without shared culture - you may find that a good thing?
I'd be interested to know your status, are you wealthy, do you enjoy the arts. I'm poor and work in art & craft primarily.
No. If I do not have food I do not have the right to demand you give me your food.
This has actually come up with a few times with respect to water. No, you do not have a right to water. If you live in the middle of nowhere you do not have a right to water. If you are not given water no one else is responsible or punished. If I can not afford to pay a local utility company for their water access services they are not required to give it to me for free. A city or town can not force a private individual or company to give them water.
Many people are likely to disagree with me here. That's fine. If you think "water is a right" or "food is a right" then quite honestly your sentiment is hollow and void of meaning. You can call something a right all you want but if there is no accountability then it's not much of a right.
The US Bill of Rights is a fantastic document because it largely protects rights, as opposed to giving them. Free speech isn't a right given by the government. It's a natural right that is explicitly protected from being taken away by the government. It's a key difference that is related to food/water rights.
>No. If I do not have food I do not have the right to demand you give me your food. //
You do have that right, if I have plenty you have a right to a share of it. When the Earth was created no man had ownership of any of it. I think it was Thomas Jefferson who wrote quite persuasively on this point. Sure if I take my food and waste it then that right is diminished accordingly.
>If I can not afford to pay a local utility company for their water access services they are not required to give it to me for free. //
So why should you give them the right to take it in the first place. They don't have the right to the water any more than you. Less probably.
How would you consider this as a question of moral obligation, would you say that if you have lots of food and someone else has none that you're morally obligated to give from your plenty?
We've been speaking of rights in the legal context. And laws != morals.
I think there are certain rights to access natural resources. For example the beaches of California are strictly public property. I think there are rights to fair access to natural resources such as water. However I do not think that if I spend considerable resources to build a distribution network for that water that other people have a right to access that network.
I do have plenty. More than I need. Food, water, and shelter. There are people who do not have enough of them. There are many people who have no shelter. We call them homeless. I have more rooms in my house than required to thrive. Does someone who is homeless have a right to enter my home and make use of the excess shelter that I have?
I think this is a very important conversation for us to be having and I don't claim to have anywhere near all of the answers.
However, I do think that your first sentence kind of dodges the question here. The rest of this comment thread was discussing what rights people should have, not what rights they do have.
If we approach this from a legal viewpoint the conversation is over before it starts: Piracy's illegal, you don't have a right to content. You don't have a right to food.
However, when we start looking at it from a moral perspective things are much more open ended: Should we have a right to content? Should we have a right to food?
I think these are more interesting questions and that falling back on the rule of law kind of kills the discussion.
I guess at the end of the day I don't know the best way to handle copyright, but I do know we should have a conversation about it, and that we should come at it from a morality perspective.
Society like now used story and music as central elements of cultural expression. 500 and 5000 years ago that was freely shared. 500 years ago in my country (UK) there were poets and playwrights making a living without copyright (though minstrels had closed guilds at at least one point). If you heard a song then you were free to sing it to your friends, make performances of it or whatever.
On the DRM point, the works that are "protected" can't freely enter the public domain. The copyright deal is that the people will - via the government - grant you a monopoly on reproduction/modification (and associated actions) on your work for a limited period in exchange for the work entering the public domain. In order to enter the public domain a work should be free to be enjoyed by all without let or hindrance (beyond that inherent in the format). The point of the DRM is to ensure that the work is never able to be freely used/copied etc., it can't enter the public domain unless it is side-loaded in some way and I can't see any current media corp paying for archiving of all works DRM free and then releasing them at the appropriate time to ensure they keep their end of the bargain. Such a guarantee would be necessary, eg lodging copies with a sort of escrow, for DRM-ed works to be able to provably uphold their end.
>I don't think I have a fundamental right to access or own things created by other people. //
I'm not being as terse at it may seem, but, food? Do you have a right to be fed? If you're not a food producer and don't have the means to produce food, do you still have a right to be fed?
Some will say that one dies without food. I'd argue our form of humanity dies without shared culture - you may find that a good thing?
I'd be interested to know your status, are you wealthy, do you enjoy the arts. I'm poor and work in art & craft primarily.