Renegade

They shouldn't. Skiers should have to pay for the risks they incur. Do you have any substantiation for this claim? If you do, then I would suggest that smokers/the obese/ or whomever incurs less costs in the system, should also contribute less. Is what your claiming that "in the end it all evens out", ie that both healthy and unhealthy incur similar costs in their use of the system? If so, I'd like to see some evidence of that claim.

BM, can you please define how you determine what is "fair share" and how you know geoffery is only paying his "fair share"?

They already do. Highway #407 for instance, cops will pull you over for unpaid 407 bills, target truck without the sensors, and the Ministry will not renew your plates if bill unpaid. That's true, but it is not the norm. And the Ministry should not become the collections agency for the private 407 corporation either.

How do you know? If free photocopies were available do you think people would photocopy books instead of buying them? My beef is that it shouldn't even be considered a criminal offence to begin with.

The government does provide the legal tools that allow people to collect unpaid bills. The police will evict you from your property if it a debtor wins a judgment in court. In most cases that is all that the government does for copyright holders. The only time the police get involved is when there is a large scale commercial operation that affects many copyright holders.There are two aspects of copyright law: 1) The government must have a law that defines the rights of copyright holders. Without such a law it is impossible for copyright holders to enforce their rights even if you accept the principal that the copyright holder must pay for the cost of enforcement. This means the police must be involved if copyright holders get a court order against someone for violating their rights. 2) The public must accept the principal that copyright holders have rights. Laws with criminal penalties make this principal clear even to people who refuse to accept the moral case for copyright. RW, I agree with most of what you say, except I disagree with your implication that criminal penalties are necessary. Civil awards are more appropriate remediation in this case.

No, they rely on the police to enforce criminal statutes, not because "other avenues don't work for them". yes it is fraud. Being a tangible asset is not the determining factor on if it is fraud or not. Using my ID to obtain credit, denies me credit there and elsewhere I might have obtained. Duplicating a file does not do so, despite the fact that both are intangible.

I for one, never said I wanted the laws abolished. I said it is a civil issue not a criminal one. Price is very much a factor because it is an incentive for people's behaviour. If the price for a song was vey low, people would buy it because it is not worth the hassel of trying to find it for free and possibly not getting exactly what you want. IOW, people will pay for convenience and relability over and above the content.

I doubt that is the distinction. Even entertainment companies have there own enforcement resources. I don't understand how the fraud analogy relates. Is fraud being perpetrated upon the IP "owners"? I'm not saying all legal transgressions shouldn't be enforced by police. If someone shoplifted a CD I would expect the police to act as well.

You acknowledge that the courts have made difficult to go after individual uploaders. It would seem that then the courts acknowledge by their action that the onus of enforcing the copyright law should fall to the companies alledging infringement, rather than using public resources to do that work. P2P technology means that there aren't central compaines hosting files, but rather the entertainment compaines will need to persue individual uploaders and downloaders. IMV, they are shooting themselves in the foot by doing so, in the same way that software companies originally focused on copy-protection to enforce their copyright. They will do more to alienate their consumer base than any monetary win they may get. They would do far better with a combination of working to change attitutdes and lowering prices. It would seem that since the price of many CDs have come down to under $10, they have at least acknowledged that this may be an avenue worth persuing.

We do have police involvement for stealing electricity and for credit card fraud. You didn't answer the question I asked.

For the same reason taxpayers should pay for police to catch car thieves or stock fraud artists. How is it that we don't expect the police to collect unpaid credit-card bills or unpaid utility bills?

That's true, you are not the OP, but the placement of the thread in this section and the context of the OP suggest this is a moral or ethical debate. It would seem your justitication depends upon whether the person "stealing" is personally enriched. So if someone uploads an MP3, but doesn't keep a copy or do it for personal enrichment, but rather just to share the content with others, you can't condemn him, right? Then we can't really even have a discussion, because we are talking about different things. I am not at all discussing what is legal or not. I am discussing the ethics.

What is arbitrary is that when an individual does it is termed "stealing", but when the state does so it is called "necessary". You seem to have misinterpreted what I've said. I haven't said I do it or condone it or that such a law shouldn't be enforced. In fact I think a copyright law is a necessary incentive to generate ideas. I simply can't think of another better way to reward idea generation and invention. However, I think it is misuse of the word "stealing" and "theft". Those are criminal actions. Non-payment of compensation due to copyright should be a civil infraction not criminal as it is not the same as theft of physical property.

Your debate seems centered around what is the law and what a court would decide. This is not relevant to a moral debate on what is theft. Am I confused? Are we having a legal debate on what is the law or a debate on if it is moral to steal IP? Really? Didn't you a couple of posts above justify how a state could steal someone's work and make it available with no compensation simply because it thought it was "necessary"? I care little what the Conservatives do or don't do as their actions don't define morality.

Again you prove my point. It was your original contention that IP was treated the same as property. At least you acknowledge they are different. As I've said, IMV, they are so different IP shouldn't be considered "property" at all.

You prove my point. The state arbitrarily determines when it can "steal" without fair value compensation. This is very different to physical property. Why does only the state have the ability to determine when "stealing" is necessary?

linkdobbin, what do you think of legislation such as described above? Is the government "stealing" the IP of the companies which created the drugs by unilaterally allowing generic versions to be sold abroad? Let me put another scenario forward. If someone creates a cure for cancer and patents it, but then chooses not to make it commercially available, can the government steal his IP and make it available?

Ah but it is treated differently than property. Do we expect property to transfer to public domain when the original author dies or after a set number of years? If not, why not, since you claim both are treated the same.

I see the issue quite differently. The term "intellectual property" has inappropriately expropriated the word "property" to express a concept which is quite different from physical property. Unlike physical property, another's use of IP doesn't deprive the IP's "owner" use of that property. The copyright system and patent system is simply an incentive system employed so that people are rewarded for creating ideas. In return for creating those ideas the state agrees to give the creator exclusive use for commercial purposes of those ideas for a period of time. It can only grant that exclusive use to the extent of its jurisdiction. The state somewhat arbitrarily sets the level of incentive it provides. Generally that incentive is sufficient for the creators to continue to generate ideas. Interestingly many content creators do not generate completely original content but build upon content created by others, yet claim "ownership" of the content. IMV, "Intellectual Property" is a misleading term which ought to be more appropriately termed "Intellectual Incentive"

I'm really having trouble understanding your run-on sentence, however I'll give it a shot. First, who determined the scientific purpose of life is to create more life? You seem to state that there is a right to bear children? Is that an absolute right? Do I have the right to bear 300 children which I cannot support and then have them starve to death? I agree. Nothing I've said disputes that. Yes and it is an option I would fully support. People who cannot fulfill their parental responsiblities should give up their responsiblities to others who are willing and able to shoulder them. BTW, It is not my "wildly ridiculous problem". Society seems to have defined child poverty as a problem, and attempted to imposed solutions on everyone which hasn't worked. Absolutely correct, but I do account for it, and even assume it will occur! The intent is not to eliminate poor people. Poor people will happen anyway as you point out. The aim is to afford each child at least a minimium standard enviornment as such is the obligation of the parent. Whether they financially succeed or fail after having been provided that standard, is really up to them, but the obligation to them has been met.

I doubt that the rich would plan that far ahead so that the impact of inheritance tax would sway their child-bearing decision. Actually, it shouldn't be poor people we keep from having kids. It should be irresponsible parents we should keep from having kids regardless of if they are rich or poor. However, part of the responsibilty would be the ability to undertake the financial commitment to support the child. If a certain segement of the population rebelled, they would in effect be rebelling for the right to be parents regardless of whether they could fulfill their obligations to their kids. I have no sympathy for their cause.

It's different because we're talking about the separation of Church and State. This is a religious issue, not a women's rights issue. We're dealing with one religion getting governmental preference over another. Any other topic just doesn't enter into the verdict. You didn't really answer the question. You saying it is different, doessn't make it so. The government shows preferential bias to a variety of groups. What I am pointing out is that bias has extended to not just religious groups. Why is religion a better or worse criterial for showing bias than race or gender? Calling is an issue of "Separation of Church ad State" doesn't change the underlying issue.

So, women are not an "identifable class"? Is not a funding choice to support women's shelters made at the expense of others (ie men's shelters?) I never cited these as example of special interest funding. You didnt address multiculturalism. What about aborignal funding? We don't have a history of bloodshed breaking out over the funding of religious programs either. Look, I actually agree with you that we should have separation of church and state. I also think that it is abhorent for the state to show bias to specific religous groups. Where I differ from you is that I don't really think that bias is any different that the bias shown toward other identifiable groups such as visible minorities, women, abroginals, etc. So you are saying you want to put in place a law that is impossible to put. You don't find that contradictory?

No, I meant I agree with the first part of your statement regarding the influence of wealth on the propensity to have kids. I disagree that it can't be influenced by government's actions and policy. Don't believe me? How is it that China has been able to curtail it's birthrate through a one-child policy? Humans are given the power to control their natural impulses. Even if they are driven by impulses to breed, they are given the choice to procreate or not. The fact that the wealthy have less children is evidence that they rationalize that choice above just impulses. There are many examples where we expect people to control their "human nature" and penalize individuals when they do not. We expect someone who has AIDS to not transmit their disease to unknowning victims, despite what their sexual impulses are. Even if you ignore precautions, as an individual you have 9 months between the impulsive act and being a parent. Individuals have ample time to make a rational decision, and we shoudl expect them to. The consequences to the child are severe if they do not. I've rethought this one and I retract my previous statement. I believe what I'm proposing is inline with libertarian principles and here's why. In making the choice to become a parent you are commiting to fulfill a set of obligations toward your child. That set of obligations, is to be a proper role model, proper parent, but also to provide appropriate food, clothing, shelter, etc. In essence the parent is entering into a contract with the future child. Since the child is unable to ensure that the parent is capable of fulfilling the terms of that contract before agreeing to it, it is perfectly consistent with libertarian principles that the government intervene to ensure that each party entering a contract, has the capability to fulfill that contract. In essence it is the same concept as the government issuing each qualifed individual a drivers license based upon some critieria it set. It is more likely to achieve the stated goal. If a couple wants to hire a nanny to look after their kids and is willing to pay $500/month, the only thing that keeps them from doing so is governmental regulation.

It is generally irrelevant which segment is the "backbone", just as the backbone is irrelevant without a brain,or hands. All groups cooperatively deliver productivity. Who cares if the kids replace their parents? You are jumping to a number of assumptions. You are assuming that the total output needs to be the same so that kids need to be 4 times as productive. Why would we need the same total output with fewer people? Break it to me gently. Well, we agree on something. You skipped my response to CA. I listed some specific suggestions. You are quite correct that someone making $10M/year is not going to be induced by the government to have children they don't want. But the are only a small part of the population. Its the middle-class and upper-middle class who have capacity to have kids and may be influenced.