It matters not if you call it copyright, patent, industrial design right, trade secret, trade mark, or anything else it is the same baseline concept of recording and / or registering an idea so that the person who thought of it can make some income from it without having to worry about the idea being taken by others for a reasonable period. They have different names to make it easier for the legislators and other people to manage the differences between them.

Mots pret-a-porter or ready-to-wear clothes are actually made with the approval of the designer after they’re paid are royalty for being allowed to use their design. Yes, so people take the design and use it without approval, and the fashion industry in general do not do much in the way of enforcing the designers rights the way they used to, but the designs are protected. Also clothing patterns can also be registered and protected, again there is an issue with the industry not helping designers with protections today. The real intriguing things is that the majority of stolen designs are stolen from the small players by the big players, which would explain why the big players aren’t all that supportive of major protection at the moment.

Some things get a name from their geographical location and they push that, but have NOT always pushed that concept. The idea became big in the later half of the twentieth century to control how people named them. And they do not always apply now. How much Swiss cheese is made outside of Switzerland today is an example of that. It used to be possible to call a wine Champagne if it used the right grapes and was fermented in the right way, but now it must be grown and made in the Champagne district of France, this is due to changes in the way people are pushing the rights to limit names like that.

The arguments to wipe out copyright are directly applicable to all the IP laws and systems, regardless of what you call them, thus nothing of a creative nature would be protected at all. That is the argument being made against all copyright, and if it applies to copyright it applies to all Intellectual Property.

The issue in this thread is what I’ve said all along, it is NOT copyright itself or the concept, it is the way it has been ABUSED and laws in the US changed to support that abuse. There is a difference between copyright and faulty laws abusing it, but getting some people to see that is like hitting your head against a brick wall. At one point in time all the IP laws applicable then had the same protections for all the items of IP, but they’ve been changed over the years for various reasons.

With food, the champagne (or beluga caviar, melton molbrey pork pies etc) is something completely different, That’s a geographical restriction, such as a protected description of origin. There’s more info here – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geographical_indications_and_traditional_specialities_in_the_European_Union

Finally, the coke formula is another thing entirely, called ‘trade secret’. It’s considered ‘propriatory’ and secret if steps are taken to protect it, but can be reverse engineered. It can be enforced if improperly appropriated (there was a case a few years back where a woman stole the coke recipe, and tried to sell it to Pepsi, and Pepsi turned her in.
However, they do NOT have the same protections as copyright, not even close. Or trademarks for that matter.

They’re all radically different aspects of law.

Thinking of something new or different is as much hard work as is planting a crop, and deserves a reasonable protection for the creator and his dependants. Some people can have a good idea, but not the money to make a saleable product out of it on the world stage, and your approach says they should get nothing for the effort, but the person who takes that idea and can commercialise it is allowed to make the money off it.

The current copyright problem is NOT with the creators or a fair return on their effort, but some silly laws that allow others to coerce the creators out of control of their work and then abuse the control.

If the pirate sites delivered the same level or rights and support they claim should be done for all the copyrighted material they provide they would give all users the full services they have and NEVER ask for payment of a fee or a return of services, just a donation IF the people want to give it. But not one of them works that way, they all have advertising on their sites so they can make money out of other people’s creative efforts.

I wonder how you would like it if everyone who creates things decides dealing with people like you decide it’s a LOT easier to just stop trying to make new films and music and advances in cars or computers or software and went to work making wooden toys to sell. You’d soon get very upset with the same old music and stuff as the world stagnated – as that’s what you’re promoting.

So…you admit you like the big ones. No matter.

As for my thoughts, they’re not so small that they don’t confuse your responses into being nothing more than selectively omissive in a lame attempt to avoid giving a real answer.

I enjoy playing games with you, but you make it too easy to expose your intellectual inadequacy.

Once again — if Rick charges nothing or if he charges an outlandish amount, if matters not. It’s up to him if he can make money doing it or not. Just like those artists you profess to defend. If they don’t sell anything it’s not our responsibility to help them figure out what they’re doing wrong.

Rick “speaks” for free on a regular basis right here on TorrentFreak, or hadn’t you noticed?

Ta-ta, you ‘tard.

You are trying to claim that a physical product (something you can touch) has some magic property that makes it more valuable than the written word, example, which is nothing but ink on paper (easily copied).

Because it is.
In order for something to be considered property it has to have an inherent scarcity in it.
Which is why only tangible things can be owned and therefore considered property.

Something that has no scarcity involved and, more importantly, that isn’t neither tangible nor the actual ownable thing but actually a property of what can be owned cannot be considered property.
At the very least simply because it can belong and exist in several places at the same time which, by definition, defeats the actual purpose of property.

You fight for culture, and then you diss it as easily duplicated and without value.

The valuable thing of culture is that it can be shared, duplicated and copied to begin with.
Nothing becomes culture if it doesn’t undergo said processes.

Are you trying to say that essentially culture is worthless because it has the properties of culture?
That’ doesn’t sound very logical…

You deny artists the right to own their creations, and to sell and market them as they see fit, you give more credibility and respect to someone who grown carrots in their back yard.

Artists don’t have any right to own any of their creations, because none of them can be owned to begin with.
This critical property of intangible things makes it so that the only thing copyright can and does grant is a monopoly on distribution.
However, you should be aware of the terrible effect that monopolies have on the market, especially if they are perpetual (and let’s face it, if it lasts more than an average lifetime you can consider it perpetual).

Artists are free to profit off of their creations according to the free market. That is, by selling and or providing services accordingly.
However none of these acts should, just like the monopoly, limit free speech or private property rights of 3rd parties. Especially when the excuse for such is profit.

Finally, yes, seeing as currently, food is a scarce good compared to that of creative works who have no inherent scarcity, you can, by applying any market logic, consider the former more valuable than the later.

It’s amazing to watch what lengths people like you (and Rick) will go to try to discredit culture

For someone to go to the extents of sharing culture, there is enough involvement and credit/value given by that person for it to be impossible to be considered discredition.

without ever seeming to realize that your total lack of respect for the creators of the product will likely drive them to stop or slow their activities.

Seeing as most people create despite of copyright and not because of it.
And seeing as people created before copyright, and also seeing the boom of creativity that happened with the internet, which also brought the mainstream disregard for copyright, one can assume the future trends for artist’s throughput is the opposite of what you predict it to be.

All I can say is I truly doubt that you have ever created anything of value in life.

Oh the assumptions….

I think the future of writing, just as with other arts (gaming companies have discovered this already, with their subscription models and expansion packages) is in a model where artists get money for NEW projects or more interaction with their customers, instead of royalties from old ones.

I invite you to take a look at two models where I think the future lies: first, Kickstarter and Indiegogo (some authors have raised over half a million dollars – look it up! Find the “To Be or Not To Be: That Is the Adventure” and “Machine of Death” projects).

Second, look at the website Patreon – this is a bit like Kickstarter but for smaller, ongoing projects rather than big ones. People pledge to pay you a certain amount for each small update – good for blog owners, webcomic artists, serial fiction writers (like the fiction magazines in the old days!).

There are solutions out there, there is no need to be scared, and there is no need to profess hatred for those who say that the old system is over. Maybe the new system is even better than the old system, because it allows you to have a more direct connection to your fans.

But believing that new art will no longer exist if copyright no longer exists is delusional, and self-defeating. You’re only hurting yourself by continuing to believe this, because you don’t see the new opportunities that are opening up.

For the record, the European Pirate Party doesn’t propose doing away with copyright altogether, they propose drastically reducing its length. For many decades in the U.S. copyright was 15 years with an optional renewal. Didn’t seem like it hurt literature any.