Re: Intellectual property

[Patricia M Godfrey pmgodfrey@xxxxxxxx]

Perhaps we could apply the ancient terminology of medieval moral theology
here, and say that one has a right, in justice, to remuneration for one's
intellectual, no less than for one's manual labors, but that to forego
that right, and freely offer the right to copy (especially in a worthy
cause, as in Norman's case), is a counsel of perfection, or "work of
supererogation." And in certain specific cases might be an individual's
vocation. Thus those who forego compensation would be like celibates,
vegetarians, teetotalers, and pacifists, renouncing a right (to marriage,
to meat and wine, to self-defense) that is technically theirs for a
higher good.
	The sticky part is that that moral system envisioned particular cases in
which an individual might have an obligation to observe a what would
otherwise be a counsel of perfection. The classic case is the rich lord
at the groaning board, who has no right to punish the peasant who killed
a rabbit, or even a deer, on his land to feed his starving family. In
such a case, said the medieval moralists, the owner of the property (the
lord) was "unreasonably unwilling" that the acquirer (the peasant) should
have the property (the animal that the lord didn't really need), and the
peasant was not actually stealing when he took it.
	The question is, are there any circumstances in the modern distribution
of intellectual property that correspond to the case of the bloated lord
and the starving peasant? And the further wrinkle is, what if the person
getting remunerated is not the original creator, or even his heirs and
assigns, but some corporation that may well have acquired the rights by
morally dubious methods?
Patricia