Sun, 04 Apr 2010

Developers Trying To Treat Houses Like Copyright

Obnoxious and idiotic, eh? But it may serve a useful purpose. It brings into sharp relief the real threat of patents and copyrights to a free society, which is the threat against property (ownership) itself. This is probably the ultimate reductio ad absurdum argument against copyright and patent restrictions of any sort - it's much easier to understand the ridiculousness of such encumbrances when they're applied to physical property that has traditionally been owned outright.

The final irony here is the name of the company pushing this scheme: Freehold. They should look that word up - I don't think it means what they wish it meant.

We've been noticing a trend in recent years of companies that sell physical goods trying to figure out ways to have those goods get some of the "advantages" of digital goods. For example, with physical products, once you sell it, in theory, the seller no longer owns a piece of the good. But with digital goods, they still hold the copyright, and often try to limit what you can do with the product even though you thought you "bought" it. So we've been disturbed by the rise of things like artist resale rights, which take away the right of first sale on artwork, and require you to pay the original artist every time you sell the product.

(link) [TechDirt]

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