[Jack Simth]

Originally posted by PvK:
Sure there is. Corporations used to require a government charter for permission to even exist.

There weren't near so many little buisnesses under that system - the crown picked a small number that thrived (pretty much on the crown's whim), and the rest were relegated to small shops - pretty much permanently. Further, the crown-selected buisnesses were essentially monopolies; they never needed to improve their product, and the only people they needed to keep happy was the royal family et all.

Originally posted by PvK:

If it were explained to the people, I doubt that the people would vote for a decision that corporations should have the same rights as private citizens.

They might if the same decision also made for corporations to be subject to the same penalties - imagine how well a corp would behave if a significant slip up would cause, not a fine, but a total cease and desist order with frozen assets for five or ten years.

Originally posted by PvK:
Corporations should exist and operate based on benefiting mankind, and not on maximizing profit for shareholders, and therefore doing whatever profiteering they can get away with. Corporations should not be allowed to perpetuate copyrights, and persecute individuals based on their fan art. Fan art does not have to be treated as a threat to the (dubiously desirable) right of a corporation to monopolize commercial rights to an intellectual property.

It isn't always corperations that have problems with others duplicating their work - I have read a fair number of Online rants from independant authors that were having the same problem, especially in cases where an upright character was put in compormising positions.

Originally posted by PvK:

No, but that doesn't mean it should be illegal for me to post pictures of Superman. Who thinks it should be illegal for me to post pictures of Superman, besides a lawyer or a corporate sponsor?

Superman? Maybe not. However, I have read a fair number of rants from Online artists who were having that exact problem, and were very annoyed by it.

Originally posted by PvK:
Do you really want to live in a society that is so concerned with ownership and greed that it would attempt to have its government determine and enforce exactly who owns the rights to every sale, even in such complicated situations?

Most importantly, the fan (Bruce) should be allowed to express himself and freely publish his work, without government interference or fear of megacorporate legal attacks.

Secondly, in your example, it seems pretty clear to me that Alice has done plenty well in your scenario, her future work will be more successful because of Bruce and Malfador/Shrapnel, and Malfador/Shrapnel deserves the extra profit for making SE4 a product which is capable of being used in this very enjoyable way!

That only works out so cleanly if the comic is long-term gold, rather than the short-term fad variety that is surprisingly common. For a long-term gold comic, it helps if the image gets out there; for the short-term variety, money needs to be harvested quickly, as there won't be more coming in after a short time. Meanwhile, Bruce's work that increases SEIV's sales is taking money out of Alice's pockets. Shouldn't it be up to Alice to decide which she gambles on?

Originally posted by PvK:
Mainly due to human inertial herd behavior, and powerful corporations dominating the economy and government to multiply their already-staggering control of wealth.

So how do you propose to change human nature away from the herd mentality?

Originally posted by PvK:
Mhmm, well there should be a million-dollar reward for ratting out megacorporations, the money for which comes from the guilty corporations. Also, more reason why corporations should be forced to work for beneficial purposes, and not just for maximizing their own profits.

At present, they aren't being forced, they are being coerced - charitable donations help to maximize their profits, so corps make them. There are many similar incentive programs, as well as many forbidden type things out there.

Besides, the United States of America is in the top five nations for per-capita creature comforts for the average person; part of that is due to the corporations' greed: they need to sell stuff better than their competiters, and to do that, they need to: Have a better product, make their advertising more entertaining, or make their product cheaper - any one of which can increase the creature comforts of the population (better product -> easier/faster/more effective -> more comfortable life; more entertaining advertising -> people are more entertained -> slightly better lives; cheaper product -> can spend more recources on other things -> slightly better lives).

Originally posted by PvK:
Yep. Sigh.

PvK

Yay - we actually have something we agree on.

[ June 20, 2003, 03:58: Message edited by: Jack Simth ]