From eulertruthbible: A reflection of the idea of copyright in Edison Chen’s scandal
週六, 三月 29, 2008, 08:55 PM -
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(From:
http://eulertruthbible.wordpress.com/20 ... s-scandal/)
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If not Edison Chen’s scandal, very few of us in Hong Kong would care about the issue of copyright. Many have taken for granted that it is self-evident that we can extent the concept of legal regulation of the physical goods to the realm of thought and ideas (Intellectual Property). Only after Edison Chen has made a mocking of the copyright law then we realize how shaky is the foundation of copyright law in Hong Kong.
Follow the analogy in ‘The symbolic meaning of Edison Chen’s case‘, any clever reader would discover that there are something uncanny when using cheese to represent
Edison Chen’s indecent photos. Because cheese is a finite physical object that is limited in its nature, while his photos could be replaced easily and cheaply at will. So the analogy break down there. My point being, he has a case when we could use cheese as analogy, his case is broken when the analogy is broken. Therefore,logically, he shouldn’t have any case at all. However, only because the legal system is illogical then he has a case.
The purpose of copyright law is to encourage the production of non-physical product that is beneficial for the progressive of humanity. The theory is that the society would scarify the right to know of many of a limited period, and using the legal resource to protect against their right; while preserve the right of those making these product so they can make a decent living. Thus, the society as a whole benefit from this considerations. However, both the theory and in practice are broken.
The rationale against the theory is very simple: The theory make the wrong assumption when applying the economic consideration of physical goods to non-physical goods, since the reproduction cost of former is much higher than later. Cultural product clearly doesn’t subject to the law of scarcity as physical goods. Instead, the more popular is a song, the higher is its demand; thus any movie producer would rather his movie to be pirated then to be ignored. Moreover, the motivation behind the production of cultural goods are not necessarily money, so giving them cash incentive may not has the intended effect.
Applying the logic back to Edison Chen’s case, certainly the society doesn’t want to reward Edison for indirectly making available
these photos. Let alone to protect his right for owning these photos until copyright expired. During the period when
these photos is circulating in the Internet, the demand of it increased but not decreased; and businessperson are selling related video like hotcakes.
(From:
http://eulertruthbible.wordpress.com/20 ... s-scandal/)