[pp.int.general] "Natural" law

[Reinier Bakels]

> > My experience is that human rights arguments often don't work in 
> > politics. Do you have different experiences, either personally or from 
> > news reports?
>  From the Internet, and from the people who I personally know; and from 
> their reactions when told about the RMOs abuses and the current legal 
> framework nonsenses, yes, I have different experiences. From the 3 million 
> signatories of the /Todos Contra el Canon/ -a platform that actually uses 
> to appeal to human rights arguments-, yes, I have different experiences.

Of course, many people argue about human rights all the time. But the actual 
effect on legislation in Western Europe afaik is minor, and not always in a 
desirable direction.
I may recall that many politicians support the idea of tough copyright 
enforcement in order to learn youngsters again to respect property. "Today 
they steal a MP3, tomorrow a bycycle". Property needs to be respected. A 
basic human right.

>
> http://www.todoscontraelcanon.es/index2.php?body=suscribe_entidades

Sorry, my command of Spanish is very limited.

> > (*) Now I use the term deliberately - as a concept that includes both 
> > written and non-written intellectual property law. A nightmare for 
> > pirates.
> huh? /non-written intellectual pro...whatever/ law? Which is that law?

This is controversial item among lawyers. The mainstream is that 
copyright/authors right/patents/trademark law/design model law and a few 
other *explicitly* codified fields are exceptions to the rule of 
information. The minority perception is that there is a generalised right 
associated with all intellectual achievements, even if not explicitly 
codified. Infringements will be handled my tort law, which is usually open 
ended (in NL it is, en DE it is not, elsewhere I don't know). One of the 
professors at Utrecht University promotes unwritten intellectual property 
rights (e.g. "goodwill"), but another professor, his former PhD supervisor 
told me that he hated his ideas (but the PhD candidate is allowed to have a 
different opinion than his supervisor ...)

reinier