Are superfluous but non-immoral laws considered laws?

[fakename]

are superfluous bun non-immoral laws considered laws?

I used to think no, but apologists make it seem that they are so I figured I’d ask around.

Are legislative enactments law when they command something that is not against God’s law, but yet fall short of being ostensively reasonable. For instance, if the state commanded that you stand still for 3 minutes at some point during the day?

Also, I heard that the state has the right to est. copyrights.

But shouldn’t the primary right to make copyrights lie with the artist or the company and lastly with the state -following the order of subsidiarity? Plus a copyright is a price and a price is something that is primarily set by the sellers. And the state is not a seller.

Finally, can copyrights be unjust if someone est a copyright for 100 hundred years? several centuries?

Can fines for copyrighted material be unjust if they are set at too high an amount? $1000? $10,000? $100,000? (assuming that the value lost to the copyrighter is dramatically less than these prices; for instance $100,000 for stealing music?).

 

[Pat_Payne]

Also, I heard that the state has the right to est. copyrights.

But shouldn’t the primary right to make copyrights lie with the artist or the company and lastly with the state -following the order of subsidiarity? Plus a copyright is a price and a price is something that is primarily set by the sellers. And the state is not a seller.

The little-known secret of copyright is that it was originally established not with a view to protect the publisher’s IP, but to restrict the dissemination of seditious content in the early days of the printing press. The first copyright laws gave printers an exclusive right to publish a work, allowing them to go after pirate publishers, in exchange that they would toe the monarch’s line.

Finally, can copyrights be unjust if someone est a copyright for 100 hundred years? several centuries?

Unjust, from a legal or moral standpoint? Probably not. Unjust from an “enriching world’s culture” viewpoint? Very much so. No copyright should last past the life of the author (if even THAT long), IMO. If somebody’s grandkids want to make a mint off a work, they are free and welcome to write their own blasted book or direct their own blasted movie or cut their own blasted album.

 

[runningdude]

Copyright exists only because there is a law creating it. It adds value to a creative effort - the ability to license an artistic work in order to derive revenue.

Without copyright law, someone else could copy the work and deny its creator revenue from the work. It is precisely the states intervention that creates this protection.

Copyright establishes a form of property, and thus falls under the commandment not steal. Attempting to circumvent copyright amounts to a breach of God’s Laws. So if your looking for a justification from the church to avoid paying for copyrighted music or such, you’re out of luck!

 

[jpjd]

If a law is on the books, it is a law you must follow. That is how we have a civilized society. If people were allowed to decide which laws they deemed superfluous and therefore not necessary to follow, there would be no order in society.

 

[runningdude]

No copyright should last past the life of the author (if even THAT long), IMO. If somebody’s grandkids want to make a mint off a work, they are free and welcome to write their own blasted book or direct their own blasted movie or cut their own blasted album.

What about the case where an author has a family to support. Writing a book is an investment - you spend time in the present writing, on the chance that the book will sell in the future. An author has a reasonable expectation to make money off of a work for many years if its successful, and the author’s family, particularly young children have a right to be supported by their parent.

If the parent dies before this profit is realized, don’t the children deserve to inherent his investments, just like they would inherit their parents home? I think its a wee bit callous to say the descendents and legal heirs should not have a right to inherit future royalties.

 

[fakename]

Copyright exists only because there is a law creating it. It adds value to a creative effort - the ability to license an artistic work in order to derive revenue.

Without copyright law, someone else could copy the work and deny its creator revenue from the work. It is precisely the states intervention that creates this protection.

Copyright establishes a form of property, and thus falls under the commandment not steal. Attempting to circumvent copyright amounts to a breach of God’s Laws. So if your looking for a justification from the church to avoid paying for copyrighted music or such, you’re out of luck!

Just because the state protects copyright doesn’t mean that the right of copyrights primarily rests with the state for two reasons: 1) if it were true that state protection implies a primary state right, then if the state protected food distribution, then the rights of food distribution primarily rest in the state. But that is not true or else it would follow that some private property rights are incidental to private persons even though all of them are in fact, essential -control of private property is an essential right of private persons and an incidental one in the state.

Anyways, I don’t think that freely choosing which laws to follow or not necessarily leads to chaos in the state for two reasons: because before there was a state there were families and individuals and these freely chose to do what they did and yet they established order (the state). Secondly they necessarily choose the state since the harmonious state denotes a harmony between and within its members. But free choice is part of human nature. Therefore the harmonious state, which is nothing but order, is freely chosen, and so free choice cannot always lead to the collapse of the state and it was by human nature that the state was established, and what is by nature is more common. Hence it is more common for free choice to lead to order than not.

But more to the point, if someone wrote a law that we had to stand still at least once a day, then should that law be considered law?

 

[LeafByNiggle]

Just because the state protects copyright doesn’t mean that the right of copyrights primarily rests with the state…

No one is saying that the right rests with the state. You just made that up. The state is merely enforcing the right that everyone agrees belongs to the individual creator of the work.

Anyways, I don’t think that freely choosing which laws to follow or not necessarily leads to chaos in the state for two reasons: because before there was a state there were families and individuals and these freely chose to do what they did and yet they established order (the state).

But the order that they freely chose became order only when the following of the common rules became non-optional. If all rules were merely “suggestions”, then those rules would not be effective.

Secondly they necessarily choose the state since the harmonious state denotes a harmony between and within its members. But free choice is part of human nature. Therefore the harmonious state, which is nothing but order, is freely chosen…

Free choice is not unlimited. A good state tries to limit free choice only to the extent absolutely necessary to maintain order. This still leaves most of life’s decisions open to free choice.

But more to the point, if someone wrote a law that we had to stand still at least once a day, then should that law be considered law?

Apparently you think copyright law is as silly as this arbitrary “standing still” law that you made up. It is not. The “standing still” law is either incompletely described, or else is so unrealistic as to not be applicable to actual laws. If you want a judgment on what one should do in response to an superfluous law, then give a real example of one. If the state is a representative state, then there should be channels in place for legally overturing unnecessary laws. If the state is sufficiently hostile to its people, then there may be reasons for revolting. But the bar for that is pretty high.

 

[fakename]

Question 1: Can anyone tell me why the QUOTE feature is not working very much anymore?

Anyways, I don’t think that copyright law is ridiculous all the time, nor do I think that it is as ridiculous as my example.

Also, it doesn’t matter what the probability is of my example coming true, what matters is whether logically, it could happen in principle.

I suppose someone should post the definition of neutral laws so that confusion would be limited.

But if I take neutral in the sense of non-morally controversial, then I still see other things against reason might follow if neutral laws were obligatory. For instance a law could be written that 2+2=5, or that the sky is black etc. people would be evil for not saying that 2+2=5 and that is definitely absurd.

 

[SPBlitz]

If a law is on the books, it is a law you must follow. That is how we have a civilized society. If people were allowed to decide which laws they deemed superfluous and therefore not necessary to follow, there would be no order in society.

Within reason, I think. For example, some laws are just stupid - like in some places its illegal to carry a marker in your pocket (it could be used for graffeti), and it’s technically illegal to sing ‘Happy Birthday’ in public since the song is copyright, and singing it in public space infringes that copyright.

 

[runningdude]

Question 1: Can anyone tell me why the QUOTE feature is not working very much anymore?

Anyways, I don’t think that copyright law is ridiculous all the time, nor do I think that it is as ridiculous as my example.

Also, it doesn’t matter what the probability is of my example coming true, what matters is whether logically, it could happen in principle.

I suppose someone should post the definition of neutral laws so that confusion would be limited.

But if I take neutral in the sense of non-morally controversial, then I still see other things against reason might follow if neutral laws were obligatory. For instance a law could be written that 2+2=5, or that the sky is black etc. people would be evil for not saying that 2+2=5 and that is definitely absurd.

“2+2=5” is thought control. There is nothing “moral neutral” about this statement. Read 1984 for details

 

[Hastrman]

But if I take neutral in the sense of non-morally controversial, then I still see other things against reason might follow if neutral laws were obligatory. For instance a law could be written that 2+2=5, or that the sky is black etc. people would be evil for not saying that 2+2=5 and that is definitely absurd.

Unreason is not morally neutral. Deliberately behaving contrary to reason is evil.

 

[fakename]

I suppose that 2+2=5 would be morally wrong if unreason was morally wrong. But if unreason is morally wrong, then people should be encouraged to decide what laws to follow, that is, to exercise their reason vis-a-vis laws. But this is discouraged for we should follow laws that are superfluous and all superfluous laws have no reason to exist.

Also, what I meant is that the state could command that people simply vocalize (w/o belief) that 2+2=5. Now vocalization is morally neutral and the truth or falsity of mathematics is morally neutral. So the state can command one to say that 2+2=5.