It's Right to Copy
"The right to copy" feels like a bit of a loaded phrase. I think most of us instinctively feel our hackles raise a little. If you make a thing, you don't want it to be able to be taken from you. The thing is, copying didn't quite used to do that.
If you carved a beautiful wooden bird, if I asked to look at it so I could try to copy you, how would you feel? It's different, no?
Even if I did manage to produce a similar looking carving, it would be different. They would literally physically be different, different pieces of wood, different hands and maybe a different carving knife, but part of you also went into it.
Things are a little weirder now.
If someone copied this text exactly as I wrote it, there is no distinction. The text is pure information, though the form and the words are subtle echoes of the wood, the hands and the knife. But it would still literally be different, a part of me went into this. The copying of information still comes with some additional quirks. After all, if they passed this off as their own, they are simply showing off a piece of me as if it was theirs.
Why do this?
Perhaps for approval, or acceptance. They found it and wanted people to think they were the type of person who could and did write it. Maybe they agree with the sentiment, but couldn't find the words themselves, so copying the words is an honest attempt to express themselves for the first time. Sometimes we copy so we can learn, we say the things someone we admire says to become more like them. These reasons are distinctly human.
The issue is that this human-ness is beautiful, and it has been co-opted. Yes, it is emotionally painful for someone to steal a piece of your soul, but that emotion is being leveraged against us to steal it all.
The things we make, the knowledge we produce is being claimed by corporations. They copy out of greed and, though you may perhaps be able to argue against it, malice. They take ownership of the things, these pieces of our souls, though they have no right. They invented the right (the modern version at least), and immediately gained ownership. How curious. How convenient.
When a programmer learns to code, they copy and they paste and they read and they learn.
When a painter learns to paint, they copy and they paint and they look and they learn.
When a writer learns to write, they copy and they write and they read and they learn.
When a company learns to profit, they copy and they take and they steal and they earn.
These things are not the same, corporations and people. The right to copy should exist, but for us, not for them.