Obviously, there is no physical law in the universe that ensures these things work. Copyrights, patents, trademarks, etc, are human intellectual devices designed to further society at large. Obviously you are an individualist, and as an individualist you are looking out for one person, and that is yourself. There is nothing wrong with that, but it might be viewed as selfishness. If you never have to consider what *other* people think is right or wrong, or what we, collectively as a society think is right or wrong, with only yourself to answer to, I can only conclude that you need to increase your knowledge of ethics. What you call a debate is not a debate. You need to listen in order to debate; if you open your debate by closing your ears to the opposing side, then you'll find no one listening to you.

Anyway, back to your topic at hand. There are societies where intellectual property is considered to be common. Meaning, there are no concepts of copyrights and patents the way we, as an American society conceives of. When one person creates something, it is considered to be owned by all. This is practiced in some if not all of the communist countries. If I read your opinions right, you might as well move to Communist China where music and software and invention may be copied by anyone and you can buy DVDs for a penny. You have to wonder why societies like that do not produce unique culturally affective material on the scale of the United States? Is it because we reward the creators of intellectual property greatly and they do not? Maybe. Plane tickets are pretty cheap right now to China by the way.

Calvin