Copyright laws are antithetical to the principle of free expression.

I must confess a degree of personal incredulity regarding the claims of my opponent. My consternation originates, primarily, from two separate segments of their response. The first issue I have is with the idea that constitutional rights are not absolute. The second is with the relevance of the societal good of copyright. I will take these two issues in order of their presentation. In regard to the absolute nature of constitutional rights; the vast majority of rights guaranteed by amendments to the constitution are treated as absolute. For example, the amendments protecting citizenship rights, allowing for income taxes, prohibiting slavery, and the like, are all interpreted quite literally, and in a rather absolute manner. We do not often hear people claiming that the government does not, for example, have an absolute power to tax personal income. We do not tax income in a manner that is tempered by "common sense", but rather in a manner that is designed to maximize revenue generation. For an example of that, consider the 70+% tax rates that were applied to the upper tax brackets in the 1970s. Neither do we interpret the 13th in a manner that was in line with common sense--we took the moral stand and said that slavery was absolutely wrong, even though it meant severe economic hardship for the south in the wake of the civil war. If common sense were a valid factor in our interpretations of constitutional rights, then some "reasonable" amount of such a horrid practice should have been deemed justified. Indeed, most of our more recent constitutional amendments have been interpreted in an absolute manner, even those that grant rights to individuals. Even in cases where profound harm results from an absolute interpretation of an amendment, we tend towards the absolute interpretation. For an example of this, consider alcohol prohibition. If common sense were to be a valid factor in determining an appropriate level of implementation, we would not have allowed such a complete ban on alcohol, and instead opted for a lesser degree of restriction. We did not, and chose to repeal the prohibition instead. Many people write and speak about what is known as the "rule of law". This generally seems to be held to mean that a government operates according to the laws that are written, as they are written. If there are interpretive provisions written into the law, then they should rightly be considered when it comes time to enforce the law. However, absent those provisions, it must be upheld to the letter of the law, if we wish to consider ourselves governed by the rule of law. I also take exception to the diversionary attempt at driving this to a conversation about societal good. This debate would not seem to have anything to do with the goodness of copyright, or the moral acceptance of the idea. This is simply a discussion about the seeming contradiction between the idea that you can express whatever ideas you'd like, and the idea that people can own the exclusive right to express an idea. The benefits of assigning the ownership of an idea to a particular individual are outside the scope of this discussion. The tangent about the absolute nature of laws is also rather beside the point. Rather than arguing legal minutiae, we should perhaps focus back on the issue at hand--does copyright violate the *principle* of free expression? I'm not exactly sure how it could be argued otherwise, since the very nature of copyright implies a degree of restriction on expression. How can you freely express yourself, if there are certain ideas that you are prohibited from expressing simply because someone else lays a claim of ownership over them? You have made the suggestion that copyright promotes free expression, but I would argue that it simply promotes expression of a non-free kind. The only way an author can make gains from his copyright is if everyone else is restricted from expressing the copyright idea. That is anything but *free* expression, in both the social and economic sense. It holds back the potential for expression for everyone else, entirely for the monetary benefit of the person who lays claim to that idea's expression. Suggesting that the goal of free expression is promoted by the generation of proprietary expression is akin to suggesting that the goal of greenhouse gas reduction is furthered by the extraction of fossil fuels. As for the restrictions on copyright. They are completely acceptable for a society that places little value on free expression. They are completely *unacceptable* for a society that places high value on the principle of free expression of ideas. It is not a very free sort of expression if I have to secure the permission of someone else before expressing an idea. Especially if I have to pay royalties for the privilege. In response to your question about why you should allow others to freely copy your work. I would ask you in response why others should even need to ask your permission to copy it.