Erstwhile TLF blogger Tom Pearson draws an analogy between Harry Potter and copyright law:
One of the most interesting passages in the new HP is on page 517 regarding Goblins’ views on property. I may be reaching a bit, but the first thing I thought of was intellectual property law. According to the passage, Goblins consider the maker rather than the purchaser of an object to be its true owner. Indeed, the purchaser is seen as merely renting the property. This sentence seemed particularly apt: “They [Goblins] consider our habit of keeping goblin-made objects, passing them from wizard-to-wizard without further payment, little more than theft.” That strikes me as the approach taken by the RIAA and MPAA toward copyrights and is fairly close to the Randian conception of IP as well.
So, am I grasping at straws here?
Discuss amongst yourselves.
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