Re: (TFT) Who owns ideas?

["C. Michel Boucher" <alsandor@netcom.ca>]

J. McGuire a écrit:

> Dr. A (unsavoury comments about pinching in elevators excised for the benefit
> of young readers) certainly deserved to reap the rewards of all of his effort,
> but does his son David, who's apparently involved in some highly unsavory
> things, deserve to have control over Dr. A's legacy, and to be able to use the
> profits to finance his ventures in areas that would have probably led Dr. A to
> shoot him?

This is a moral question.  However, laws re inheritance are rarely guided by
moral questions.  If they were, we could question the source of the income or the
method by which it was obtained and disqualify survivors from benefitting by
their forbears' legal but morally questionable wealth.  On the other hand, it is
well known that thoroughly despicable individuals have inherited in all impunity.
That is because the purpose of inheritance is transmission of goods, not
transformation of the spirit. So, in answer to your question, David has every
right to do whatever he wants with the estate of his father if he has duly
inherited it.  This is similar in most common law systems, I believe, although my
basis is French common laws of the 16th and 17th centuries :-)  Oh...yes...almost
forgot...I'm a historian, not a lawyer, although my interest at the PhD level was
administrative and legal history of France and colonies.

Michel

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