Common law fraud has nine elements:[4][5]
* a representation of an existing fact; The fact that a buyer set the price of purchase under the assumption it was for personal use and not for distribution.
* its materiality; The price was set lower based on this assumption.
* its falsity; The buyer instead freely distributed the product in the marketplace.
* the speaker’s knowledge of its falsity; He purchased this in order to distribute it….
* the speaker’s intent that it shall be acted upon by the plaintiff; The speaker purchased the product at said price under this agreement
* plaintiff’s ignorance of its falsity; We had an agreement and I took him at his word.
* plaintiff’s reliance on the truth of the representation; The price was set under the assumption I could charge the same price to the recipients of the illegal copies for a * period of time without the defendants competition.
* plaintiff’s right to rely upon it; It was a voluntary agreement between individuals. I have a right to be told the truth before entering into contract.
consequent damages suffered by plaintiff. Unrealized revenue. Point of contention: What percentage would have bought at initial price without the market distortion created by free copies?

Your argument boils down to this: You have a right to enter into any voluntary contract you want except you can’t grant an exclusive license to your product. That work you did thinking that stuff up and typing it in is worthless and if I can trick you into giving it to me with the understanding that I won’t copy it and then distribute it myself, you are a fool and out of luck.

I am not a fan of IP laws as they stand now, but that doesn’t mean there are not rights associated with certain unique and novel ideas…

“Well, first off, are you now conceding that patents are invalid? “

I’m not “conceding” that they are invalid. I always have claimed them invalid. I’m with Rothbard on this. Like him I think only copyrights are valid, and you’d have to use something similar to copyright to replace patents.

The difficulty of proving your invention was copied would be a large hurdle for those who wished to use in outside the field of literature.

“Because they quite often involve the grant of a monopoly to someone for an invention others may have invented soon after the patentee did (or even before).”

Which would mean they didn’t copy the persons private property. Since Rothbard and I only support copyright no such monopoly could be granted. As Rothbard said an inventor would have to take great care to prevent forced disclosure on others.

You can’t invent the weed wacker then go around using it in plain sight. By doing so you are forcing your ideas into the brains of others. It is then not their fault if they use what you, the inventor disclosed without contract.

“If this guy lets his out into the public domain why shouldn’t others be able to act on these facts, on their knowledge?”

I was not talking about someone who just lets things out into the public domain. I’m talking about someone who takes care not to let it out and has contracts to enforce it.

“After all, even the novelist in your example is using ideas he learned from the public domain, from previous thinkers and writers.”

One can make something original from that which is in the public domain. Happens all the time.

The way we create originality is by taking the existing and rearranging it into new relationships that didn’t exist before. There is an infinite number of new relationships.

The original invention does not exist in the public domain before it is created, no more than a pile of lego blocks represents all the possible configurations that they could be arranged in.

If the instantiations of prior original works are in the public domain then anybody is free to use them. That doesn’t mean that their new original content is in the public domain. Obviously, since they could destroy it without disclosing it to the public in any way.

the scarceness of the audible spectrum is not the issue.

Oh, so now you think EM spectrum rights are illegit? Okay then…

Imagine 1000 years from now, if we still have these ridiculous IP laws…. you can choose between an almost infinite supply of older, public domain work, or pay for a new one. That will force the new works’ price to be almost zero. In fact, I suspect the IP socialists would at that point come up with a new IP right–basically a renewal of copyright held by someone who “rediscovers” older work forgotten in the almost infinite pile of public domain work. Imagine living in a world where Michael Jackson’s work, or the music of hte 70s, had been forgotten, surpassed by all the music over teh ensuing centuries … then some DJ starts playing it, people redicscover it anew.. shouldn’t he get credit for this? Afer all, it takes a lot of work to loook thru all the old stuff and find “what to recommend.” Shouldn’t he be rewarded for this? After all, if he’s not, you consumers would never have heard of Michael Jackson, would not have the pleasure of knowing what (free) tracks to play at your party. What’s the harm of awarding the DJ a monopoly? After all, you would never have found that needle in an infinite haystack, so no one is worse off, and everyone is better off. Copyright can never die; it only gets reincarnated. O brave new world! That has such laws in’t!

“”I was particularly impressed with the point that IP creates scarcity where none existed before.”

“Absolute and utter nonsense. Let’s do this in steps.

1) Suppose a writer just created an original new book that never existed before. How does that create a scarcity where none existed before? It can’t. The odds that someone else will create the same book without his as the source are astronomical to the point of impossibility.”

Well, first off, are you now conceding that patents are invalid? Because they quite often involve the grant of a monopoly to someone for an invention others may have invented soon after the patentee did (or even before).

Second, it is not the writing of a novel that creates scarcity, but the grant of a copyright to him. It is the state copyright grant that creates artificial scarcity. If this guy lets his out into the public domain why shouldn’t others be able to act on these facts, on their knowledge? After all, even the novelist in your example is using ideas he learned from the public domain, from previous thinkers and writers.

Let’s say I own a wall and someone paints a graffiti on it. Does that prevent me painting something else? It doesn’t. But the acts of consumption exclude with each other, you can’t have there both paintings concurrently. Therefore, the medium (wall) is scarce.

> The ONLY way you can say that a “resource” is
> being used in a way that denies another the use\
> of it, is if you VASTLY expand what counts as a
> homesteadable resource.
You are completely incorrect. The way to determine that is pretty simple, you observe whether the consumption prevents other consumption. Broadcasting is not consumption.

Sorry, but you’re still assuming your conclusion. *Why* does this count as “walking on” “another’s” airwaves to begin with? On what basis do you call it interference? Both people can broadcast at the same frequency. Both can set up a circuit that generates an oscillating electric field at 100 kHz or whatever. Both are unimpeded in their actions. Both can send those waves to their heart’s content.

The ONLY way you can say that a “resource” is being used in a way that denies another the use of it, is if you VASTLY expand what counts as a homesteadable resource. And this will inevitably cause you to draw the boundary so large to include IP.

Absolute and utter nonsense. Let’s do this in steps.

1) Suppose a writer just created an original new book that never existed before. How does that create a scarcity where none existed before? It can’t. The odds that someone else will create the same book without his as the source are astronomical to the point of impossibility. His creation does not diminish the quantity of the book but only adds to it.

2) Next step. Suppose he decides that he wishes to publish his book with a copyright. This too only adds to the quantity of copies of his books. There is no “creation of scarcity where none existed before”.

3) Suppose you trespass against his rights by copying his book in violation of contract?

4)Suppose he wins in a court of law and you have to pay damages? That does not create a scarcity where none existed before.

5) Suppose he decides to stop publication of his book. That also does not create a scarcity where none existed before. In total his actions have created more of his books than would have existed otherwise.

No step involves a creation of scarcity (a reduction in goods) where none existed before. We were not awash in a sea of copies of Harry Potter before the author decided to make them scarce via copyright.

You cannot compare actual to potential to determine that there has been the creation of scarcity. Nor is the creation of scarcity even a crime.

You cannot compare the potential to the actual to arrive a scarcity.

Your wives, your daughters, and even your sons are all potential sex workers and could sell themselves out a prostitutes. There is a potential for a vast increase in the quantity of sexual services were they to do so. That however does not mean that they have produced an artificial scarcity, or have somehow created a scarcity where none existed, or have committed some economic crime.

If you think rivalry is the true problem (and not scarcity) well then there are non-rivalrous mechanisms to spread the sex. Your wives, daughter, and sons could reduce rivalry over their bodies by producing porno videos, or taking in in multiple holes at once.

Using this argument from imagined creation of artificial scarcity and/or artificial rivalry then how can you justify keeping peeping toms from videotaping your sexual activities for the entertainment of others? After all pointing a camera at you doesn’t keep you from using your resources to the best of your ability.

Many of our property rights are based on so called “artificial scarcity” or “artificial rivalry”. There is no reason why someone else couldn’t use your yard for sunbathing while you are at work. If this argument works then why do you think you should be allowed to keep others from using your property (or your body) in ways that do not cause rivalry and reduce scarcity?

The ludicrous hypothetical is asked of us “So imagine that some benevolent genius invents a matter-copying device that lets you just point it at some distant object, and instantly duplicate it for free for you.” Seems to me this would give me even further ammunition against your claims that we should be able to copy at will regardless of rights.

People are objects, and therefore the machine could be pointed at your wife and now her sexual services would be non-rivalrous.

The inventor of such a machine I could create only one, if he wished, and then duplicate all the women he found most attractive in such vast quantities that they would be hard pressed to find food for themselves.

He wouldn’t have to press them into sexual slavery. He only need only trade the vast quantities of resources his machine could produce for their voluntary services. Not only that but he could make many copies of himself (each with the machine) in order to indulge his fantasies even more, along with providing the manpower to create an army to protect their invention from the prying eyes of others.

I think your imagination proves more than you wish it to. Let’s stick to the real world and not Startrek fantasies. Our ethics need to be bound to our real problems. In a world with such a machine the laws of economics would no longer hold and this web site would be pointless.

unless greater value if found by broadcasting over , i dunno, objectionable material in a transmission, the new same-frequency broadcast then takes on a value of its own.

air-wars in a sense where no ‘property’ per se is trespassed on.

> Why does broadcasting at frequency F count as
> homesteading?
Well, if that band is unused at the particular time and place, then it is simply the appropriation of an unused good from nature. This is the definition of homesteading. If the good is homesteaded, then property is gained naturally by the use of it.

If I set up a radio station that transmits continuously, without walking on another homesteader’s airwaves, then I could rent out my airtime to people who want their messages heard by listeners with appropriate radio sets. If I am broadcasting and someone else broadcasts over the top of me, then my property right is violated. An analogous situation is one in which I have rented a convention hall. If some nitwit waltzes in and starts yelling over my speech, then he is violating my rights.

If I broadcast every Wednesday from 5-6 pm, then a property right could be granted for that time slot. In this way a frequency band – geographical listening region can be shared. This method is called Time-Division Multiple Access (TDMA). Other methods of sharing a frequency band are FDMA and CDMA — look ‘em up. All methods of sharing bandwidth reduce the amount of information that each sharer can transmit (in average bits per second), therefore, it is scarce.

The consumers of EM spectrum are actually the people whose information is being transmitted. That is why advertisers pay for airtime.

At this point, I think that the whole EM as a scarce good issue should be fairly settled. It just isn’t like IP at all.

> That’s my point. By broadcasting at F, you don’t
> prevent me from broadcasting at F, nor I you.
Yes Silas, as usually, you are correct in a completely irrelevant way. As I said a couple of posts above, scarcity is about consumption, not production. And broadcasting is not a consumption of EM spectrum, rather signal transfer is. If one signal transfer prevents another signal transfer, then EM spectrum is scarce.

> We just make it less valuable for each other.
Again, correct but irrelevant. We rejected the value based property definition, remember?

> But why does that matter?
It doesn’t.

> If you accept that it does matter, I can make the
> same claim for IP — you diminish the value by
> being able to “broadcast” the same idea that I
> got to first.
Again, completely irrelevant. Any action whatsoever can decrease the value of immaterial goods.

Have you created the fabled instrument that measures IP interference yet?

Cheers,
Peter

It seems to me that the whole EM spectrum issue is not about IP whatsoever. It is more like land with an added dimension. Property rights are assigned by geographical location and frequency, with enough deadband between slices to prevent interference. Trespassing (interference) can be handled easily by the courts.

To homestead, I first must locate a portion of the spectrum that is not being used in the area and transmit at a power that doesn’t leak significantly into the listening area of another spectrum owner’s transmitter. In addition, I might timeshare on a frequency band and location.

The EM spectrum is a scarce good, completely unlike IP. Finite bandwidth is available at any particular time and place for transmitting information, and some frequencies are better suited that others for certain kinds of transmission. Only certain frequencies are capable of sky-wave propagation, for instance. It seems like only a person completely unfamiliar with radio could mistake it with IP.

You are quite right; great points. I made similar points in Why Airwaves (Electromagnetic Spectra) Are (Arguably) Property.

Poor Silas has a monomaniacal, yet gadfly-like, obsession with this issue, in his desperate desire to defend some IP system (though like all other IP advocates he can’t even describe the system he advocates).

It is possible to send and infinite amount of information over any medium using electromagnetic waves.

Wow. Hope that gives you guys an idea of what I’m dealing with here.

(In case you didn’t know, infinite information transfer capacity is impossible, as it violates the laws of thermodynamics. Stephan_Kinsella can confirm this.)

@C_Keith:

Why does broadcasting at frequency F count as homesteading? That’s my point. By broadcasting at F, you don’t prevent me from broadcasting at F, nor I you. We just make it less valuable for each other. But why does that matter? If you accept that it does matter, I can make the same claim for IP — you diminish the value by being able to “broadcast” the same idea that I got to first.

Think about it.

To homestead, I first must locate a portion of the spectrum that is not being used in the area and transmit at a power that doesn’t leak significantly into the listening area of another spectrum owner’s transmitter. In addition, I might timeshare on a frequency band and location.

The EM spectrum is a scarce good, completely unlike IP. Finite bandwidth is available at any particular time and place for transmitting information, and some frequencies are better suited that others for certain kinds of transmission. Only certain frequencies are capable of sky-wave propagation, for instance. It seems like only a person completely unfamiliar with radio could mistake it with IP.

That’s a really nice point. The more IP is “consumed” (learned or copied) the more abundant it becomes–the exact opposite of what happens with physical resources.

the greater extent that an ‘idea’ is consumed in the market it seems to me that idea actually becomes less scarce.

if correct, it would seem that ideas themselves dont respond to scarcity laws but the generators of ideas (poeple) are.