But I don’t think that it’s right that if I do expose my underwear that then I can control what people do with the images they see.

Both Neil and Cathy Smith seem to be reacting to this on such a visceral level that their bile is rendering them incapable of making rational arguments.

First, it requires legislation and the state, and he’s an anarchist so can’t support that. Second, granting rights in nonscarce things always invades rights in already-owned scarce resources. Back in 1991 when I signed Smith’s Covenant, I was not yet anti-IP.

Real property rights require legislation and the state. I agree that an anarchist cannot support it, but anarchist are just dupes for totalitarian dictators. Second, IP is not property rights for nonscarce things. It takes real resources to create inventions and it takes real resources to diffuse technology. IP rights encourage the diffusion of knowledge, they only limit the physical embodiment, which by definition is a scarce resource. For more information see http://hallingblog.com/2009/06/25/scarcity-and-intellectual-property-empirical-evidence-of-adoptiondistribution-of-technology/

Point taken.

I just think that there are a lot more IP threads here than there are threads dealing with Obamacare, cap and trade, etc., that are much more imminent threats than is IP. I think it would be good strategy for LvMI to plan their posts a little more intelligently, and in proportion to the threat involved. But that’s just me. Perhaps asking anarchists to plan their work and work their plan is a bit too much like asking cats to march in formation, eh?

(I think that was Tibuk with that classic. Why do so many of these “IP” schemers have such exotic names? Not that there’s anything wrong with that!)

As for JdL who I assume is some character named “John deLaubenfels,” we dissected his IP confusion previously here:
http://blog.mises.org/9314/dissecting-boldrin-and-levine-an-alternate-view-of-intellectual-property/

What I do find ironic, is that you’ve posted that on Strike the Root, which is now running Drupal, a copylefted (and quite popular as a result), _free_ CMS. STR is running it in large part because of folks like me, within the Liberty community, who have shown that open source runs rings around proprietary (and thus non-free) solutions. (DailyPaul, FreeStateProject, and many others run it too)

While arguments can be made that the GPL license is current backed by copyright (I just made such an argument on the freekeene thread), in a world without copyright, open source would function nearly identically as it does now, for our purposes.

The Anti-IP crowd is winning… even with IP still around. CC, GPL and other IP using licenses essentially use it to subvert some or all of the copyright IP laws, leveraging the current laws to do it.

Do you know the difference between an “object” and an “subject”?

It depends on the background. From legal perspective, object and subject have one meaning, but I assume you meant something else. You probably meant that object has an existence independent of people, which subject doesn’t.

IP is object and externality is subject.

Huh? I mean really, huh?

IP is meaningful by itself, it doesn’t depend on anything else to exist.

No, it’s not. I’ve been arguing this for a long time. The boundaries of IP, just like anything else that is based on causality and/or similarity, require interpretation, outside of the interpretation they do not exist.

A novel is an object. When the author writes it, it comes to existence and it doesn’t depend on anyone else to exist.

Pull-out-of-your-assism. Arbitrary assumption. Circular reasoning. Falling prey to metaphors. This is exactly the same sort of nonsense as “creation of mind” or “fruit of labour”.

The value may go up or down but since change depends on other things to exist, and more importantly depends on subjective valuations of other individuals you can no claim the result of the difference as property.

The scope of any immaterial concept depends on subjective interpretation of individuals.

Property is the extension of individual sovereignty and meaningful in an isolated state.

Meaningless metaphor. How, pray tell, do you distinguish between something that is the extension of an individual sovereignty and that which is not? How do you distinguish between things that are “meaningful in an isolated state” and those which are not? Especially since “meaningful” requires a person’s understanding.

When you are in isolation there is no challanges to the soveirgnty of your property.

When you are in isolation, the concept of property has no meaning.

Unlike property, externality can not exist for an individual in isolation.

Property cannot exist for an individual in isolation either. What is the property for an individual in isolation? That concept has no meaning and no use.

Property is not social creation it is the result of individual action and is the basis, corner stone of the society.

Well then, what is the meaning of property absent society? There is none. Whether it is a product of society or the other way around is irrelevant. Without society, it cannot exist.

If you believe in individuality and self ownership you must accept that property must precede the society.

Property cannot precede society any more than poker can precede society. The concept requires other people to have meaning. Even if property wasn’t the consequence of the need to divide scarce goods among more the one person, the whole concept has no meaning with just one person.

I do not how much clearer I can get but I will give it one more shot.

Do you know the difference between an “object” and an “subject”?

IP is object and externality is subject.

IP is meaningful by itself, it doesn’t depend on anything else to exist.

A novel is an object. When the author writes it, it comes to existence and it doesn’t depend on anyone else to exist.

Externality is by definition, is a subject. When you take an action, if that action effects another “subject” it is called an externality. Like when you decrease the price of you goods, this might effect other “subjects”, substitute goods, as an externality. The value may go up or down but since change depends on other things to exist, and more importantly depends on subjective valuations of other individuals you can no claim the result of the difference as property.

Property is the extension of individual sovereignty and meaningful in an isolated state. It is the extension of “isolation” to the social context. When you are in isolation there is no challanges to the soveirgnty of your property. The “right” part becomes meaningful when there is a social context and if you can extend the previous isolated situation to the social context.

Crusoe homesteads an apple. When he is alone the apple is his, it is his property but there is no natural challenge to this. When Friday comes to the island, the possibility of a challenge comes to existence. If Crusoe can extend his situation in isolation to the new social situation and still maintains his sovereignty over the apple just as he was doing prior to Fridays arrival, then we can say that he is exercising his property rights.

Externalities have nothing to do with this, and more importantly it is just the opposite.

Unlike property, externality can not exist for an individual in isolation. It requires at least Friday to be present. So externalities and bringing about the externalities is not extending the isolated state to the social context but only a consequence of the social context itself. It is an uncontrollable effect of the social interaction.

Property is not social creation it is the result of individual action and is the basis, corner stone of the society. If you believe in individuality and self ownership you must accept that property must precede the society.

Do these people think they have right to someone else’s creation?

Same objection as elsewhere. First of all, “someone else’s creation” is a metaphor. Second of all, you also admit exceptions, in the form of externalities. Despite your attempts below, you have not managed to explain this. Smith obviously didn’t anticipate Shire Society Declaration, it is an unintended consequence of his New Covenant. So, according to your own argument (just below this one), it is an externality rather than property. So what’s your problem?