Should the music industry had understood this when file sharing occurred 10 years ago, it wouldn’t have reached such a dead end (and therefore low profits). Instead of suing their customers they should have opened the way for easy access & controlled download for their customers, all for the right price.

No it isn’t – you can’t write down “The Homesteading Rules” in advance and apply them to every new case. There will always be scenarios that arise that are not covered by your a priori analysis.

“Again, same problem. Different groups can choose contradictory definitions for their internal interaction, it does not follow that those rules are universally applicable to people who do not agree with them.”

No. I’m not talking about different groups taking up contradictory rules, I’m talking about a group – the same person in fact – having two rules of thumb in his head that are contradictory. I went into this a day or two ago, so won’t repeat myself.

http://blog.mises.org/13564/the-superiority-of-the-roman-law-scarcity-property-locke-and-libertarianism/#comment-714470

As a concrete example, here in the UK, in the event of a crash, when there is one person on the main road and one entering from a side road, the person coming from the side road is in general held liable.

Also, when there is only room for one car because of a parked car, the person who is on the side of the parked car is in general the one who should give way and if both went at once and crash, this would determine who is at fault.
But you can easily imagine a (common) scenario where these rules are conflict – where someone is entering a main road from a side road while also the person on the main road has a car on his side, meaning there is restricted space. People in general manage to work things out despite the conflicting rules, but if they crash, who is liable then? This would likely be long and drawn out process because here these two rules conflict.

Insisting on a logically consistent set of rules would mean one of these had to be thrown out, introducing uncertainty in a great deal of situations in which there was none before. The cost of the occasional long and drawn out process is more than covered by the benefit of having the normal everyday transactions go smoothly and quickly.

And who mentioned forcing people to do anything? I’m talking about rules/laws that evolve on a free market – the most popular arbitration body, whoever they are, could easily be the one that does exactly as I’m describing. I’m happy to let the market decide – but are you telling me that it is IMPOSSIBLE that contradictory laws like I describe can emerge on a free market?

Peter – was this directed at me?

Yes.

You appear to be saying that you can prevent me from entering your land because the space is scarce and I’ll be using that and thereby violating your property rights. Ok. But planes can pass over right without being considered to be violating your rights? So, how low do I have to be before I am violating? 10 feet? 100 feet?

This is merely a matter of determining the scope of actions that happened in the past, not whether space can be owned or not. Block deals with this to a certain extent, e.g. in Privatization of Roads and Highways. If you want to homestead higher, raise a high stick on your premises.

hair products for bald men exist despite the fact that we can’t define bald, and property rights exist and are very useful despite the fact that we can’t say exactly what they are or even define “property” or a “property rights violation” in any general sense

The hair product do not require a universally valid definition of baldness, they merely require the two participants in a contract to agree on a definition. If they do not agree, they do not need to enter a contract. I already pointed out this fallacy a long time ago: merely because two people can agree on a definition, it does not follow that this creates some abstract phenomenon valid throughout the whole universe.

A free market can “choose” to have these contradictory rules of thumb – meaning your, and others, insistence that the rules all be based on watertight logic makes no sense to me at all.

Again, same problem. Different groups can choose contradictory definitions for their internal interaction, it does not follow that those rules are universally applicable to people who do not agree with them.

I believe I used the example of Pluto being reclassified as a dwarf planet. That is merely astronomers’ choice based on the requirements of their work. That does not create a universally valid concept of “dwarf planets” that they can use to prosecute others who call Pluto a planet.

Peter – was this directed at me? You appear to be saying that you can prevent me from entering your land because the space is scarce and I’ll be using that and thereby violating your property rights. Ok. But planes can pass over right without being considered to be violating your rights? So, how low do I have to be before I am violating? 10 feet? 100 feet?

I know this is stupid. The point is that there is no precise answer – like the example above, hair products for bald men exist despite the fact that we can’t define bald, and property rights exist and are very useful despite the fact that we can’t say exactly what they are or even define “property” or a “property rights violation” in any general sense. The laws governing the exchange of property have evolved, they weren’t thrashed out in advance by anyone, nor could they be – there is simply no way that property rights can all be defined with a priori logical reasoning. This would mean the evolution of rules of thumb – and these can, if need be, be contradictory, with contradictions being resolved on a case by case basis.

A free market can “choose” to have these contradictory rules of thumb – meaning your, and others, insistence that the rules all be based on watertight logic makes no sense to me at all. And from an economics point of view, rules of thumb (that usually are fine but can be contradictory in certain rare scenarios) mean low transaction costs in general but occasional tricky situations that have to be resolved expensively, whereas insisting that everything flow from a single principle or a logically consistent set of axioms limits the available rules of thumb, and so although this can eliminate the tricky edge cases it raises the cost of every exchange of property.

Good point and one I have used to support copy right laws. You cannot physically copy my book without wearing it out every so perceptively. You cannot copy it without interfering with the owner.

Except you are arguing against a strawman. IP opponents (at least those on this site) do not claim that you should not be able to restrict usage of physical goods you sell or own. Rather they claim that these restrictions do not jump to other physical goods merely due to the presence of causality. If I read a book, for example, and later summarise a story to another person, that speech does not change the book. So why should that another person be bound to any restrictions?

Good point and one I have used to support copy right laws. You cannot physically copy my book without wearing it out every so perceptively. You cannot copy it without interfering with the owner.

Every copy is a physical instantiation. There is no Platonic plane on which they exist. In order to copy a book you need access to a physical book, and since every single copy is co-owned by the copyright holder with regards to copying rights you cannot copy them without permission.

I’ve always been suspicious of this claim.

Then maybe you should think about a somewhat related claim: you cannot derive an “ought” from an “is not”.

Physical goods do not exist in 2D world. Objects do not cover area, they covers space and time. Two objects cannot occupy the same space&time simultaneously. By going into a position for a specific time period, you prevent other objects from being able to occupy that position during the same period.

The second issue is the observer effect.

IP theories want to mimick these two phenomena (the existence of mutually exclusive states and interaction causing a change to the object being interacted with) by using metaphors. They re-interpret things happening in physical world as things happening in the non-physical world. But that only happens in people’s heads.

If you want to claim a right to copy a book, for example, that is merely a reinterpretation of a claim of certain usage of ink, paper, and other physical objects. You cannot copy a book without using physical material, even if it just orientation of parts of metal on a disk or presence of electrons in memory.

Only after we have clarified that the question revolves around usage of physical goods, we can investigate what distribution should be preferred to other. We cannot investigate whether an impossible premise is a “should” because it is not an “is”.

I’ve always been suspicious of this claim. If you can’t derive ought from is then where does ought come from, and why is it so dependent on is? Everyone I’ve ever come across has always made it dependent on an is.

For example, “If you don’t wish retribution (from god, or the owner, or the courts, or whoever) then don’t steal”. This sentence can only make sense if all the “is” parts pertain and it depends on no additional ought statements whatsoever. It is only true if all the is parts are true. Do you wish retribution, yes or no, that is an “is”. Does god, the owner, the courts, or whoever will retribute exist, yes or no, that is an “is”. Stealing is and “is”. Etc.

I think the actual fallacy here is believing that “oughts” are not derived from “is”. Hell, if I ought to have chocolate ice cream depends on the “is” of whether I like it. The fallacy rests perhaps in the belief that desires are not in the realm of “is” but they are.

Common systems of morality can be derived for those who share desires and since we are replicators that is not such a hard thing to do.

Sure there may be some random copy who likes pain, and doesn’t care about retribution, etc, and they will not accept the common morality. So much the worse for them since they will have to suffer (or enjoy in their estimation) the retribution.

I just wanted to assemble a verbose answer, but now you have to do with a terse one.

There are two unfounded assumptions in your claim. The one is that world is 2D rather than 3D. The second one is that it is possible to interact with the physical world without changing it.