Thanks to Tim Castelle for the pointer to Nina Paley’s great series of IP cartoons.
Source link: http://archive.mises.org/13642/ip-in-cartoons/
IP in Cartoons
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That just about sums it up.
Indeed. Not even Silas could come up with something resembling a witty retort. The cartoon makes the case against IP pretty much compelling.
Silas’ retorts are seldom witty. Having said that, though, the cartoon does not even come close to making a compelling case against IP. All it does is simplistically assume that there is no case for laws that make a monopoly for the creator of the IP. There is really no “case” presented by the cartoon at all.
Re: Russ the Apostate,
You mean there is a case? Because if there really is NOT a valid case, then saying that it “simplistically assumes” is really a way of obfuscating that it may be right to assume there is no case.
By the way, there is NO case. You cannot justify a monopoly based on non-rivalrous, non-exclusive (and thus, not economic) goods.
Old Mexican wrote:
“You mean there is a case? Because if there really is NOT a valid case, then saying that it “simplistically assumes” is really a way of obfuscating that it may be right to assume there is no case.”
Whatever. The cartoon still just takes for granted that IP monopolies are unjust; it makes no argument.
“By the way, there is NO case. You cannot justify a monopoly based on non-rivalrous, non-exclusive (and thus, not economic) goods.”
Why not? One can’t justify IP the same way one does with regular property, of course, but who says that one has to justify it the same way? There is a utilitarian case for IP. Whether you find it convincing is another matter, but it exists, and many people do find it convincing. Saying that there is absolutely NO case makes you sound like a religious fanatic, you do realize that, don’t you?
Re: Russ the Apostate,
“Unjust”? It never made that argument. Government generated monopolies are immoral, not unjust.
Because state-granted IP monopolies are letters of marque to STEAL.
“Regular property”? There’s PROPERTY, and there’s everything else. You may be thinking about MADE-UP property, but I don’t argue based on someone’s fantasies.
Ironic to be refuting an article from Mises with another article from Mises…
http://blog.mises.org/13693/nine-principles-of-economics/
Pay particular attention to 1, 2, 3, and 6.
Nine Principles of Economics
By Art Carden
A small set of ideas does most of the heavy lifting in economics. “Ten Principles of Economics” or “Ten Big Ideas” or “Ten Key Elements of Economics” are pretty standard in most introductory economics books. Here’s my version, based on Chapter 1 of The Economic Way of Thinking.
1. People Act. People choose goals (ends), and they choose ways to achieve those goals (means). One of your goals, presumably, is to obtain a well-rounded liberal education. Taking econ 100 is one of the means you have chosen to that end. This also implies subsidiary means-ends relationships. Suppose one of your goals is “pass econ 100.” Reading the textbook, doing the assignments, coming to class, visiting office hours, and visiting the peer tutor are means to that end.
2. Every Action Has a Cost. When you do one thing, you give up the opportunity to do another. For example, you have an almost limitless range of options right now. You could be eating, sleeping, working, or chatting with your friends, but you have chosen instead to read this assignment. Your next best alternative is the cost you have incurred in order to read the assignment. If preparing for the first class takes five hours and your next best alternative is working for $8 per hour, then preparing for class has cost you the opportunity to earn $40 (we will shorten this periodically and say that “preparing for class” cost you $40). You will also hear people say “there is no such thing as a free lunch,” and indeed, free stuff isn’t free. If you spend thirty minutes in line waiting for a slice of free pizza and your next best alternative would be working for $8 per hour, then that slice of pizza has cost you the opportunity to earn $4.
3. People Respond to Incentives. Incentives motivate people to action. People will do more of something as the cost falls, and they will do less of it as the cost rises (the law of demand). Similarly, they will try to supply more of something that gets more remunerative and less of something that gets less remunerative (the law of supply). Prices are some of the most important incentives in economics. The price is the number of dollars that have to be traded for something ($2 for a cup of coffee, for example). Market prices emerge from the interactions of buyers and sellers.
4. People make decisions at the margin. People make trade-offs. Economic analysis is incremental: when people make decisions, they compare the costs and benefits of a little bit more or a little bit less of something. You don’t usually make sweeping categorical decisions about what is good or what is bad. You generally won’t decide that studying economics is Always Good (otherwise, you would study economics 24 hours a day) or Always Bad (otherwise, you would not study economics at all). You will compare, for example, the cost of an additional evening spent studying physics to the benefit of and additional evening studying economics. Generally, people will do everything for which the marginal benefit exceeds the marginal cost and nothing for which the marginal cost exceeds the marginal benefit. The decisions you should make ultimately depend on your goals and values. Economics as such cannot tell you whether you should spend the next minute, the next hour, or the next day studying economics, studying physics, updating your Facebook page, or sleeping, but it can tell you that you’re making a trade-off.
5. Trade makes people better off. Trade is a kind of voluntary cooperation, and it makes us wealthier. This happens in two ways. First, we know that since people act, they will only do things if they expect it to make them better off. If you trade $100 for a ticket to see the Jonas Brothers and Hannah Montana, we infer that it is because you expect to prefer the concert to anything else you could have done with the $100. This is not to say that people won’t make mistakes from time to time—we have all rented a terrible movie or ordered something at a restaurant that we didn’t like—but in general, trade will make us better off. The second way trade makes us better off is by increasing our productivity. According to the law of comparative advantage, when people specialize and trade, they can produce more output with the same inputs. Similarly, they can produce the same outputs with fewer inputs. In either case, people have more resources with which to attain their goals. This has an important implication that echoes a thought originally expressed by Adam Smith: people are more likely to help you achieve your goals if you help them achieve theirs.
6. People are Rational. This is a lot more controversial than it should be. When we say that people are rational, we mean that they will tend to do things that they expect to provide them with net benefits. We don’t mean that they will always make the right decision, that they have complete information, or that they will never make mistakes. We mean that they have goals, they tend to choose the means that they believe are appropriate to achieve them, they respond to incentives, and they learn from mistakes.
7. Using markets is costly, but using government can be costlier still. Transaction costs are the costs of measuring the valuable attributes of goods and services as well as the costs of specifying and enforcing contracts. Since trade is costly, there may be situations in which people do not make trades that would have made them better off. In principle, governments can correct these “market failures.” However, people working for the government respond to incentives, as well. Government policies like price controls, taxes, and subsidies also prevent people from making trades. Because of the incentives they face, government actors often have incentives to make things worse whether they intend to do so or not.
8. Profits tell businesses that they are helping others, while losses tell businesses that they are wasting resources. When private property rights are secure, profits and losses are the market’s feedback mechanism. You earn profits by providing people with goods and services they want at prices they find attractive. You earn losses when you provide people with goods and services they don’t want at prices they find unattractive. The invisible hand of the marketplace will tend to weed out businesses that make people worse off: it tells these businesses that the resources they are using could be better used in another enterprise. Resources will tend to flow of out of enterprises that are unprofitable and toward enterprises that are profitable.
9. We shouldn’t ignore the long-term and unintended consequences of policies and actions. Careful economic analysis is, in part, the process of asking “and then what?” about any policy or action. In his book Applied Economics, Thomas Sowell calls this “thinking past stage one,” and in his classic Economics in One Lesson, Henry Hazlitt defined “the art of economics” as tracing the effects of actions and policies and seeing how they affect everyone rather than just particular groups. The Economic Way of Thinking defines economics as “a theory of choice and its unintended consequences,” and indeed, most applied economic analysis consists of isolating and exploring the unintended consequences—whether they are good or bad—of actions and policies.
Yeah, man, that horrible, horrible monopoly were, uh, it got to sit on its fat butt all day and effortlessly generate intellectual works that other people were perfectly capable of generating on their own without the help of that terrorist monopolist! Gosh, it’s so unfair!!!!
All it means is that adequate mechanism(s) to compensate talented people need to emerge from within the market. The ‘The Creator-Endorsed Mark’ is a good example. Maybe better ones will evolve. As they prove more attractive among the creative; copy-rights and patents will fall into disuse and neglect and will finally disappear. I see the popularity of creative commons and the capacity of open-source software to compete with the closed ‘proprietary’ model as positive signs in this direction, in no small part due to the effort of people like Lawrence Lessig. But clearly more needs to happen before you are convinced. Maybe it won’t be that important to convince you.
Intellectual private property exists, as real private property does, only when it is enforceable.
In the case of music, clearly it is unenforceable, and becoming less so with movies.
So music will exist solely to promote physical tours and swag, and movies will exist to provide product placements (get ready for movies stuffed with ads), and merchandise associated with the movie. That now is the world we live, and what it is becoming… So be it.
But in the case of patents?
IP should absolutely be enforced, given the relative difficulty and expense of creating an actual useful physical object and bringing it to market.
If this continues, new software will only exist as ‘crippleware’, or released by huge conglomerates who can force companies who don’t pay for it to eventually do so.Inventions will be restricted to only the largest of companies who are able to both defend their IP in court, and bring new products to market quickly enough to make copycats unprofitable.
Small and medium sized innovators will be hurt unless they partner with (read: take a lousy deal from) a large multinational corporation, and the lone, garage-tinkerer inventor will become distant memory.
It used to be if you built a better mousetrap, the world would beat a path to your door. Now you build a mousetrap, and someone will rip off the design and produce it like blazes, figuring the defense in court is just a cost of doing business.I frankly doubt any of the anti-IP cheerleaders here have ever created anything they intended to market.
I also wonder about the constant conflation on Mises of digital media IP with patent IP. They are clearly very different. I also find it troubling and strange how the Marxian denigration of the most vital work of all – mental work – exists here, of all places.
Re: Dave Narby,
That would be an argument for protecting the right to keep the useful physical object, but not the idea of the object. The expense of creating a physical object does not in itself justify IP, and in fact, this justification becomes an argument AGAINST IP, since it would clearly encourage people to do more costly and less efficient research and development, instead of less costly and more efficient, because after all, IP will come to the rescue to pass those costs to buyers.
That’s a Slippery Slope fallacy.
Sans IP, big companies would have no case at all in court, so why are you using this argument to defend IP? It makes the concept of IP even sillier than already is.
** IP should absolutely be enforced, given the relative difficulty and expense of creating an actual useful physical object and bringing it to market.
*That would be an argument for protecting the right to keep the useful physical object, but not the idea of the object. The expense of creating a physical object does not in itself justify IP, and in fact, this justification becomes an argument AGAINST IP, since it would clearly encourage people to do more costly and less efficient research and development, instead of less costly and more efficient, because after all, IP will come to the rescue to pass those costs to buyers.
I know you are trying to make a point, but it escapes me.
** If this continues, new software will only exist as ‘crippleware’, or released by huge conglomerates who can force companies who don’t pay for it to eventually do so.
*That’s a Slippery Slope fallacy.
I beg to differ: it is now a “Slippery Slope” REALITY.
** Inventions will be restricted to only the largest of companies who are able to both defend their IP in court, and bring new products to market quickly enough to make copycats unprofitable.
*Sans IP, big companies would have no case at all in court, so why are you using this argument to defend IP? It makes the concept of IP even sillier than already is.
Your ‘argument’ assumes that IP no longer exists. It still does, but increasingly only to the connected and powerful.
Nice try… But no cigar.
Re: Dave Narby,
It’s understandable.
No, my argument does not assume it no longer exists, it assumes that it doesn’t exist – there’s a difference. Without IP, what would a big corporation bring to a court? The point is that your argument makes no sense.
Unfortunately, Mises does not allow for more than a few replies, so I will reply to “Mr. Old Mexican” here.
** I know you are trying to make a point, but it escapes me.
**It’s understandable.
It is not to me. Please write it in a simpler format (without run on sentences).
Regardless, I fail to see how you have refuted my reasoning that if patent IP ceases to exist, it will benefit large multinational corporations at the detriment of small and medium businesses.
This is because without IP, only the large multinationals have the ability to bring new, innovative products to market quickly enough to prevent people from copying the product and effectively stealing all the R&D (and marketing) that went into it.
That is my argument that you have so far avoided, and not refuted.
* Your ‘argument’ assumes that IP no longer exists. It still does, but increasingly only to the connected and powerful.
**No, my argument does not assume it no longer exists, it assumes that it doesn’t exist – there’s a difference. Without IP, what would a big corporation bring to a court? The point is that your argument makes no sense.
Please refer to my previous statement. Note that we have not even mentioned trademarks, which are a form of IP. Should trademarks be unenforceable? Think about it.
Dear “Mr. Old Mexican”
** I know you are trying to make a point, but it escapes me.
*It’s understandable.
It is not to me. Please re-write it in a simpler format (without run on sentences).
Regardless, I fail to see how you have refuted my reasoning that if patent IP ceases to exist, it will benefit large multinational corporations at the detriment of small and medium businesses.
This is because without IP, only the large multinationals have the ability to bring new, innovative products to market quickly enough to prevent people from copying the product and effectively stealing all the R&D (and marketing) that went into it.
That is my argument that you have so far avoided, and not refuted.
***Your ‘argument’ assumes that IP no longer exists. It still does, but increasingly only to the connected and powerful.
**No, my argument does not assume it no longer exists, it assumes that it doesn’t exist – there’s a difference. Without IP, what would a big corporation bring to a court? The point is that your argument makes no sense.
Please refer to my previous three sentences. They make perfect sense. Unless you misunderstood, it is now hopefully obvious to anyone reading this that you are avoiding my argument.
Also, while copyright may be unenforceable, the prohibition of marketing and selling pirated copyrighted works is enforceable (private copying and sharing is clearly not enforceable and no longer the issue).
Do I think people who copy other people’s work and sell it should be arrested?
Absolutely. This is because as soon as money comes into the picture, clearly there was an effort to derive benefit from someone else’s labor.
This is more commonly known as “stealing”.
In the case of P2P sharing, it can be argued that while there may be a few lost sales as a result, the word of mouth advertising that results compensates for it (given the argument that most P2P users wouldn’t pay for it anyway).
Note that we have not even mentioned trademarks, which are a form of IP. Should trademarks be unenforceable? Think about it first.
Dave,
This is, in my opinion, one of the unproven utilitarian assumptions. Utilitarians often concentrate on one aspect of the observed phenomenon while ignoring others. Just like IP has the ability to increase revenue, it also has the ability to increase costs. A more likely outcome of getting rid of IP is a change of production structure rather than benefiting big companies.
Dear Peter,
** This is because without IP, only the large multinationals have the ability to bring new, innovative products to market quickly enough to prevent people from copying the product and effectively stealing all the R&D (and marketing) that went into it.
*This is, in my opinion, one of the unproven utilitarian assumptions.
Unfortunately, the profligate production of phony products shows otherwise. This is due to the lack of patent enforcement (IOW, failure of government).
Cross border patent enforcement can be achieved by limiting or granting access to markets, and if necessary using tariffs to return profits from counterfeits to the patent holders.
IOW, stealing should be discouraged. Innovation should be rewarded.
If there is no reward for innovation, it will cease to exist, much like if there is no reward for being productive in society, producers will stop producing.
Most people here get that if you tax something you get less of it. I fail to see how why some here can’t make the connection between patent protection.
*Utilitarians often concentrate on one aspect of the observed phenomenon while ignoring others. Just like IP has the ability to increase revenue, it also has the ability to increase costs. A more likely outcome of getting rid of IP is a change of production structure rather than benefiting big companies.
I have to point out here that you are making the same mistake you accuse utilitarians of.
To use a real life example, examine the amount of innovation that has come out of China, where good ideas are simply appropriated by anyone who chooses.
Can you quickly name 10 famous Chinese inventors? I could name twice that many from the Western world in no time flat.
I believe that proves the utilitarian assumption, yes? If not, please elucidate.
“In the case of music, clearly it is unenforceable, and becoming less so with movies.”
In which case the business model changes. You can now get streaming unlimited NETFLIX videos for $8.99 a month. That works out to 30 cents a day. When I consider that COMCAST charges me $4.99 per movie, or considerably more if I order HBO etc., it is hardly worth the effort to try and get it for free.
You aren’t factoring in the cost of your connection, but that is part of my point exactly. The delivery technology changed, making delivery so cheap it’s almost free; so the business model changed.
In that case, it benefits both consumers and producers, as it reduces the hands in the supply chain. Everybody wins in this case, except the old system of content delivery.
But with patents, if IP is unenforced, the only way the model changes to benefit large producers at the detriment of small ones due to the factors I have outlined.
Everybody loses in this case, except the large multinational corporations.
Clearly, some people aren’t trying to understand my arguments and are stuck on the “IP is bad, d00d! ‘Information’ wants to be freee!” meme.
I understand your argument, but I think you are rushing to the judgment that development costs have to be ridiculously high and that people won’t support original products through alternatives like branding (even though they do now). Don’t we still have a lot of people using Tylenol rather than generic acetaminophen?
I also think you far underestimate the costs of the current system in terms of the necessity of having people who would otherwise be unnecessary (lawyers) be part of this process. Additionally, I think you are under-representing the importance of prior advancements to new things. If there was no patent law, turnaround on enhancements to existing technology would be faster. As it is now, they can’t even start that process until the other patent expired (if they weren’t the developer of that patent, of course).
I think you are blatantly wrong in regards to saying that no patents = large multinational corporations win. It is large corporations that benefit heavily from the current system via preventing competition (including revenue due to forced licensing agreements).
If you are going to go the utilitarian route you should really be able to prove that patents produce net wealth. That’s hardly clear from the facts, however.
“Don’t we still have a lot of people using Tylenol rather than generic acetaminophen?”
Yes, and that is why patents expire.
But without the initial patent protection, why bother making acetaminophen in the first place?
The innovator has a monopoly on the new product for a limited time so as to recoup their R&D and marketing costs.
After that, the market can copy & market at will, and all benefit from it.
My point is that if we don’t protect the inventors, we remove the incentive to invent… Just as if we don’t protect the producers of wealth, we remove the incentive to produce wealth.
IP is a form of wealth, as it is the result of human labor. Appropriating IP so you can sell it for yourself is theft.
Remember that all IP except for trademarks expire, and I believe trademarks have to be maintained or they fall into the public domain.
To say I am “blatantly wrong” in your point regarding the large multinational corporations abusing patent law is “blatantly wrong” in itself, but well taken – because it points out an abuse of law, not the proper enforcement of it. The case of Philo Farnsworth vs RCA comes to mind, http://www.farnovision.com/chronicles/tfc-who_invented_what.html but this is a fault of government, not of IP.
I strongly suspect none of the anti-IP proponents here have ever created an original work they intended to market.
Worse, I suspect they are working in the interests of large multinational corporations – As they would be the primary beneficiaries of a non-IP world.
Think about it.
Well, I’ve been a software engineer my whole career and my biggest employer had about 50 employees. Before you make up stuff, might I suggest you educate yourself. Based on your comments, I would recommend “Against Intellectual Monopoly” by Boldrin & Levine.
Dave Narby wrote:
“I strongly suspect none of the anti-IP proponents here have ever created an original work they intended to market.
Worse, I suspect they are working in the interests of large multinational corporations – As they would be the primary beneficiaries of a non-IP world.”
A typical argument of a moron. I just can’t be too harsh on this sort of ridiculous reasoning.
It is IRRELEVANT who makes an argument. An argument should be judged on it’s own merits, and this is IRRESPECTIVE of who’s making it.
The inability to separate the arguer from the argument demonstrates an inability to think logically.
“It is IRRELEVANT who makes an argument. An argument should be judged on it’s own merits, and this is IRRESPECTIVE of who’s making it.
The inability to separate the arguer from the argument demonstrates an inability to think logically.”
You mean that identifying someone’s bias (and I think Narby was wildly off here for most of us) is not a conclusive proof that they are wrong, right Jay? I always argue for the postition that I find in my self interest, I think most people do (though I think most people are tragically mistaken as to where their best interest lies). You think that Ben Bernanke for instance just calls ‘em like he sees ‘em at Congressional hearings?
Peter,
*Well, I’ve been a software engineer my whole career and my biggest employer had about 50 employees. Before you make up stuff, might I suggest you educate yourself. Based on your comments, I would recommend “Against Intellectual Monopoly” by Boldrin & Levine.
I said most anti-IP people here have never produced anything they intended to market.
OK, that makes one person.
…Anyone else?
Don’t be so modest, Narby, you also said:
“I suspect they are working in the interests of large multinational corporations”
I’m a musician, but I think I saw that you aren’t interested in any “IP” schemes involving music. You must want to steal music that you like.
I stand by what I said mpolzkill.
Logical reasoning is logical reasoning irrespective of whether it is made by child, a bum, a politician, an economist, etc, etc, etc.
I frankly couldn’t give a flying rat’s arse what type of people the majority of the anti-IP crowd are. They might be the lowliest scum on Earth (they are from Mark Hubbard’s point of view), but this has no impact on the logical consistency of whatever arguments they make.
Similarly, the pro-IP crowd could be a group of self-sacrificing, kind, compassionate, caring saints. But I’m not going to agree with someone purely because they are nice.
If a person is right, they are right. Their personality or background has no bearing on this whatsoever.
I’m sorry if my post sounds hostile, but this issue really really irritates the hell out of me.
mpolzkill,
No, I said that some forms of copyright infringement are impossible to enforce (P2P).
Copyright on a CD (or DVD) regarding selling the CD is enforceable when done on a large enough scale (piracy operations in cities).
Get your facts straight before smearing someone, junior.
Jay,
Thank you and the other anti-IP crowd here for helping me distill the argument down to a concentrated idea.
In essence, the anti-IP crowd here is stating: “Some IP is hard to enforce, so *no* IP should be enforced!”
Which is basically arguing “Some stealing is hard to prevent, so *no* stealing should be prevented!”
Please refute that argument.
Dave writes, “In essence, the anti-IP crowd here is stating: ‘Some IP is hard to enforce, so *no* IP should be enforced!’ ”
Erroneous. What is stated is, generally, “Once a set of characters, poems, algorithms, melodies, harmonies, images, is in my hands or on ‘my’ media that I bought and paid for, that is ‘my’ property, and I’ll do with it what I wish within the specified, contractual stipulations set forth in the original acquisition.”
By the way, you mentioned that “operations…. in cities” is the threshold for prosecution.
What size city might that be?
What kind of operation?
Rhetorical.
Dave Narby,
I don’t know which anti-IP crowd you’ve been talking to but I can say that I certainly have never ever used such an argument. Neither have I seen Kinsella, Surda, Bala, etc, etc, etc use such an argument either.
Such a line of reasoning can only be used to demonstrate that industries can still be productive despite a lack of IP-protection. But this certainly does not invalidate IP.
The real anti-IP arguments are those that demonstrate that ideas and patterns are different than tangible objects and thus should not be treated like tangible objects.
What exactly is taken away from an author when you copy his works?
Only maybe potential profits. Do authors have the “right to profit”? Why can’t the same argument be extended to car manufacturers? Shouldn’t we ban all car manufacturers except the first one because all later comers are “stealing” the potential profits of the original?
Basically, IP is an artificial monopoly. Nothing more. And so far every single attempted justification for this monopoly advanced by the pro-IP crowd has been shown to be utterly fallacious.
Jay,
“Basically, IP is an artificial monopoly. Nothing more. And so far every single attempted justification for this monopoly advanced by the pro-IP crowd has been shown to be utterly fallacious.”
Correct!
IP is very much a monopoly!
A monopoly designed to provide incentive to invent. create and innovate, which EXPIRES after a period of time!
If someone wants to give a cogent, reasoned argument as to how invention, creation and innovation are hurt by patent and copyright laws, I would love to read it! So far nobody has.
This central premise keeps being avoided by the Anti-IP crowd.
Until the anti-IP crowd can address this directly, it will not be taken seriously.
Avoided? That point has not at all been avoided.
We’ve made it very clear that a utilitarian assertion such as that cannot be proven or disproven. It is impossible to weigh up the gains in innovation (if there actaully are any, which is highly disputable) versus:
- the direct costs of the copyright/patent system,
- the loss in capital consumed by the need to hire patent lawyers,
- the innovations that never came into existence as a result of the capital being wasted on the above costs.
If you did a bit more reading, you would realise all these points have been brought up many times in previous blogs and articles on this site. (Just search “Kinsella” in the blog search box and you’ll find a enormous list of past threads on these topics. If you then go and read the comments to each one you will see many people making your exact same argument and being refuted by the anti-IP crowd)
Jay,
*Avoided? That point has not at all been avoided.
We’ve made it very clear that a utilitarian assertion such as that cannot be proven or disproven. It is impossible to weigh up the gains in innovation (if there actaully are any, which is highly disputable) versus:
- the direct costs of the copyright/patent system,
- the loss in capital consumed by the need to hire patent lawyers,
- the innovations that never came into existence as a result of the capital being wasted on the above costs.”
…Oh, really?
Basically, your argument against IP appears to boil down to your last point.
” the innovations that never came into existence as a result of the capital being wasted on the above costs.”
To which I will point out the obvious, which is: Existing patent law does not preclude anyone innovating and making it public domain.
THIS IS BECAUSE PER PATENT LAW, YOU CANNOT PATENT A PRE-EXISTING INVENTION, EVEN IF IT WAS NOT PATENTED (unless you improve upon said pre-existing invention).
Once it’s public domain, it’s public domain!
If however, there is abuse of the patent system and laws (e.g. patenting of human genes, which I believe egregiously abusive, or making a minor change to an existing invention), then *it is the government that is at fault*.
Similar to the Commerce Clause, patent laws can be abused and government can ignore it’s duty to enforce the law.
Dave Narby,
You are not listening. You did not respond to my point at all.
It is IMPOSSIBLE to determine the net effect of patent laws.
You have the perceived benefits which ignore what would have come into existence absent the system.
And then you have the costs of implementing the system.
And then you have the negative externality of patent lawyers which diverts human resources away from other sectors of the economy.
So, given that the net effect is impossible to determine.
And given that implementing patent laws have definite negative effects.
And given that not implementing patent laws have no definite negative effects.
Then it is clearly the most logical course of action to NOT implement patent laws.
Dave Narby,
I just entered this thread and had a few questions for you. When you speak of the legitimacy of ‘Intellectual Property”, what is the “Property” that you are referring to? More fundamentally, what is “property”? How does anything get to be “property”? What can and what cannot be “property”? Is it possible to recognise what can and what cannot be “property”? If so, how? Using those yardsticks, could you please apply it to the subject matter of the appellation “Intellectual Property” and demonstrate (through a well reasoned argument) why they should be treated as “property”?
At the risk of guessing your answer to the last question, why should ideas and patterns be treated as “property”?
I’ll add my reductio ad absurdum: why should some ideas and patterns be treated as “property” and others not?
“Get your facts straight before smearing someone, [foolish deprecation].
You are mostly right, Newson, *most* Americans have no sense of irony.
kinsella is a patent-holder.
not true; I don’t own any patents. What would be the relevance, anyway? For years now patent work has only been a fraction of my job (like 5%) and as of next month, I plan to end it altogether.
this was in reply to dan narby, who states:
“I frankly doubt any of the anti-IP cheerleaders here have ever created anything they intended to market.”
point taken, however, about your personal situation.
I hear he drives on government roads, too.
if it is truly near impossible to enforce that was probably in support of illustrations showing intellectual/artistic actions as having a different state the real goods…material properties, iow.
So music will exist solely to promote physical tours and swag,…..
patronage to musicians could probobly take many forms.
Fail. Private property does not come into being because it is enforced. It is enforced because it exists and forms the basis for human life. All real property traces back its ownership to the fact that people own their own bodies. They own it by means of direct and immediate control of it which they cannot give up. All real property also exists in scarce resources because that is what we are made of. So ownership becomes a means for managing scarce resources.
Knowledge is not a scarce resource even if the medium it is expressed in is. It has no properties of scarce goods. It is non-matter expressed in matter and used to transform matter. Kind of like what software is to a computer. It is essentially spiritual.
Knowledge is what is used to put scarce resources into good use. Knowledge is also accumulated using scarce resources. Accumulating and dispersing that knowledge can be viewed as a service for profit. Which is why those that indulge in this service need to be justly compensated for it.
Copyrights and patents are state solutions to that effect. And they have problems. In the era before Information overload this may not have been as pressing to resolve. But things are different. Knowledge is being concealed or lost and those that need are prevented from using it or forced to re-discover it.
“Fail. Private property does not come into being because it is enforced. It is enforced because it exists and forms the basis for human life.”
Clearly, you’ve never been mugged.
Fail, yourself.
In the case of being mugged the property still existed prior to and following the mugging. Having someone breach your property rights does not mean they never existed in the first place.
Even if you are arguing in favour of IP, you need to establish that the right exists and should be enforced (I’m not arguing for IP, for the record). You can’t say a right exists because it is enforced. Unless of course we’re going back to feudalism and the whole might = right thing, which I reject as well.
North,
*In the case of being mugged the property still existed prior to and following the mugging. Having someone breach your property rights does not mean they never existed in the first place.
According to the logic of most people here, let’s say I mug you and take your stuff, now I say it’s my stuff.
They will say that’s wrong, unless it’s a product design resulting from several years of research and development, then if I take it and say it’s mine, that’s somehow acceptable?!
I seriously question the motives of those who conflate P2P music piracy with patent infringement.
Here’s an idea to try your anti-IP out on: Let’s say I create a smartphone, make it look like an Iphone, call it an Iphone, and use Apple’s logos to market it it as such. Trademarks are IP. Should we allow someone to do that?!
The anti-IP crowd here is absurd and evasive to the same level as anthropogenic global warming. I now believe there is a hidden agenda.
@Abhilash_Nambiar:
Sure, and adequate mechanisms within the market need to emerge to compensate producers of physical goods. The ‘This Item Wasn’t Stolen Mark’ is a good example. Obviously, physical property rights shouldn’t exist because the market can just come up with stuff like that.
Let me guess: It never occurred to you that someone could turn your argument around, right? Please be careful how much your arguments prove in the future.
Sure, and adequate mechanisms within the market need to emerge to compensate producers of physical goods.
Yes and they exist in the form of profits and/or wages. And if a ‘This Item Wasn’t Stolen Mark’ would have helped, they would have used it too. You have not turned around my argument. You have made no argument Try something better next time.
I see a booming future market in counterfeit ‘This Item Wasn’t Stolen Mark’ stickers.
Wow.
Re: Silas Barta,
Life is unfair, Silas. Welcome to the Universe.
Did you realize your comment just as well justified abolition of all property? Hey, life isn’t fair, right?
Re: Silas Barta,
It does? All I say is: You think you’re entitled to a participation over other people’s physical property by virtue of an assumed “first originator”. Hey, reality doesn’t care what you believe, life is unfair. By the way, I can defend my property, thank you very much. I *dare* you to try prove me wrong – I am a pretty good shot…
And you *think* you’re entitled to every possible use of a resource just because you were the first one there. Hey, reality doesn’t care what you believe, life is unfair. By the way, the state can take your property, thank you very much. I *dare* you to try prove me wrong — the state has quite a lot at its disposal…
(Next time, just don’t bother.)
Silas, you are trying to pretend former conversations didn’t happen. The issue is that IP proponents are claiming things which are impossible. There is no such thing as “first use of non-rival resources”, or for that matter “use of non-rival resources”. There is only causality. But even causality does not exist without rival resources. Causality requires the possibility of mutually exclusive states. No matter how you twist it, the only question possible is how to determine which use or rival resources is legitimate and which not. The only argument you have to explain your position is utilitarian, according to you, the arrangement of use of rival goods you propose is somehow preferable. However, you do not explain what measure to use to make such a distinction.
Re: Silas Barta,
I know – thorugh IP, in one way.
Re: Silas Barta,
By the way, you pretty much said the state can steal. IP only exists as a creature of the State – you cannot impose ownership on something that does not belong to you, i.e. the copy of the CD in the cartoon, but the State can – through stealing (that is, IP law.)
Thanks for making the argument for me. I appreciate it.
“Old Mexican” (or whoever you claim to be)
** By the way, the state can take your property, thank you very much.
*I know – thorugh IP, in one way.
That is exactly backwards. IP protects property. Nice try.
Please provide an example how the state uses IP laws to confiscate property.
to silas:
how could physical property ever be abolished?
if there are usage attempts at physical goods. you are there till you arent, iow.
leave the stumpo to take a pee….and the stump is empty. if you can take me back off the stump then the stump would be re-occupied (used) by you.
so no physical property, just physical ‘things’ and physical action to use those things. but the concept/idea and fashioning of the throwing-spear to impale the current stump-user everyone can have.
i guess the physical property notion is a convention where communications arose to indicate that i got to the stump first – and carved my initials and the date on it – so its mine even when i leave it to pee.
Private property in the form of real estate HAS been abolished in the US via taxation. You must pay property taxes or the state confiscates it.
In China, they are actually more honest; the fact you lease real estate from the government is front and center.
so now we have an implicit utilitarian argument. Flip, flop, flip, flop.
Where?
I like this one.
Somewhat related: Treasure Trove Of Jazz To Be Blocked, Perhaps Forever, Thanks To Copyright via the ICYMI RSS Feed.
As someone else mentioned, this one sums it up beautifully.
http://anarchyinyourhead.com/comics/2010-07-16_plagiarised.gif
Notes: ABM = Anarchy Boogy Monster
TMA = The Muslim Anarchist
Looks like another wave of IP posts coming our way through the weekend and into next week. Here’s Bill with sports…
Seems to be what people want to talk about.
You mean, echo-chamber about.
“echo-chamber”
That’s always been an accurate description of this website.
Don’t pretend that you rise above it there…
“Looks like another wave of IP posts coming our way through the weekend and into next week. Here’s Bill with sports…”
I’d like to subscribe to your forecasts.
cue debate…annnndd go!
Monopolies Are Created By The State, Are Part Of Socialism.
This cartoon shows very simply and clearly that the State is the creator of monopolies. Without the State institutionalizing monopoly all advantages from creative discoveries will last for a short while as the information about the beneficial knowledge circulates. The speed and expanse of the distribution of beneficial information is disrupted by these institutionalized monopolies, thereby retarding the ever-advancing civilization.
Property Privilege Is Created By The State, Is Part Of Capitalism.
This cartoon shows very simply and clearly that the State is the creator of property privilege. Without the State institutionalizing privilege all advantages from factory production will last for a short while as the peasants take over the factory. The speed and expanse of the takeover of the means of production is disrupted by these State-enforced property privileges, thereby retarding the ever-advancing civilization.
(Next time, be careful how much you prove.)
Socialism/Fascism Ignores Or Misunderstands The Origin And Significance Of Property Rights.
In a classical liberalism society property privilege is protected from fraud and violence by a legal framework that protects property rights. The creation of property privilege is the combination of a creative human spirit and resources, so in contrast to any contrary claim, the State has nothing to do with this creation. The State can either protect property from fraud and violence or it can be the creator or nurturer of fraud and violence that disrupts and corrupts the order brought about by human action.
The takeover of the means of production by ‘peasants’ is fraud (they are not the owners) and violent (it is not done voluntarily), can only happen if sanctioned by the State, violates human rights, and retards the ever-advancing civilization (clearly uncivilized behavior that begets retrogression).
Re: Silas Barta,
It does?
A factory is like ideas?
You should take heed of your own advise.
You’re really not big on this whole “satire” thing, are you?
Re: Silas Barta,
If the state disappeared right now, would you ipso facto not own your computer anymore?
Ownership does not come as some gracious gift from the State. IP, instead, is.
You might say “The state can take your property.” That says only that the state could steal, not that the state grants ownership. IP IS stealing – it is the undue transfer of title of someone else’s property (like in the cartoon, the new CD) to some “first originator.”
The CD the little cartoon character makes is done with her polycarbonate, her aluminum, not the other character’s. Indeed, the other character loses nothing except his will on someone else’s property and choice.
You are obviously conflating the failure of IP to prevent P2P music/software piracy with all IP protection.
In essence, the anti-IP crowd here is stating: “Some IP is hard to enforce, so *no* IP should be enforced!”
Which is basically arguing “Some stealing is hard to prevent, so *no* stealing should be prevented!”.
Nice try.
Is it just me? I just can’t comprehend the third frame. It is again an idiotic strawman argument.
What kind of monopoly does the copy holder suppose to have? He only has a copy covered by a contract to the owner of the content of the CD. According to the frame he is defending his side of that contract. It might seem a bit excessive assuming an average content. However, we don’t know the contract, he might defend his life which could be threatened in case of a breach of the contract. Then his actions are quite understandable.
I’m pretty sure we’re meant to assume that the copier is not binded by any contracts.
If the first copy is without copyright then there is no IP relevance.
If there was contract it would be covered under contract law. We would have no use for laws specifically set aside for ‘copyright’.
In theory you would create contracts to accomplish some of the same objectives of copyright but you run into problems when you try to mirror copyright in its entirety. Merely declaring that a contract exists does not make it so. You would have to take steps to actually ensure there is a contract in place if you are to pursue compensation for breach of contract. Nonetheless, you would still be hard pressed to create a contract between two parties that binds a 3rd and 4th party, as copyright in it’s present form does.
How can anarchists hope to live in an IP-less and stateless society if they can not even trust the people who make the contracts on direct transactions. This is only the lowest level of co-operation. They are not called luddites for nothing.
By the way, for the 3rd and 4th party you have the laws already under the ones dealing with accessories.
Andras,
The case that an individual that performs an action that would be a breach of contract they are not a party to, but they know to be only possible due to a previous breach of contract, is an accessory to the crime of contract violation is in my opinion the only pro-IP argument with any sort of plausible justification to it.
Contract law is where all pro-IP advocates should be focussing their attention, rather than with the absurd notion of owning a pattern/idea. Alas, they continue to bring out the same old nonsensical refuted lines again and again. It gets boring refuting the same thing over and over and over again.
Once I have a bit more time on my hands, I’m going to try and form my own pro-IP argument just to give Kinsella/Surda/etc a proper challenge. (I gotta wrap my head around the fundamentals of contract law first, before I can even see if this is possible)
He only has a copy covered by a contract to the owner of the content of the CD.
do you mean owner of a cd that happens to have content on it?? what is a copy holder?
It gets boring refuting the same thing over and over and over again…….
there are other hobbies. or you could just stop posting the same thing over and over again.
A: If I steal your copy, you don’t have it anymore.
A: If I make A new copy, we both have one.
B: Yes but making an unauthorized copy you are trespassing my property and violating my property rights, which exactly means having a monopoly right on the use of an object.
A: But didn’t you hear, we both have a copy which means you can still use yours.
B: But that is irrelevant. You can say the same thing about my house. If you use my house, without my consent, when I am not there, we can say “we both have a house”. Are you saying property rights depend on the ability to use the property at all times, and you lose your monopoly right regarding the property the moment you are not actively using it?
A: No, but a house is different, it is tangible there is a possibility we would want to use it at the same time.
B: That is also irrelevant. Let’s say I have the upper hand, or the right, if and when we want to use it at the same time. Does this mean I don’t have a say, a right, when we don’t want to use at the exact time? Does this mean my property right is only meaningful when there is a direct challenge on the use of an object at the same time?
A: But a patent attorney told me on the internet that, property rights are established to resolve conflicts regarding scarce, or rivalrous, resources.
B: There are a lot of cranks on the internet. I suggest you read a little Rothbard.
B: Yes but making an unauthorized copy you are trespassing my property and violating my property rights, which exactly means having a monopoly right on the use of an object.
A: But why can’t I use my property in any way I see fit and make a copy? Why do you have a claim on how I use my property?
B: Well if you have a copy then I will have competition selling what I created? I won’t make as much money?
A: So?
B: Look, a monopoly makes my life easier. I would just sit on my ass all day if people could reproduce my ideas and compete against me.
A: Couldn’t you learn to compete on the free market to find a way to make a living from your ideas?
B: Kinsella sucks! Wham!
I would rephrase it. Let’s ignore why property rights are established, that is confusing. The argument I arrived to is different. Property rights define which use of scarce/rivalrous resources are legitimate and which are not. Since you cannot use non-rival goods without using rival goods (it becomes obvious even to Silas when you point it out to him, yet it eludes you), assigning rights to non-rival goods is an interpretation of a redistribution of rights in rival goods that are causally related to them. You are oblivious to the fact that there cannot be patterns without the physical world.
Yes, I agree there are a lot of cranks on the internet. Maybe I should stop assuming they are capable of logical thought and recognising their errors.
: Yes but making an unauthorized copy you are trespassing my property and violating my property rights, which exactly means having a monopoly right on the use of an object.
A: But didn’t you hear, we both have a copy which means you can still use yours.
B: But that is irrelevant. You can say the same thing about my house. If you use my house, without my consent, when I am not there,………..
what if you are there?
if a physical piece of property was used against an owners will to get at content on the physical property isnt that jsut a case of physical property trespass and the content is now able to go where ever it goes?? stop touching my cd or computer..now git!! ok..sorry. swell content now on my memory stick.???
Your argument is answered already by the rapist comparison:
You rape her while she sleeps. She does not know and you are “better” of(f), as long as nobody knows. Is that what you are?
Did you just say you are better off when you rape someone? What exactly is this benefit received from raping someone?
go get raped and fill us in.
i asked a question not an argument.
to answer your question…no im not a rapist. sort of stupid thing to ask as you brought up rape.
if you filmed your rape, and then sent the content to various places, the content would go where at goes and you would be a rapist. get professional help.
No, the correct analogy would be A building a house that looked just like B’s house, and B accusing A of stealing his concept of what a house should look like.
So it’s OK to screw the architect who designed it?
No one is screwing the architect. He got paid to design a house, he designed it. The person who paid him got what they wanted, he got what he wanted.
Subsequently, someone built a house that looked just like it, without him doing any more work. Now, if they want another design by the same architect, they’ll have to hire him to make another design.
Do job, get paid.
This is not complicated, I really think the mercantillists arguing for the right to royalties on other people’s property and actions are being deliberately obtuse at this point. There’s no way you could still not understand this.
Oh, and as for the comment that the people trying to explain this to you don’t produce and market ideas, I noticed a few people have mentioned that they do, so I’ll add that I happen to be a painter. The IP fallacy only hobbles the production of new ideas.
Do you think the architect is ripping off the people who had all the ideas that are incorporated into his design? I.e., using doors, walls, windows, plumping, wire, etc…?
Jesse,
Not as long as those doors, walls, windows, plumbing, wire, etc. weren’t copies of patented, significant improvements on previous doors, walls, windows, plumbing, wire, etc.
If society ceases to value invention, creation and innovation, then invention, creation and innovation will cease to have value.
I’m sure you would agree that all those things have vastly improved since their very first versions (which you exclude from being inventions for some reason).
So it seems that the important thing for you is whether there’s an official piece of paper from the government, granting monopoly privileges to whoever made the most recent improvement.
Invention, creation, and innovation are arguably the most valuable things in the world, and nothing does more to destroy them than restricting ideas.
Jesse,
“So it seems that the important thing for you is whether there’s an official piece of paper from the government, granting monopoly privileges to whoever made the most recent improvement.”
Exactly.
Along with the legal right to sue for damages for illegally infringing on all the mental, physical and financial capital that went into creating the most recent improvement, and to recover ill-gotten gains from such infringement, and to discourage other from infringing. For a limit of 20 years in patents, and 50 years in copyright, after which anybody can use the IP.
In the meantime, if they don’t want to pay the licensing fee, feel free to use the older, less efficient version of whatever gadget you care to use as an example.
The market can set the premium of the old version vs. the new improved one.
That, or do the R&D to come up with an even better version.
The failure of government to enforce current laws that are designed to protect individual innovators is not an argument against IP, it is an argument against bloated, corrupt bureaucracies working against the interests of the people they are sworn to protect.
Innovators must be protected, or they will simply stop innovating.
“Innovators must be protected, or they will simply stop innovating.”
Unjustified assertion.
When one factors in that individuals learn via imitating successful people, it becomes clear that your statement is equivalent to saying:
Learners must be forbidden from accessing new information or they will simply stop learning!
Since you seem to be unable to handle the core issues, I’ll jab on the shell.
They are already protected without IP, by normal (physical) property rights. You merely think that such a protection is inadequate, so you make up some humbug and present it as “the truth”.
After reading many good arguments pro and against I came to the conclusion that there’s no clear case. Both sides go at the fundament of psychology with interesting insight but, to cool all their passion… they need perhaps to re-read their copy of Carl Jung?
Frankly though, the comic as adequate it seems to be posted in the blog, doesn’t have the stuff to touch the masses yet. Mainly IMHO it is due to the fact that it only shows one side of the picture. It just makes all the thinking for the reader… absent of hesitation.
What would be more artistic to illustrate – if possible: both sides are convinced copyright protection is not a specific argument in favor of government action… and they accuse their opponent of “interventionism”.
I don’t think both sides are convinced of that at all Artisan. Most of the IP advocates realize that they need at least a minimal government. Sure, there are some that believe they don’t, but it’ s not that common. The biggest group of anti-IP libertarians is the objectivists and she was against anarchy as well as IP.
With encryption and wireless, however, you can’t control information in a modern context without a police state, and even then you will fail constantly. If you really want IP you are going to sell your freedom to get it. Just look at the proposed international treaty coming up concerning this. That’s leading to nothing good.
“The biggest group of anti-IP libertarians is the objectivists”
Don’t you mean “pro-IP”? Ayn Rand was not against IP but strongly for it.
You are correct, I used the wrong word. A definite lack of proofreading on my part.
I likewise should have said “she was against anarchy and was for IP” or some totally different wording. I fail at English today.
“Most of the IP advocates realize that they need at least a minimal government.”
Well, read the post of the most assiduous ones on this blog again:
Silas Barta – Kerem Tibuk …
They are not consciously advocating big government, as it seems to me. Not even minimal ones (All you need are courts that establish the “strict individuality of a new, non-utilitarian pattern ” in the expression of ideas, I guess. Patenting being a different story of course.)
On the other hand it seems many IP opponents do mostly think that,
the sheer “copying industry” of freewheelers cannot really harm valuable “true creation” and that it is even bound to fade away somehow, absent of property regulation…except for the – very interesting – trademark concept of “endorsement marks”. A bit like bad quality heroin is bound to disappear if the State halts the war on drugs.
“the sheer “copying industry” of freewheelers cannot really harm valuable “true creation” and that it is even bound to fade away somehow, absent of property regulation…except for the – very interesting – trademark concept of “endorsement marks”.”
I will gleefully go into the ‘endorsement mark’ counterfeiting business if this happens. (j/k)
Dave, all creators need to do is create a certification code that you can go to their website to verify. This is not difficult to imagine and with modern cryptography is a relatively secure system. No doubt they could come up with other schemes for this as well.
Aside from that if customers are being lied to in any system there will be legal repercussions to those who do so.
“Well, read the post of the most assiduous ones on this blog again:
Silas Barta – Kerem Tibuk …
They are not consciously advocating big government, as it seems to me.”
I did say minimal in there. I know they don’t advocate big government. Unfortunately given that mess of a post I can’t blame you for misunderstanding anything in there. :/
I don’t think they are right to believe that you can enforce most IP with a small government if IP covers everything they seem to believe it should, but as Dave says, that alone isn’t reason to be against IP (I agree with him on that it’d be a weak argument to claim all IP is bad merely because we can’t enforce p2p infringements).
I’m against IP because I don’t think it’s effective for producing wealth, efficient for advancement of knowledge or technology, compatible with individual freedom or internally consistent. The proponents of it can’t even clearly define what they propose to allow to be IP and that which is clearly outside scope. I’m still not clear on where the line is in literature (word, sentence, paragraph, essay, book, concept?) and what the logical reason for the stopping place is.
What’s the line on inventions? I’m sure most IP proponents would admit some patents are stupid patents but exactly why are some stupid patents (obvious/etc) and others “flash of genius.” How do you know which is which? And is there any rational basis for the term limits? I’m not as against utilitarians as some are here but you’ve really got to prove your point with facts if you are going to be a utilitarian.
Brilliant, Artisan.
The objective: removal of government oversight. Further, utilitarian arguments will be required to reach critical mass. I suspect Stephan et. al. has lectured often on this and I’ve simply not read enough.
I watch many of you talking “past each other.” The attacks and ripostes are not even touching the foil’s metal, but rather poking at phantoms on a different floor mat.
To be sure, the philosophical argument is grounded, for me at least, in a robust epistemology. As you fence with engineers, writers, toolmakers, artists, remember their paradigm. They ask of their livelihood. Answer their questions with both feet on the ground. Is there something wrong with them yearning for compensation and recognition of their genius? IP-opponents oftentimes meander into the praxeological discussions and cosmological elevations.
Yet I want to know how I (brilliant poet and pithy blog commentator extraordinaire) can make my gazillions, and build a castle or million-acre ranch a la J.K. Rowling or George Lucas. (Yes, yes, I first need to buy some talent. Fine.)
Answer: a new business model, some way to offer my wares for a fee. Within the physical limits of reality and without a government regulator holding a gun. And if I can’t do this, I have a choice – stop writing. But I need to write, as much as my neighbor needs to bicycle. Life isn’t worth living without it. So dies the argument that we’ll devolve into chimpanzees if nobody gets a patent for inventing the slide rule.
The technological (r)evolution should be so exciting to the writer, the commentator, the poet, the actor, the photographer. Barriers to entry are falling like leaves in a gale. With a PC and some rental space on a domain, a creator can publish his work in an instant.
But what will prevent a short story from being plagiarized?
Same reason why Jeffrey Tucker’s collection is in no danger of being by-lined by Franklin; it’s because the world (heh, he wishes) let’s say a few thousand at least, have already witnessed it is Jeffrey’s effort, none other. It’s already done, already written. As works are published, an entirely new market of artistic and literary monitors will arise, scouring the internet for these new gems. New taxonomical sites (bring on those modern day medieval monks ushering in a new Renaissance!) will now arise; new hobbies, new careers defined.
Think of the transformation. Town libraries will crumble — no! they will morph — into new parks, new businesses, new Bourbon Breakfast cafés, where artists and writers and readers can meet, thousands of Algonquin Round Tables throughout the world.
And what of those pretty town librarians? What happened to those unsung scholars who guided schoolboys through the Dewey decimal files while the boys blushed at the hint of their pretty perfume? Will Shirley Jones evading Robert Preston fade into a quaint memory for old men to recall? Of course not. These new librarians will build a new market, new cataloging systems; they are Lewis and Clark discoverers, padding their way through the wilderness of cyberspace, tuning their search engines, seeking great new books (ideas) and making famous the creators. Would Samuel Johnson have been the same without buddy Boswell who went back to his home late in evenings, recreating the literary drama of the beer-laden pubs and parties, gifting us of Samuel’s jousting with Edmund Burke? There are bloggers on this very site who can star-align any topic with elegant criticism and treasures never known to exist. I can’t recall a time any of them took credit for someone else’s framed patterns.
Illegitimate claims and stolen novels will become a disgraced exception, as the new librarians, new detectives, new diarists will be private gatekeepers and purveyors of the artistic landscape.
But those creators will make no money! Who will pay for these librarian cyber-space academics? Why will anyone create new works?
Well, why do you?
Every day I find gems on this site, some written in English by native-tongued Chinese or German or Italian… with insight that will rival Jefferson’s.
Why do they write? Why do they create?
It’s in us.
Would I like a dime every time somebody clicked on my Mises-ian meanderings? To be sure. But this is no place for the busy-bodies of government, who are in the pockets of the publishing house giants, Caesars on a marble throne who line up artists and poets, promising wealth in return for their monopolistic and artistically barren loyalty. So when each book cha-chings for twenty-bucks at Borders, or Amazon, these corporate giants condescend to you from their yachts by casting a few cents toward your dinghy.
No thanks.
The house is changing; the Dell laptop and the bedside Kindle assume the prominence of the weighty bookshelves, save for some delicate antiques, coincidentally including my treasured copy of _Last of the Mohicans_. Photographs and paintings stare at me from where a bookcase last stood.
Barnes and Noble may go the way of its discontinued Dalton brand.
Blockbuster boardroom conversations are focused on partnerships with data center giants, and how to profit from cloud delivery of entertainment.
But even that will die in decades to come.
To allow government to monitor what I stream into my space and how I, in turn, stream it out is to hand some bureaucrat a mighty firearm against my modest foil.
There is no turning back, unless you welcome Big Brother into your home.
Question to the readers: If I think of a business idea that uses a series of procedures and steps to produce a tangible result, such as a boat load of cash, should I be permitted to patent this idea?
A few caveats to consider:
1 no one has done this before, this is my idea. If someone had done this before they didn’t patent the idea before me, at least not in the way I plan to do it
2 I do take the time to patent it before anyone else, I’m the first to get the State issued paper
3 Everyone wants to get in on the deal and compete with me as soon as they find out what I’m doing
The reason I ask is because some of the language here fails to differentiate between a patentable idea that produces something physical or intellectual and a non-patentable business idea, such as a kick ass business plan, that similarly ‘produces’ something physical like a a boat load of money.
If I can patent business ideas, how is that any different than State mandated monopolies during the reign of Mercantilism?. If I can’t patent them, why not? I can patent software that doesn’t produce anything physical why can I not patent a business idea and have a State mandated monopoly? Pumping oil out of the ground instead of scooping it off the surface, that’s a great idea, someone should have patented it; instead we received anti-trust laws.
I’m going to butcher Stephan’s book by phrasing things like this but to justify IP, patents specifically, you have to justify why I do not have a right to use my physical property as I please. Even if I think of the same idea as you without reading your patent or seeing your writing (popped into my head the same way it did yours), if you patented the idea first, then I have no right to use my physical property in the way I planned to use it. Why can you suddenly control what I do with my property? You could not restrict what I do without that piece of paper but once the State says so, now you can stop me from doing what I was planning to do with my property. All of this because I did not pay the State fee for the piece of paper. If you control my physical property, how can you say that I’m the one who owns it?
1 no one has done this before, this is my idea….
once expressed, is the idea owned or ‘mine’? with ides are they really ‘my’ or ‘mine’ or are they origniated by ‘me’ but once expressed no longer soley owned??
Actually, if you copy a patented work, you can use it all you want.
You just can’t market and sell it, at least until it expires.
Narby: “Actually, if you copy a patented work, you can use it all you want.
You just can’t market and sell it, at least until it expires.”
Actually, Narby, that is incorrect. Please read the actual code for clarification.
(emphasis mine)
Please don’t correct others without first being sure that your own knowledge of the subject is correct. The ability to exclude others from building or using the invention is necessary for the law to work in the way it was intended. It is explicitly illegal to build your own copy of a patented invention without permission.
North’s objection stands.
I stand corrected.
“Worse, I suspect they are working in the interests of large multinational corporations – As they would be the primary beneficiaries of a non-IP world.”
If you are really going down this route I’ve got nothing more to say. You are a true believer, nothing will convince you otherwise since everyone else has to be a corporate crony who wants to destroy your freedom to invent things or something.
“Remember that all IP except for trademarks expire”
Only if you are utilitarian, not everyone believes IP should ever expire because if they believe in it for principled reasons then they think that is just like any other property.
It’s not anything like normal property especially if you start putting terms on it. I recognize that many IP proponents use these terms but they should really drop the use of the word property.
“My point is that if we don’t protect the inventors, we remove the incentive to invent… ”
This is a completely unproven assertion and moreover is patently false. If what you advise were true human beings wouldn’t have ever invented anything until patent law came about, which is untrue. Also, I’d be interested in your reply to Terence Kealey’s point on this video: http://blog.mises.org/13017/terence-kealey-science-is-a-private-good-%E2%80%93-or-why-government-science-is-wasteful/. Patent law was temporarily suspended for the purpose of allowing airplanes to be used in the US and the results of this was hardly what you maintain must be true without “protection.”
There is a recent article here about Germany and the research that was done on their catchup with Britain during the industrial revolution due to having no strict enforcement of IP. If you believe on principle that these things are theft then you’d have something to say here, but you are making an attempt to argue this from utility and you are utterly failing to even produce data or even anecdotes to prove your case. Mind you, on principle I disagree with IP, so this kind of evidence would not serve to convince me, but if you had it I could at least agree that you had some point.
In this case though, you have nothing more than words saying that you believe the world will get no advancement without patent law, and there are a myriad of examples showing you are wrong.
“The case of Philo Farnsworth vs RCA comes to mind, http://www.farnovision.com/chronicles/tfc-who_invented_what.html but this is a fault of government, not of IP.”
And who do you need to enforce IP? Government. So if your enemy is government, like mine is. Your case makes even less sense. And if you look at the modern ability to reproduce, the only way you can ever maintain IP is to destroy privacy on the internet via cracking encryption, and then you’ll have to make adhoc wireless networks illegal to prevent people circumventing the internet, and various other things like that. You simply cannot expect a small state and IP in the future. It isn’t going to happen.
I realize you probably don’t agree with that prediction, but to this point no one has challenged me on why they believe it isn’t true, so I’d like to know why you think that’s not the case. How do you foresee IP enforcement happening when the internet is in most homes and there is encrypted peer to peer technology widely available? Are you going to outlaw encryption? Are you going to try to crack that encryption so you can spy on people who may not be doing anything that involves copyrighted works? What are you going to do exactly to roll back the clock?
I think it’s interesting that most people of a libertarian nature tend to think that there is something “natural” about property rights, and “unnatural” about intellectual property rights. Yet it is quite clear, from history in particular, that there is nothing the least natural about property rights. They are an artifical invention; an agreed set of rules within a community, which is why they vary so much from society to society. So let us not pretend that IP cannot be justified because it is an “artifical” monopoly; all property rights are an artifical monopoly.
Another argument that keeps coming up is that IP rights cannot be enforced in the glorious digital age. This is quite obviously rubbish. Laws can be made, copiers can be found, those copiers can be punished. Sure, you cannot stop all copying. You cannot stop all murder or burglary either. But a ten year prison sentence for pirating would discourage most people from doing it. That would be harsh, but it is certainly a practical, achievable solution. No law in existence has succeeded in abolishing the crime against which it is directed. That’s not how the law works. It works by discouragement and punishment.
So it comes down simply to whether you want your society- your collective- to enforce this particular type of property. People who copy tend to say no; people who create tend to say yes. The central question is a matter of utilitarianism, or maybe just a matter of taste. It is like the question of whether you want your society to enforce a law against child rape. It probably costs more to enforce than can be justified on economic terms. You make the law just because you don’t like child rape, in the end.
It is probably true that in an IP-less society, there would be artistic works created. The market would find some way to do it; sponsorship, patronage, or the sheer conceit of creators. But a very large number of people who create for a living would have to go and do some other job. You may say, “well, that’s the market deciding”; but again, if we choose to abolish real estate property rights, then that industry disappears too and that’s just the market deciding. It’s certainly true that property ownership concentrates land in the hands of the few; the rest of us would benefit from being able to take it over as we wish. How do you justify the land monopoly?
Well, you may say, a farmer who does not own his land and the crops thereon has no incentive to grow anything, if somebody else can just come and reap those crops when they are ready. Individual land monopolies are (for productive land) the means of incentivising producers. The farmer grows his corn, and sells it, and we all benefit. He has no natural right to do this, because there are no natural rights of course. His right is awarded by the community, so that they will all have bread.
I must confess a vested interest: I draw rude comics and sell them on the web. Without IP, I would have no business. I would have to go do some other job. I certainly wouldn’t bother drawing all those comics for no return. That’s basic capitalism, that is. I may draw one or two for fun, but not all that I currently do. The problem, you see, is opportunity cost and capital investment. Comics are cheap to copy, but expensive to produce. So is music. Movies are inordinately expensive. If there is no profit to be made, they will not be made.
So the Pirates say, “there will be other models”. They demand taxes on media, or hope for advertising support- invariably these being the type of person who runs an adblocker in their browser. Or perhaps aspiring cartoonists can go from patron to patron, cap in hand, asking for a grant (in return for producing a comic of the type the patron demands, rather than that readers may like). The wonderful thing about the market, you see, is that it can support little niche businesses like mine, so long as I can find a small number of customers. When you’re after advertising support, or corporate backing, you need to be doing something very populist. There’s no room for niches.
Ah, but I’ve wandered off the point really. The cartoon is naive and silly and misleading. It ignores the capital costs, as Pirates always do. They pretend the only costs in creative works are the costs of reproduction. Then they say, “look, it should be free because reproduction is free”. And the cartoon misleads by saying “now we both have one”. But the creator doesn’t create to “have one”. He creates to sell, and make a profit. Just as the farmer does not grow corn in order to have a barn full to admire. He grows it to sell.
Property rights do not come from nature, or from a God. They come from man. He invents them for pragmatic reasons. I prefer intellectual property to exist, so that people will create things and sell them to me. Yes, I am biased, but before I was a creative I still liked having music to lsten to and comics to read and movies to watch. I want those things to continue. So, I vote for IP.
Re: Ian B,
And people are so clever they come up with property rights when they did not exist before just by talking about it during tea time. Sure.
Would you lose ownership of the shirt on your back if the State suddenly disappeared?
So you clearly accept that the State is needed to enforce IP – there would be NO OTHER WAY TO ENFORCE IT. Do you need the state to enforce your property rights on the shirt on your back? There’s a difference between owning something (being able to act on it) and having a dangerous gang of armed thugs (what we euphemistically call “State”) acting on it for you.
For “pragmatic reasons”, someone may decide YOU don’t have property rights over the shirt on your back. I hope you find his argument just as compelling as you think yours is.
I don’t know what point you are trying to make. My ownership of the shirt on my back is the result of a law which enshrines a right which is agreed by the group. My “ownership” would indeed disappear if the group disappeared; it would then simply be the shirt on my back and the question of ownership would be meaningless.
Consider Robinson Crusoe. He has no rights, and obeys no laws. He can do what he wishes with anything on the island, and do as he wishes. Now, presume another castaway, Robinson Twosoe, arrives. Now they have to share the island. Now they have to decide who owns what, and on what basis, and how to resolve disagreements, and whether the fish in the lagoon are common property or whether Crusoe has those to the North side and Twosoe those to the South and so on. The question of rights and ownership only becomes meaningful when there is a society; even just a society of two. Human societies have throughout history come to different answers regarding these issues. THere is usually some element of communal or unowned property, and some amount of personal property, and things in between. The shirt on your back may be yours, but it may be entirely alien to think of a parcel of land as belonging to anybody if you’re nomads or a tribe; the only land ownership may be a communal, tribal territory, the borders of which are decided entirely by force of arms between your tribe and others. Indeed, that is how borders are decided between national landowners (the Queen owns England, for instance, and “property rights” for her subjects are simply grants-to-use).
The communtity, the society, or the state, whatever you wish to call it, mediates these property claims. WIthout it, they cease to have meaning, and all you have is force of arms. The land then belongs to he who has the force to take it and hold it. That is all there is. There are no “rights” as such; just agreed rulesets. Without a generally agreed rule- backed by overwhelming community force- that I “own” my shirt, it will only remain mine so long as nobody stronger than me wants to take it off me. If I can’t get the rest of you to agree that I own my shirt, I may end up shirtless and be able to do nothing about it.
Look, I’m as libertarian as the next bloke. That means I desire a property rights ruleset. But it doesn’t descend from nature or God or anywhere else. It is arbitrary.
Re: Ian B,
You asked permission to te group to own a shirt?
I didn’t ask you if you would stop owning your shirt if the “GROUP” disappeared – the State is NOT society. Even so, you don’t understand the concept of OWNERSHIP.
You OWN something when you can act upon it. You don’t lose ownership of something just because nobody”s looking.
Yes, he does – he protects his life, doesn’t he? He has a right to his LIFE, as he still acts to protect it.
Assume they don’t speak the same language…
I didn’t need to, because they already made a rule declaring my ownership.
The state is society, formalised. This is the problem I get arguing with anarchists. They seem to think the “state” is some specific institutional structure. It’s just community force. It is just whatever is hegemonic. If you’re in a clan structure for instance, the “state” is the clan.
I don’t know what you mean there. If I go and perform shakespear on my neighbour’s lawn, do I get ownership? Are you implying the “mixing labour with” formula there?
Not the same thing. The fact that somebody seeks an outcome doesn’t mean they have a right to it. Rights come in when there are disputes in human interaction. Without interaction (alone on the island) talk of rights is, literally, meaningless. Once Crusoe and Twosoe have agreed that killing each other is against their rules, now they can say they have a right to life.
Re: Ian B,
I didn’t need to, because they already made a rule declaring my ownership.
They did? Or you assume they did?
Oh, so sans the state, the Society is NOT formalized???
Is it community force? If such is the case, is then the community justified in taking your property if they so decided it?
How marcial. Just like in prison – you just need the tatoos to complete the package.
Do you get ownership of what?
It’s not a formula, it’s a definition – OWNERSHIP is being able to freely act upon a thing. If someone else already has something (in this case, your neighbor’s lawn), you cannot ACT upon it. A person that mows my lawn does not get ownership of it, since he’s not freely acting upon it, he’s acting upon it with my persmission.
You mean, just because Crusoe seeks to keep his life does not mean he has no right to it?
So my right to my life is contingent to someone else’s opinion on it?
And if they don’t agree? If the right does NOT exist by virtue of mutual consent, does the act of killing become justified?
Is that your argument?
“Old Mexican” (or whoever you are).
Ideas are things.
“Ideas are things.”
No they are not. An idea is a possible configuration that things can be arranged into.
@Old Mexican; if you define ownership as being able to freely act upon a thing, then you must conclude that you “own” anything that isn’t nailed down or currently being watched over. If you aren’t around, I can certainly “freely act” upon your possessions.
The fact is that property rights are artificial. There isn’t any way around that. When you get right down to it, nobody has the “right” to anything. People agree on “rights” because they think that agreeing about it leads to a better outcome than fighting about it; and if they DON’T think that, then they fight. Absent human agreement, no “rights” exist.
That being so, the question of whether some action is “justified” is entirely meaningless. No action is ever “justified”; or rather all actions are equally “justified”. What is justified by your moral code is not by someone else’s, and both of those codes are equally valid. Perhaps (for example) you hold that taking human life is inherently evil, and I hold that if someone enters my home without my permission I may shoot them dead. Both of us are equally right, moral, and justified in our actions.
I’m against IP because I think it stifles invention. I don’t think Shakespeare could have done what he did under IP constraints. I certainly do not pretend that IP is a matter for philosophical discussion, I simply think the abolition of IP would make society better off, just like I think free-market capitalism makes society better off.
Ian edit”
“Another argument that keeps coming up is that alcohol prohibition cannot be enforced in any age. This is quite obviously rubbish. Laws can be made, drinkers can be found, those drinkers can be punished. Sure, you cannot stop all drinking. You cannot stop all murder or burglary either. But a ten year prison sentence for drinking would discourage most people from doing it. That would be harsh, but it is certainly a practical, achievable solution. No law in existence has succeeded in abolishing the crime against which it is directed. That’s not how the law works. It works by discouragement and punishment.”
That’s absolutely true. What’s your point?
If you don’t get the point, I can’t help you.
Crime only consists of assault against life, and that doesn’t include assault on any means of making a living you can think of.
I didn’t ask for your help.
The original point I was making was that inability to prevent a crime isn’t an argument against criminalisation. Rape is hard to prevent, but most of us want it to be against the law. It’s just a bad argument. That’s the only point I was making.
Sorry, prickly pear, I wish you would ask someone for help.
It’s a very good argument, the real one here, the argument to stop treating non-crimes as crimes. The best understanding of rights is not arbitrary, it is the best, people ignore it at their peril.
Also-
Are you saying that theft, rape, non-fatal violence and so on are not or should not be considered criminal?
No, actual property (physical property held, not a job or a government license), life and your body are all the same thing.
For some reason mpolzkill you have no reply buttons, so I reply here…
“No, actual property (physical property held, not a job or a government license), life and your body are all the same thing.”
That isn’t actually true is it? It’s like stating that “ravens, bus conductors and Beethoven symphonies are all the same thing”. They aren’t, are they? We know that because they have different nouns.
Your life, your physical body, personal property and real estate are all quite distinct. That’s why legal systems are able to treat them all differently. I appreciate that you would like them to all be the same, so that it makes reasoning simple, but the actual universe is more complicated than that.
Your body is most certainly your life, you won’t live without it. You *may* live, sort of, without property, at the discretion of those who own it, and thus own you.
Lawyers can do all kind of things based on peoples’ misconceptions, they’ve done a number on you it seems.
Life is a function of the body; they are not the same thing. Travel is the function of a motor car, but travel and a motor car are different things. Property is entirely different; it is neither life itself nor essential for life. Communes live without personal property (though they have shared property of course). Nonetheless, they are different things.
Nobody has “done a number on me”, and don’t be so patronising. Your doctrinaire desperation to derive liberty from nature is flawed, and that doesn’t invalidate the desire for a libertarian system, but you’re going to have to face up to the fact that you can’t prove liberty from nature; you just have to fight for it because that is the system you prefer.
David Hume. Is and ought. You can’t get around it; it’s fundamental. (I may be wrong here, but your reference to “life” suggest’s Ayn Rand’s attempt to evade Hume’s Guillotine. She failed).
“The same thing” is another way of saying “inextricable”. Property to man, is almost as water to fish.
Some communes, if very small and populated by a healthy share of talented near-saints do live, sort of.
You weren’t born speaking legalese, they did a number on you, sorry.
Never said anything about where “Natural Rights” come from, you’ve made that up for whatever reason. “Rights” are not derived from anywhere but peoples’ minds. If people want to do as well as they can, they will stick as closely as possible to what is known as “Natural Rights”. Or they can keep on thinking your way and the world will stay as rotten as it is, with ever greater catastrophes ahead.
“mpolzkill”
” Your body is most certainly your life, you won’t live without it. You *may* live, sort of, without property, at the discretion of those who own it, and thus own you.”
You won’t mind us taking your ‘spare’ kidney then. Turns out one of our US senator’s kids needs a transplant, and your DNA was a perfect match.
After all, you don’t *need* it to live, do you?
Mpolzkill is the first to possess his kidney and therefore the more rightful owner of it. It’s called homesteading. Mpolzkill may choose to abandon his kidney and thus transfer his ownership of it. But until he does, it remains his.
The same applies to any of his tangible possessions such as his computer, television, fridge, house, etc, etc, etc.
“David Hume. Is and ought. You can’t get around it; it’s fundamental. (I may be wrong here, but your reference to “life” suggest’s Ayn Rand’s attempt to evade Hume’s Guillotine. She failed).”
No she didn’t.
Hume failed to derive an “ought” from an “is” because he was hung up on a Platonic concept of “ought” which is a fallacy in itself. He was trying to derive a mystical concept from reality, which is of course, contradictory. His “ought” is already, by definition, not based on reality (which is really to say, has no existence), so showing that they aren’t connected is an empty tautology.
This Platonic thinking (of abstractions having their own existence) is probably the root of the confusion over IP. Aristotle showed that physical reality is what exists, and abstractions are derived from it, and serve to represent aspects of it. To say that “ought” cannot be derived from “is” is really to say that there is no “ought” (which also explains the moral relativism of modern philosophy).
“Ought” is derived from what we are, for the same reason that the value of higher order goods is derived from the value of lower order goods.
Jesse Forgione,
What’s this I am reading?
” To say that “ought” cannot be derived from “is” is really to say that there is no “ought” (which also explains the moral relativism of modern philosophy). ”
Am I on mises.org?
Re: Dave Narby,
It’s very simple, Dave: IP law encourages patentability, not economic efficiency, as a priority. Any improvement on a product is placed on hold until patents are in place. This increases the cost of R & D; for the sake of these exclusive rights (IP), division of labor is not encouraged.
Whether the payoff is higher once the monopoly is in place is another thing – you made the argument that IP reduces the cost of R&D. I conclude it cannot, using an economic (praxeological)argument.
No, I’m asking YOU to make the argument. You’re just asserting it, as if it were obvious, but not only is it not, it defies logic – how can big corporations, without a monopoly-creating law, be able to reap benefits from smaller businesses? IP actually serves to keep smaller competitors OUT, not IN, the market.
And this is supposed to be a BAD thing, even if it were true? You think inventors don’t try to sell their ideas to businesses that have the productive wherewithal, instead of just holding to their patents like dear life? Don’t you think they would do so anyway without IP?
Again, it is not an argument, it is an assertion. I have yet to hear argumentation.
You’re begging the question. Someone else’s labor does not come into the picture when other people’s physical property is being transformed.
For instance, if you design a kitchen cabinet with all these wonderful features, using YOUR wood, YOUR glue, YOUR finish, YOUR nails, YOUR fittings, and I come up with an IDENTICAL cabinet but using MY wood, MY glue, MY finish, MY nails and MY fittings, why would you suddenly have OWNERSHIP of MY cabinet? It is still composed of MY wood, MY glue, MY finish, MY nails and MY fittings!You cannot say I am taking advantage of YOUR “labor”, when you still have YOUR cabinet, right there in front of you. Same with every other thing you may consider “piracy” or “copying.”
You’ve (deliberately?) misinterpreted what labour is being stolen or borrowed or whatnot, the same misdirection the cartoon attempts. It’s not the labour of constructing the cabinet, it’s the labour of designing the cabinet. If you’re in the cabinet making business, and you have a choice of making a cabinet of your own design, or copying Dave’s design, then we can know something; that you believe that you will profit more from the Dave cabinet design than from your own. That is how you are profitting from Dave’s labour; if he hadn’t designed it (for you to copy) you would have been stuck with your own design which, since we know you didn’t choose it, is inferior to Dave’s (or if you haven’t designed one at all, you would have the extra capital costs of doing your own design).
CAPITAL costs, NOT copying costs! That’s the whole point of IP; it’s about the capital costs of design/invention/creation.
Re: Ian B,
You’re equivocating, Ian. Labor implies transformation. I can sit around “laboring” on new ideas, but they are for naught without transformation. Just because Dave “labored” on coming up with his design does not give him ispo facto ownership of MY cabinet, even if it looks exactly like his.
I didn’t say I copied his design, only that I came up with an identical design. You have not explained how can Dave argue ownership of MY cabinet, you just assume his design allows him to OWN what is MY wood, MY glue, MY finish, MY nails and MY fittings.
You are obviously conflating the failure of IP to prevent P2P music/software piracy with all IP protection.
In essence, the anti-IP crowd here is stating: “Some IP is hard to enforce, so *no* IP should be enforced!”
Which is basically arguing “Some stealing is hard to prevent, so *no* stealing should be prevented!”.
No, some IP is hard to enforce, and the world hasn’t been destroyed and creators still make money despite the infractions so your entire idea that a monopoly is a necessity is a farce because one doesn’t exist now.
And Dave, you should really stop using stealing analogies if you believe in limited terms for copyright/patent/etc. Otherwise you are guilty of stealing by taking their property at the end of the arbitrary terms.
That’s faulty reasoning. IP Law actually throws considerable blocks in the way of piracy; many people won’t go near it because it is illegal. It’s difficult as well- finding a torrent site, figuring out which torrents are fakes, which is a CAM and which is a DVD rip, and so on. Easy for nerds, quite challenging for many ordinary folks. Torrent sites get shut down. Usenet binaries are virtually incomprehensible to ordinary mortals. The p2p stuff like Napster and so on have one by one been shut down or marginalised. And that’s if the thing you want is actually available, via Torrent or whatever.
So you can’t compare the situation now to how it would be without any legal restraints.
It’s also worth mentioning that copyright law only creates a monopoly in the same sense as any other property right creates a monopoly; that is the monopoly is of a particular item (a particular movie, or song) rather than of a whole industry or market sector (as in a state-awarded monopoly for the Brewer’s Guild or the Lawyers’ Guild). Anyone can make a movie or write a song. You just aren’t allowed to steal other peoples’ specific movies or songs.
Ian, it’s not faulty reasoning, it’s different reasoning and I have more experience with pirates than you do I’d say. You state that people won’t do it because it’s illegal, but I state that they aren’t doing it because they don’t care to do it or because they actually like supporting what they like or having physical copies/etc for some things.
The studies have shown that pirates predominately purchase more material through official services than non-pirates (and some of these studies the industry has supported, they aren’t pirate driven studies, which show much the same data). It’s pirates that are the most interested in media. That’s the reason they invest the time to learn how to pirates.
They weren’t nerds before they were pirates, they became nerds because of the desire to get what they wanted. You aren’t wrong to say some people stay away because it’s illegal, but that percentage in my estimation is not as high as you might imagine. Yes, many of them are ignorant of how to use the services, but that’s largely out of lack of interest and desire to do other things than hunt for torrents of movies/anime/etc.
Ian B,
We’re not talking about pirating. That is not the issue. P2P, torrents, Usenet, etc. is hard to discourage.
We’re talking about counterfeiting. That is the appropriation of someone else’s IP (produced at no inconsiderable effort or talent) for your personal profit.
It’s becoming hard to tell if people are simply confused, or intentionally conflating this issue on purpose. Hmm…
Is there a distinction? When do you count somebody as profiting? A torrent site running ads, for instance, is profiting. Every file “sharer” profits by gaining goods for free. I see no distinction, except a leftist kind of anti-commerce bias, the kind of thing where they think all information should be free, until a corporation they don’t like joins in, at which point they throw a mighty fit about having their stuff “stolen”.
Anyway, none of this seems to apply to the word “counterfeiting”. Counterfeiting is faking- fake art copies (something that claims to be a Rembrandt but isn’t) or fake money (a bill that claims to be Government issued legal tender but isn’t). A digital copy isn’t a counterfeit, it’s just a copy (it would probably be a counterfeit if somebody distributed a Disney movie and pretended e.g. on their website to be Disney, I guess).
Every time somebody copies something, they personally profit. There is no disctinction.
I think it’s also worth mentioning that the idea of intellectual property is quite a natural one. Try taking somebody else’s idea, and gaining credit for it, and not acknowledging that it was their idea- just in everyday life- and you’ll find that they get upset. Take any leftie anti-IP-ist, and have him write a song, then have a company use it on their ads without asking permission, you’ll soon see the natural belief in intellectual property arise in a fit of righteous anger.
Re: Ian B,
“Capital costs”? You mean is not about owning anymore?
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