That is not an example of IP law. Venues have a right to determine what is allowed on their private property.

Great response… that was the most concisely illustrated argument against IP laws that I have ever heard. Thank you

if you want to pay someone something, go right ahead. other than that, free exchange can take care of things.

if someone doesn’t want to sell IP, it is their right, if they want to sell it outright, it is still their right, if they wish to construct a contract limiting production, etc., it is still their right, all without the state.it is the state that tells everyone else what they have to do without their consent in order to monopolize an idea, usually more to benefit large corporations rather than the originator.removing

IP laws does not impoverish anyone, in simply frees the market to work in the most unrestrictive manner

While an interesting idea, I have to ask: How much would being restrictive have cost them?

It’s also irrelevant. They made money. Lots of money, while making lots of people happy. More money but less people happy sounds more like Microsoft.

“Every time I bring this up I hear, “Look at the Grateful Dead – they let people record them live and share the tapes and it only increased attendance at their shows.”

“Apples and oranges. The Dead’s revenues came from their tours, not their records. Those so-called bootlegs (they can’t be real bootlegs if they’re sanctioned) advertised their concerts, which were not free. You had to pay to see the Dead live. (That was not intentional. Okay, maybe a little.)”

So I guess this blog post and his directly relate. They’re taking his jaaaaaaab!

Examples: 1) Repeated drug arrests involving the band and crew. 2) Lenny Hart, father of drummer Mickey Hart, embezzled a bunch of the band’s money. 3) Despite attempts to assemble the world’s best touring sound system, the band’s gear was notoriously problematic. 4) Their road crew was known for being among the rudest and least professional in the business. 5) Ultimately, five members of the Dead died young; three of these deaths were due to drug use.

There is no question that the Dead as a touring musical business took a long time to professionalize, and lost a lot of income to unprofessional behavior and poor management.

I personally applaud the Dead’s fairly open attitude towards copyright, but I find it difficult to believe that the Dead’s marketing was ever anything except improvisation.

I was pointed to these, by F. Paul Wilson:

http://trueslant.com/fpaulwilson/2010/04/15/word-thieves/

http://trueslant.com/fpaulwilson/2010/05/06/word-thieves-ii/

I think you can tell from the URLs the position he takes. It’s sad to see such otherwise excellent, logical thinkers brought low. Such _anger_.

To put it another way, if most people imagine innovation as a big stick of dynamite with a long fuse that needs time to go off, I’d liken it more to the same amount of explosive power in the form of hundreds or thousands of firecrackers set to go off in a chain reaction as soon as the first one detonates. One idea makes waves through the minds of those exposed to it who then continue to form ideas based on this new information working down the line in very rapid, small improvements over the original. If you impose limitations on this data by granting legal privileges to control its dissemination, you’d essentially be cutting up the firecracker chain into little bits and pieces that have to get lit independently one at a time. This could only make the process slower, and in real world terms give us less room to innovate.

But some people are rather quick to idolize the origin of things and not the origin of what made those things great, no matter what the real cost is to innovation or property rights. There’s a certain objectivist lady I know, for example….

As the Web allows millions of people to share, those who adopt a Grateful Dead style model of giving it away gain more exposure – and if they are good – people who want to do business with companies and people. Had Doug charged for the content on this blog, he would be doing something much different than he is by giving away his excellent content.

If you’re actually dedicated to property rights, you should oppose IP because IP is (to modify your strawman quotation) “give up your property rights because I had an idea”.

After all, IP isn’t about controlling people’s minds, it’s about controlling the expression of ideas through actual property. You can write a song and I can listen to it (and thus it is now in my mind as well) and IP enforcement leaves me alone. But the moment I try to use MY property to express that song that is in MY mind (such as playing it on MY guitar for people willing to pay me), suddenly, you, as the originator of the song claim a right to control ME and MY property. How exactly is that congruent with property rights? It is the pro-IP crowd that is anti-property, not those that recognize ideas are not a valid method of obtaining ownership (control) over actual, scarce resources.