See below for weekly topics. Read instructor Stephan Kinsella’s article about the course. Click here for more details and to enroll.
Source link: http://archive.mises.org/14427/online-ip-course-starts-monday/
Online IP Course Starts Monday
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I might consider signing up – if Mr. Kinsella could first please explain to us how repealing IP laws will provide innovators more incentive to create, because logic dictates there will be less.
Why should there be MORE incentive to create in the first place? Why not then advocate inflationary credit expansion which provides MORE incentive to borrow and invest? All this talk about “creating incentives” has an un-Austrian, neoliberal stint in it.
Is it possible to concede that there’s certain intrinsic market demand for innovation vs. imitation at any given moment?
I’ll break it down for the new readers:
The purpose of patent protection is to provide incentive for inventors by allowing them to exclusively profit by the fruits of their labor for period of time.
Kinsella and company claim patents discourage innovation and invention and should be repealed.
I and others have been waiting for a coherent argument from them for months.
So far I have read arguments attempting to conflate patents with monopoly (and now fiat money!), improper enforcement of patent law as an excuse to remove all patent law, and occasionally the Chewbacca defense, but to date, these have been their arguments.
We are waiting.
Since the question was already answered by me several times, the more appropriate question would be why are fanatics impervious to logic.
No, you have not.
But since you claim to have, it should be a simple matter to copy and paste it here.
I challenge you to do it in three sentences, however. Most of your responses tended to be quite lengthy, and given that my argument fits into a single twenty-seven word sentence, it would seem that you should be able to fit your argument into three of them (assuming it’s coherent).
I have thoroughly debunked your nonsense several times. Instead of confronting it, you ran away.
The more specific counter (regarding the utilitarian aspect) to your claim is that you neglect to consider the costs. The more broad counter (regarding the issue as a whole) is that you have not presented a scientific theory, rather resort to metaphors and vagueness, so the question you pose is pointless.
Since it does not look like you are going to deal with either of those, I don’t think I need to add anything new to the topic.
When you started posting and were referring to logic and science, I was looking forward to debate you. Instead it turned out that just like any other IP proponent you are a denier of science and instead follow mysticism and your primary discussion method is to avoid a confrontation at all costs.
Copy and paste it here for all to see, then.
So, you run away from debate and want me to do extra work to accommodate you? Besides, I formulated it in the posting above:
- you fail to consider the costs
- you have not provided a scientific theory, therefore the question is pointless
Dave, your conclusion is a non sequitur not a result of logic. Demonstrate how monopoly creates innovation.
Besides the fact there is no monopoly (IP expires, after which it becomes public domain), the burden of proof is on you, sir, to show how innovation will actually be *increased* if IP laws are repealed.
Dave,
1. There is a monopoly while the arbitrary IP period is in effect. A monopoly with an expiration date is still a monopoly.
2. You are the one arguing the law on utilitarian grounds. The onus is on you to defend the rationale you use to justify a law. In other words, I am not claiming anything. You are claiming monopoly is necessary for innovation. You must prove this assertion.
IP doesn’t give you a “monopoly” as the provider still has to compete with all other goods. The state may arbitrarily make me the only person allowed to make automatic taco makers, but if I’m too inefficient to be able to offer my taco makers at a price consumers are willing to pay, I’m screwed whether I have a “monopoly” or not.
Ultimately a market transaction has to benefit every party involved in order to take place. A good having only one or a few producers doesn’t change this.
The “burden of proof” requires that you formulate a scientific theory, which has not happened so far.
Innovation benefits from the fact that intelligent labor is not immediately public property. People do not work for free and thinking IS work (if it wasn’t, we wouldn’t have to burn so many calories to think). Once it is realized their work is public property, they’ll find other work that isn’t. Whether this is in the total sense or not doesn’t matter, as the outcome would be exactly as predicted by IP defenders: innovation in the market drops.
Why would this phenomenon occur? Because the “redrawing of property boundries” is not the result (nor the intent) of IP law. The “redrawing” is the result of natural law, which the laws of man merely recognizes. Need a supporting argument?
In lifting IP law, the manufacturing and service aspect of innovation and information (computers, printers, ink, various recorders, and blank media) would initially see rising demand. But due to the rapidly marginal returns on intellectual labor, what would ultimately have to happen is that they would have to compenstate brain labor. Barring that, one by one, they call it a day and endure the resulting bust. And since option A is preferable to suicide, they would secure permissions and/or other contracts with the brain labor force… which is what IP law does now.
So, again, IP law is based in natural law, and it’s purpose is to allow and maintain for regularity in the marketplace. Lifting that law would see it re-instated or the market wither by continuing to ignore it.
Since IP proponents are unable to explain what IP is, I fail to see how it increases regularity of marketplace.
Peter,
IP is a general/universal societal contract. For example, Leonardo produces several paintings of the same thing. Whether he charges for this or gives them away, the right to protect them from further copy or unintended use belongs exclusively to Leonardo. Taking or buying the copy is an implied consent to this contract. So is even so much as looking implied consent.
IP doesn’t redraw the boundry on physical property; the right naturally exists, and its existence would be proven in the removal of IP protection, as has been contended all along by IP defenders. Rather, IP extensively defines consent through the societal contract. You can no more buy/take the copy and reproduce it or exihibt it without prior consent or contract from the original creator… than you can take a snapshot with a camera/brain and produce a copy and/or exhibition from it.
Buy/take/look… but don’t copy or exhibit it. Nothing stops you from looking or in some way owning it, nor are you forbidden to produce something else (or reproduce with permission or other contract with the creator). IP only limits your actions in regard to what someone else has already produced (and not waived their right to protection of).
That said, the regularity of the marketplace results in the recognition of natural law, enforced through the contract that is IP. The flow of ideas and/or capital are made into a two-way street with a speed limit, traffic signals, etc, rather than a one-way street with none (again, without IP the manufacturing and service aspect of disemination and reproduction would have to in time pay creators, or go out of business).
Forgot to metion one thing, Peter (and forum)…
Anything that can be conceived (even if not producible) is IP-protectable. And rather than create long-standing monopolies, the opposite would occur. For example, if I invented the spear in the stone age (and there were a patent office to speak of), my wasting limited capital on always renewing the patent would give me less to explore with in inventing the bow. Likewise, inventors not burdened with having to protect the spear would have more time and other resource to develop the bow.
Benjamin,
you are moving a circles and avoid scientific approach. You still explained nothing.
Peter,
So now it’s science you want now? First it was argument, then it was philosophical framework, now it’s scientific formulas. I’ve given you all you’ve requested, to this point, but I’ve no scientific formula to give you (but nor do you have any to give me). It doesn’t take one, though, as the logic shows us why IP results in regularity…
How does IP bring regularity to the marketplace?
1) By seeing to it that a creator has the chance to make back on their invested effort, through…
2) Acknowledging and then respecting the eternal reality that human nature has the natural ability to monopolize their labor; ie, By not disregarding that fact, my ideas are more likely to marketed by me in the first place.
On the other side of the street…
1) Competition does not cease, so if I spend my time and resource on protecting for too long, I don’t develop the next best thing.
2) While I’m invested in and benefiting from that protection, the competition is not burdened with the same, and thus free to develop other things.
3) In time, all IP on all ideas is destined to become public domain; it has to live to reach that point, though.
That’s as balanced and natural as regulation possibly gets, Peter. It better ensures that new ideas hit the market, and that older ones become public domain. It’s the invention and implementation of the traffic light and speed limit on ever-crowding, growing networks of roads. Take those away, and the only alternatives are to reduce going out or risk a collision on lawless roads and sidewalks.
Benjamin,
you are still moving in circles and trying to avoid confrontation.
Benjamin, no one is proposing that IP (intelligent labor) is public property.
Also, the notion of labor (intelligent or otherwise) having an objective value is not compatible with subjective value theory, and thus not compatible with marginalism or praxeology.
Dixie,
Regardless, communitization is what the outcome would be. And that being the outcome, the production of intellectual works drops, as people either don’t work for sub/marginal returns in the long run. Nor do they produce when their property right is not respected.
And I never said anything about valuation in the market. The market may not value it the same as a creator does, but that doesn’t mean they’ve no right to protect it as theirs.
Benjamin,
Prior to IP law, did we or did we not have the [sic] communitization of ideas? You’re making assertions which can easily be refuted with real world examples. As with Dave above, it would probably best serve your cause to stick to arguments you can prove.
Can you prove the claim that lack of monopoly would lead to a downturn in innovation? It is very easy for me to provide examples where monopoly lead to less competition, and kept innovations off the market. In fact, I am sure we are all aware of these hence why we argue for free markets and competition.
If you really believe that IP resides in natural law, how can you justify IP rights expiring after some time? Shouldn’t those ideas be owned in perpetuity if their ownership is indeed of natural origin? Or do you believe that natural rights also expire?
Dixie,
“Can you prove the claim that lack of monopoly would lead to a downturn in innovation? ”
Where’s your proof that there was a sustained explosion of ideas, as well as a sudden drop off upon the introduction of IP law?
And while the same burden of proof falls on me (though I can certainly provide examples of how communitization hurts production), the proof of the pudding is in the eating. If everyone is able to copy/publish my new scientific theory from the get-go, why should I bother with or as much scientific research? Better yet, how could I bother with as much of it when I can’t reap the returns on it?
Logically, that means less new ideas in the market, not more. And that is because, IP or no, monopoly naturally exists. I can either assert that natural right in a society that recognizes and respects that natural right and get busy, or withold production in a society that does not. Like it or not, monopoly is always going to be there so long as ideas require human effort. The question is which way you would rather that natural monopoly expressed itself… greater abundance in regulated, free markets or in scarcity under the oppression of communism?
That’s not something I claim. I only need to find a couple instances (and there are many) where IP law prevented a competing good from coming to market or forced a firm into bankruptcy trying to defend its idea from IP challenges from competitors.
Still waiting on that proof btw.
Because not everyone innovates for a monetary return. Profit is a psychological phenomenon. I might get joy from creating an operating system which can compete with Windows regardless of whether it puts any money into my pocket. I might cure a disease because I want to see it cured the way I want to climb the world’s tallest mountain. I might solve a puzzle simply because it is a challenge, or there is prestige associated with doing so, or because I think it is the right thing to do.
A key perspective of AE is that we don’t know why. We only know what. IP theorizing based on why is completely unscientific, because it is impossible to predict or prove intent, and attempts to do so fly in the face of subjectivism.
Dave tried this, it is not logical. It is a non sequitur.
There are 4 assertions without proof in this statement.
False choice?
Btw, are you able to keep a straight face when you post “regulated, free markets” and “scarcity under the oppression of communism”? I ask, because the former is an oxymoron, and the latter is actually the position you propose. Artificial scarcity created by regulatory monopoly, backed by a central planning authority.
The world is too complex for you, mate. Your arguments are so simplistic and lazy I can’t help laughing. Many thanks to (probably Jeff Tucker) for deleting my previous comment, the irony must be intoxicating for an IP communist.
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