Some bozo tried to patent a species in 1889, but the patent commissioner rejected it as “unreasonable and impossible.” Exactly. But this changed in stages, and only fairly recently. The current regime dates from the late 1980s. These patents handed the Left their best arguments. FULL ARTICLE by Jeffrey A. Tucker
Source link: http://archive.mises.org/15922/the-socialism-of-agri-patents/
The Socialism of Agri-Patents
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Beautifully written and very true.
Great article, it’s very clear and so true. Spelling it out, you get this bizarre statement; one frequently hears advocates of socialistic policies attack socialistic policies in order to advance socialistic policies!
There’s nothing wrong with calling Monsanto and its ilk “corporate socialists” or recipients of “corporate welfare”
This was a very interesting and informative essay. I will forward it to my “organic agriculture” list – which is mostly aimed at stopping Monsanto and other corporate criminals who are destroying the food supply with GMO’S and their monopoly-extortionist business practices.
Most of the people on my (organic ag) list aren’t “socialists”, but neither are they excited about “capitalism” or even “free markets.” They simply want to protect themselves and the food supply from these kinds of corporate predation and exploitation.
I’ve said this before in these pages and other libertarian venues, but let me say it again. “Capitalism” is NOT “freedom” or “libertarian” in any way, shape or form. Capitalism is the OPPOSITE of free trade, free markets, and individual freedom. Capitalism, whether or not one is a Marxist, can only have one meaning – rule by the owners of capital. A system of, by, and for the wealthy “owners” of “property” – whether it is land, gold, the banking system, or factories.
Thus, when you write: “Free marketeers are under a grave obligation these days to distinguish real from fake examples of capitalism” I know what you are saying, and what you mean, but most people will not. They will take a very different and unfortunate meaning from what you say. They think (and rightly so, I maintain) that Monsanto, General Motors, General Electric, Goldman Sachs, Citibank, and the Burlington Northern Santa Fe railroad monopoly are the finest exemplars of our “capitalistic” system. If these corporations don’t represent “Capitalism,” then what in heaven’s name could? My great-grandfather, a Norwegian immigrant, helped build the Great Northern railroad, as a multi-lingual foreman who knew James J. Hill personally. That was one of the reasons I was so attracted to Ayn Rand as a teenager, when she praised Hill as having built his railroad without subsidies or special privileges. A famous Montana historian later proved that to be false. Hill was up to his neck in politics, and got all sorts of grants, loans, and monopoly protection to build his railroads. And so was everyone else, and not because they were “forced” to by “socialists” or whatever. They were the ones who sought political influence in order to profit from it.
There’s nothing wrong with calling Monsanto and its ilk “corporate socialists” or recipients of “corporate welfare”. Privatising the profits and socializing the costs is exactly what every big corporation (and the system as a whole) does. But please don’t call the alternative “capitalism.” If you’re for “capitalism”, you’re opposed to free trade, free markets, individual rights and freedom, etc. And in today’s context, we are well on the way to the latter stages of the Marxist model – Monopoly Capitalism, Finance Capitalism, and Imperialism, the final stage of capitalism. Either you are for the revolution or against it, and those who presently own the capital and control the government will always be on the side of statism and oppression.
Capitalism, whether or not one is a Marxist, can only have one meaning – rule by the owners of capital.
Nonsense. Yes, capitalism is an economic system involving the private accumulation of capital, but this can and does occur in a free market system. It’s only through the accumulation of capital and the investment of savings that productivity increases can occur. But mere ownership of capital is useless without labor. Owners of capital have to compete for labor–it is only through coercive means, especially the use of government intervention, that they can reduce their competition at minimal cost to themselves.
What you describe as Capitalism should more accurately be called Capitalarchy or Corporatocracy. Capitalism is merely the philosophical belief in the private ownership of the means of production. I am a carpenter who owns my own tools and sells my labor, augmented by my capital accumulation, to whomever will pay me the highest wage. In this sense I am a capitalist but, I do not fit into top of the political system you described as capitalism
Several months ago, I came to the realization, too that “Capitalism” is a slur created by Karl Marx that basically means “Rule by capital”; when looking at the American Experiment, such a slur doesn’t quite fit. In many ways this is a straw man, created by Marx, in an attempt to explain why we need Communism.
For a while, I wondered what word should describe what our government is based on. As I thought about words like “communism”, “socialism”, and “collectivism”, it hit me: the opposite of all of these is “individualism”!
Our society isn’t built on capital. It is built on respect for the Individual, and his rights to life, liberty, property, free association, free speech, self defense, security of home and papers, legal defense and representation, and so on–the list is impossible to complete. The founding philosophy of the United States government is to protect Individual rights. To the extent that local, state, and federal governments have done this, we have prospered; to the extent that these same governments attack these rights, we have suffered.
So I agree: I am *not* a Capitalist. I am an *Individualist*. The Capitalist system you describe, as well as the so-called Corporatist system, are somewhat Individualist, but they are heavily corrupted by the Collectivist mindset that permeates Socialists and Communists.
Please tell me why if a company like Monsanto invests hundreds of millions of dollars in R&D in developing plants that are resistant to weeds and bugs, thus eliminating the use of herbicides and pesticides, the company can not recoup its investment through patenting the technology? A corn plant that repels cicadas is not common like air or water. It is scarce. This plant only exists in the laboratories of Monsanto.
Monsanto is not forcing anyone to grow its corn plants. The company offers its seeds for sale, competing against much cheaper common corn seeds. So Monsanto does not have a monopoly on corn seeds.
Why would a farmer buy a more expensive seed? You can do the math. If you buy better seed even at a higher cost, but have a much greater crop yield, are you not better off?
Finally, at some point, the patents will run out. Those plant seeds that are most appealing will become dirt cheap. The investors will have made a return on their investment. The world will be much better off.
If you run into any pesky socialists please remind them of Trofim Lysenko. Socialists always live in fantasy land where healthcare is free, and where abundant crops can be grown in winter.
During Soviet Times, the communists were under the spell of Lysenkoism, as advocated by anti kulak Agro Commissar, Trofim Lysenko.
“In 1927, at the age of 29, while working at an experiment station in Azerbaijan Lysenko was credited by the Soviet newspaper Pravda with having discovered a method to fertilize fields without using fertilizers or minerals, and with having proved that a winter crop of peas could be grown in Azerbaijan, “turning the barren fields of the Transcaucasus green in winter, so that cattle will not perish from poor feeding, and the peasant Turk will live through the winter without trembling for tomorrow” (a typical peasant “miracle” of the early Soviet press). The winter crop of peas, however, failed in succeeding years….Though scientifically unsound on a number of levels, Lysenko’s claims delighted Soviet journalists and agricultural officials, as they sped up laboratory work and cheapened it considerably. Lysenko was given his own journal, Vernalization, in 1935, with which he generally bragged about forthcoming successes.
Lysenko himself spent much time decrying academic scientists, particularly geneticists, claiming that their isolated laboratory work was not helping the Soviet people. In his personality, he was quick to anger and could tolerate no criticism. By 1929 the skeptics of Lysenko were politically censured for only being able to criticize rather than prescribe new solutions. In December 1929, Soviet leader Josef Stalin gave a famous speech elevating “practice” above “theory,” elevating the judgment of the political bosses above that of the scientists and technical specialists. This gave them license to put ideological view above scientific research and even practical common sense. Though the Soviet government under Stalin gave much more support to genuine agricultural scientists in its early days, after 1935 the balance of power abruptly swung towards Lysenko and his followers.
Lysenko was put in charge of the Academy of Agricultural Sciences of the Soviet Union and made responsible for ending the propagation of “harmful” ideas among Soviet scientists. Lysenko served this purpose faithfully, causing the expulsion, imprisonment, and death of hundreds of scientists and the demise of genetics (a previously flourishing field) throughout the Soviet Union. This period is known as Lysenkoism. He bears particular responsibility for the death of the prominent Soviet biologist, Nikolai Vavilov, the founder of Academy of Agricultural Sciences, at the hands of the People’s Commisariat for Internal Affairs (NKVD).” New World Encyclopeida.
http://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Trofim_Lysenko
That reminds me of the old Soviet joke:
Commissar: How are the potato crops doing?
Farmer: Oh, wonderful! If you were to pile up the potatoes, they would reach the foot of God.
Commissar: This is Soviet Union. There is no God.
Farmer: That’s OK, there are no potatoes.
Horst – ROFL
Reminds me of a Chuck Schumer joke:
Schumer: The price of gas has gone up – I suspect price fixing and price gouging.
Oil Executive: Gas prices are determined by supply and demand. If we had some central planning authority determining the price of gas, we would very quickly see gas lines.
Schumer: I don’t recall any gas lines in the old Soviet Union.
Oil Executive: I don’t recall any cars in the old Soviet Union
“Please tell me why if a company like Monsanto invests hundreds of millions of dollars in R&D in developing plants that are resistant to weeds and bugs, thus eliminating the use of herbicides and pesticides, the company can not recoup its investment through patenting the technology?”
Oh, they can. But they shouldn’t be able to.
Quite right.
At the same time, the people who are farming are free to not use the Monsanto seeds.
No, they’re not. Monsanto actually sues people, successfully, for having their fields cross polinated by other farmers. That’s how IP works. If Monsanto’s product contaminates your field, then you’re liable for violating IP law.
J. Murray:
This is crazy – suppose Walt’s Organic Corn Farm is next to another farm that uses Monsanto’s genetically engineered corn. From my perspective, cross-pollination contaminates my crop, and renders it non-organic. It seems like I should be the one suing for damages.
Good luck on that one. Our court system has pretty much established you’re stealing Monsanto’s IP. It’s also the case in Canada as well. I’m sure it would be in Europe, too, but they’ve banned genetic crop manipulation.
Walt and J. Murray:
You are missing the key point – it is not only the patent that Monsanto owns – they own the politicians (of both parties) and the judges.
Case law’s against you – Monsanto’s already settled this in their favor. How long before we have an Organic Farm Protection Agency?
If we use the “organic” definition used in agriculture, there is no such thing as organic food. There isn’t a single food source that hasn’t in some way, shape, or form been genetically manipulated by humans. You’d have to go back to before agriculture, herding, and ranching to get that kind of food.
Of course, if you use the term organic when referring to the chemical composition, nearly everything you eat is organic since the food contains carbon-chained molecules. Of course, certain nutrients that are inorganic are critical to your survival, like iron. So being 100% organic is actually a lethal lifestyle.
How many spooky socialist scenarios have really come true? All they do is give their doomsday scenario. At the heart is always the “evil” corporation. When I look around the world its governments that are causing most of the harm.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xtJDZmwh5Bc
@hayeksheroes:
Let me explain to you how this works: you see, the corporations finance Team America, and then Team America goes out… and the corporations sit there in their… in their corporation buildings, and… and, and see, they’re all corporationey… and they make money.
Corporations willingly pay their 35% corporate tax because they know that Team America will pay them back 350000% ROI.
Well I am specifically referring to the cotton farmers in India. And BT cotton.
I don’t think Monsanto would get a real payout from a subsistence farmer in Kerala.
The main case of cross pollination is the Schmeiser one in Canada – this one was found in favour of the Farmer.
I don’t know how many other cases have been Launched by Monsanto.
Patent rights versus property rights
Regarding the question of patent rights and the farmer’s right to use seed taken from his fields, Monsanto said that because they hold a patent on the gene, and on canola cells containing the gene, they have a legal right to control its use, including the replanting of seed collected from plants with the gene which grew accidentally in someone else’s field. Schmeiser insisted his right to save and replant seed from plants that have accidentally grown on his field overrides Monsanto’s legal patent rights.
Now here is what the Supreme court of Canada had to say
Mr. Schmeiser complained that the original plants came onto his land without his intervention. However, he did not at all explain why he sprayed Roundup to isolate the Roundup Ready plants he found on his land; why he then harvested the plants and segregated the seeds, saved them, and kept them for seed; why he planted them; and why, through his husbandry, he ended up with 1,030 acres of Roundup Ready canola which would have cost him $15,000.
Why should it matter why he did it? Does it mean that your intentions determine whether you violate other peoples rights? Does that mean that if I take a business opportunity I’m violating other people’s rights?
@Redmond March 7, 2011 at 8:46 pm
Apparently Peter does not understand the concept of “economic rights”, and he also seems confused about how intent plays out in the application of law.
If we ask, “What was the intent of the farmer with regard to the Roundup seed”, we would need circumstantial evidence (or a confession) to prove his ntent.
If the farmer’s intent was to gain the economic benefit of protected seed without payment to holder of the economic right to it, it would be an infringement. If it was simply an inadvertant mixing of protected and unprotected seed, it would be unreasonable to expect the farmer to incur at this own expense the policing of Monsanto’s rights.
Based on the facts you offer, it appears that the farmer was attempting to exploit his good luck for a personally beneficial purpose. He expended considerable personal resources in order to avoid paying Monsanto $15,000.
Had he done nothing that he would not have otherwise done, it seems it would be hard to make a case against him.
Is this not your point?
Wildberry,
Oh I understand perfectly. “economic rights” => fraud people make up to justify theft.
And if a patentee makes up a fairy tale and sends armed people to steal the farmer’s crops and/or money, that means he’s stealing.
However, he was not violating anyone’s rights. Therefore, his conduct was legitimate and attempts to use force against him are an act of aggression.
Ok, so now causality is a sufficient condition for a property rights violation? You IP-confusers can’t make up your mind.
Monsanto is using the government to destroy private property ownership – when I buy a bag of seed corn, I should be able to do with it as I please, including copying it.
You describe a funding approach that only works with government intervention. Further, this intervention involves using force against others for forming their own property into certain things, something that is entirely peaceful. That it prevents this funding approach from working is evidence that the funding approach is flawed, not that government intervention is justified.
One can imagine all sorts of business funding approaches that require similar intervention, and are similarly unjustified. I may have just built a new store that sells widgets, and invested a lot of money in it, but find nobody buying them. Should I have the government force people to buy them, so I can recoup my investment? Or let’s say they sell but a store across the street starts selling them at a lower price, causing my sales to drop so low that I can’t recoup my investment. Should I have the government force the store across the stree to stop selling widgets?
You haven’t looked at all the costs to others that the Monsanto patent/monopoly has created. In fact, you can’t even list them because many of these costs are unknown. You claim that their are only benefits to society. But you cannot prove that because the future is unknown. How many other companies, that might produce the same product (or one that is close to it) will have to spend huge resources on lawyers to be certain that they are NOT violating some other patent BEFORE they engage research. Remember, it’s not a patent because you independently discover something, it’s a patent because you got to the patent clerks first.
The biggest winners in all this are the lawyers. This is why they would fight any change in IP law.
If you look at industries that don’t have IP law (and some that didn’t have IP law and then later did) you will find the biggest successes where there wasn’t IP law. Fashion, for example, has no IP law, and computer software didn’t and now does. If you examine what has happened with IP in software, you will see why there really hasn’t been nearly as much innovation as their might have been. Before you begin writing software for a large outfit today, you will need to determine if someone somewhere has filed a patent.
Consider Microsoft and the patent fight against the company that was awarded hundreds of millions of dollars for the idea of checking to see if software had a license and then requesting that you buy a license if certain criteria were not upheld. That’s a pretty obvious idea, and likely thought of decades before the patent was awarded . I wrote software in the 80′s using the same basic principle. But when patent laws are permitted, there’s no telling what can get a patent.
Just think of all the waste that now goes into patent searches prior to using some trivial idea. And then consider that now, every large company patents every last little idea one could ever think of, and holds these patents in case they need to cross sue some other company that has accused them of violating their patents. Patents have become a war chest in the software industry. I don’t doubt it’s too different elsewhere. All this fighting and preparing for fights is costly.
The person who thinks he “buys” Monsanto seed has only bought a license to use it to grow crops for resale. The farmer is NOT permitted to save some of his crop to use for seed in the next year. He must buy new seed from Monsanto every year.
How does Monsanto know the the farmer has misused Monsanto seed? His new crop has Monsanto DNA.
But pollen from the farmer’s legit has blown into his neighbor’s field and crossed with his neighbor’s plants. The seed in the neighbor’s field now has Monsanto DNA. Is the neighbor required to prove he didn’t steal the Monsanto license?
hayeksheroes,
And what if they cannot recoup their investment even with the use of patents? Are they then justified to steal even more money?
Can anyone tell me why IP protection should be seen as “socialist”?
There is coercion also in the protection of your home, your land, or whatever private physical good you own. In fact, in a healthy, lovely capitalistic environment, ALL other men who would like to take a walk into your house and grab a beer from your fridge are forbidden to do so. It does not really matter if you spend your life before the fridge with a shotgun in hands, or you hire some private detective to patrol your kitchen, or count on government sponsored police. Still it is the same, in practice. You are coercing the rest of the world not to do something they would like. The fact that ideas are “naturally” free to grab, contrarily from beers – does not make a protection of the firsts socialist.
Would any of the anti-IP guys allow private protection of ideas? If they do not – then, they are really not different from old fashioned communists who outlawed private property of houses or land, just because such things are not “supposed” to be owned by any single individual. On the contrary, if they allowed private protection of ideas – then there is a clear proof that IP protection does not have anything to do with socialism.
If you steal my coat, I can try to prevent you through coercion. That is property rights enforcement. If I, however, try to prevent you from wearing another coat because I had the idea of “coat wearing” first, that is aggression and an attack on property rights. IP is not the first case; it is the second case.
I just downloaded Jeffrey’s book, Bourbon before Breakfast. I think I’ll make a copy and re-title it, Whisky before Le petit déjeuner. You’ll be able to get a copy for $10.00 on Amazon. That’s a 50% lower than Tucker’s book.
While tacky, I’m not sure Jeffrey would have an issue with that, although the state would, because it forces copyright on everyone, and you would be violating it.
So ultimately, the party preventing you from doing that is not JT, but the state.
And since I have no idea who you are, I’ll still buy Jeffrey’s book because it’s a known quantity. I’m under no obligation to buy his book and can just as easily obtain it the same way as you, but I would chose to support the original author. Reading it over the web or checking it out of the library is the same thing – only one instance of purchase but many readers. Will you outlaw libraries? That’s how such intangible and non-scarce arts work. Once it’s out in the world, it can no longer be controlled. However, my patroning of Mr. Tucker will ensure that he is motivated to create future works because doing so benefits me. This is how a number of webcomics operate today, and many are successful at it.
and since I have no idea who “cheap seed dealer” is, I’ll still buy Monsanto’s seed because it’s a known quantity.
Once it’s out in the world, it can no longer be controlled. Yet Monsanto and governments will try to control it. However, my patroning of Monsanto will ensure that the company is motivated to create future seeds because doing so benefits me.
By all means, patron them. I choose not to and can’t be held liable when the pollen from the plants you buy floats into my land lets me use the seeds. And the nature of plants means I can use the new seeds that grow indefinitely, so I have little interest in future patroning until they produce something new to buy.
Monsanto sells one generation seed. It makes it hard to copy the seeds. Socialists are against this practice because they believe that farming is a right not a business. The farmer is still free to buy his own seeds. The Socialists realize that in most cases the Monsanto seeds are superior. They want “free” access to them.
Those aren’t one generation seeds. If that were true, then this would be a lie. It’s clearly a defective process.
Besides, it doesn’t matter if I figure out how the seed works. I didn’t take anything from Monsanto do pull it off.
These socialists probably believe that seeds grow on trees. Imagine that.
The Monsanto seeds both are and aren’t one-generation seeds. They can reproduce, but it is not as efficient as the original seed.
This technique pre-dates GM as well as the Plant Patent Act of the 30′s. So-called hybrid seeds were created using traditional horticultural crosses. A farmer who chose to use fertilized seeds the following year instead of buying seed again from the seed company would see his yield go down. The Plant Patent Act was not necessary to “protect IP” but was rather used as a strong-arm technique by an association of seed companies against farmers. Monsanto’s GM seeds and business practices follow this protectionist tradition.
If GM seed is superior (as viewed by the subjective values of farmers and consumers), no patent would be needed for Monsanto to make a profit.
(Of course, farmers have had their own share of protectionism, too – going back to the “free seed” program of the USDA at its founding.)
@J. Murray March 7, 2011 at 12:54 pm
”Those aren’t one generation seeds. If that were true, then this would be a lie. It’s clearly a defective process.”
This is an interesting link. First, it showed that there was a technology agreement signed by NelsonFarms. Even most ardent IP opponents grant that legal property rights can be established by contract. If the technology agreement required that no seed be stored, then what does that have to do with patents? It is a contract issue, and we don’t have all the facts needed to decide who has the better claim.
Second, what happened to the faith you otherwise generally afford to the free market, where consumers rule?
If Monsanto didn’t have anything worthwhile to sell in the first place, why would one buy Monsanto seed? If Monsanto went around suing farmers who bought their seed, for no good reason, I guess once word got around even the superiority of the product would not be sufficient to overcome the fear of being sued.
Third, most hybrid seeds are derived from controlled parent stock. Most Commercial corn, or example is the product of cross breeding between specially developed parent stock. If you collected the seeds from the resulting hybrid crop and planted them, you would not get the benefits of the hybrid, you would get a mongrel mess. So generally there is no need to enforce the patented seeds in the way this article suggests. It is the parent stock which is protected, because pure strains of the parents are required to produce the hybrid.
If this soybean is the product of genetic engineering, and the suit is for the “escape” of the genes in to the wild, then I don’t believe Monsanto has a right to enforce as long as there is no improper methods employed by the farmers. A farmer would have to attempt to “capture” the protected genes, exploit them for economic gain to Monsanto’s detriment. Monsanto could not require innocent farmers to act as the police for their property. They would merely have to avoid intentional infringement.
Fourth, not all investments pay off. In this case, Monsanto was combining plant genetics and a herbicide formulation (Roundup), both owned by Monsanto. In principle, what is wrong with that? Don’t you believe that a free market can determine whether Monsanto was investing wisely by producing something that consumers demand?
Given all of this, what is your complaint exactly?
This appears to be, like this article and most of the anti-IP posts here, just another straw man employed in the service of assuming the ultimate conclusion: Patents are bad because they are utilized by the big, bad corporations who use the courts, instruments of the evil State, to enforce. Peel back the argument and there is nothing there but that singular, pathetic agenda.
They aren’t suing people who bought their seed. They’re suing people who had their fields dusted with spooge from neighboring fields. And winning, because that’s what IP does. My faith in free markets hasn’t dwindled. IP and free market doesn’t go together.
Go for it. See if you can make the numbers work.
Yes, you can do that, but you can’t do:
1) go to a bookstore and say hello to anyone who wants to meet the true author
2) sign the book as if you were Jeff (you could, but that would be dishonest)
3) go on a tour and give talks about the book you wrote
4) become recognized as the author who wrote the book and get free publicity as people interview the original author
5) be eligible for grant money at a think tank, or for a new book, or awards such as the Pulitzer prize
6) offer extras that can only be offered by the true author, e.g. a lottery to go on a cruise with Jeff as the keynote speaker.
And probably many other things we can’t today think of, but would certainly occur without IP law. Without IP law, many new ideas would appear.
Just look at youtube. There’s a guy named Sam Tsui who is becoming famous for his singing videos. This fame will likely lead to some form of income for him. There are others, including some girl who took one of his videos and added herself into the video giving Sam even more notoriety – at no expense to Sam. The younger generation seems to get it. They copy, modify, add, change, etc. anything they find interesting and they don’t sue each other. It’s a much freer and nicer world.
here Jeff is promoting a European bookstore selling Mises Institute titles to help Europeans save shipping and handling. I think you just blew poor Hayeksheroes’ mind.
I’m glad Jeff stands behind his values. Most people don’t.
In particular, IP hypocrites, who–just like the rest of us–routinely copy and borrow things, often without permission–while pretending to believe in IP rights.
@Stephan Kinsella March 8, 2011 at 11:53 am
As you know, checking a book out from the library is not infringement. Reselling a book is not either. Borrowing a book is not infringement.
Making copies of whole books and selling them on eBay is infringement.
Don’t you agree there is a difference, even though you imply none?
If IP is really the horror you claim it is, why do you continue to attack those things it does not do? Wouldn’t it be more honest and persuasive to attack those things it ACTUALLY does?
Wildberry: “As you know, checking a book out from the library is not infringement. Reselling a book is not either. Borrowing a book is not infringement. ”
Are you SURE, Wildberry? See:
http://blog.mises.org/13442/leveraging-ip/
What about books bought from foreign publishers or sellers? Does the first-sale doctrine apply to them? Hmm? Do you even know what you are talking about or are you like a typical IP advocate who is clueless about the nature of the horrible system he thinks he endorses?
@Stephan Kinsella March 8, 2011 at 5:19 pm
I recall reading this article at the time.
I would love to discuss these kinds of cases with you, but we can never get there because you use them to support your GENERAL OPPOSITION to the concept of IP, whereas I see these as marginal cases of a common problem.
First, the laws themselves are the product of a legislative bias where the special interests, who are well financed and organized, hijack the process to the detriment of the fundamental principles of the law.
CTEA is a good example of this; large benefactors of copyrights that were about to expire benefited largely from the extension, while future generations of authors wouldn’t know what hit them. The fact that the current legislative term is roughly equivalent to a perpetuity does not undermine the concept of limited terms, or prove that a term of zero is best.
Authors of works who were at the beginning of the life+70 term benefited nearly nothing, and the derivative use concept was weakened. I agree this is a problem, like lots of others we have. IP is no special case in that regard. Mercantilism is a constant threat to liberty.
However, part of their success in this endeavor based on the fact that there is a common-sense, reasonable justification for the CONCEPT of IP. That is why it prevails after 200 years. The fact that special interests on the private side can out-gun, out-smart, bribe and manipulate the dopes on the public side of the table is a situation that affects every aspect of modern life. That is why, though you lump me in with true Statists, I believe we have failed in our duty of vigilance and crap like this needs to be sorted out and changed.
I do NOT think this proves that the VERY CONCEPT of IP is illegitimate, however, just like I don’t think that the existence of fractional reserve banking proves that the very concept of banking is illegitimate.
The largest philosophical gap between us is that you simply hold the belief that by eliminating the entire IP system, things will magically be somehow better. All we can say is that they will be different. If we want to make things better, we have to agree on how things are, and what we need to change and how we change them. That is much more exacting than simply putting a bomb under it all and lighting the fuse.
Do you really think that in the absence of IP, drug companies will be less aggressive in their quest to profit; that this motive, where it conflicts with the desired outcome, will automatically result in a system where people who need drugs will get the best available at a price they can afford?
I think this freedom thing is just a little more complicated and a good deal messier than that. As a society, we are not as stupid as you seem to believe we are. Most people can see the truth if it is laid out and they trust the people laying it out for them.
So far, sadly, I don’t trust you to give a fair reading to the law and how it operates, so we are locked in this back in forth where you hyperbolize and I try to bring you back to earth, and nothing productive ever happens. This is unfortunate.
So, despite your reference to the parade of horrors, the first sale doctrine still serves a purpose, and libraries and used book stores are safe for the moment. Right?
Wildberry:
this is a deflection. What you SAID was “As you know, checking a book out from the library is not infringement. Reselling a book is not either. Borrowing a book is not infringement.”
I pointed to http://blog.mises.org/13442/leveraging-ip/, and showed you are wrong. So, you don’t know what the IP system is that you claim to defend. It get tiresome.
@Stephan Kinsella March 8, 2011 at 11:53 am
You said:
“In particular, IP hypocrites, who–just like the rest of us–routinely copy and borrow things, often without permission–while pretending to believe in IP rights.”
This implies that 1) these activities are infringing of IP laws, and 2) that those who do these things are hypocrites to support IP.
Did I miss your meaning?
Then I said:
@Wildberry March 8, 2011 at 5:05 pm
As you know, checking a book out from the library is not infringement. Reselling a book is not either. Borrowing a book is not infringement.
Making copies of whole books and selling them on eBay is infringement.
Don’t you agree there is a difference, even though you imply none?
You didn’t answer.
It is a simple question of fact, Stephan. Are they or aren’t they infringing? Yes or no?
Instead you said this:
@Stephan Kinsella March 8, 2011 at 5:19 pm
“Are you SURE, Wildberry? See:
http://blog.mises.org/13442/leveraging-ip/ “
Now if you want to argue that Omega’s use of copyright to thwart an arbitrager wanting to buy watches in Europe and sell them in the US for a profit is a reason why 1) the entire IP concept is invalid and should be abolished, and 2) by so doing we will erase this monumental injustice against the arbitrager, and 3) this is why checking out library books and yet supporting IP is hypocritical, then go for it.
Just be honest. Trying to keep you within the bounds of a fair reading of the law and its operation is a full time job. You are prolific.
The nym called Wildberry says:
no.
yes. “As we enjoy great Advantages from the Inventions of others we should be glad of an Opportunity to serve others by any Invention of ours, and this we should do freely and generously.” –Benjamin Franklin
Yes, I pointed out that under copyright law reselling the book might well be infringement, but then I guess you, like most IP advocates, do not understand the evil system you pretend to favor.
@Stephan Kinsella March 9, 2011 at 10:58 am
“Yes, I pointed out that under copyright law reselling the book might well be infringement,”
And I gave you a distinction between what “might well be” and what “might well not be”
Don’t you agree there is a difference, even though you imply none?
Why do you quibble so?
“As we enjoy great Advantages from the Inventions of others we should be glad of an Opportunity to serve others by any Invention of ours, and this we should do freely and generously.” –Benjamin Franklin
As to this random quote, I would understand it as being from a man who had a day job, and liked to invent as an avocation, and was encouraging others to “give their labor freely to the collective”.
So? If you want to follow this admonition, what’s to stop you? Not every patentable invention HAS to be patented, and certainly if it was, it could be given away “freely and generously”. Go for it, just don’t try to chasten the rest of humanity for not following your brand of anti-IP fanaticism based on the distortion of simple facts.
If you were a fanatic on the facts, I would have no problem. LOL
Wildberry,
I recall at least one case where a reseller was successfully sued for copyright violation. It also happens with software. Just read about it on the wiki.
With patents it’s even worse because there’s no such doctrine. So if you buy a patented device in country X, it might be legal to re-sell it in country Y but not in country Z.
Yet again you proved that you have no idea what the current law actually says. Worse than other IP proponents here though, you also say that the current IP law is a more-or-less accurate reflection of the IP theories, which makes it a double fail.
Wildberry,
Bingo. What the IP opponents (well, at least some of them) criticise about IP is a general problem of IP. If it was just a marginal case, like you claim, then it would be possible to show a situation in which the criticised feature is not present, right? Oh, wait, I forgot, you don’t dig logic. Sorry about that.
Nice title! Can I steal it?
Borbón por Desayuno
For the Spanish readers.
Of course not, silly! Your use of the title in no way diminishes his use of the title, so what theft is involved?
Thanks for the explanation, now I understand better your views.
Anyway, I am still perplexed. For once, “obvious” or “common” concepts cannot be patented, like the idea of wearing a coat. Such concepts represent probably the “public” element in “private” intellectual property, and it would be impossible to patent them – as it would be to privatize sunlight.
I understand I am walking on thin ice, but honestly I feel that agri-IP development is connected to the increased research costs. Nobody would invest millions in a product that turns out to be much, much cheaper to copy. With or without IP laws, new, complex ideas have to be protected from immediate devaluation. Cheap copies, like inflation of monetary base, reduce progressively the value of the copied object. An economy in which innovations cannot be protected adequately, at least at the beginning, is a place where innovations will not take place. At least, this is how I think.
Intellectual monopolies create an incentive to engage in extremely expensive research because it’s easier to patent. Without it, we’d see the money going into other lines of investigation; it’s more likely complex ideas would be broken down so they could be easier to milk(for example, one generation of iPhone was found to have a conspicuously large space left free inside – the next generation went and introduced a feature that used it). Obfuscation techniques would probably be better developed as well.
Apple was able to do such a tiny improvement BECAUSE of the patent system. They know full well that no one else can come in and build a superior product because of all the patents in the iPhone (they bragged around 500 or so). That’s why they can make minimal changes to the product once every six months and sell it for a premium price. The tech in it can’t be used by anyone else, so why not build in obvious flaws and “fix” them slowly over the course of the patent life?
Monopolies don’t create incentives to invest. They create incentives to milk the patent for the life of it.
@Jeffrey Tucker March 7, 2011 at 11:20 am
“If I, however, try to prevent you from wearing another coat because I had the idea of “coat wearing” first, that is aggression and an attack on property rights. IP is not the first case; it is the second case.”
This is a complete falsehood. Rights to “this coat” are not the same as rights to “all coats”, and I think you know enough about IP to know that what you are saying is wrong.
This is a particularly bad example (or a good one to illustrate your deception?), because design patents are particularly difficult to obtain. You cannot get protection for design elements that cannot be separated from the useful object, so your example is bogus.
Likewise, plant patents do not protect “plants” as a category, or even categories of plant species. They might protect a given PRODUCT of specific development investments. Anything in the public domain remains there forever, patented plants get there eventually, and anyone is free to seek their own patents for their “special” plant developments.
If you would make an effort to stick with the facts, we wouldn’t need all this nonsensical back and forth like this:
@ DixieFlatline March 7, 2011 at 12:09 pm
“While tacky, I’m not sure Jeffrey would have an issue with that, although the state would, because it forces copyright on everyone, and you would be violating it.”
No one, including the state, forces it on you. It arises without affirmative action, just like your rights to your body arise without having to register it at the “natural rights office”.
“So ultimately, the party preventing you from doing that is not JT, but the state.”
The State is never a party to an infringement action. It is brought by the allegedly injured party, the plaintiff whose rights were violated. All this talk about what the state wants and jackboots crashing your Tupperware party is pure b.s.
I think they mean that the State will ultimately punish the guilty party. So if Jeffrey takes action against me, he goes to court, wins a judgement. I tell him to screw off. Jeff goes back to court, wins the right to seize my property. I refuse. The police show up. They take my property and perhaps I am arrested and sentenced for 6 months in jail for being in contempt of court. Jeff used the State to initiate force against me because he wanted to protect his copyright.
This is a complete falsehood. Rights to “this coat” are not the same as rights to “all coats”, and I think you know enough about IP to know that what you are saying is wrong.
Exactly. The IP proponent thinks the rights apply not to “all coats” perhaps, but at least to “all similar coats”; certainly not just to the particular coat Jeff wants to wear. This is obvious nonsense. Ergo, IP is nonsense.
@ Peter March 8 2011 at 2:08am
Peter, there is no protection for any coats. The concept of “coat” is not patentable, the design elements of “coat” are not patentable, and the actual coat Jeff is wearing is not protectable in any way by IP. So what are you talking about?
IF it was, then it WOULD be?
Ergo, this argument is nonsense.
We’re not talking about actual coats, Dingleberry. The coats are an analogy for other things that IP proponents such as yourself do think should be “protectable”. When you claim JK Rowling owns “Harry Potter”, you don’t mean a particular book, such as the copy of “Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone” that is currently sitting on my bookshelf (owned by me, not Rowling!) — that would be like Jeff’s coat — instead, you want to say she owns rights to every book containing the same words as the copy of “Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone” currently sitting on my bookshelf, including this one owned by me — that’s like “all similar coats”. You most likely go further and claim she owns every story involving a young wizard named “Harry Potter”, even if she has no idea what the story is about, or even that it exists (e.g., fan fiction) — this is beyond “all similar coats” and includes “otherwise dissimilar coats that happen to be the same colour”, etc.
When I commented article from 25 August, 2010 it was obvious Jeffrey and Stephan has progressed on the topic. With regard to some substantial IP questions I would argue differently from both authors. Because their critique is made in accordance with the Descartes’ Epistemological premise cogito, ergo sum. Whilst I start from the libertarian premise of self-ownership and object of IP as a form of self-expression and argue the same as I.Kant: “Cartesian inference, cogito, ergo sum, is really a tautology, since the cogito (sum cogitans) asserts my existence immediately.” And IP legislation, in accordance with Lockean homesteading principle, protects original expression in a tangible form of this same existence. Of course not all forms of expression are protected by IP and this is important question with respect to IP and current article.
Further I would rather offer one example, where ignorance, lack of knowledge of IP legislation leads to absurdity. Very good example in recent days comes from Ukraine: http://www.dni.ru/polit/2011/3/1/208246.html. I believe Mr J.Tucker’s critique could be better applied to such occasion (among people educated about IP legislation similar example could hardly be experienced).
I shall not continue my Socratic dialectics (should be distinguished from Hegelian dialectics), because Austrians have praxeology, therefore another discussion like http://mises.org/journals/rae/pdf/rae9_2_5.pdf with respect to IP may not very useful this time.
Wish you a successful Austrian Scholars Conference 2011
“Can anyone tell me why IP protection should be seen as “socialist”?”
IP protection is by the very definition fascist, not socialist. The government is telling private companies who can and can not produce something – this is fascism.
In socialist societies, the government owns the means of production. There is no incentive for a particular individual or group of individuals to produce anything – this applies equally well to innovators as it does to farmers.
Fascism may be viewed as a particular application of socialism/interventionism.
Ideas don’t need protection like property. In all the years I’ve shared my ideas with others, I’ve never found the idea missing afterwards. Even when people have supposedly stolen my ideas, I never found any of them missing; I was able to recall them and continue using them as before.
I think when you say protection of ideas you really mean using force against others for making use of an idea with their own property. Far from being equivalent to protection of property, it’s an attack on everyone’s property and their ability to use it however they want.
Of course one can “own” an idea. Simply never put it to use or tell anyone else about it. The second you do, however, it becomes infinitely replicable. Your ability to “defend” your right of original inception is only as good as the opportunity cost of you doing so.
I don’t know if you lived under the Socialism, but I lived many years, and was in all socialism regimes in the east Europe, not visiting working there, NO ONE OF THOSE REGIMES SOLVED THE PROBLEM at the contrary created a big problem.The socialist ideas are very nice in papers, but in the real life are a disaster, and the examples are there and I mean all the fields. Is a jail in all meanings, I repeat only the ones who suffered it in their skin know it very well.
Because under socialism, there is only one way to do something, the government way. If you deviate from the regulations, then you get fined or imprisoned. That is if you can afford to deviate because the State will more likely than not provide the funding for your new way.
There is also something else. Here’s one from the book “Engineering Communism – How Two Americans Spied for Stalin and Founded the Soviet Silicon Valley”, very recommendable btw.
[p.194]
“We had been successful in organizing our organization not as a typical Soviet organization,” Berg recalled. “The typical Soviet organization was run from Moscow. They were given plans that they were supposed to fulfill, and the plan was handed down from above. We, on the other hand, proposed the plans. We went out on a limb, presenting plans for research and development which we had no guarantee of fulfilling. This was absolutely against the typical Soviet method of the director accepting a plan which he knew in advance was going tube fulfilled.”
Berg got a picture of the typical R&D enterprise in late 1959: We became friendly with the chief engineer of an enterprise in Leningrad which was responsible for resistors and condensers and other electronic parts. He told as how things were done. The basic policy was to accept a plea for research and development and production of elements which he had already spent years researching, developing, and putting into production. He never went out on a limb. He always was sure that what he committed to do the next year was already done. It was an incredible situation which guaranteed him the position of chief engineer for life, and it worked. He died in office as chief engineer. I remember him taking a resistor which he had already developed out of a drawer, and he said, “See this resistor? Now we are supposed to develop this resistor in the next Five-Year Plan. My department that is responsible fot designing, researching, and putting this resistor into production has already built a machine, an avtomat [assembly line], for building this resistor, and they are producing it in quite big volumes already. But I haven’t taken on the job.”
The chief engineer went on to explain that when the time for setting goals the next plan came around, he would arrange for Moscow to require that his plant produce these resistors in about five years. He would then unveil them three or four years, getting credit for fulfilling the plan ahead of schedule. Is the meantime, his research team was working on designs that would become commitments for a future plan. This strategy, the chief engineer was pleased to say, ensured that he would never fail to fulfill the plan — and, to Berg’s horror, it also ensured that his organization’s technology would always be obsolete. “This system, which guarantees the viability of the organization but has absolutely no connection with trying to get ahead of the West or at least keeping up, explains the reasons for the Soviet failure on the world market. There were no organizations in Russia that were competing with” the chief engineer, Berg recalled.
The chief engineer stood as a vivid illustration of the swamp that doomed Soviet industry to mediocrity.
This article was great and very near and dear to my heart. It also kinda makes the important point, separating government-induced IP protection versus agricultural biotechnology. It is true that IP is used to “protect” biotechnology, but the force is with the IP and ag subsidies, NOT the technology. Propping up demand for corn with subsidies and tariffs, which encourages more corn production, and thus, results in biotech corn, are the problems – not the biotech corn itself. Someone who produces something that is inefficient or dangerous will be dealt with by the free market.
More freedom from Republicans……
Taking photographs from the roadside of a sunrise over hay bales near the Suwannee River, horses grazing near Ocala or sunset over citrus groves along the Indian River could land you in jail under a Senate bill filed Monday.
SB 1246 by Sen. Jim Norman, R-Tampa, would make it a first-degree felony to photograph a farm without first obtaining written permission from the owner. A farm is defined as any land “cultivated for the purpose of agricultural production, the raising and breeding of domestic animals or the storage of a commodity.”
http://fltrib.com/photographing-cows-or-other-farm-scenery-could-land-you-jail-under-senate-bill
It never seems to end.
Amidst all of the many debates taking place, intellectual, emotional, economic and otherwise, can we not least agree that an Anti-Federalist structure would be better to resolve these disputes?
If each state were truly its own sovereign, yet we were all united by one flag, mini-experiments would be conducted everyday. If Monsanto wishes to coerce its state legislators to grant it the power to wield its newly developed product over all others, farmers can move to another state, or even better, storm their state legislature and revolt.
Our current Federalist structure is too bloated, too far removed, and too unrepresentative of the real people in our country. One simply cannot afford to have his/her voice heard all the way inside the Beltway.
The opponents of the propsed Anti-Federalist structure, however, are inevitably the ones who DO recognize that the positions they posit would fail under a more accountable structure but cloak their concerns under Patriotism, Nationalism, and the like.
Respectfully,
Alex
Hello Mises,
About Agriculture in Europe, I advise you the recent book in french : “Le livre noir de l’Agriculture” (meaning The Black Book of Agriculture” written by a female journalist : Isabelle SAPORTA. Go http://www.editions-fayard.fr/livre/fayard-374972-Le-livre-noir-de-l-agriculture-Isabelle-Saporta-hachette.html This book explains how multinational & financial speculation are killing french peasants : the french job with the biggest % of suicide per year…
Best Regards from Hanseatic Flanders.
Brandy-Hans van PARIJS – Gotland Alliance : Go http://w1p.fr/8489
Brandy.Hans@gmail.com
“unfeeling capitalism”?
GTFO, third-wayer scum
I foresee something terrible….
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/03/07/uspto_overhaul/
“Obama to overhaul heinous US patent system”
The Obama administration is launching an effort to reform the slow-motion train wreck that is the US Patent and Trademark Office.
“We’ve got the greatest inventors in the world, and it’s time we give them the help they need to bring this country where it needs to be,” said Austan Goolsbee, chairman of the Obama administration’s Council of Economic Advisers in a White House White Board video on Monday.
Goolsbee says that the USPTO takes far too long to review patents, and makes too many mistakes. He notes that it took Alexander Graham Bell only a month to get a patent for the telephone back in 1876, and that in 1974 the “main patent” for the cell phone was issued in two years.
Ya, and it turns out that Bell didn’t even invent the thing. The telephone is a perfect example of a technology that came into being in absence of a patent system proctecting the various inventors that built on one another. All Bell did was pantent a final step and then forever lock out prior inventors out of selling the products they developed. As bad as the patent system is today, it was worse back in the days of Bell and Edison because they just slapped out a patent to the first guy through the door. This puts a crimp on the IP argument because to claim it as property has nothing to do with the effort put out on it. IP protects criminals.
Can’t be good…. Another point to add to all this is that patents sometimes don’t really expire after 20 years. Court cases to decide who infringed on who’s IP go on after the patent expires. Good for lawyer’s careers and the patent holders because others are wary of doing anything with the patent wars ongoing.
What about the FDA? Can they overhaul that too? It takes a billion dollars and 15 years to get a new drug to market. Why does Avastin cost $90,000 a year? Go ask the FDA.
How many remember the big mess with .gif pictures. After years of letting .gif become a standard, some company turned up with a patent on the encryption scheme used in .gif pictures. By that time, however, the real reason for .gif popularity had little to do with the compression scheme, but rather because they were handy for making little animations (animated gifs).
Suddenly, without any real notice, millions of websites were in violation of a law they had no idea their were violating. This is just another example of how people dishonestly use patent law. For all we know, the parties owning the patent might have secretly encouraged the use of gifs setting a trap for all unsuspecting victims.
Mises Daily: Monday, March 07, 2011 by Jeffrey A. Tucker
“We have something here that has always been universally available, a free good for all, that has been transformed by private lobbying into a scarce commodity that has led to countless billions in profits for a handful for monopolists like Monsanto and Dupont, who spend their billions lobbying to keep their privileges and fighting those who would dare trespass on their proprietary “ownership” of knowledge.”
How selective you are in your condemnation of capitalism! What was free is still free. Anyone who cares to and has a plot of land can plant corn and eat it. How has that changed? These nasty “monopolists” you single out, could also be quite reasonably described as entrepreneurs who invested capital in the development of superior products which they then successfully introduced to the stream of commerce.
If you believe Mises when he says that consumers rule in the economic realm, then how did they get to be so successful? Are you saying that corn cannot be grown except from the seed patented by Monsanto and Dupont? That is ridiculous.
Anyone is free to compete with them. It is not their “fault” that we have transformed from an agrarian society to an industrial one, (and perhaps now to a service economy). It is certainly not the sole fault of plant patents! All production requires capital. Larger investments require longer time preferences. The genetic manipulation of plants, either through breeding or engineering, is not the subject of patents. Anyone may freely engage in the practice. The RESULTS of such investment may be. If they are of value in the market, they will be consumed, if not, alternatives will prevail. Consumers rule, right?
…as soon as the party starts, jack-booted thugs arrive wielding guns and drag you away as a criminal for stealing a recipe. The cook is dragged away, same as a real thief or murderer.”
Has this ever actually happened? Too much bourbon for breakfast?
“For it is impossible these days to otherwise release innovative recipes into the commons: as soon as they are known, they can be patented, and the patent holder is thereby permitted to use coercion against any competitor, even the one who first came up with the idea.”
Few things are impossible, in the long run. If Ancap society is capable of enforcing all manner of rights with purely private market forces, why would this situation be any different? Surely one could conceive of voluntary cooperatives of entrepreneurs who could invest billions in developing a new strain of corn that fed the world, who then could pool their remaining resources to file a patent, and then announce to the world that they hereby gratuitously assign their patent to the public domain. Problem solved! So little faith in capitalism and free markets!
Patents/copyright result in an ever-growing list of things that you cannot legally do with your own property unless you have permission.
Are you implying that they are not monopolists, and that focusing on one at a time for the purpose of discussion is the wrong approach?
…that require massive government intervention in order to make profitable. Sort of like making a “superior” car that runs on a new fuel, and then lobbying the government to build special filling stations everywhere for it, on the taxpayer’s dime.
It has not been proven that what you are copying is or has ever been your property. That is what is in dispute. As for your claim that IP protection comes from the taxpayer’s dime, unfortunately all property protection in a state society comes from the taxpayer’s dime, and that is why denouncing this in your case is fallacy #17.
Stranger,
You say yourself in the “fallacy #2″ that it’s impossible to interact with information without the use of media. That refutes your whole argument. Furthermore, you do not define what IP is.
Stranger,
And it has not been proven that the act of copying someone else’s property involves a property right violation. Since you however appear to simultaneously claim that causality is not a sufficient condition for a property right violation as well as that it is, I don’t think my objection will have any meaningful impact on you.
Wildberry dude!
What part of “patents” and “state-guaranteed ability to stop others from repeating what you did” is passing you by?
@El Tonno
The “that’s the way it really works” part.
Whole Foods has been a huge success and proved that Monsanto and Dupont don’t have a duopoly. (I don’t know why someone used the term monopoly if there are two dominate companies.) The free markets win again.
A patent is a form of monopoly. Always has been.
Great article Jeff. This passage in particular helped clarify a great deal for me:
“The core of the Misesian critique of socialism is that scarce goods cannot be held in common because the price system that provides rational economization gets destroyed under those conditions, thereby resulting in chaos. Mises’s argument did not apply to those things like knowledge that need no economization. So, yes, there can be “socialism” in the formulas that go into making seeds. But the products of those seeds and the seeds themselves need markets to be produced and distributed.
The issue of patents for inventions was solved by Rothbard years ago. Simply enough, if you can define the product of the invention as a media, then you can simply enforce a limited copyright on it and then obtain protection for your invention by the physical limitations of media. Patents are not necessary so long as copyright is enforced.
Stranger,
you refuse to answer if causality is a sufficient criterion for property rights, however that is a requirement for your IP “theory” to be true. Otherwise you’re just using faulty logic.
Stranger is notorious for faulty logic. He is unable to admit he is wrong and in a different time period, he would have been the last man on earth still arguing the planet was flat. It is simply beyond him to admit an error. On the community, he actually argued that Hoppe was pro-IP and refused to accept Hoppe’s own words, and Kinsella’s public clarification (Kinsella and Hoppe are very close, certainly closer than Stranger and Hoppe) over the matter.
Ultimately, you’re arguing with someone who values his ego over reason, and it’s a waste of time Peter. Just ignore Stranger, that’s what ended up happening to him on the Mises community before he was banned. People who are not interested in intellectual honesty deserve to be, and work towards being marginalized.
I don’t see what this has to do with Rothbard.
Stranger,
It has to do with Rothbard that he did not answer it either. He stopped in the middle of his argument. Without clarifying the position on causality the whole argument becomes a non-sequitur because it’s impossible to conclude that copying violates rights.
Stranger,
However, it would also require that you redefine a property rights violation not only to include the alteration of the property, but also being influenced by the radiation and other waves that the property generates, as well as causal relationships which do not involve interaction with the property at all.
@Stranger March 7, 2011 at 9:36 pm
I’m familiar with the case you are making, but you would have to change the scope and subject matter of copyrights to accommodate “useful inventions.” It would be possible, in all likelihood, to come up with a single statutory framework encompassing both copyrights and patents, but not simply by applying copyright law to patentable subject matter.
Second, on the issue of causality that Peter Surda is pestering you about, causality is not something from which property rights or any other rights arise.
Causality is a way of analyzing cause and effect for the purpose of connecting a consequence with a particular cause of that consequence. In legal theory, which you seem to have some familiarity with, there are usually two elements; actual cause, which is causality in the physical sense, (the “but for” A, B would not have occurred) and proximate cause, which ties the act to a particular actor for the purpose of assigning liability, (party X is the cause of A and B).
Therefore, causality is relevant here only as a tool for analysis in the process of determining liability for an act. It is not a tool for analyzing the basis for the existence of property rights.
So, like so many gauntlets that Peter attempts to throw down, this inquest is not intended to bring clarity or understanding to the problem. It is designed to show you how smart he is and how stupid you must be for not seeing his brilliance. Kinsella thinks Peter is “very good in all of this”.
Wildberry, what is the basis for the existence of IP rights?
Also, would you be interested in having a structured debate about IP in the Mises Community?
Dixie,
What do you mean by a “stuctured debate”? Structured how and by whom?
What they mean is that they will ban you.
Wildberry:
“Second, on the issue of causality that Peter Surda is pestering you about, causality is not something from which property rights or any other rights arise.”
You said here: http://blog.mises.org/15867/the-fight-against-intellectual-property/comment-page-1/#comment-763671
“What about property arising as the result of contracts?”
Well? Which is it? Can contracts cause property to exist or not?
@Mashuri March 8, 2011 at 4:32 pm
If you are not going to read what I write, why do you insist on asking be questions about it?
Causality is not something from which property rights arise. They are a way of analyzing cause and effect. IP oppoents are looking throug the wrong end of the microscope.
Contracts is ONE of the ways that property rights can arise. I used the example of intangible security interests to illustrate this.
So yes, property rights CAN arise through contract.
OK?
Wildberry:
“Causality is not something from which property rights arise.
.
.
.
So yes, property rights CAN arise through contract.”
I hereby crown you mises.org’s King of Contradictions. Amazing…
Wildberry,
There are no new rights arising through a contract, about “intangible security interests” even. Contracts merely redistribute rights that already exist.
Really?
If they already exist, where to they come from?
Wildberry,
Yes, really.
For the purposes of my argument, it’s irrelevant where they come from or what they actually are. They can come from your dreams for all I care. The point is that contracts do not create new rights. If they did, it would be possible to show something which is uncovered by rights unless a contract is present. But who am I talking to. You don’t consider a contradiction as a valid method of refuting arguments.
This is a complete falsehood. Rights to “this coat” are not the same as rights to “all coats”, and I think you know enough about IP to know that what you are saying is wrong.
This is a particularly bad example (or a good one to illustrate your deception?), because design patents are particularly difficult to obtain. You cannot get protection for design elements that cannot be separated from the useful object, so your example is bogus.
It’s not a design patent. Coat-wearing is clearly a business method patent. Mr. Tucker did not claim that his hypothetical IP-rights holder invented the idea of wearing a particular style of coat. He invented the wearing of coats altogether.
I, however, invented the business method of wearing coats when it’s cold and/or rainy outside, so I have that going for me. Getting all you IP thieves to pay up is a full-time job, I have to say.
In any event, enough with this silliness. The distinction between design elements and utility elements is as baseless as the distinction between pixies and faeries. It’s all fantasy, story-time nonsense, and has no grounding in empirical reality.
@Phinn March 8, 2011 at 12:30 pm
You don’t seem to know what you are talking about, but your “pixies and faeries” defense is very persuasive.
Is this related to the “Liar! Liar! Pants on fire” defense?
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