Only you would equate my statements of support for Neil with something vulgar.

since it looks like my post was scrapped with the site updates too, I repost it here:

How does looking at a house differ from moving in?

Looking at a house or taking a picture of it does not alter the integrity of the house. Both however result in a copy. Xeroxing a picture does alter integrity, but xeroxing a copy does not. So how do you formulate coherent rules to decide what is legal and what not?

That’s a question to be directed to a statist since your question refers to current statist law.

In your logorights article as well as a former reply to me, you write that you do support fair use. Now you deny it. So which is it? Can you make up your mind?

Some uses are below the threshold for damages or deprivation of the fruits of ownership and others aren’t.

Apart from not explaining how to differentiate it, you neglect that it is the type of action rather than hypothetical value of it that is the question. In fact you create a new question and bring back the value of the good into light, although you earlier denied that you talk about value. So, whether copying is permitted or not depends on value? Does that also apply to physical goods? Can I steal something that is cheap?

For example, a cool breeze from your property to mine brings me the pleasant smell of your orange grove. I may breathe in that scent without damaging you. Climbing your fence, grabbing and eating one of the oranges, raises the threshold, but possible not enough to be a violaton. Harvesting your orange crop and selling it at the farmer’s market without your permission is definitely a violation.

As I said above, the distinction that “we” (loosely used to refer to IP opponents here) make is that the first one does not involve anyone altering the integrity of the property, whereas the next two do. The value of each action is irrelevant.

The scent is just some pollen and other microscopic parts of the tree that the air currents moved. Purely hypothetically, the original owner might claim he wants them back, but a reasonable judge would probably tell him that it’s a foreseeable naturally occurring phenomenon and if that was not his intention he should have kept the tree in an airtight seal. Just like, for example, when someone takes a picture of the tree, that are just the photons from the sun reflected by the tree that the camera captures and can be prevented by keeping the tree behind an opaque case. If photographing is a property rights violation, then so is smelling of pollen, whistling at girls with short skirts, not having to breathe in the sweat of co-travellers in a train compartment because they use deodorant, and other phenomena commonly known as externalities.

You have yet to provide any coherent claim. It all seems to come back to the value (which you deny). Nevertheless, the first chapter of “Building Blocks For Liberty” by Walter Block at al. explains why approaches other than physical integrity fail both logically and praxeologically.

I’m posting at the end, since apparently your post was lost in the recent site updates.

Just because you keep making the same ignorant point over and over doesn’t mean you are saying anything relevant or correct.

Just because you keep ignoring the flow of conversation and diverge it does not mean what you are saying is either relevant or correct.

Contracts assign liability rights and require privity of the parties. Property assigns ownership rights, and does not require a contract, and therefore privity is irrelevant.

Therefore, you should not conflate the ability to restrict someone contractually with a property right. It’s a non-sequitur. Make up your mind, either the fact that you can restrict a potential customer contractually does not imply there is property involved, or you cannot apply such a restriction to third parties. Either way, it’s irrelevant with regards to IP so kindly stop referring to it.

This, on the other hand, is idiotic. You’ve actually outdone yourself.

If anything is idiotic, it is certainly not me. I try to formulate coherent arguments. What you produce is a waste of time. Your attempts to crawl up Schulman’s ass, how you commended him for answering all the questions, although any flow of arguments he engages in clearly ends in him contradicting himself, further support my former claim that your purpose for the debates here is to earn recognition for your nonexistent talents rather than intellectual curiosity.

OK, this is hilarious. Seriously funny.

Tell me, O Wise One, does an Originator own the raw material of his creation? He uses SOMETHING to create with. What is it? Is it ideas? Possibly, eh? What else is there? So either he owns ideas which he uses as raw material to create a story he then owns, or he does not own the ideas – if ideas can’t be owned. If the latter is the case, then how can he claim to own something he made which doesn’t consist of elements that he previously owned – and more importantly, still doesn’t? I think someone actually brought this up before.

Listen, Grasshopper; if I use air to forge a sword, when I am finished, is the question of owning the sword merely one of whether or not I owned the air?

The transformation in question requires a forge and other capital equipment, raw materials, labor, and a production plan; when all brought together in exactly the proper order, the results are a finished good: a sword.

This transformation also requires things from the public domain: air, and the idea that a sword is better for hacking other people than a lump of raw materials, and the knowledge that when you are finished making it, someone will want it. In this case, it is clear who owns the sword, is it not? Even though making it does not require that everything that went into the production is owned as property at the outset.

The principle here then, is that tracking ownership of property depends on tracking those things that are NOT in the public domain. Something you own (capital goods, raw materials, self) PLUS something in the public domain (ideas, air, process knowledge, personal skills, and knowledge of the sword market). If something is in the public domain, no one owns it, but you don’t lose your ownership of other things because you use them, right? We track the things others don’t own to figure out ownership claims.

The exact same situation is the case with authorship; ideas, letters of the alphabet, facts, formulas, the English language, rules of grammar, and the knowledge of a common understanding of words and expressions of language among people who can read, are all things that exist in the public domain, like air. No one owns them, and you would have just as much right to use these things however you see fit; you don’t need to own air to breath it, you just need to know that no one else claims to own it.

What I do own is myself, and all the capabilities of expression that is unique to me. I own the pen and paper I use to capture my expressions. I don’t own the letters of the alphabet, but because I use them, it means that I own nothing?

This is how one arrives at the conclusion that an author owns the original manuscript that he creates. It is a scarce good, as it is unique in the universe. It is comprised of ideas, words, language and taken all together, constitutes something I will call an original expression. No one on earth, as long as I keep it to myself, has a better claim to it than I.

Do you disagree with this conclusion? I really want to know. Please answer.

Star Trek would still be Star Trek without IP laws.

How can you be so sure about this? The fact is that ST was created in a world in which copyrights existed. Surly then, you would agree that whether it would or not exist without copyrights is a matter of pure speculation. That is one difference between our arguments. I can point to facts, you can only point to your speculations.

that is before you get into the whole thing where they own it forever and can prosecute people for looking at what they originally broadcast for free.

Just a clarification of some facts; copyright term is not forever (despite the fact that it is too long in my opinion) and you cannot prosecute people for what you claim. There is something called a fair use doctrine, and one of the key cases having to do with this issue dealt with the home recording of TV. You can’t get prosecuted for doing that.

It’s funny that you would get all uppity

Really? “Uppity”? Like buying Playboy for the articles, I only watched ST for the philosophy.

Now, I guess we must protect the right of some XYZ corporation which owns the rights to license Spock dolls or whatever.

Your theory of private property is wavering. Private property is OK as long as it isn’t owned by a nasty, evil Corporation?

TV programming that was made to sell dish soap and bubble gum 40 years ago has become a monster franchise for a select few to milk forever.

Roddenberry died in 1991, so only until 2061. And under principles of a free market, libertarians try to not dictate how people use their property, even if it is to sell bubble gum.

Have you ever watched a Star Trek clip which was illegally posted on YouTube (as everything else in the world is)? Did it make you feel dirty? Did you have to avert your eyes when you thought of the FBI Warning on your old Star Trek VCR tapes?

Funny. Ethics and morality are different things; that’s why there are two words instead of one. We may all do things that we know are wrong. We are talking about the principles, not the conduct.

YouTube is an interesting situation. Isn’t it interesting that if YouTube posted music files or copyrighted books, it would get busted, but not video clips? This seems inconsistent with the treatment of Napster, doesn’t it?

Ok, now get busy Mr Thief and write the Widow Roddenberry a nice fat check for depriving the franchise of its property by your lying eyes and evil intent! XYZ/Paramount has mouths to feed, you know. Or, better yet, call the FBI and turn yourself in. They’re always looking for people to roll. : )

Every day I walk past beggars and don’t give them any money. And they ask me for it every day, even though I never fork it over. Does that make me a bad person?

That was fun.

“Copyright law enforces property rights in original works of authorship AND specifically excludes ideas from the subject matter of copyrights. What do you make of that datapoint?”

I’m wondering how a story is not an idea. It’s an idea that was fleshed out and put down on paper. Seems like another distinction without a difference to me, like the fact that a story is a “thing” with a unique identity which makes it different from other things with identities (no kidding?). Patents also obviously refer to ideas. Strip away the semantic question-begging tricks referencing property away from IP arguments and what’s left? It’s just an effort to commodify and monopolize information flow. All of the verbiage of the construct of property is lifted out from the economic world of scarce resources and rivalrous goods, and then superimposed onto the non-economic world of information (ideas, utterances, patterns). It sorta reminds me of how Rand superimposed economic language onto interpersonal relationships. It certainly sounds just as creepy and leads to the same type of confusion. You just can’t take one rubric and apply it to everything. This is how a lot of weird philosophies get traction. Some true insight is taken from one area of life and brought to others where it simply doesn’t belong and doesn’t work.

Instead of IP proponents trying to argue that ideas are property by analogy, what they really need to do in order to test themselves is to first develop a consistent non-contradictory theory of property which would naturally include IP. I certainly don’t see that being done here. I’m reading here just one analogy after another. But analogies are only helpful to illustrate something; they don’t establish anything. The analog is always taken for granted and that’s why an analogy works to convince, but when people skip the foundational logic of the very thing they want to establish, the analogies become mere rhetoric. As if a car driving from land onto a ferry establishes that a story is property! Give me a break, guys.

It’s just bizarre.

I suppose if we lived in a world where this was actually possible, we would have to figure out how to handle it. Since the problem of getting a new car would be solved as long as there was one to copy from at zero cost, then as JNS pointed out earlier, we would have arrived at the Star Trek stage of manufacturing. All we have to worry about is how to get new car designs. Otherwise, we will be stuck with whatever we have the day such devices are invented and available.

In one respect, if replication of cars like you say is potentially possible at some future time, then that time has arrived in the era of digital publishing. Once you have an original to copy from, you can make a zillion copies for next to nothing.

If you were in the new car design and prototype development business, how would you propose dealing the externality issues associated with the low cost of replication once your new/improved model is released, in a world where low cost “magic” replication of cars is possible?

Replicating cars without a mass production factory is not economically possible today, but if all you did need was the original to copy from, we would be set, as long as we are satisfied with the cars we now have available to copy. And when they get old and rusty and not worth copying, what then? Original replicas are made my hand so we can copy them for free?

In the case of a book, each copy is a factory of mass production. How do you propose new books get written? Take something other than a work of fiction; a history book or an dictionary, or some highly technical manual. We freeze development where we are today and everybody has free access to everything old but nothing new?

But by making this argument it occurs to me that you somehow see this destruction as somehow similar to copying.

If someone uses their replication device to beam a copy of my car to their house and I never see them do this or meet them my entire life or hear of this I am none the wiser. There was no aggression, and I have not been injured. I can still eat, go to work/etc. just like before. The car manufacturer was not harmed, he still has just as many cars to sell as he had before. The car designer is still out there designing new cars. But there is now a guy with a car he wouldn’t otherwise have had.

Who should this bother? Why? How can this be compared to destruction? This guy now has a car he didn’t have, and I still have mine. I suppose you may say that he might have had to purchase one instead, but so what? What if he used walked instead of used a car? It’s still a loss of money to the manufacturer either way. And by the logic that we should be trying to keep prices up we should all try to be lazy and unproductive so as to raise the value of things produced. We should dump factories and make things by hand.

BTM, win.

But what someone could copy your car and produce their own you wouldn’t own that, and that has nothing to do with the car staying a car. We’re talking about a single car, not the set of all cars. If someone could copy your car, you would not own all the copies. It would involve a trespass on your car to make the first copy but then people could make additional copies without any conceivable damage or trespass on any of your property.

Pardon me for intruding. This is the “magic bagel” analogy Tucker used earlier. I suppose it is fun to speculate about these things, but in reality what you suggest is impossible. There are no magic bagels, and there are no cars that can be copied without the cost of replicating the manufacturing process. Without an automobile factory, this is a pretty costly proposition.

By analogy, try making a copy of a novel without having an original to copy from. You would have to go through some significant production effort to get the copy, even if it was only a matter of typing it out from your photographic memory. Of course even that wouldn’t be there to draw from if you didn’t have the original to memorize.

Yes somehow you think the analogy is that while cars are not cheap to copy, books are, if cars were cheap to copy, no one could cry foul if you did it? Without an original to copy from, books are also expensive, or possibly impossible except under the most fantastic of assumptions concerning being able to produce a copy without an original.

I suppose two unrelated people with the exact same fingerprints or the exact same genetic pattern is theoretically possible too, but its low probability makes fingerprints and genetic analysis useful as forensic tools.

Likewise, the similarity or lack of it, is a useful forensic tool in the determination of whether a given copy was in fact derived from an original.

Patent fees provide direct profit motivation. The patent office is the only profitable branch of government.

From the USPTO website:

Results of Operations
The USPTO generated a net income of $94.7 million for the year ended September 30, 2010, an increase of $149.5 million over FY 2009 net cost of $54.8 million. This variation is the result of a few factors, explained in more detail in the Statement of Net Cost discussion.

So, your theory is that Fed is motivated by $94.7M of revenue over costs (governments don’t work on a profit motive, since it is a government agency. Think DMV) out of a total budget of something like $3.5 Trillion? Hmmm. Also, the discussion mentions deferred costs of getting fees before the application is processed, when all costs have been accounted for, as one explanation for why 2010 was in the black, and 2009 was not.

During the cold war the patent system provided a means in which the USA government could intercept inventions that may have strategic value and prevent them from going public.

Is this a bad thing? You WANTED to speak German or Japanese?

It’s also useful in ‘political rent seeking’. Large corporations use the patent system as a weapon to prevent competition from new enterprises. As a result politicians that support patent monopolies are provided financial contributions, employment after ‘public service’ and other kick-backs. Also it provides opportunities to profit from fraud and corruption through the manipulating the bureaucratic process in the patent office.

I don’t doubt this. I agree that mercantilism is always bad. This is not unique to patents or copyrights, though, right?

Copyrights were established as a mechanism for censorship. They have perpetuated as a mechanism for manipulating the market in favor of large publishing companies. As a result statist government has enjoyed considerable political support from these media companies in more ways then one. The majority of popular/traditional media outlets, through mechanisms like the FCC, and ran and controlled by a few major corporations. These corporations have significant interest in movies, music, and television industries.

Mercantilism is bad. That has nothing to do with the legitimacy of the principles of IP, just like our current government proves nothing about the fundamental principles of self-government. Things can, do and have gotten out of whack. To borrow from Kinsella (who stole the idea from Tucker apparently) you want to throw out the baby with the bathwater because you think it is Rosemary’s baby?

In return for acts like the DCMA, expanding copyright terms, expanding enforcement resources, pushing international treaties, and other such legal activities that can heavily impact the profitability of these large media conglomerates politicians enjoy significant political support. The politicians exploit this for their own political goals… such as running for reelection.

Which of these two do you think is more harmful overall, the Federal Reserve and global central banking, or patents and copyrights?

Campaign finance reform plays into this in a fairly obvious way. I can explain it to you if you want.

No need. I probably agree the political system that is based on collusion between business and government is a common enemy.

For someone who criticizes others for not knowing IP law, you are certainly full of it here. Copyright law specifically excludes ideas from the subject matter of copyrights.

Then you freely admit that copyright law has nothing to do with protecting property?

What? Copyright law enforces property rights in original works of authorship AND specifically excludes ideas from the subject matter of copyrights. What do you make of that datapoint?

It is not rational to oppose something for doing what it specifically seeks to avoid

A drunk ‘seeks to avoid’ running over small children on the sidewalk when they are driving. However, quit often, they do end up driving up into the sidewalk by mistake and if there was children there they would of been killed. Happens quite a bit. It’s not a valid defense of a drunk driver to say he is trying to avoid what he did actually do.

Good point. Let’s look it over. As an ex ante principle of law, driving drunk is illegal precisely because it increases the probability that drunks will not be able to avoid running over children even if they try, while the ex post principle provides for additional punishment if the drunk fails.

The purpose of a law against drunk driving is to incentivize the driver not to drive drunk, and to insure unpleasant and costly consequences if he does, AND injures someone. In this way, it would be reasonable to say that the law seeks to avoid squished children, but does not always succeed.

You have given an example of when the purpose of the DUI law fails. Do you have an example where the purpose of copyright fails because it actually has protected an “idea” which it specifically seeks to avoid doing?

It actually does.
It would allow people here to discuss the merits of IP law and whether or not the violations of private property are worth it. Rather then being continuously sidetracked with a bunch of ‘copyrights/patents are property rights and thus are libertarian’ mumbo-jumbo.

Despite my earlier sarcasm, I actually agree with you that there are other issues. This is why I have been saying lately that IF we can agree that the author owns his original manuscript, provided he produced it with his own means of production, then we can get onto the economics of law issue that you allude to.

This is the more significant issue, I agree.

Likewise, a logos being transferred between carrier media doesn’t cease to exist as a real independent thing.”

But what someone could copy your car and produce their own you wouldn’t own that, and that has nothing to do with the car staying a car. We’re talking about a single car, not the set of all cars. If someone could copy your car, you would not own all the copies. It would involve a trespass on your car to make the first copy but then people could make additional copies without any conceivable damage or trespass on any of your property.

So tell me, what is your theory for why the state is motivated by IP laws?

Patent fees provide direct profit motivation. The patent office is the only profitable branch of government.

During the cold war the patent system provided a means in which the USA government could intercept inventions that may have strategic value and prevent them from going public.

It’s also useful in ‘political rent seeking’. Large corporations use the patent system as a weapon to prevent competition from new enterprises. As a result politicians that support patent monopolies are provided financial contributions, employment after ‘public service’ and other kick-backs. Also it provides opportunities to profit from fraud and corruption through the manipulating the bureaucratic process in the patent office.

Copyrights were established as a mechanism for censorship. They have perpetuated as a mechanism for manipulating the market in favor of large publishing companies. As a result statist government has enjoyed considerable political support from these media companies in more ways then one. The majority of popular/traditional media outlets, through mechanisms like the FCC, and ran and controlled by a few major corporations. These corporations have significant interest in movies, music, and television industries.

In return for acts like the DCMA, expanding copyright terms, expanding enforcement resources, pushing international treaties, and other such legal activities that can heavily impact the profitability of these large media conglomerates politicians enjoy significant political support. The politicians exploit this for their own political goals… such as running for reelection.

Campaign finance reform plays into this in a fairly obvious way. I can explain it to you if you want.

[quote]For someone who criticizes others for not knowing IP law, you are certainly full of it here. Copyright law specifically excludes ideas from the subject matter of copyrights. [/quote]

Then you freely admit that copyright law has nothing to do with protecting property?

[quote]It is not rational to oppose something for doing what it specifically seeks to avoid.[/quote]

A drunk ‘seeks to avoid’ running over small children on the sidewalk when they are driving. However, quit often, they do end up driving up into the sidewalk by mistake and if there was children there they would of been killed. Happens quite a bit. It’s not a valid defense of a drunk driver to say he is trying to avoid what he did actually do.

Well, I certainly gratified that you cleared this all up for me. At least we have reduced the problem to the ONLY reasonable defense. That should simplify things.

It actually does.

It would allow people here to discuss the merits of IP law and whether or not the violations of private property are worth it. Rather then being continuously sidetracked with a bunch of ‘copyrights/patents are property rights and thus are libertarian’ mumbo-jumbo.

@nate-m April 14, 2011 at 5:40 pm

Haha. You keep telling yourself that. It’s pretty obvious that this is not the case and the state has a distinct and obvious motivation in IP law.

OK, explain the motive to me.

Oh and there is absolutely criminal levels of copyright violation. For a guy who goes on and on about defending copyrights and IP law you sure have a lousy understanding of it.

Instead of this; The state is the plaintiff only in criminal cases. IP is a civil cause of action, not criminal.

I should have said this: The state is the plaintiff only in criminal cases. IP is most often a civil cause of action, not criminal.
Nice catch.

In such circumstances as qualify under criminal statutes BOTH civil and criminal causes of action would stand. So, the state would be a party to the criminal action, but the civil action would still stand for the plaintiff, the copyright holder. Remember OJ Simpson? The main point is this: In a civil action, damages go to the plaintiff, in a criminal action, the fines go to the state and the perp goes to jail, potentially. The state pays for jails. So tell me, what is your theory for why the state is motivated by IP laws?

Much of IP law focuses on actions that have nothing to do with copying.

I was referring to copyright. Do you have anything of substance to say, other than you think I’m stupid and ignorant?

Were this comes from is the plain obvious fact that IP law has no real relation to property rights.Dejure property rights is a extension of defacto property rights that are universal in nature and occur spontaneously in any human society.

You are misinformed. They are not universal, but are suited to their particular purpose. They arise when the need arises. The history of property rights emerging in the beaver trapping indigenous Indians of north east America is a fascinating case history, for example.

Property rights not only exist because they are desirable, they exist because they are required. What can be debated is the specific applications and nature of property rights.

On this I agree, if I understand your meaning.

There is no such thing that happens with anything related to IP Law. There is no such thing as ‘owning a idea’ or ‘owning a concept’. It’s physically impossible.

For someone who criticizes others for not knowing IP law, you are certainly full of it here. Copyright law specifically excludes ideas from the subject matter of copyrights. It is not rational to oppose something for doing what it specifically seeks to avoid.

The ONLY reasonable defense for IP law is based on a argument of expediency. That human society is wealthier, better off, with IP law then without it. That supporting IP law will invariably end up with the ‘Greatest Good for the Greatest Number’ type thing. Yet this is something that so-called Pro-IP libertarians seem to steadfastly refuse to debate about. Because, you know, something like that requires actual evidence and careful consideration.

Well, I certainly gratified that you cleared this all up for me. At least we have reduced the problem to the ONLY reasonable defense. That should simplify things.

Going the intellectually lazy route and continue to equate IP law with property rights.. then get all hand-wavy, diversionary, and pseudo-spiritual is all that IP fascists have a seem to have when their logical fallacies are challenged.

This is brilliant. Do you mind if I quote you on this?

What happened to the “click to edit” function?

Haha. You keep telling yourself that. It’s pretty obvious that this is not the case and the state has a distinct and obvious motivation in IP law.

OK, explain the motive to me.

Oh and there is absolutely criminal levels of copyright violation. For a guy who goes on and on about defending copyrights and IP law you sure have a lousy understanding of it.

Instead of this; The state is the plaintiff only in criminal cases. IP is a civil cause of action, not criminal.

I should have said this: The state is the plaintiff only in criminal cases. IP is most often </bL a civil cause of action, not criminal.
Nice catch.

In such circumstances as qualify under criminal statutes BOTH civil and criminal causes of action would stand. So, the state would be a party to the criminal action, but the civil action would still stand for the plaintiff, the copyright holder. Remember OJ Simpson? The main point is this: In a civil action, damages go to the plaintiff, in a criminal action, the fines go to the state and the perp goes to jail, potentially. The state pays for jails. So tell me, what is your theory for why the state is motivated by IP laws?

Much of IP law focuses on actions that have nothing to do with copying.

I was referring to copyright. Do you have anything of substance to say, other than you think I’m stupid and ignorant?

Were this comes from is the plain obvious fact that IP law has no real relation to property rights.Dejure property rights is a extension of defacto property rights that are universal in nature and occur spontaneously in any human society.

You are misinformed. They are not universal, but are suited to their particular purpose. They arise when the need arises. The history of property rights emerging in the beaver trapping indigenous Indians of north east America is a fascinating case history, for example.

Property rights not only exist because they are desirable, they exist because they are required. What can be debated is the specific applications and nature of property rights.

On this I agree, if I understand your meaning.

There is no such thing that happens with anything related to IP Law. There is no such thing as ‘owning a idea’ or ‘owning a concept’. It’s physically impossible.

For someone who criticizes others for not knowing IP law, you are certainly full of it here. Copyright law specifically excludes ideas from the subject matter of copyrights. It is not rational to oppose something for doing what it specifically seeks to avoid.

The ONLY reasonable defense for IP law is based on a argument of expediency. That human society is wealthier, better off, with IP law then without it. That supporting IP law will invariably end up with the ‘Greatest Good for the Greatest Number’ type thing. Yet this is something that so-called Pro-IP libertarians seem to steadfastly refuse to debate about. Because, you know, something like that requires actual evidence and careful consideration.

Well, I certainly gratified that you cleared this all up for me. At least we have reduced the problem to the ONLY reasonable defense. That should simplify things.

Going the intellectually lazy route and continue to equate IP law with property rights.. then get all hand-wavy, diversionary, and pseudo-spiritual is all that IP fascists have a seem to have when their logical fallacies are challenged.

This is brilliant. Do you mind if I quote you on this?

Okay I think I see what you are saying here, but if I do it only suggests to me that most people don’t take IP claims that seriously. I still think the error you make you and other places in this post is in assuming that “IP discourages innovation” is incompatible with “IP and innovation coexist”. These are not incompatible. All the first statement means is that in the absence of IP, *with all other things constant*, there would be more innovation than there is now with IP.

So I don’t think any observation of the existence of IP and the creative process contradicts the charge that IP interferes with the creative process. What matters is I have yet to hear or come up with a theory of IP that does not make all of these things people always do illegal according to it. That is more or less my point in bringing it up. I intend to demonstrate that if IP were to be upheld perfectly it would result in a dystopia of no innovation or creation.

This is distinct from physical property rights. They are not, and never will be, perfectly upheld, but if they were it would lead to a utopia (to be clear, I am not a utilitarian and admit that “utopia” must be subjective. A person who wants nothing other than to violate others would consider this to be a dystopia. But either way, it would be wealthy and full of innovation and creation). Of course such a scenario is either impossible or highly unlikely, but this is how these things are approached. Every physics problem ever done is an impossible idealization of reality. And yet physics gave us modern technology.

“You fail to understand it because I have not said otherwise. Of course you are correct. It is merely the act of copying that is prohibited. That leaves a wide swath of human knowledge, information and experience that is fair game.”

Okay I did misunderstand, but I think you also misunderstand me! What I am arguing here is that the “wide swath” of which you speak is synthesized by referencing the part of knowledge/information/experience that is already expressed. Sure, physically speaking, all the patterns already exist. Everything Shakespeare wrote existed at least conceptually before he actually put it all together, but what he wrote was guided by what had already been written. So I say if you actually close yourself off to already existing creative works you remove the only way to actually synthesize any of the rest of the patterns/experiences that are already out there but not yet expressed.

What I am arguing is that if you could have access to all the relevant details, you would find that every single “great” or even “popular” creative work has at least one quote from an earlier piece that the author previously experienced. That may sound crazy, but maybe some of the greatest lines of poetry were uttered by unknown people and overheard by their “authors” as they walked down the street. But I don’t see this as problematic. Authorship is, as far as I can tell, taking pieces of other works and finding new and interesting ways to put those elements together.

I’ll admit while this is technically a problem IP would have to face, there is no need to get so far off the central points, which are about copying other peoples’ recordings and even selling them. There’s plenty of juicy controversy over that (i.e. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with it).

“I fail to understand your sensitivity to this. If we were trying to establish the meaning or usage of a word, would you object to referencing a dictionary? Ignoring the dictionary, the law, or the state does not make them disappear, and I don’t expect that I have write my own dictionary to talk to you. Lighten up.”

Haha I didn’t get mad I was just being sarcastic because, to be honest, I think it’s a silly thing to bring up. Obviously if statutory law played at all into how I am thinking about this I would reach the same conclusion you do. It reminded of the many times non-libertarians have “reminded” me that states have existed constantly throughout western history as I try to explain why they *shouldn’t* exist.

“I think all you did here is demonstrate my point; the general rule is easy to understand, but not so easy to apply given the vast range of possible facts. Therefore, it is also a “fuzzy” rule.”

But with IP even the general rule can’t be understood! That is what I am trying to say.

“On the other hand, you cannot solve complex orbital problems with simple algebra, especially on the scale of interstellar space.”

Yes, you have to solve them with more complicated algebra or differential equations. Every physics problem involves modeling a real system as an ideal abstraction that can be described precisely with mathematical equations. I think you are getting too caught up on the modeling step. You always lose accuracy in this step, and what you end up studying is not exactly what you are trying to know more about. But you can’t know anything unless you study the idealization. The only way to gain any sort of solution, accurate or not, is to model complex orbital systems in interstellar space. For one, we certainly don’t know all the subtle variations in radius and reflectivity on different parts of the surfaces of planets. They are treated as point particles. An absurd assumption, right!? Sure, but accounting for the details can only change the answer so much, so we narrow the solution down to something that tells us more than enough to accurately predict telescope observations.

“In my view, there is too much emphasis here on the alchemy of the origin of property rights.”

Well, to me this is like saying solving physics problems relies too much on the “alchemy” of Newton’s Laws of Motion. They are pretty mysterious right? Especially if you take them for granted and don’t try to understand where they come from. But if you don’t have Newton’s Laws, you have nothing. You can throw out physics claims left and right like “heavier objects fall faster” which is almost always true (because of air friction) but you won’t gain any insight into understanding reality, and you will never predict things before you see them. To do that, you need the “alchemy” of Newton’s Laws.

The “alchemy” is the basis of the theory. Of course I don’t think it is alchemy. I think you should focus your critique on what you think is the alchemy. We’re getting too distracted by this stuff about Platonic forms.

“Are we really all that stupid that we just can’t see the truth? Or is this a philosophical question that has no definitive proof that can be universally held? I think the latter.”

We are going down a rat hole here! Because what I would say in response is that what you are putting forth is a “definitive proof” that an answer to this particular question has no definitive proof. So it must not be that you are adverse to definitive proofs (if you were you couldn’t argue anything!) It must just be that you think this particular thing has no definitive proof. But if you are to convince me, you must show me your definitive proof of this claim!

“All I’m interested in, frankly, is to get a consensus that an author owns his own manuscript, and we can move on from there. It ultimately doesn’t matter how you reach that conclusion as long as we can accept that premise as a first principle.”

This may surprise you but I think we are all in agreement about this! The author owns his manuscript. I agree with that. He decides what to do with it. If he wants to not publish it, someone would have to violate his *physical* property rights to get his hands on it, for copying or anything else. If he does want to publish it, he can have the publisher sign a contract to only make copies on the author’s consent. Then the publisher can require everyone who buys the book to sign a contract first saying they won’t copy it (EULAs are not valid contracts, but this is just a problem with how things are done now). This is all in line with physical property rights.

But what if someone violates the contract? Then a copy gets out that people can acquire without entering contracts. The original copier is guilty of breaching copyright and can be punished for this, but none of the people who copy the first illegal copy are guilty of anything. The work is now in the public domain and the author has no legal avenue to compel people to buy his work from the publisher and not obtain an unlicensed copy.

Furthermore, what if someone comes over to my house, I bought a copy of the book, and while I’m in the kitchen he photocopies every page? Now, technically, he trespassed on my property by doing that without my permission, but if he doesn’t damage the physical book I can’t really hold him for any restitution. Then he goes out and shares this copy and people start copying it. Then the copy got out and there were no contract violations (unless the contract said you violate it even if you accidentally leave it out somewhere to be copied).

So I think we are in agreement until someone breaks the contract or accidentally allows someone to copy the book.

“With all due respect, the answer is already crystal clear. It is only because you object to my answer, and reject anything that is not re-written here in this blog, that the debate rages on. It is not the case that there is no answer, it is that you don’t like the answer, and object when I try to explain by pointing to what already exists for resolving this question. You are saying in effect, “explain algebra to me, but don’t use numbers.”; kinda difficult.”

No, it’s like asking you to explain algebra to me instead of just presenting its results and expecting me to just believe they are logical results. Explaining algebra is quite a task. It would involve a head-first dive into axiomatic set theory. Presenting its results to be memorized is quite easy. Sure you know how to add, subtract, multiple and divide but do you know why it works?

You keep wanting me to look up copyright laws, and I already have. They didn’t give me the information I have requested. I think you are mistaken on what information I am looking for, and I think you misunderstand the nature of my objection to drawing arbitrary lines in the sand.

“If this was the case, we would not longer need criminal trials. We would just have an accusation, look up the rule, and pass out sentence. Property theory does not give precise answers. It gives general rules and assigns rights according to those rules, against which facts can be interpreted. Live is not software code, unless you are in the Matrix!”

I never said we will ever have a perfectly sound and irrefutable property rights theory. Knowledge is always in an incomplete state and people will debate over what the right theory is. I am not trying to discourage you from criticizing my property rights theory. I want you to actually criticize it instead of jumping to this issue about theory verses practice. Perhaps I’ve pushed by Kantian idealism too hard here, because that’s really not the issue. I think you misunderstand me greatly (probably my fault) when you suggest I am looking at life as a software program. I know exactly what you are talking about. I am actually strongly opposed to the idea that humans are just complicated computers (I’m a dualist like Mises).

Rather, let me make another analogy to physics. The way people figured out Newton’s laws, particularly that an object in motion remains in motion, is that they thought well if it didn’t remain in motion it would have to stop, but where? Why stop here, instead of there? There’s no answer to that question, so it must be that objects in motion remain in motion (unless something intervenes of course, in which case when and where is not arbitrary, but the when and where of the intervention). You could easily say “I have a physics theory that says things stop after 10 feet of motion”. Sure, that resolves the question, but in a completely arbitrary way. Why 10 feet and not 20 feet? Etc. etc.

I would suspect that you are about to tell me that ethics is not physics. Ethics is about people acting together, physics is about deterministic reality. This is where we disagree. To me (thank you Hoppe) ethics is just like math or physics: a set of statements that can be argumentatively justified, that is claimed “true”.

“Do you know this for a fact? I think you might be wrong. Now what?”

One of my professors mentioned that a few years back, it may be wrong. But I still think you misunderstand the nature of my objection. There is no number that, if I saw it in the statutory law, would make me think “oh well that makes sense”. It is the very fact that a number is being assigned that I am claiming is absurd.

“Whatever. What am I supposed to do with this?”

This is a response to you making claims about my intuition. I figured you would be interested in hearing what my actual intuition is, that’s all.

“Agreements define disagreement. If it is not one of the other, it hasn’t come up yet.”

I know what you mean, that we would be agreeing that a disagreement took place, but this dodges my point. A and B disagree on how to use a good. Of course they are agreeing to disagree. But agreeing to disagree doesn’t exactly solve the problem. They don’t say, “Okay, so we agree that disagree on how to use this good” and then walk away. There is still a problem, and ethics is the solution. What I am saying is that people have to disagree (and, yes agree to do disagree) for there to be any problem for ethics to solve. If they instead agreed that they did not disagree on how to use anything, they would just walk away (or do whatever they’re gonna do) and there is no problem for ethics to even talk about.

“This is hysterical. It sounds like you need to back off the 5 Hour!”

I’m calling you out on this one. This was the best point I brought up in that post. It is a conclusive disproof of the claim that coherency of a law speaks at all to its legitimacy. Call it names all you want, but that’s dodging the argument!

“Last time I checked we live in a world that includes copyrights (yep, just checked again, and sure enough!)”

This is why I get sarcastic. Crime exists too, so why are you even pretending that ethics matters for anything. People kill each other, so you can’t have anything to say about it.

Most of the rest of what you said I already covered. That IP and innovation coexist does not rule out IP working against innovation. You highly misunderstand what you call my “utopian fantasies” or whatever, which may be my fault, but I find it pretty silly that people make such nonsense charges against an attempt to use rational analysis to better understand things. All you seem to want to say is “the world has uncertainties so who knows”. At least I’m theorizing! At least I keep bringing stuff to the table to be debated!

Haha. You keep telling yourself that. It’s pretty obvious that this is not the case and the state has a distinct and obvious motivation in IP law. Oh and there is absolutely criminal levels of copyright violation. For a guy who goes on and on about defending copyrights and IP law you sure have a lousy understanding of it.

Copyright infringement is a crime if the defendant acted willfully and
e i the r ( 1 ) for comme rc ia l advantage or private financial gain, ( 2 ) by reproducing or distributing infringing copies of works with a total retail
value of over $1,000 over a 180-day period, or (3) by distributing a “work
being prepared for commercial distribution” by making it available on a
publicly-accessible computer network. 17 U.S.C. § 506(a)(1). Copyright
infringement is a felony only if the infringement involved reproduction or
distribution of at least 10 copies of copyrighted works worth more than
$2,500 in a 180-day period, or involved distribution of a “work being
prepared for commercial distribution” over a publicly-accessible computer
network. See id.; 18 U.S.C. § 2319.

Sharing a music file over the internet is a criminal act. The IP fascists still haven’t gotten around criminalizing patent violations, but there are certainly big advocates of IP working on it.

Of course you are correct. It is merely the act of copying that is prohibited.

Except, of course, your wrong. Much of IP law focuses on actions that have nothing to do with copying. There are plenty of ways to run foul of patents without any copying occurring _at_all_. It _happens_constantly_. Case after case after case. Lawsuits after lawsuits after lawsuits successfully prosecuted that have not one wit of anything to do with copying.

In my view, there is too much emphasis here on the alchemy of the origin of property rights.

Were this comes from is the plain obvious fact that IP law has no real relation to property rights. Dejure property rights is a extension of defacto property rights that are universal in nature and occur spontaneously in any human society. Property rights not only exist because they are desirable, they exist because they are required. What can be debated is the specific applications and nature of property rights.

There is no such thing that happens with anything related to IP Law. There is no such thing as ‘owning a idea’ or ‘owning a concept’. It’s physically impossible.

The ONLY reasonable defense for IP law is based on a argument of expediency. That human society is wealthier, better off, with IP law then without it. That supporting IP law will invariably end up with the ‘Greatest Good for the Greatest Number’ type thing. Yet this is something that so-called Pro-IP libertarians seem to steadfastly refuse to debate about. Because, you know, something like that requires actual evidence and careful consideration.

Going the intellectually lazy route and continue to equate IP law with property rights.. then get all hand-wavy, diversionary, and pseudo-spiritual is all that IP fascists have a seem to have when their logical fallacies are challenged.