It is MY idea, after all, even if I didn’t come up with it first!

In which case, by enforcing the patent, the inventor is preventing GE from recouping the costs of their own labor and research. In which case, how can you justify granting the inventor exclusive rights to their work, just because he managed to solve the puzzle first?

Patent defenders keep saying this, but they never cite studies, nor provide logic, demonstrating that this is the case, and that other innovation isn’t harmed.

How many mathematics theorems remain unproved, for example, because you can’t–and shouldn’t–patent them? Who’s to say that the world wouldn’t be a better place, because we encourage people to be inventors by giving them patents, and thus, by default, discourage them from mathematical pursuits? (After all, time is scarce!)

And no, you shouldn’t patent mathematics, and I doubt that patents would be useful anyway. It often takes decades, if ever, to find application for a given theorem, and by then, the patent period would have expired anyway.

This entire discussion is based on an article which posits we would be better off without medical patents (clearly the world that isn’t).

Personally, I try to avoid debates whether IP is “good” or “bad”. I only address specific claims and the logical errors in them.

Your “logic” in the most recent post purposely and entirely misses the point of what I have said.

It does not. I don’t care whether you personally think that IP is good or bad. The point is that you are using flawed arguments to support your position.

Above, you say that we have no definition of “intellectual property,” but both Wildberry and I have clearly stated that we are talking about “original ideas.”

First of all, “original ideas” is a metaphor, it’s not a scientific definition, because it is impossible to evaluate meanigfully. As I said, idea is a specific state of one’s brain. Let us say that some of them (“originals”) should receive special treatment. So, my question is, why should that have an effect on rights on objects that are outside of human’s brain? Logically, those objects are not the original idea. So, the “explanation” is a non-sequitur.

The implied assumption in the pro-IP argument is that some acts of other people are causally related to that idea (e.g. “copies”, or “derivatives”). Again, my question is: why is this relevant? Plenty of acts are causally related to ideas yet noone argues that they are relevant from the view of property rights.

Furthermore, Wildberry claims that IP is not about ideas, but about expressions of ideas. That would seem to contradict the definition.

You dismiss this because the definition is just some “particular state of a brain” as opposed to having a mental copy of the idea;

Not really, that misses my point. My point is that this contradicts property rights in scarce goods. Since you do support property rights in scarce goods (like crops or people’s bodies), you are contradicting yourself.

… it has no intrinsic value because it is not a “scarce good.

This is a misrepresentation of my argument. I never said that ideas do not have value. Rather, I said they are covered by property rights in human body (brains). If you simultaneously claim that they are covered by other property rights too, the claim is either redundant or contradicts the former claim. Furthermore, rights are not based on values of goods, so the claim is a non-sequitur anyway.

If “original work” holds no value, I ask if universities should do away with rules against plagiarism.

Again, I did not say “original work” holds no value. I cannot speak for universities since I am not one. The rules against plagiarism have nothing to do with “value” of the copied text. Their purpose is to give meaning to the accreditation. If the student was allowed to plagiarise, the accreditation would be less meaningful, the university would be ignored and lose customers. But plagiarism is not the only feature relevant for the accreditation. Passing of exams is as well. But if I pass an exam because I learned from a stolen book, for example, the theft is completely irrelevant to the accreditation.

You correctly realise that it is the university’s opinion, rather than the plagiarised author’s opinion, that determines whether there is a “problem” or not. If you for example correctly cited from a stolen book (including references, attribution and so on), again this would have no effect on the accreditation.

So you have still not provided a coherent explanation of your position.

You attempt to dismiss this as “ethics” and suggest that it is “fraud” to present another’s ideas as your own.

I though I explained my position clearly, but apparently not. Whether the example I mentioned is fraud depends on the agreement between the copier and buyer, rather than the author and the copier. The author’s opinion is, indeed, irrelevant. If the sale is a fraud, it is the buyer, rather than the author, who is defrauded.

Clearly, there is a distinction to be made between original and copied work.

Of course there is. I never claimed that there wasn’t. On the contrary, you could say with a bit of exaggeration that this is the core of my argument. Since there is a distinction between the original and the copy, there is no reason to assume that whoever owns the original has any rights to the copies.

and your refusal to see this reality that all humans instinctively recognize is where your “science” falls apart.

I believe that I have presented a clear, legible and coherent explanation of my position, and explained why you haven’t. Now, I might be wrong. But in order to prove that, you need to refute my arguments.

Most importantly, economics is the study of what is, rather than what should be. This question is outside of the scope of economics and in the realm of ethics.

Oh, please, spare me the “scientific high ground” attitude! This entire discussion is based on an article which posits we would be better off without medical patents (clearly the world that isn’t). Your “logic” in the most recent post purposely and entirely misses the point of what I have said.

Since you spent more time on the question of plagiarism, you can see your own circular logic at work, here: Above, you say that we have no definition of “intellectual property,” but both Wildberry and I have clearly stated that we are talking about “original ideas.” You dismiss this because the definition is just some “particular state of a brain” as opposed to having a mental copy of the idea; it has no intrinsic value because it is not a “scarce good.” If “original work” holds no value, I ask if universities should do away with rules against plagiarism. You attempt to dismiss this as “ethics” and suggest that it is “fraud” to present another’s ideas as your own. Clearly, there is a distinction to be made between original and copied work, and your refusal to see this reality that all humans instinctively recognize is where your “science” falls apart.

It depends on whether the seller considers the authorship of the work to be a relevant factor for the good.

Should be buyer and not seller.

To understand one possible explanation, let’s turn things around by asking this; how do we feel about someone who takes the work of others and attributes it to himself?

Exactly my point. In your imaginationland, feelings take precedence over logic. Then fly there and stop posting here.

I believe that even Kinsella has conceded this point on the basis of his agreement that an author owns his original manuscript before he attempts to disclose it to others.

The author also owns the manuscript after disclosure. So your whole argument is a non-sequitur. Illogical claims like this are the reason why a debate with you is impossible to conclude.

it looks like you still don’t comprehend the questions I’m asking and the problems I am describing.

Based on your logic above, should it be permissible for a masters or doctorate student to copy the work of another and present it as his/her own?

Most importantly, economics is the study of what is, rather than what should be. This question is outside of the scope of economics and in the realm of ethics.

However, I can explain how to interpret the situation based on the theories developed by Rothbard/Evers/Hoppe/Kinsella.

We need to analyse the following subparts of the situation:
- did the student manufacture the copy in violation of property rights or in accordance with them? For example, did he have trespass or steal the original manuscript, ink, paper, computer? In the typical case, the answer would be no, so there would be no violation of property rights.
- did he violate contractual relationships by manufacturing the copy? For example, did his university’s rules say that plagiarism leads to invalidation of the title or credits or even expulsion? In the typical case, the answer would be yes. While this is not a violation of property rights per se, it leads to the student not being able to achieve the desired outcome.
- did he accurately present the nature of the good to people he was trying to sell it to (other than the university)? In the typical case, this could be either. It depends on whether the seller considers the authorship of the work to be a relevant factor for the good. But let’s for argument’s sake assume that the buyer would consider the authorship to be relevant, in which case the student would be perpetrating fraud.

By merging the three situations into a label “IP” one distracts from the question of property rights.

If the creator of an idea has no “ownership” or no unique imprint upon it, why is Einstein’s theory of relativity important to attribute to him?

Because that is how we communicate. You also say “my job”, “my wife”, “my customers” although there is no right derived from these relationships.

Why can’t I just write “energy equals mass times the square of the speed of light” and present it is as my own idea?

Of course you can do that. Depending on context, it might be entirely legal, or it might be a consequence of trespass/theft, or it can be fraud. There is nothing specific in that claim that would explain why it must be a violation of property rights.

After all, it does no monetary harm to Einstein, right?

Avoiding “monetary harm” is not a right. Again, depending on context, it can be legal or illegal.

Or, if ideas are just the varied states of our brain, why have a Mises Institute?

Because when viewed from a different perspective, some ideas are valuable and/or useful. But this does not mean that that different perspective is relevant from the point of view of property rights. There are no rights in values or usefulness.

Why is attribution of an idea worth keeping if copyright is not? Or is it?

You are mixing together two unrelated points of view. Austrian economics (the dominant views at least) is based on the rights in physical integrity of objects, rather than values thereof.

IP opponents suggest there is no “natural law” that we can point to which supports the position.

A lot of IP proponents, however, claim that there is. After a couple of posts, it turned out that you are not one of them.

Earlier, I asked if an inventor should have a reasonable expectation to monetary reward for his invention.

Since an inventor is able to sell his invention regardless of IP, the question is based on a flawed assumption (like “have you stopped beating your wife”). The best you can do is to claim that with IP, he will receive more. However, since IP is a redistributive policy, there is no apriori reason why this should be the case. Just like a specific inventor in a specific case might have a bigger profit because his revenue increased, another inventor might have a lower profit because his costs increased.

Furthermore, as I said above, economics is about what is rather than what should be.

Peter’s reply above is to construct a “scarce goods” analogy, explain that I have a mistaken view of labor, and otherwise not answer the question he deems irrelevant.

My reply is that you have not presented a coherent set of rules how to evaluate whether a situation is a violation or rights or not. Your argument is based on the labour theory of value. However, you do not seem to advocate the labour theory of value in other situations. So your claim is incoherent.

But the answer, for most people, is simply, “Yes.”

Because the question is vague. I can also demonstrate the opposite propensity by asking people if inventors should be allowed to steal. Intuitively, most people would answer “no”. But that does not prove or disprove IP. It only shows how metaphors are unsuitable for a scientific discourse.

Clearly, many of our property rights have arbitrary distinctions from many points of view. The earth, clay, grass, and stone under my front yard is pretty much the same as the earth, clay, grass and stone under my next-door neighbor’s. There is no river between our “property.” There is no natural barrier – the barrier is drawn on a map and observed by mankind. The squirrels know no difference. Humans make the distinction between which is my property and which is my neighbor’s. Similarly, if I have a computer identical to another person’s, one is mine and one is not. We have a set of rules for ownership of what is mine and why it is mine and why there is even a concept of “mine.”

And yet, the opponents of IP are unwilling to draw a line between an original work and a copy of it. Is it an arbitrary line? Yes, to the squirrels.

You are clearly a thoughtful person.

IP opponents suggest there is no “natural law” that we can point to which supports the position. I think you are starting to zero in on it, here.
However, I still maintain that IP protections in a legal/public enforcement construct should have a time limit. This in and of itself negates copyright as a “natural right.” Even if every new idea a particular inventor had was released to public domain, we would attribute the “best” ideas to that inventor (assuming we knew they were his/her original idea). We still refer to the “Franklin Stove,” although he did not directly profit from it. This tells me that humans naturally put value on unique and particularly useful original ideas.

Natural law arguments are merely one way to arrive at the justifiability for something like IP. In any case, I believe, and have tried to explain elsewhere on this blog, that it is possible to “prove” that something like IP is consistent with a natural rights theory on the basis of self-ownership, and owning the products of one’s own means of production. I believe that even Kinsella has conceded this point on the basis of his agreement that an author owns his original manuscript before he attempts to disclose it to others.

From that point forward, you are really shifting to an economic argument, in which I’m currently attempting to engage Kinsella. (see here:http://blog.mises.org/16873/copyright-and-the-end-of-internet-freedom/comment-page-1/#comment-779712)

The point being made by natural rights advocates, as this applied to opposition to IP, is that if IP was a natural right, then the term should be forever, like the right to own land. Of course the problem is that all rights have limits. You do not have a right to life indefinitely. As they say, no one gets outa here alive. Even the sacred cow of property rights in land is not perpetual. You only own it until you die. You can pass it on by operation of will, but there are limits to that too (see Rule Against Perpetuities). So I disagree, it does not negate the natural rights to IP. If there is a natural right to IP, it is the same natural right one has to his own production, and for the same reasons. In my view, they are entirely consistent.

Why limit the term then? That is an economic question, not a moral or “natural rights” issue. In short, as with most laws and social policies, the boundaries between two things in conflict is most often a fuzzy line. In the case of IP, you have the following conflicting claims to deal with; 1) the producer’s expectation to benefit from his own production and 2) the public’s expectation that they have access to the latest and greatest works of creation and innovation, to knowledge and technology and art and literature.

The bargain of IP is public disclosure in exchange for some period of property rights in what is publicly disclosed. If the right lasted forever, the public domain would eventually be privately owned and the public policy of access would be defeated. If the term is zero, the producer’s expectation of benefit for work is destroyed. People don’t work for free on purpose, so if you want more of something you need a profit motive operating in a free market. We can say that the term is therefore somewhere between, but not equal to either zero or infinity.

How long should the term be, and why is it the way it is? My answer is rent-seeking mercantilism driven by a legislative bias. There are some good reasons to say that the current terms are too long in some (or most) cases, given the velocity of the markets and the capabilities of modern technology. Perhaps more on that later.

Earlier, I asked if an inventor should have a reasonable expectation to monetary reward for his invention. This is not a right or an entitlement question. You are answering, “Yes, I believe an inventor has a reasonable expectation of profit from a new idea or invention.” That is also my answer. Peter’s reply above is to construct a “scarce goods” analogy, explain that I have a mistaken view of labor, and otherwise not answer the question he deems irrelevant.

I no longer take Peter seriously. You can make up your own mind. I started out with an open mind. I have no dog in the IP hunt. I’m not a writer or inventor. But I am convinced at this point that the principle of IP rights is fully consistent with libertarian thought and Austrian economic principles. That is not to say that all is well, only that the principles are legitimate and correct in my view.

But the answer, for most people, is simply, “Yes.” I am not saying that makes it the correct answer, or that it is even the best answer. As you note above, that’s what “feels” right. I believe that is the conclusion the American Founders came to in setting up a patent system for the early USA. Is it perfect? No. Is it harder to deal with than land titles and concrete goods? Yes. But even IP opponent Thomas Jefferson changed his position after seeing benefits of such an incentive to invent.

The founders, and especially Jefferson, were not stupid men, so I am always suspicious of those who just dismiss them as mercantilists or statists or whatever. No law that violates the moral and economic principles that run throughout our social, political, legal and economic systems and institutions could long survive. IP has been around for all that time, and has survived longer than say, slavery. You are right, that doesn’t mean it is correct, but that doesn’t mean it is wrong either. That is a distinction that we each individually make.

My approach is a little Reaganesk; trust your instincts, but verify.

However, I still maintain that IP protections in a legal/public enforcement construct should have a time limit. This in and of itself negates copyright as a “natural right.” Even if every new idea a particular inventor had was released to public domain, we would attribute the “best” ideas to that inventor (assuming we knew they were his/her original idea). We still refer to the “Franklin Stove,” although he did not directly profit from it. This tells me that humans naturally put value on unique and particularly useful original ideas.

Earlier, I asked if an inventor should have a reasonable expectation to monetary reward for his invention. This is not a right or an entitlement question. You are answering, “Yes, I believe an inventor has a reasonable expectation of profit from a new idea or invention.” That is also my answer. Peter’s reply above is to construct a “scarce goods” analogy, explain that I have a mistaken view of labor, and otherwise not answer the question he deems irrelevant.

But the answer, for most people, is simply, “Yes.” I am not saying that makes it the correct answer, or that it is even the best answer. As you note above, that’s what “feels” right. I believe that is the conclusion the American Founders came to in setting up a patent system for the early USA. Is it perfect? No. Is it harder to deal with than land titles and concrete goods? Yes. But even IP opponent Thomas Jefferson changed his position after seeing benefits of such an incentive to invent.

I think you ask excellent questions here.

There is a fascinating concept that comes out of David Friedman’s book, “Law’s Order”, which discusses this issue in the context of deriving economically efficient legal rules.

If you think about all the kinds of disputes that can come up between humans, you can put them into buckets along a logical continuum based on the way society and the legal system handles them.

For example, at the top you have crimes, which are punished by “paying” the state in fines or imprisonment or even execution. Then you have torts (trespass, nuisance, etc.) where the penalties are paid to the victim in terms of damages. Then contracts, which are enforced based on the intent and expectations of the parties.

Crimes are a public form of enforcement, while and torts and contracts are privately enforced.

At the other end of the spectrum, in the private enforcement realm, there is enforcement of a social norm. For example, I invite you to dinner and you say you’ll come then don’t. I cannot enforce that in contracts, or torts. But I can refuse to invite you to future dinners based on how I feel about you as a result of being snubbed.

Sometimes enforcement by social norms can displace the courts as a form of conflict resolution. The author uses a study done on a group of ranchers in Shasta County, California involving cattle, fences and trespass by your neighbor’s cows. Conflicts that could be enforced through the courts were enforced very effectively by a well-established set of rules concerning what ranchers are expected to do when their cows trespass, and what happens to people who don’t follow the established rules. Apparently, this is one kind of evidence that there are offenses and enforcements in society that never rise to the level of entailing a legal remedy, but they are important and effective nonetheless.

Some legal scholars say that no law can persist unless it has some support or foundation in social norms. If you start from the cows/ranchers and work your way up the continuum to say, murder, you can see that in every case there is an underlying principle in social norms, in addition to the legal system of prosecution and remedy/punishment. In some cases, as in the Shasta case, norms appear to be sufficient. In other cases, the offense is too minor to warrant legal remedy. But as the offense becomes more important, say where significant economic loss or individual safety is at stake, then the legal system may kick in to peacefully resolve conflicts.

Sorry, but I said all of that to say this: You raise the issue of attribution, and that we still attribute E-mc2 to Einstein, though we don’t legally have to even under copyrights principles. Yet we do; why?

To understand one possible explanation, let’s turn things around by asking this; how do we feel about someone who takes the work of others and attributes it to himself? The answer is obvious. Most of us, especially those of us who have a need or desire to be viewed as honest and respectful, do not want to be viewed as someone who is trying to benefit unfairly or unjustly from the work of others by claiming it for ourselves. Someone who does such things suffers a stigma placed on him by others. He is not to be trusted, he is trying to deceive us into thinking he is more than he actually is, or has accomplished more than he actually has. These are not traits that we generally value highly in our fellow human beings.

This is the social power of morality at work. One way we can test if something is morally wrong in the nominal sense of existing social norms, is to ask how we feel about someone who rips someone else off, even if their offense does not rise to the level of civil or criminal offense in the legal sense.

We seem to hold, as a society, that we should take responsibility for what we make of ourselves in this life, but that we should give credit and homage to the accomplishments of others. This principle insinuates itself throughout the continuum of human conflicts over property, including conflicts between those who produce original works of authorship and those who desire to benefit from them.

I think this is a least a clue for why the notion of abolishing any and all systems for enforcing that principle in the realm of copyrights and patents, meets such passionate resistance. It just seems wrong.

I happen to believe that our feelings about that are correct and just, in principle. If our existing legal system for dealing with that issue produces undesirable or unexpected outcomes, then revision is called for. But to sever the relationship between the maker and the user, violates some moral principle that we intuitively understand to be important.

As it happens, there are very important economic reasons for the rules too, but those rules are consistent with, not opposed to, our fundamental sense of what is moral and what is not.

I have already shown a willingness to learn, grow, and have changed my opinion on this topic in this very thread. To that end, it has been an excellent experience. However, to the extent this is a high school debate which has now centered on semantics, I take my leave.

If we are to continue a rational discussion of unique ideas, then how about this: Based on your logic above, should it be permissible for a masters or doctorate student to copy the work of another and present it as his/her own? If the creator of an idea has no “ownership” or no unique imprint upon it, why is Einstein’s theory of relativity important to attribute to him? Why can’t I just write “energy equals mass times the square of the speed of light” and present it is as my own idea? After all, it does no monetary harm to Einstein, right? Or, if ideas are just the varied states of our brain, why have a Mises Institute? Why is attribution of an idea worth keeping if copyright is not? Or is it?

If this were true, then of course it would be pointless to distinguish between a “good” idea and a “bad” one, “useful” or “worthless”, etc.

This is a non-sequitur. Actually, that are two non-sequiturs. The second one is the implied assumption that the distinction good/bad or useful/worthless is relevant from the point of view of property rights. Yet again, you are making up stuff on the fly.

I think you are yet again confused by thinking that reinterpreting a phenomenon from a different point of view proves that there are two distinct phenomena.

If you want to disprove my claim, then show me an example of an idea that is not embedded in one’s brain. Logic, rather than emotions, is the foundation of a scientific discourse.

To reduce language to a meaningless, absurd, nothingness makes it possible to say everything is a contradiction. In such a meaningless world, anything that appears to carry meaning is a contradiction to this meaningless state.

On the contrary, Wildberry. If one uses vague claims, like you do, then it is pointless to debate, due to principle of explosion, as I elaborated earlier. I also demonstrated it recently, where you claimed that if you make something, then it is yours, but neglected to notice that this can be interpreted in a way that the copy belongs to the copier.

It is somewhat like trying to communicate with a drunken monkey. The best strategy is don’t try. There are plenty of people here who can be rational and coherent, like you.

You have yet to provide a coherent claim, after many months. You ignore the flow of the debate and repeat misinterpretations and refuted claims. You complain that you don’t understand, yet never explain what exactly you don’t understand or ask for a clarification. And, now you appeal to emotions and metaargue. Yet again you have exhausted your repertoire, leaving the last available act for the finale, which is cowardly running away.

I believe IP is a key incentive for innovation. You do not.

What you or me believe is irrelevant. My point is that your arguments are flawed. Beliefs do not fix flawed logic.

You believe your stance is rationally superior.

I believe my take is a coherent, falsifiable claim. That does not make it correct, but it makes it superiour vis-a-vis an incoherent, unfalsifiable one. I explained multiple times, on multiple occasions (albeit maybe not directly towards you), how my arguments could be refuted, should they be incorrect.

When you refuse to see a difference between a secret and a publicly shared idea (or simply dismiss the notion as contradictory), we have nothing left to discuss.

I never said that. You have not taken the sufficient time to analyse my claim. My claim is not that there is no difference, but that you fail to explain why the difference is relevant from the point of view of property rights.

In a more abstract take, IP contradicts property rights in scarce goods. It is IP proponents who claim that they should be valid simultaneously. You said, for example, that taking crops is theft. Then, logically, IP is theft too, because all it does is expropriate media. To disprove this, you would need to show a way of interacting with ideas without the use of media.

For my argument’s validity it is completely irrelevant which of the two claims takes precedence. Even if I, for example, argued that book writers should have a right to prevent other people from copying them (while not explaining the rest of my theory of rights), you would still be contradicting yourself.

I have now witnessed this precise outcome from over a half-dozen posters here so far, including me. It is pointless. To add yet another unnecessary example, consider this:

Peter says:

What is an idea? It is merely a specific state of one’s brain.

If this were true, then of course it would be pointless to distinguish between a “good” idea and a “bad” one, “useful” or “worthless”, etc. After all, an idea is simply one state of brain matter compared to all the infinite states that are possible.

To reduce language to a meaningless, absurd, nothingness makes it possible to say everything is a contradiction. In such a meaningless world, anything that appears to carry meaning is a contradiction to this meaningless state.

It is somewhat like trying to communicate with a drunken monkey. The best strategy is don’t try. There are plenty of people here who can be rational and coherent, like you.

I thought you were genuinely interested in analysing the concept of IP. Apparently, you are not. We both lose.