Stephan Kinsella has cast doubt on the legitimacy of intellectual property (PDF). Today, Slashdot describes moves by the U.S. to establish a global intellectual-property plan. Murray Rothbard argued that (real) property rights were universal but should be locally enforced. Do these creepy global initiatives (like the “Global Intellectual Property Rights Academy”) suggest that intellectual property rights cannot be locally enforced and therefore are questionable? Could it be, on the other hand, that the U.S. need not go galactic on this issue and that intellectual property rights really could be locally enforced? If a man cut off from civilization in the middle of a forest quietly re-invents the mouse trap is it a patent violation? Do we need global cops to find him and stop him?
Source link: http://archive.mises.org/4122/ip-and-global-government/
IP and Global Government
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Global initiatives are needed to protect intellectual property because intellectual property rights can be violated anywhere. Traditional property rights are tied to tangible things, and so a potential violator must be in the vicinity of the actual thing, making local enforcement more practical.
It’s depressing that someone needs to explain this to an economics forum.
- Josh
Precisely and well said. So doesn’t it bother you at all that “intellectual property rights can be violated anywhere”? If you follow my link to Kinsella’s paper you’ll see his argument that intellectual property rights are not compatible with “traditional property rights”. I think the fact that intellectual property rights cannot be enforced locally raises another question about their legitimacy. What sort of right is it that asks godlike powers to see that it is properly enforced? Do intellectual property rights imply that we have the “right” to see all and know all so that we can know “anywhere” they are enforced? Do intellectual property rights require a global empire to enforce them? (And do we, therefore, have a “right” to a global empire to back up our intellectual property rights?)
There is no such thing as “intellectual property”.
Property assumes exclusive ovnership, and ownership of material object is exclusive because of physical impossibility of having the same object in several places at once.
Information has no such limitation. There is no natural exclusive law of ownership for information (at least for classical systems; in quantum world there’s “no cloning”, meaning that, like material objects, quantum states may be exclusive by their nature).
“Intellectual property” is merely an euphemism for “government-granted monopoly”. Like any monopoly, it is deleterious. It is depressing that most people cannot comprehend this simple fact of life.
As an aside, it was Kinsella’s paper that convinced me some months ago that the idea of property rights is unjust and groundless, converting me from quasi-Objectivism to full-bore market anarchism.
Notice that none of these global IP advocates care a whit about traditional property rights. What does that tell you?
Are you talking about any, including tangible, property, Roy? How did Kinsella convinced you to oppoese private property? Isn’t market anarchism about property?
Ha! Good catch. I meant intellectual property. Sorry.
Mr. Kinsella’s paper also convinced me that the idea of “intellectual property” is absurd and destructive towards real property rights, back when I first read it some months ago.
Just look at the terminology used the music industry executives these days. They’re all robber-barons now, no longer interested in free exchange, in working to please customers, in working to sell a quality product, or any of those old-fashioned ideas. Instead, it’s all about “revenue streams”, “licensing”, “copy protection”, and so on. They’ve lost the ability to think in terms that respect their customers.
The latest comments by Edgar Bronfman Jr. (CEO of Warner Music) are a good example. He thinks that Apple “owes” the music industry a share of their revenue from selling the iPod. He neglects to mention that his crooked cronies have instituted special music-industry taxes on the iPod in many countries.
Stephen,
Kinsella has written a brilliant treatise on a very difficult subject that I will have to read a few more times to fully appreciate.
What it has already confirmed, however, is something I’ve been blogging on for some time, and that’s how a true Social Contract (that all would-be members of a free society must sign in order to for their right to life, liberty, and property to be protected) would preclude third party status at the outset, as all each would be contractually obligated to the other.
Exactly how this would play out with regard to intellectual property, however, I don’t know. Would it preclude it altogether, or would it be established over time by legal precedent (the settling of what would always be contract disputes)? I guess that would depend on the wording of the Social Contract.
Your thoughts? Anybody’s?
So doesn’t it bother you at all that “intellectual property rights can be violated anywhere”?
Of course it bothers me, which is why initiatives to curb intellectual property violations are good.
If you follow my link to Kinsella’s paper you’ll see his argument that intellectual property rights are not compatible with “traditional property rights”.
An argument I reject, mostly because traditional property rights are more highly bounded than libertarians believe or wish to believe they are.
I think the fact that intellectual property rights cannot be enforced locally raises another question about their legitimacy. What sort of right is it that asks godlike powers to see that it is properly enforced?
What about the “godlike” powers needed to enforce traditional property? Surely, the idea that every pencil in my office and every speck of ground I live on can be defended to the death with absolute force requires something approaching omnipotence itself, does it not?
The rest of your bizarre response raises the question: if neighbourhood watches are okay, why is it wrong to coordinate defence of IP rights?
- Josh
Of course it bothers me, which is why initiatives to curb intellectual property violations are good.
So if I want to share my data in a private transaction with a friend, you think you have the right to butt in and make sure no IP violations are going on?
What about the “godlike” powers needed to enforce traditional property?
Are you purposely being dense? Any man can defend his own property without the state, and without going around looking for people to beat up. I don’t need godlike powers to protect the wallet in my pocket. I don’t have to go ransack other people’s homes to protect my own home.
This is not true of patents and copyrights. Artificial restrictions on copying things cannot exist without some sort of intrusive state, and every aspect of other people’s lives and property must be monitored to prevent copyright infringement. The only way to stop me from copying data is to control my computer and take its ownership away from me.
Anyone who wants to tell me what information I can and cannot copy with my own property can go to the devil.
I think it’s important to represent Rothbard’s position accurately. In Man, Economy, and State, he indicates that he is in favor of copyright law but opposed to patent law. His reasoning is that if two people independently create very similar ideas, each is protected under copyright law whereas the first to apply for a patent would be given preference at the expense of the second under patent law. Universal application of the copyright standard would protect the theft of original ideas but not exclude similar but independently created ideas.
As I understood it, Rothbard suggested that copyright could exist as a sort of contract between buyer and seller. I’m not sure I agree that slapping “Copyright 2005″ on the cover of a book is sufficient to create a binding agreement on the part of the purchaser, but the idea is at least defensible.
This is nowhere near the position of the global IP advocates. They insist on the right to impose restrictions even on third parties who never purchased an “official” copy and could not be said to have agreed to anything.
I agree Doug: Rothbard was in favour of copyright laws and he made a pretty good argument for it. Other great libertarian thinkers have also staunchly advocated copyright laws such as Lysander Spooner, as pointed out by Wendy McElroy in “INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY: Copyright and Patent in Liberty”. However, in my mind, the arguments against copyright law now seem overpowering. It stems from the fundamental definition and utility of the concept of property in the first place. Scarcity is the key. In addition to Kinsella, read also McElroy’s article on this topic. The fact that Benjamin Tucker, who was mentored by Spooner, disagreed so strongly with him on this topic makes the topic even more interesting.
The link to that article is http://www.zetetics.com/mac/libdebates/ch6intpr.html
The problems with copyright are twofold; 1) The term of copyright has been extended WAY past that which the founders envisioned, and: 2) Government acts as an enforcer for whatever interpretation of copyright law the record companies can get away with. It’s so bad now that an attorney, Ray Beckerman has found it so easy to defend against the mostly groundless filesharing suits being filed by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA)he says he will take as many clients as he can get; http://www.libertyguys.org/articles/detail.asp?ArtID=913
So if I want to share my data in a private transaction with a friend, you think you have the right to butt in and make sure no IP violations are going on?
If it’s your data, why should I care? If it’s someone else’s data, absolutely.
Artificial restrictions on copying things cannot exist without some sort of intrusive state . . .
Artificial restrictions on access to natural resources cannot exist without some sort of intrusive state . . .
Neither one makes sense to me.
BTW, the devil gets a bad rap; he’s the good guy in the Bible.
- Josh
The phrase “someone else’s data” is pure question-begging. By what reasoning does a string of 1s and 0s residing on my hard drive inherently belong to anyone but me?
I think the argument must delve down to a discussion of property:
Tucker wrote:
“If it were possible, and if it had always been possible, for an unlimited number of individuals to use to an unlimited extent and in an unlimited number of places the same concrete thing at the same time, there would never have been any such thing as the institution of property.”
McElroy elaborates:
“This argument had direct implications for copyright and patent. A public idea was not a scarce good, as it could be used by an unlimited number of individuals to an unlimited extent and in an unlimited number of places. According to Tucker, this meant that intellectual property as a natural right ran counter to the very purpose for which the idea property evolved.”
The concept of property evolved due to scarcity. It had and has no relevance to ideas that have been made generally public and are hence not scarce.
I think the Broken Window analogy applies here.
The high rate of illegal software piracy alleged by BSA does not take into account what is done with this illegal software. For if they were to investigate what it’s used for, the likely answer would be to engage in E-Commerce.
In fact, the software as a commodity model (service) as opposed to product (good) model, actually has increased wealth and productivity. Which is precisely why some of the biggest companies are behind Linux.
It seems to me that protecting Copyright is legitimate. I believe that taking someone’s work and slapping your name on it is criminal. But, copyright has absolutely no need to be enforced by a monopolist.
It’s amazing that while the rate of technological advances has increased, so has the length of copyright enforcement. This is completely backwards. Hollywood is just about the biggest joke. Here is an industry that emerged by repeatedly violating “intellectual property” rights in the first place.
Taking Hoppe’s insurance ideas, one can obtain copyright protection in a decentralized matter, without needing a monopolist.
If it’s your data, why should I care? If it’s someone else’s data, absolutely.
How the heck can someone else’s data be on my computer? The arrangement of magnetic particles on my hard disk is mine no matter what information they may symbolize.
Again, I don’t see why you insist on the right to intrude on my computer, my data, and my private transactions with other individuals. That is clearly contrary to the basic human right to own property.
I believe that taking someone’s work and slapping your name on it is criminal.
That’s not copyright violation, that’s plagiarism. It’s wrong if you intend to re-sell it and cheat your buyer as to the nature of the item you’re selling. If you just do it for your amusement, who cares? The topic has been discussed here before.
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