1) Sign a contract with whomever you submit the work to to not make copies or distribute it in any way. If they don’t want to sign the contract, don’t deal with them – deal with more reputable publishers. If they do sign the contract and break it, sue them for breaking the contract for the amount specified in the contract itself.

2) Yes, someone could do that, which takes time and effort. But you’re failing to consider empirical examples of where copyright-free material was published and where the first publisher still benefited from simply being the first publisher. Further, you could trademark your book (which, unlike copyrights or patents, is considered a form of fraud if used by the non-owner) and only deal with people who only sell trademarked copies of your book, and help persuade others to do the same – this is similar to what the NCAA does with officially-branded school goods (look at the holographic stickers they use). If retailer has a reputation for peddling non-official goods, then voluntary sanctions can be used against it to convince it that it needs to play by whatever rules society thinks appropriate – all without violating the non-aggression axiom.

3) You don’t seem to know the difference between copyright and trademark. Trademarks are used to clearly identify the producers of the good, whereas copyrights are on the goods themselves. Trademarks have no intrinsic value.

4) No, because you’re committing fraud against the customers at that point, which is in violation of the non-aggression axiom. You cannot purport to provide a specific service and not do so. This is, however, unlike the current IP world where trademark violations are considered trespassing upon the owner of the trademark and not the consumers who are mislead.

5) Probably, which is why I base everything off of the non-aggression axiom and generally ignore utilitarian arguments. It’s nice if the right thing to do leads to everyone being better off, but that’s just a side effect, and the right thing to do is the right thing to do regardless.

The Internet is making more alternatives viable. For some time now, I’ve been studying and practicing cyberfunded creativity. Instead of selling material to an editor or gallery owner or whatnot, creators market it directly to their online audience. There are many different models in effect — some use subscriptions, some use donations, and so forth. Audience interaction tends to be high.

You can read discussions about this on the LiveJournal community “Cyberfunded Creativity” including links to some popular projects:
http://community.livejournal.com/cyberfund_creat
If you want to see an example in action, drop by “The Wordsmith’s Forge” for the monthly Poetry Fishbowl (click “fishbowl” or “poem” tags for previous samples):
http://ysabetwordsmith.livejournal.com/

The Internet is making more alternatives viable. For some time now, I’ve been studying and practicing cyberfunded creativity. Instead of selling material to an editor or gallery owner or whatnot, creators market it directly to their online audience. There are many different models in effect — some use subscriptions, some use donations, and so forth. Audience interaction tends to be high.

You can read discussions about this on the LiveJournal community “Cyberfunded Creativity” including links to some popular projects:
http://community.livejournal.com/cyberfund_creat
If you want to see an example in action, drop by “The Wordsmith’s Forge” for the monthly Poetry Fishbowl (click “fishbowl” or “poem” tags for previous samples):
http://ysabetwordsmith.livejournal.com/

1. Assuming a world without IP, imagine I am a novelist. I submit my manuscript to a publisher. Couldn’t he sent me a rejection notice, remove my name from the manuscript, substitute his and publish my (now his) novel retaining all the profits for himself? In fact, couldn’t the same scenario be played out by anyone to whom I submit my manuscript, be he agent, editor or the secretary who opens the publisher’s mail? Though unethical, perhaps, wouldn’t these behaviors be perfectly legal in a no-IP world?

2. Assuming a world without IP, and in order to avoid the behaviors above, imagine I decide to self-edit and self-publish my novel. Couldn’t the very first person who buys my self-published book do exactly what the publisher did in my example above? In order to prevent such behavior, wouldn’t I have to flood the market with the first printing of my book in order to maximize my profits, which would entail a huge capital investment? [Obviously, the current practice of self-publishing a small number of books in hopes of attracting the interest of a major publisher would be a fool's errand in a world without IP.]

3. Is there a clear distinction between trademark and copyright? (Boldrin/Levine are vague on the subject.) For instance, imagine I formed a trademarked company the whole purpose of which was to sell my novel. Then, imagine this trademarked company published my novel under its trademark. In a no-IP world, would my trademarked company protect my rights to my novel as tangible property?

4. Speaking of trademarks and tangible property, assume a no-IP world and imagine a restaurant opens. This trademarked restaurant has a unique concept and is extremely profitable. Obviously, as in our current IP world, imitators opening under different names and trademarks would soon abound in a no-IP world. However, in a no-IP world could imitators open an exact duplicate of this restaurant with exactly the same name and trademark? If so, why? And if not, how is the trademark protection for this restaurant different from copyright protection on a novel?

5. Boldrin/Levine and Tucker seem to rely on the utilitarian principle of the greater good for the greater number when advocating the demise of IP. In a no-IP world, certain creative individuals would have to be satisfied earning a little less off of their creations in order that society at large may enjoy a faster pace of technological progress and cheaper access to a greater variety of art and entertainment. However, couldn’t this same argument be turned against the concept of private tangible property?

Imagine a time when oil is in severely short supply. Imagine a rich landholder who owns thousands of square miles of land under which lie undeveloped oil resources. For his own reasons, be they environmental or merely crazy, this landowner refuses to develop these oil resources to their full potential. Isn’t society at large the worse off for protecting this landowner’s unlimited tangible property rights? Shouldn’t society be able to limit this individual’s tangible property ownership rights to some reasonable acreage so as to benefit the greater number?

Certainly this landowner has profited greatly from the oil resources he has developed already. Like Bill Gates, he’s rich enough. Certainly he wouldn’t miss the extra income he would lose by society nationalizing a portion of his property and developing its undeveloped resources? Certainly society, as a result, would enjoy more rapid and more expanded technological progress.

What say you Kinsella and Tucker?

“Of course without IP rights, the Publisher could just publish it without your permission since you couldn’t own it.”

…and as a consequence the author is going to be very discriminating about which publisher he selects.

Without IP rights the artist doesn’t get to pick a sole publisher. His works will soon be ripped and copied by others. I don’t see how this gives any more incentive to be more discriminating than with IP in place.

For people above who in ignorance criticize us for using the Attribution license instead of just “putting it in the public domain”–there is no reliable way to do this. See my blog posts hereand here regarding this.

Yes, I’d seen at least one of your blog posts, but in the Wikipedia article you reference, it has a quote:

Although Computer Associates only mentioned the issue in passing, Nimmer observes that the public domain is particularly rich and valuable for computer programs. He seems to say that a computer program author who wishes to release his work into the public domain may either include it in a book as example code or post it on a “bulletin board” and encourage sharing and distribution. (Nimmer is the treatise most widely cited in copyright opinions, and is generally authoritative)

Publishing work to a website is more “shared and distributed” than either a book or an old-school bulletin board.”

But, again, it’s beside the point. If “CC 3.0″ is a valid, non-revokable license, then you could just as easily make a valid, non-revokable license that had the same effect as public domain — with no requirements, attribution or otherwise.

This misunderstands copyright law. It is Federal Law that upon authoring a work, a copyright is created. There is no method under Federal Law by which an author can “place into the public domain” his work. The Creative Commons licenses *must* use copyright law as its basis, because that is the legal environment in which we operate. It would be unwise to merely ignore copyright law, just as it would be unwise to ignore tax law.

Yet software is often explicitly placed into the public domain.

If “CC 3.0″ is a valid license, you could just as easily create a license that has all the effects of public domain without any restrictions whatsoever. A lot of software is issued with exactly that type of license.

This misunderstands copyright law. It is Federal Law that upon authoring a work, a copyright is created. There is no method under Federal Law by which an author can “place into the public domain” his work. The Creative Commons licenses *must* use copyright law as its basis, because that is the legal environment in which we operate. It would be unwise to merely ignore copyright law, just as it would be unwise to ignore tax law.

So why not simplify it?

As I mentioned in a previous post, no can own or copyright an idea per-se—nor can one do so with knowledge. Property is the result of work; either one’s own, or someone else’s. However, when one takes isolated ideas and groups them together in a certain way; in a particular order and fashion that is distinct and personal to him—he creates a new unit. All those ideas that have been previously isolated and continue to be so outside of his work, once formulated by the power of his mind, constitute a new whole. This does not mean that the individual ideas, concepts, information, or knowledge used therein are his property and cannot be used by others—what it means is that the new whole, the particular combination he has attained, is his property and cannot be replicated without consent.

Just because an author is using concepts—non-material units—for raw materials and not steel, concrete or any other physical commodity does it mean that he should not own the end result of his effort? And can you really claim that the end result of his work is only the PHYSICAL book and naught more? After all, what has he been toiling over all those years—binding and pressing papers, or contemplating concepts and grouping them into logical units, glued together by coherence and his unique style of expression?

Just as the mason, whose workplace is physical, would own the house his hands have built—should not a writer, whose workspace is conceptual, own the structure his mind erected?

So if you have worked hard to infer certain truths which the author happened to demonstrate in his book, or even if you have exerted your mental faculties to grasp the contents of his very book, it does not mean that the author now owns the ideas in your mind—you obviously own them because you have worked to put them there, and you are free to use them and express them in any way you wish. However, you are not free to appropriate the author’s expression—even if you memorized his entire text.

Ideas DO NOT equal their expression, formulation, or presentation—even though many of us may hold the same truths in our minds, we all have our own way of explaining and expressing them. If we wish to repeat or paraphrase someone else’s expression—would cite or credit them. Why? Because we acknowledge their work and the fact that even though the idea is equally ours—the expression is theirs.

The thing that concerns me most about the anti-IP arguments presented herein is that they all seem to do away with the process of creation and its significance–regarding man-made creations once revealed to the world as equally metaphysical as the rocks and leaves…

Now, as a foot note, I do hope that this post is going to be answered intelligently and not ignored as my previous lengthily posts. Up to this point I have approached this debate as an exchange of ideas where everyone engaged is seeking to reach the truth, and gave most comments due time and consideration. Others arguing in favor of IP seem to have taken a similarly mature approach, taking the time to consider comments and trying to reason through them (even if not always successfully). However, those arguing against IP seem to have (mostly) confined themselves to being dismissive (bordering on elusive), while at times seemingly aiming at ridicule rather than intelligent discourse.

As for myself, I have been curious to hear the case for anti-IP and was open to challenging my own convictions. However, none of the arguments offered thus far withstood my deconstruction, nor were my counterarguments counteracted. Seeing as much confusion on both side has resulted from the use of analogies on the practical lever—I have sought in this post to bring the matter down to the level of principle, and to two fundamental questions:

1. Is a man entitled to the result of his work, and
2. Is he then entitled to set the terms under which he is willing to trade it?

These questions are at the root of the discussion, and I think that at this point, if we are not to talk in vain, we should strive to focus on the roots.

This would my last attempt to engage in this discourse intelligently, and if again it goes unanswered, I can only conclude that those arguing against IP simply have no answers and stop wasting my time. Those who care can keep on playing in the sand box…

====================================

jeffrey said:

“Would Rowling be poorer or richer? I don’t think there is any way to know. But the main thing is that the world be a better place.”

So much for the ‘individual’ as the standard of value…

Something many authors may not be aware of is the fact that publishing for free under Creative Commons does not mean working for nothing.

In the last year or two, I have read all or part of a number of novels by Cory Doctorow and Charles Stross (two I can think of offhand) by downloading the full text from their websites. And then, having determined that I like the book, I’ve gone ahead and ordered it from a retailer. I wrote to Stross to thank him for letting me download Accelerando so I could confirm it was worth buying, and he replied that he hears that a lot: People who download his books tend to go on to buy them.

It’s the same with the many O’Reilly technical books: I can download many of them from the Web (some even legally) and then I buy the ones I determine I will actually use. I certainly buy more books as a result of intelligently evaluating the contents than I would if I had to drive over an hour to the nearest town with a Barnes & Noble, stand in the aisles, and page through a wall of books at once.

Maybe it’s counterintuitive to authors who have been indoctrinated that copyright == getting paid, but my experience is that creative use of Creative Commons licenses with share and reuse options leads to hard-copy book sales.

I don’t mean any offense, but these questions have been addressed ad nauseum in this and other threads. I suggest you read the book in question, “Against Intellectual Monopoly,” which addresses this and many other issues.

Really? So, the most successful business model in the publishing world would be to re-publish cheaper versions of popular books. They would have significantly lower operating costs if they didn’t have to pay authors. Other publishers would end up paying a small fee to authors so that they could have a crack at the first-run of books, since it would take a bit of time for the knockoff companies to re-produce the books. Why pay big bucks for something that will only be copied and distributed more cheaply by your competition, or freely by Internet folk?

Unless I’m missing something, I think it would drive down the demand for authors drastically. Authors might be able to work out some deal for “first run”, but they certainly wouldn’t get anything after that. Why would a potential author care to spend hours and hours writing some new novel if they know they’ll only scrape out a few pennies from the deal? That is, if they could find any publisher at all who would be willing to pay for new material. Since first-run publishing would be much more costly than reprint publishing, I wonder if the literary world would simply regurgitate all the works that are currently available.

An author might take the plunge anyway and shop out their manuscript to AFP after all. What’s to stop them from saying, “Thanks, mate. Of you go, then; we’re not paying you one Fed Penny.” Even if the author only sends the first three chapters, AFP can still give them the California Wave and hire some hack writer to sloppily finish out the story. No signed contract, right?

Sigh. This isn’t competition–this is madness. (Or, is it Sparta? I’m so confused.)

Yes, so long as they don’t defraud the consumer.

“Or, am I completely off? I’ve read neither Against Intellectual Monopoly nor Against Intellectual Property (yet), so perhaps I misunderstand the proposals. Do those authors and their supporters seek to rid the world of Copyright, or just Intellectual Property?”

Copyright is a form of intellectual property, so both.

Taking a different approach, what if some publisher, let’s call them Antarctic Fowl Publishing (AFP), decides that they ought to get in on the action and not only reprints Rowling’s books, but they do so at a lower cost. You see, they wouldn’t have an agreement to pay her royalties, so they can pass on the savings to undercut the current publisher. AFP could do the same to the 100 fan-fiction stories, couldn’t they?

Or, am I completely off? I’ve read neither Against Intellectual Monopoly nor Against Intellectual Property (yet), so perhaps I misunderstand the proposals. Do those authors and their supporters seek to rid the world of Copyright, or just Intellectual Property?

This is the difference between reprinting Harry Potter the book vs using Harry Potter the character.

Time to outlaw rudeness.

But Mike, it’s just so distasteful.