Air, water, etc. is scarce. Clayton is technically wrong in terming them "super-abundant" as if to say they are not scarce, tangible things. Ideas are not scarce. Watch me create the letter 'A' aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa
I fail to see how I am strawmanning you. You seem to be having reading comprehension issues or are being disingenious.
The paper of your book is scarce, fine. You sell it to someone either (as is typical) to do what they please with it; or under the agreement they not copy it; or under the agreement they not copy it, hire an armed guard to protect the book, and are responsible if any third party does copy it (which certainly almost nobody would agree to).
As creator of the book, you have no contract with uninvolved parties, and no way of demanding remuneration from someone for merely possessing a copy. The act of creating the copy from actually scarce material was not done by you and you have no claim to it. Attempting to do so creates conflict between what is genuinely scarce and what you imagine to be scarce.
You're right, IP creationists are about as hopeless as religious ones and I am not going to waste more time with your "arguments".
Democracy means the opportunity to be everyone's slave.—Karl Kraus.
Mises Pieces: It's not simply an argument of "would we be better off with IP or without IP?" rather "would we be better off with IP and a coercive state to enforce or, or without both?
It's not simply an argument of "would we be better off with IP or without IP?" rather "would we be better off with IP and a coercive state to enforce or, or without both?
Good point.
If I wrote it more than a few weeks ago, I probably hate it by now.
"Air, water, etc. is scarce. Clayton is technically wrong in terming them "super-abundant" as if to say they are not scarce, tangible things. Ideas are not scarce. Watch me create the letter 'A' aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa I fail to see how I am strawmanning you. You seem to be having reading comprehension issues or are being disingenious. The paper of your book is scarce, fine. You sell it to someone either (as is typical) to do what they please with it; or under the agreement they not copy it; or under the agreement they not copy it, hire an armed guard to protect the book, and are responsible if any third party does copy it (which certainly almost nobody would agree to). As creator of the book, you have no contract with uninvolved parties, and no way of demanding remuneration from someone for merely possessing a copy. The act of creating the copy from actually scarce material was not done by you and you have no claim to it. Attempting to do so creates conflict between what is genuinely scarce and what you imagine to be scarce. You're right, IP creationists are about as hopeless as religious ones and I am not going to waste more time with your "arguments"."
"Air, water, etc. is scarce. Clayton is technically wrong in terming them "super-abundant" as if to say they are not scarce, tangible things. Ideas are not scarce. Watch me create the letter 'A' aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa
You're right, IP creationists are about as hopeless as religious ones and I am not going to waste more time with your "arguments"."
I'm not making an agreement. I'm selling them a right in the book, but not all of them, just the ones that allow them to read it without the intention of copying it. CONTRACTS MEAN NOTHING without a transfer of property rights. I can break ANY CONTRACT I WANT if I am not violating property rights. Otherwise it's just a promise. I can break promises. You seem to have some giant fetish with contracts as if they are the only thing which anybody can be held accountable for.
See every time you say "you sell something to X" and you entirely glaze over my argument. You have yet to respond to the fact that I can sell partial rights to someone. If anybody goes beyond those rights in that thing, they have violated MY rights in that thing, whether they be a third party or not. That is the ENTIRE ARGUMENT.
I sell you the rights to live in my house. I haven't sold you the rights to paint my house. If you hire somebody to paint my house, both of you have violated my rights. If you didn't hire somebody to paint my house, and they painted it any way, they have violated my rights. No contract involved.
Sam Armstrong: I sell you the rights to live in my house. I haven't sold you the rights to paint my house. If you hire somebody to paint my house, both of you have violated my rights. If you didn't hire somebody to paint my house, and they painted it any way, they have violated my rights. No contract involved.
Living in it and painting it are handling it, altering its arrangement, in different ways.
If I catch you with paint buckets outside and you have yet to paint it, I can still kick you out if I've sold you the right to live in the house without the intent to paint it.
If I were pro-IP, I would rather tried to concentrate on "improving" (can't find the right word) or creating IP ethics than discussing how to enforce "rights" on not scarce product.
As a creator myself, I am all for IP ethics (it's only non-violent solution, IMO), but I will always be against copyrights, patents and stuff like that.
(english is not my native language, sorry for grammar.)
"If I were pro-IP, I would rather tried to concentrate on "improving" (can't find the right word) or creating IP ethics than discussing how to enforce "rights" on not scarce product.
As a creator myself, I am all for IP ethics (it's only non-violent soultion, IMO), but I will always be against copyrights, patents and stuff like that."
Sam's position is something I posted last year:
http://mises.org/Community/forums/t/11906.aspx?PageIndex=3
He has been doing a very nice job of arguing it. It really is that simple, if we begin with a society lacking a central government.
Scarce things that have goods-character are valuable.
If I offer to sell a new object with contract saying I do not sell the idea just its product for price A, but I also offer to sell the idea at a different price B; and a person does not independently obtain this idea, but obtains it from looking at my object or recipe while I am showing it to him to sell, then he violates my personal property.
I offered to sell it; he refused to buy but took it. Yet he only "copied it" when I showed it to him to sell to him. I lost something valuable that I offered to sell and someone obtained from me. Of course, if he did not obtain from me, and never met me or saw my offer, then there cannot be a property violation, neither through negligence nor intent. If he invented it also, entirely himself, he can also sell it. Or he can disclose it, in which case it is common and valueless from then on in.
Case 1:
A seller, e.g., Mises Institute, Inkscape, Paint.net, and so on, decided nicely to disclose literature or software or technological proportions, selling only physical copies. Thus, no one else can ever now prevent by contract other people from copying these things. Only one seller has to decide to do this, and its done.
Case 2:
What if someone breaks contract and copies the idea between the seller of idea and the buyer of idea despite no-copy clause? What if no seller has ever yet disclosed the ideas. Is the fraud of the second party preventing a contract from carrying over to third party?
It depends. However, only insofar as who is liable to seller.
The second party (buyer) had no right to break your agreement in the first place. He cannot transfer this non-right to any other person. Any third party copying from the second party violates the law. If the second party was unwilling, then the third party violates the law. If the second party was willing, then the second party violated the law. The contract is a claim that carries along with the object, if the object was sold with a contract.
As Bruno Leoni said, a claim is a choice. There can be choice without claims, but all claims of all people that have been established commercially cannot be violated else an anti-property rights precedent is established. (See Leoni’s 1962 essay Obligation and Claim). The idea is that law is spontaneous. If this is so, all contracts must be respected by everyone. If broken, someone is liable for damages. An idea does not become free through theft; someone is liable, as specified above.
Case 3:
Machlup responds, “But the assertion that the recognition of anybody’s exclusive rights in an invention, in its commercial use, ‘takes nothing the public’ is a fallacy which can be rebutted, and has been for centuries… In particular, those who independently develop the technological ideas already patented by someone else are barred from using the fruits of their own labor” (Machlup 1958:53).
Correct; which is why IP spontaneous law will allow anyone who also invents the idea can sell it. But he must have discovered it entirely in isolation, uninfluenced by the other sellers of the idea; else he was a third party violating a no copy contract. Indeed, many sellers of one idea, if they individually discovered it and sell it under no copy clause can at the same time sell their right. There will be a market price then.
(If one seller wants to make it free, however, then the idea becomes free regardless of all other sellers. It is however unlikely that this happens. But it could. In that case, the idea is free.)
Case 4:
Common knowledge is not valuable. No one ever has to choose between a scarce object and a known formula, said Mises. A formula that is not common knowledge, however, is valuable.
Suppose A owns land, on which A own factory B. Suppose private provision of security. A has a formula that is not common knowledge. Assume C physically trespasses into B.
Now, assume there was a formula in A's factory B, that is not common knowledge. C trespasses into B, then leaves, and reveals the formula.
A has lost something valuable.
In other words, if we privately or publicly don't treat knowledge as property, then corporate spying is punished just as trespassing, when it, in fact, is clearly something more. What if the trespassing was intentional to get the scarce knowledge? Can a private property order tolerate the violent extraction of information form unwilling people? Suppose that trespassing is not punished with a large fine, but a certain production process, if sold before it is disclosed is worth a greater amount.
If I am threatened with a knife to reveal my business knowledge, does the knife-wielder go unpunished if he doesn't, pardon the language, stick me?
After all, remember what Gossen, and then Bohm-Bawerk wrote, all people do control orderings of physical forces when they are producing goods. Is not knowledge of how to produce a good?
As Gossen said, more or less, when he was presenting the ecfonomic calculation: If people already knew what to produce and who to produce it and when to make the excahnges, then they would just do it, and no calculation problem would arise. But no person or central authority can know this.
People produce what has highest price. But they get profit simply ecause of better knowledge. It is knowledge of who, what, when, how that makes a producer rich.
And what is a technology. It is not a physical thing. Merely an array of proportion coefficients [A,B,C,D,…,Z].
Sam Armstrong: If I catch you with paint buckets outside and you have yet to paint it, I can still kick you out if I've sold you the right to live in the house without the intent to paint it.
Maybe I like eating paint outside. Who are you to judge me?
That is only an issue if you deny your intentions were to paint the house. It's up to the court to figure out. Were you carrying it towards the inside of the house, did you have plastic on the floor to protect if from paint? There's a whole list of evidence which could prove your intentions. But seriously now your just being obnoxious. Your rights in property can be specific down to conditions of whether or not there's an earthquake in Somalia. "I hereby transfer the right to live in my house for as long as there are no earthquakes in Somalia". Once that condition is met, and proven, then you no longer have that right, or rather you still have the right to live in the house between the time that the right was transfered to you and the time that the earthquake happened in Somalia. But that time is gone, and the conditions of your right are no longer in effect.
That is only an issue if you deny your intentions were to paint the house. It's up to the court to figure out. Were you carrying it towards the inside of the house, did you have plastic on the floor to protect if from paint. There's a whole list of evidence which could prove your intentions.
That's fine. You just have a really hard time finding out who copied your book out of thousands sold. Unless, that is, you are back to claiming property rights for possessing a certain pattern or identity in the goods of anyone at all, contracted with you or not.
Intentions are important, you need to connect an actual obligation not to "paint the house" (copy) to a person.
None exists between you and an uninterested 3rd party.
So, stop trying to give an air of legitimacy to what you are up to.
Since you edited your post:
But seriously now your just being obnoxious. Your rights in property can be specific down to conditions of whether or not there's an earthquake in Somalia. "I hereby transfer the right to live in my house for as long as there are no earthquakes in Somalia". Once that condition is met, and proven, then you no longer have that right, or rather you still have the right to live in the house between the time that the right was transfered to you and the time that the earthquake happened in Somalia. But that time is gone, and the conditions of your right are no longer in effect.
So what? Really you are talking about 2 parties being able to agree to certain conditions as long as they are logically possible. These are rather pathological terms.
What aren't you getting about this? I have no right to stop you from copying my book. I have the right to stop you from interacting with my book regardless of whether or not I have a contract with you. The fact is that you have to interact with my book in order to copy it. If you have an unauthorized copy of my book, that is hella good proof that you interacted with my book. Part of the cost of violating my rights like that is that I own the unauthorized copy of the book.
I have never claimed the right to own a pattern or idea. It's getting really old.
If you have an unauthorized copy of my book, that is hella good proof that you interacted with my book.
Nope, you sold it to B, who dropped it in the trash, C picked it up and copied it, D gave copies to E .. Y. Me (Z) just bought a copy. It is no longer your book. I bought the copy Y printed.
Y put in the effort to create the physical object, so much so that he even gave it a Y's press stamp. You continue to make a claim to the pattern. I never saw the same exact book you originally printed or agreed to anything with you.
Sam is correct. Knowledge is not property, but information is. Sam was merely showing an arbitrary example of a contract:
AB = AC is contract. But so is AB= ACD, or AB = ACDE , or AB = ACDEF.....Z.
They all have the form, class AB but if and only if class A...Z.
Example: "house" "yours" = "house" "noearthquake in somalia" "noshare" "nopaint" etc
A third party is bound not to intervene in the contract. If they intervene, the second party is liable or the third party is liable to the second party to reimburse the first party.
As Leoni said, claims in a free market are always in harmony and never ambiguous.
Sam Armstrong: But seriously now your just being obnoxious.
But seriously now your just being obnoxious.
I was just kidding around.
Sam Armstrong: That is only an issue if you deny your intentions were to paint the house. It's up to the court to figure out. Were you carrying it towards the inside of the house, did you have plastic on the floor to protect if from paint? There's a whole list of evidence which could prove your intentions. [...] Your rights in property can be specific down to conditions of whether or not there's an earthquake in Somalia. "I hereby transfer the right to live in my house for as long as there are no earthquakes in Somalia". Once that condition is met, and proven, then you no longer have that right, or rather you still have the right to live in the house between the time that the right was transfered to you and the time that the earthquake happened in Somalia. But that time is gone, and the conditions of your right are no longer in effect.
That is only an issue if you deny your intentions were to paint the house. It's up to the court to figure out. Were you carrying it towards the inside of the house, did you have plastic on the floor to protect if from paint? There's a whole list of evidence which could prove your intentions. [...] Your rights in property can be specific down to conditions of whether or not there's an earthquake in Somalia. "I hereby transfer the right to live in my house for as long as there are no earthquakes in Somalia". Once that condition is met, and proven, then you no longer have that right, or rather you still have the right to live in the house between the time that the right was transfered to you and the time that the earthquake happened in Somalia. But that time is gone, and the conditions of your right are no longer in effect.
The issue is whether our contract has anything to do with other people. The original thing that you responded to was supposed to show that only contracts like you are explaining work. But what follows from that is that it is not possible to use contracts to make 'IP' anything like it is right now. How would your contract have anything to do with a third party who happens to find a lost copy of your book on the street? Unless you are telling me that they are not even allowed to pick it up, read it, and get rid of it, your argument does not work. For, in picking it up, reading it, and getting rid of it, the third party does not necessarily handle it in a different way than in copying it. So it does not make sense to say that, whether you have a contract with them or not, you still partially own the book in any way that implies that third parties should be able to read it but not copy it.
By the way, as I said to hayekianxyz, none of this disproves that we should install 'IP'. But we just need to make it clear what the nature of this situation is to not talk nonsense. The fact is that you have to either claim that you 'own' the arrangement or pattern, which you are clearly rejecting, or you have to say that third parties are not even allowed to touch a lost copy of your book, to be able to have your position, that is, pro-copyrights, even coherent. For it does not make any sense to say that you own the matter itself partially in a way that makes it so third parties are able to read it but not copy it. So, again, your only possiblity, without acquiescing to advocating that people should be able to 'own' certain arrangements, is to claim that third parties are just not allowed to even touch your book. But do you really want to make that your position?
EDIT:
I almost forget to mention that the other solution, which does not concern the third party, is to put into the contract lines saying that the person who buys the book is liable to pay damages if he loses it and, by that, lets third parties find and copy it. But, as other people have said, I am pretty sure that most people will not want to deal with that unless the damages are really low, which would of course make it pretty worthless to the person selling the book.
But what I'm saying to this is that the illegal copy IS owned by the original copyrighter. And it happens as soon as they used the book to create the copy as part of the payment of breaking the original property rights in that book. When someone violates your rights, they owe you something, and it doesn't happen that they owe you something once a judge says they do, they owe it to you immediately. Part of what is owed is that copy. Now that copy's property rights are solely owned by the original creator, and the neither the copier nor anybody else have any rights to it. So if they use that copy to create another copy, they have still violated the original owner's rights, and would thus owe that copy of a copy too the original owner, and it would again, happen immediately.
OK but if you want to avoid the "property in patterns/ideas" issue, you have to actually show a causal chain of torts. If someone steals your Rolex, you can't just go out and grab the first Rolex off someone's wrist that happens to look like the one that was stolen from you. You have to show that it is the very Rolex that was yours. Similarly, you will have to show that a book you sold with "reserved rights" was, in fact, copied to produce the illegal copy and, in a chain, for each additional illegal copy. The evidence would have to be sufficient to stand in a court of law, just saying "It looks like my book" is not sufficient as it would not be for a Rolex.
Clayton -
"Goods-character"? I'll let you define that for me.
How am I not going to "get the idea" when I read your book? I go to Borders, grab the hot new Al Franken book, the clerk says, "Sir, you need to sign here that you agree not to copy this book", I accidentally leave it at the coffee house and it is across the world as fast as the internet works. Are you saying I am responsible here, or you are going to ask for a tougher agreement? Good luck with that.
I offered to sell it; he refused to buy but took it.
Now you are talking about something completely different. I take it that you actually mean here not, "he ran off with my book", but "I exposed my magic recipe which had a 'goods-character-easily-rememberable' in lieu of contract".
Yet he only "copied it" when I showed it to him to sell to him. I lost something valuable that I offered to sell and someone obtained from me. Of course, if he did not obtain from me, and never met me or saw my offer, then there cannot be a property violation, neither through negligence nor intent.
You can sign a non-disclosure agreement. It really isn't clear what circumstances and type of IP we are even talking about now. IF you want to make money from your ideas, you need some process of distribution/production to go along with it. If you really want to make Blade 3 for $100 million dollars and try to distribute it through a movie theater that shakes down its patrons for movie cameras, and tries to get people to work for you who agree to die if the movie gets leaked, good luck with that too.
Nobody has still offered a worthy response regarding arbitrary time limits. It's just a side effect from the category error of assigning property rights to non-scarce concepts. What if you write AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAABAAAA and I write AAAABAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA after I bought your tune, but you made $5 and I made $5 million? Where is the criteria for similarity?
If he invented it also, entirely himself, he can also sell it. Or he can disclose it, in which case it is common and valueless from then on in.
Really? Your product, based on the idea, only has value after someone buys it.
Reciting e=mc2 is substantively the same as a tangible good. Considering how big of an economics fails this is, I don't feel like reading the rest.
The only thing of all this that seemed sensible is claiming damages from a mere trespass. You still have no right to the goods of uninterested third parties, the patterns on the fruits of the idea-stealer's goods.
I. Ryan and E. Olovetto and Clayton,
Please read my post earlier above and then Leoni's essay.
In a nongovernment spontaneous legal order, it is true that IP would be nothing like it is not; but it would be similar.
A book in the garbage still has a contract and a commercial claim attached to it. And everyone must respect it, else they establish a legal precedent to not respect any claims.
Edit: too late post; but, e =mc2 is already common knowledge. If it wasn't it would be logically subject to contract laws unless someone else discovered it entirely by themselves.
And this would be disputed in a private court.
ClaytonB: OK but if you want to avoid the "property in patterns/ideas" issue, you have to actually show a causal chain of torts. If someone steals your Rolex, you can't just go out and grab the first Rolex off someone's wrist that happens to look like the one that was stolen from you. You have to show that it is the very Rolex that was yours. Similarly, you will have to show that a book you sold with "reserved rights" was, in fact, copied to produce the illegal copy and, in a chain, for each additional illegal copy. The evidence would have to be sufficient to stand in a court of law, just saying "It looks like my book" is not sufficient as it would not be for a Rolex.
It is basically impossible that two people write the same book. Is that not good enough evidence that the chain that you are talking about exists?
Olovetto wrote,
"Really? Your product, based on the idea, only has value after someone buys it."
Nope. It has price. Value is subjective. Read economics. Value comes from goods-character defined by Menger and scarcity (which makes its economic goods-character which makes it valuable.)
Edit: an example for good measure: 'cheese is valuable to me, but I bought something else.'
What part of "uninterested 3rd party" are you not getting? There is a LOT of legal history to this phrase.
I beg to differ.
Link? I stopped because of all the errors. My time here on Earth is scarce.
I didn't realize that there was something rational to this false dichotomy between "public knowledge" and "private knowledge" (oh, and "information" and whatever that is all about)
By what I said, I meant of course "an important formula like 'e=mc2' which you were trying to sell and wasn't in this pseudo-category of things.
edit: so you stopped valuing your important formula because another person had it? I guess he acted on the information better than you, or before you and all you want to do is get more than what your "act of creation", spreading the information to one person, is really worth.
No link. But book:
http://www.amazon.com/Liberty-Competitive-Market-Bruno-Leoni/dp/1412808421/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1271801617&sr=1-1
And what errors, actually, did you find? Proofs please.
Also, uninterested third party has legal history. But thats legal history in our government order.
Who cares? In the same essay, Leoni dismantles the legal idea of the importance of obligation.
The third party can read the book in the garbage, but not copy it. Else someone is liable to someone else. And ripping the cover page on which is the contract written on it does not "destroy" the contract.
thelion: The third party can read the book in the garbage, but not copy it. Else someone is liable to someone else. And ripping the cover page on which is the contract written on it does not "destroy" the contract.
So you are saying that people should be allowed to 'own' classes of goods, arrangements of matter, patterns, or whatever you want to call it? To see why I am saying that you are implying that, read my previous post.
Not at all.
Class is not an object.
Objects can be owned.
But a contract is a class. It is a claim. "house" refers to a specific house in this case: A = W.....Y, which W to Y are its atrributes.
I proposed a contract made after the house is referred to, allowing me to use "house" to mean "this house".
This is separate from all houses A, which is not referenced by W....Y, but perhaps only W.....V.
thelion: Not at all. Class is not an object. Objects can be owned. But a contract is a class. It is a claim.
But a contract is a class. It is a claim.
1. I have no idea what "a contract is a class" means.
2. How is it possible to have a contract with a third party?
"Nope, you sold it to B,"
You did it again. Completely glazed over the fact that I still own the book, did not sell "the book" in all of it's glorious property rights to that person. I still own the book, regardless of whether or not I have possession of it.
Somebody stole my TV and threw it in the garbage. I had some number written on the inside of the screen or a label saying this is property of Sammy D. If I find that TV, I get to take it from anybody who possesses it, without compensation. It is my TV. They were a third party and yet, I still get to take it from them. If they broke my T.V., they are responsible for that.
thelion: Else someone is liable to someone else.
Else someone is liable to someone else.
Wait, who is liable to who?
Contract as a class. What does it mean?
Suppose
"house" refers to a specific house in this case: A = W.....Y, which W to Y are its atrributes.
Then a contract as a class is merely, AB = AC, where W....YB = W....YC, C being the conditions.
Its just the Boole-Jevons conditional. C is the class to which A now belongs insofar as it also B.
Edit: Liability.
If third party took from second party, if second party was willing, they are liable to first party. If second party was unwilling, then third party liable. In garbage can example. Book copied by third party is liability of third party.
If no one is liable (i.e. a page by unknown source appears), then copiers merely cease to copy and perhaps pay nothing.
thelion: Suppose "house" refers to a specific house in this case: A = W.....Y, which W to Y are its atrributes. I proposed a contract made after the house is referred to, allowing me to use "house" to mean "this house". This is separate from all houses A, which is not referenced by W....Y, but perhaps only W.....V. Then a contract as a class is merely, AB = AC, where W....YB = W....YC, C being the conditions. Its just the Boole-Jevons conditional. C is the class to which A now belongs insofar as it also B.
I have no idea what you are explaining there, sorry.
C not being involved in the dealings of A and B is pretty old, common law stuff.
Is this essay what you are talking about? (Can you not figure out how to give a clickable link?)
I suggest you read Reinach.
What sort of proof do you want? I think I've done my best for how many terms you've concocted but left undefined. What would entertain me now is to grant, arguendo, that IP law is compatible with libertarian grundnorms. Please detail your criteria I requested on the first page:
Our actual task though is determining what is legitimate. What you need to do is prove that your stance is compatible with other libertarian grundnorms, or state that you profess whatever other flavour of authoritarianism and we'll call it a day. Here's what I want you to show: a clear criteria for the determination of when a copy-"right" expires; why Sam's Book of Poems is valid for copyright but another infinitely repeatable, non-scarce concept or pattern, like that of the letter 'A', is not; and again, how this is all compatible with libertarianism.
Sam Armstrong: You did it again. Completely glazed over the fact that I still own the book, did not sell "the book" in all of it's glorious property rights to that person. I still own the book, regardless of whether or not I have possession of it.
I thought that you were trying to solve this issue with contracts.
thelion: If third party took from second party, if second party was willing, they are liable to first party.
If third party took from second party, if second party was willing, they are liable to first party.
So, if the second party gives the book to the third party to copy, the second party it liable.
thelion: If second party was unwilling, then third party liable.
If second party was unwilling, then third party liable.
So, if the third party stole it from the second party, third party is liable.
thelion: In garbage can example. Book copied by third party is liability of third party.
In garbage can example. Book copied by third party is liability of third party.
So, if neither the second party gave it to the third nor the third party steal it from the second, the third party is liable.
I am guessing that you meant to establish the first two, which appear pretty uncontroversial, and then show that the third follows from the second. But, from my restatements, it is plain that it does not follow at all.
"If you have an unauthorized copy of my book, that is hella good proof that you interacted with my book."
Uh, no, that is evidence I interacted with a COPY of your book. You still have your book.
At most, I think only 5% of the adult population would need to stop cooperating to have real change.
Olovetto,
Different paper. Have you read the link you provided at all? It says provided by the editor of that book from Il politico; it does not say it comes from that book.
Different paper. What I cited was 18 pages and new translation of a 1962 work. What do you have against buying books?
Ryan,
You are mistaken. The contract comes with the book, because it is a class. Only the book is an object. Third party is liable in the last instance, because the book was never provided to anyone without a contract (else it would be a free good, not an economic good). It will say so in the contract. But once the contract is done, that it.
All the third party with book it got from the garbage can do is read it. It cannot copy it. It is lucky. It got to read the book. But it does not own the information because such a claim already exists and is public (probably written in the book, for instance).
"The issue is whether our contract has anything to do with other people. The original thing that you responded to was supposed to show that only contracts like you are explaining work. But what follows from that is that it is not possible to use contracts to make 'IP' anything like it is right now. How would your contract have anything to do with a third party who happens to find a lost copy of your book on the street? Unless you are telling me that they are not even allowed to pick it up, read it, and get rid of it, your argument does not work. For, in picking it up, reading it, and getting rid of it, the third party does not necessarily handle it in a different way than in copying it. So it does not make sense to say that, whether you have a contract with them or not, you still partially own the book in any way that implies that third parties should be able to read it but not copy it."
Here we go, now we get to the heart of the matter. My contract does nothing except give the rights to read the book to someone as long as they don't have the intention of copying it. When someone abandons a copy of my book, they haven't abandoned the entire rights to the book. I still retain my rights to the book even though it's in the garbage. They have only abandoned their rights to the book, which is to read it without the intention to copy it. If someone picks it up, they are only homesteading the right to read the book without the intention of copying it. They can't gain my rights to the book because I haven't given them up yet (regardless of whether or not I have possession of it). So they would still be violating my rights if they read the book with the intention of copying it. Again, no contract is necessary because those rights are still retained by me. The reason that the person who bought the book from me couldn't copy it wasn't because he signed a contract saying he wouldn't. It's because he didn't own the rights to handle the book in that way.
Let's just say I sold full rights to the book over to him, but he signed a contract stating he wouldn't copy it and sell it. He could still break that contract, copy it and sell it. The only consideration he would have to make is how much X was when he stated "I hereby transfer you X amount of money to you on condition that I copy this book and sell it". See there he has given over property rights on a condition. If he fails to make that payment he has violated the other person's rights to that money. But he now fully owns every copy of the book he made and can do what ever he wants with it because he owned the original book.
Now let's go back to before I made the transaction. Instead of having him sign a contract, I sell him a partial conditional right to some property, and nobody else can gain more than that partial conditional right in that property from him. Even if he abandon it, I still own the rights to that property I had at the time I sold him those rights. If anybody picks it up, they have only homesteaded that partial conditional right. They are in the exact same condition as he was when he had the book.
thelion: You are mistaken. The contract comes with the book, because it is a class. Only the book is an object. Third party is liable in the last instance, because the book was never provided to anyone without a contract (else it would be a free good, not an economic good). It will say so in the contract. But once the contract is done, that it.
I have no idea what that means.
thelion: All the third party with book it got from the garbage can do is read it. It cannot copy it. It is lucky. It got to read the book. But it does not own the information because such a claim already exists and is public (probably written in the book, for instance).
You missed this, apparently:
ClaytonB: Let's say you post a flyer on a public bulletin board. At the bottom is the notice "Copyright Sam Armstrong 2010 - ALL RIGHTS RESERVED." By broadcasting the contents of your flyer, I think you have automatically relinquished any rights you may have had to prevent or prohibit copying of that flyer. Your notice at the bottom of the page carries no more weight than if you had written, "I hereby own the firstborn child of all who read this piece of paper."
Let's say you post a flyer on a public bulletin board. At the bottom is the notice "Copyright Sam Armstrong 2010 - ALL RIGHTS RESERVED." By broadcasting the contents of your flyer, I think you have automatically relinquished any rights you may have had to prevent or prohibit copying of that flyer. Your notice at the bottom of the page carries no more weight than if you had written, "I hereby own the firstborn child of all who read this piece of paper."
Sam Armstrong: My contract does nothing except give the rights to read the book to someone as long as they don't have the intention of copying it.
My contract does nothing except give the rights to read the book to someone as long as they don't have the intention of copying it.
So you signed a contract.
Sam Armstrong: When someone abandons a copy of my book, they haven't abandoned the entire rights to the book. I still retain my rights to the book even though it's in the garbage. They have only abandoned their rights to the book, which is to read it without the intention to copy it. If someone picks it up, they are only homesteading the right to read the book without the intention of copying it. They can't gain my rights to the book because I haven't given them up yet (regardless of whether or not I have possession of it). So they would still be violating my rights if they read the book with the intention of copying it.
When someone abandons a copy of my book, they haven't abandoned the entire rights to the book. I still retain my rights to the book even though it's in the garbage. They have only abandoned their rights to the book, which is to read it without the intention to copy it. If someone picks it up, they are only homesteading the right to read the book without the intention of copying it. They can't gain my rights to the book because I haven't given them up yet (regardless of whether or not I have possession of it). So they would still be violating my rights if they read the book with the intention of copying it.
Why is the contract relevant to third parties?
Sam Armstrong: Again, no contract is necessary because those rights are still retained by me.
Again, no contract is necessary because those rights are still retained by me.
Then why did you sign the contract?
Sam Armstrong: The reason that the person who bought the book from me couldn't copy it wasn't because he signed a contract saying he wouldn't. It's because he didn't own the rights to handle the book in that way.
The reason that the person who bought the book from me couldn't copy it wasn't because he signed a contract saying he wouldn't. It's because he didn't own the rights to handle the book in that way.
But the handling of the book does not necessarily differ.
Sam Armstrong: Let's just say I sold full rights to the book over to him, but he signed a contract stating he wouldn't copy it and sell it. He could still break that contract, copy it and sell it. The only consideration he would have to make is how much X was when he stated "I hereby transfer you X amount of money to you on condition that copy this book and sell it". See there he has given over property rights on a condition. If he fails to make that payment he has violated the other person's rights to that money. But he now fully owns the book every copy of the book he made and can do what ever he wants with it because he owned the original book.
Let's just say I sold full rights to the book over to him, but he signed a contract stating he wouldn't copy it and sell it. He could still break that contract, copy it and sell it. The only consideration he would have to make is how much X was when he stated "I hereby transfer you X amount of money to you on condition that copy this book and sell it". See there he has given over property rights on a condition. If he fails to make that payment he has violated the other person's rights to that money. But he now fully owns the book every copy of the book he made and can do what ever he wants with it because he owned the original book.
Sure.
Sam Armstrong: Now let's go back to before I made the transaction. Instead of having him sign a contract, I sell him a partial conditional right to some property, and nobody else can gain more than that partial conditional right in that property from him. Even if he abandon it, I still own the rights to that property I had at the time I sold you those rights. If anybody picks it up, they have only homesteaded that partial conditional right. They are in the exact same condition as he was when he had the book.
Now let's go back to before I made the transaction. Instead of having him sign a contract, I sell him a partial conditional right to some property, and nobody else can gain more than that partial conditional right in that property from him. Even if he abandon it, I still own the rights to that property I had at the time I sold you those rights. If anybody picks it up, they have only homesteaded that partial conditional right. They are in the exact same condition as he was when he had the book.
That is mysticism. Nothing observable is in the book to make it so. Plus, even if I assume that it is not mysticism, I already showed that the handling of the book between reading it and in copying it do not necessarily differ. So you have to just accept that you are advocating that people should be able to 'own' arrangements of matter. You did not really address the main points of my post.
All property is mysticism. There is never anything observable in objects that make property rights so.
Sam Armstrong: All property is mysticism. There is never anything observable in objects that make property rights so.
No, I was not implying that something being observable in the object making it property is the necessary and sufficient condition of it being property. I was just implying that, because no other people are around to relate to the book in any way, the only thing left is that something observable in the book has to make it property. But that is clearly absurd.
Olovetto, Different paper. Have you read the link you provided at all? It says provided by the editor of that book from Il politico; it does not say it comes from that book. Different paper. What I cited was 18 pages and new translation of a 1962 work.
Different paper. What I cited was 18 pages and new translation of a 1962 work.
It says by Bruno Leoni and it is about obligations. I thought maybe it contained the substance you are unable to provide. A lot of what you are saying doesn't make sense. Leoni is supposed to be pretty good, but I have plenty to read, and this thread is getting pretty bad.
What do you have against buying books?
You just told me about this book like an hour ago? Making idiotic comments like this doesn't get me interested in what you have to say.