Onar Åm:You have not convinced me that it won't be a waste of time. From what I can tell you're a very bad thinker, and it does not serve me to waste my precious scarce mental resources on debating someone who is completely oblivious to his opponent's viewpoint. If you can demonstrate that you can manage to see one inch outside your materialistic viewpoint, I will debate you. Otherwise it will just be like banging my head into a wall. I'll be understanding all your arguments (because I understand materialism), but you won't have the foggiest idea of what *I* am talking about.
A tip: not only is Sieben plenty intelligent, he's much more emotionally mature than you are, so you're not going to get a rise out of him, no matter how much you swagger. So you might as well stop trying.
Sieben,
I really don't like bad thinkers, and after having seeped through this thread I'm covered in sewage. Therefore I am not particularly keen on further sullying my mind, but on the other hand, debate.org is in fact a more controlled environment with less noise. To end this debate on a good note I will therefore accept your challenge, even though you have not proved to me that you are worthy of my time which I could be using to produce intellectual property to make a living instead.
Okay. If you want to wait a bit, that's fine. My name is the same on debate.org, so just issue me a challenge. Be sure to set the voting period to something reasonable like a month (I accidentally set my first debate's voting period to be infinite... big mistake).
Guys, it seems we have harmed his mind and therefore probably committed a few torts along the way.
If only we had figured out earlier that potatoes dont vanish when they are stolen/.... no wait..... ideas do vanish when they are copied... no wait... how does the clever analogy which is proof of ones superior intelligence go again?
Not to mention Onar is honourable and humble, and can admit when he makes trivial mistakes in the course of doing the great work of teaching us why its proper to enforce IP.
Where there is no property there is no justice; a proposition as certain as any demonstration in Euclid
Fools! not to see that what they madly desire would be a calamity to them as no hands but their own could bring
Okay, for a moment I thought Onar had signed off. While this overall discussion has been very helpful for me, his frequent Ad Hominem arguments have not been productive. Now I'm getting closer to a solid position here, but I still have a few gaps I would like help to fill in.
Going back to the simple case of an author who wants to sell his book and does so with reserved rights or a limited grant to the buyer who has voluntarily agreed not to reproduce, yet someone "reads over his shoulder". I think we have confirmed Rothbard's position that no one can obtain rights greater than what were available from the source by the discussion of the third party victim of the stolen car. (If you acquire a stolen car, whether by fraud or by homestead, your claim remains inferior to rightful owner who has a record of the voluntary exchange.)
I had the wrong Rothbard link in my previous post, the discussion below is on page 121 of the Ethics of Liberty, here.
Violation of (common law) copyright is an equivalent violation of contract and theft of property. For suppose that Brown builds a better mousetrap and sells it widely, but stamps each mousetrap “copyright Mr. Brown.” What he is then doing is selling not the entire property right in each mousetrap, but the right to do anything with the mousetrap except to sell it or an identical copy to someone else. The right to sell the Brown mousetrap is retained in perpetuity by Brown. Hence, for a mousetrap buyer, Green, to go ahead and sell identical mousetraps is a violation of his contract and of the property right of Brown, and therefore prosecutable as theft. Hence, our theory of property rights includes the inviolability of contractual copyright. A common objection runs as follows: all right, it would be criminal for Green to produce and sell the Brown mousetrap; but suppose that someone else, Black, who had not made a contract with Brown, happens to see Green’s mousetrap and then goes ahead and produces and sells the replica? Why should he be prosecuted? The answer is that, as in the case of our critique of negotiable instruments, no one can acquire a greater property title in something than has already been given away or sold. Green did not own the total property right in his mousetrap, in accordance with his contract with Brown—but only all rights except to sell it or a replica. But, therefore Black’s title in the mousetrap, the ownership of the ideas in Black’s head, can be no greater than Green’s, and therefore he too would be a violator of Brown’s property even though he himself had not made the actual contract.
Violation of (common law) copyright is an equivalent violation of contract and theft of property. For suppose that Brown builds a better mousetrap and sells it widely, but stamps each mousetrap “copyright Mr. Brown.” What he is then doing is selling not the entire property right in each mousetrap, but the right to do anything with the mousetrap except to sell it or an identical copy to someone else. The right to sell the Brown mousetrap is retained in perpetuity by Brown. Hence, for a mousetrap buyer, Green, to go ahead and sell identical mousetraps is a violation of his contract and of the property right of Brown, and therefore prosecutable as theft. Hence, our theory of property rights includes the inviolability of contractual copyright.
A common objection runs as follows: all right, it would be criminal for Green to produce and sell the Brown mousetrap; but suppose that someone else, Black, who had not made a contract with Brown, happens to see Green’s mousetrap and then goes ahead and produces and sells the replica? Why should he be prosecuted? The answer is that, as in the case of our critique of negotiable instruments, no one can acquire a greater property title in something than has already been given away or sold. Green did not own the total property right in his mousetrap, in accordance with his contract with Brown—but only all rights except to sell it or a replica. But, therefore Black’s title in the mousetrap, the ownership of the ideas in Black’s head, can be no greater than Green’s, and therefore he too would be a violator of Brown’s property even though he himself had not made the actual contract.
So, I'm still not finding any explanation yet as to why or how Rothbard is mistaken.
Taking this book example further, it would suggest that if the third party reading over the shoulder of one who had a book with limited rights, decides to print copies of this book, the production and/or possession of these books is aggression against the rightful owner, since they were produced without the right to copy. (Remember the first book was sold contractually without that right to reproduce.) Isn't this the same as the way that the buyer of the stolen car is aggressing against the rightful owner who has the superior claim? Even if this third party wasn't aware of the copyright, he hasn't acquired the permission to reproduce any more than the finder of the abandoned stolen car has the right to keep it. Doesn't the author of the book still have the right to repossess the fraudulent copies of his book? If the third party continues to reproduce these copies, after he is aware of the copyright, isn't he aggressing against the author?
Define identical copy.
Edit: How is identical measured?
isn't he aggressing against the author?
I have a question for you. Since pro IP argues mental harm are you willing to live with that concept?
If you pollute on my mental property distributing filth are you going to accept responsibility?
Mental harm is a two way street.
My rebuttal is that IP is perfectly compatible with a free market and contracts.
That's contract, not IP qua intellectual property.
One could contract some sort of control over the dissemination of ideas (action), but that wouldn't make ideas property.
I think I have consistently advocated you own something as long as it is 100% in your control and if it is not 100% in your control it is a claim in society.
Grayson Lilburne wrote the following post at Sat, Oct 23 2010 5:29 AM:
A tip: not only is Sieben plenty intelligent, he's much more emotionally mature than you are, so you're not going to get a rise out of him, no matter how much you swagger.
My experience is (unfortunately) that high intelligence can be very destructive once the brain becomes infected with a false idea. Then that person will use his superior intelligence to defend an idea that any decent, normally intelligent human being immediately will recognize as completely insane. That superior intelligence devoted passionately to unreason will then have a lobotomizing effect on his mind, reducing his effective intelligence down to the level of a baboon. This is precisely why so many supersmart socialists are complete crackpots, and unfortunately that is also the case with many libertarians.
All smart people should be aware of this danger and constantly monitor one's own conclusion against common sense. If your line of reasoning ever leads you to a conclusion which makes you go "waaaait a minute, that can't be right, can it?" then you're in the danger zone. That's the sum of your values and concepts trying to warn you that you have messed with some pretty basic premises in your belief system. Then there are two possibilities: 1) common sense is wrong, 2) the basic premise of your reasoning is crap. You don't know which of these two possibilities turn out to be correct, but in 90% of the cases common sense wins out, and you should therefore have deep respect for it and consider that your claim needs to be really, really scrutinized before you can conclude that common sense is wrong, and your non-intuitive conclusion is correct, because when your common sense is wrong, it probably means you've stumbled across some pretty deep errors in your belief systems which need to be fixed, and this is not something that is done easily and overnight.
Well, how many anti-IP people on this forum are using common sense to challenge their reasoning? I've seen frighteningly few. Here's an example: common sense dictates that an author who sells zero books because his books have been pirated and who starves to death because he didn't make money from the book has been robbed of his livelihood and even his life due to piracy. Anyone who claims otherwise are, by the standards of common sense, completely, completely, utterly bonkers. This is the point where you're suppose to say to yourself "waaaaaait a minute, that can't be right, can it?" Anyone who *doesn't* ask themselves this very basic question at this point and finds a darn good answer to this question is effectively brain damaged. They have rendered themselves incapable of useful thought. Their minds are destroyed.
Now I leave it up to you to decide who fits the bill and who doesn't.
Good points and research David.
As far as the 3rd party issue... Assuming the original work of authorship qualifies for property protections, similar to the way copyright is treated...
Morally: Once a 3rd party is made aware they acquired illegitimately derived property (however the means), they would be morally obligated to remove/return their copy. Future copies derived from their illegitimate copy would be immoral as well as subject to sanctioning.
Legally: In an anarcho-capitalist society, sanctioning could be handled by a private organization - through voluntary contracts people agreed to as part of other economic transactions (similar to private rights/insurance/enforcement organizations). In a minarchist society this might still be enforced by a limited government.
Of course, people in any society can go renegade and ignore all that, but the immorality and sanctioning will be a deterrent that will minimize aggressions.
Onar Åm: My experience is (unfortunately) that high intelligence can be very destructive once the brain becomes infected with a false idea. Then that person will use his superior intelligence to defend an idea that any decent, normally intelligent human being immediately will recognize as completely insane. That superior intelligence devoted passionately to unreason will then have a lobotomizing effect on his mind, reducing his effective intelligence down to the level of a baboon. This is precisely why so many supersmart socialists are complete crackpots, and unfortunately that is also the case with many libertarians. All smart people should be aware of this danger and constantly monitor one's own conclusion against common sense. If your line of reasoning ever leads you to a conclusion which makes you go "waaaait a minute, that can't be right, can it?" then you're in the danger zone. That's the sum of your values and concepts trying to warn you that you have messed with some pretty basic premises in your belief system. Then there are two possibilities: 1) common sense is wrong, 2) the basic premise of your reasoning is crap. You don't know which of these two possibilities turn out to be correct, but in 90% of the cases common sense wins out, and you should therefore have deep respect for it and consider that your claim needs to be really, really scrutinized before you can conclude that common sense is wrong, and your non-intuitive conclusion is correct, because when your common sense is wrong, it probably means you've stumbled across some pretty deep errors in your belief systems which need to be fixed, and this is not something that is done easily and overnight. Well, how many anti-IP people on this forum are using common sense to challenge their reasoning? I've seen frighteningly few. Here's an example: common sense dictates that an author who sells zero books because his books have been pirated and who starves to death because he didn't make money from the book has been robbed of his livelihood and even his life due to piracy. Anyone who claims otherwise are, by the standards of common sense, completely, completely, utterly bonkers. This is the point where you're suppose to say to yourself "waaaaaait a minute, that can't be right, can it?" Anyone who *doesn't* ask themselves this very basic question at this point and finds a darn good answer to this question is effectively brain damaged. They have rendered themselves incapable of useful thought. Their minds are destroyed. Now I leave it up to you to decide who fits the bill and who doesn't.
Piracy = lost sales might eventually cease being common sense for many when markets adapt to better compete with current piracy, which is offering (temporarily) more superior means of distribution, cheaper prices, & more choices.
If I could purchase music at rock bottom prices through legal torrent trackers, but allow to pay far more of a premium for live preformances to compensate, & do it legally, I would, if only to lessen the chance of persecution by the State on my own person. Piracy will always exist, btw. No amount of common sense is going to get rid of the phenomena.
"Look at me, I'm quoting another user to show how wrong I think they are, out of arrogance of my own position. Wait, this is my own quote, oh shi-" ~ Nitroadict
You are polluting my mental property. I demand remedy.
But everything else sounds like speculation until this standard of common sense is clearly defined; until then I can't take your arguments seriously.
Pardon me for stating the obvious, but I was sort of taking for granted that the meaning of common sense is, well, yeah, pretty common sense. BUT if you insist, I will give a more intellectually protrusive explanation of what common sense is. I actually wrote a sentence in the original post which briefly summarized what is meant by common sense, namely "the sum of your values and concepts." To elaborate:
we humans have a fantastically accurate conceptual and particularly perceptual ability to categorize and understand the world, mapping out little facts about reality every day. Even though there are a million ways for us to accidentally kill or seriously injure ourselves during a day, we miraculously manage to stay alive and healthy most of the time. This is actually an extraordinary testimony to the amount of real world skill we possess. In fact, if you give a map and paper with instructions to a common man with common intelligence he will based on that map and instructions most likely be able to travel all the way to the other side of the globe and locate the little "x" you've made on your map with such stunning precision that he's able to put his finger on the "x."
Every single day we datamine reality with our senses and we are able to make sense of the things we see by neatly cataloging all those facts into a coherent knowledge network. If we could draw that network we would see that all the knowlegde we have acquired in our every day lives are so intertwined and interconnected that they form a neatly packed bundle. Fortunately we humans have a way to access that bundle of knowledge incredibly fast, by the process we call "intution" or "gut feeling." Basically what our "intuition" does is to give a summarized evaluation of new data based on all our previous experience. If the new data fits neatly into the existing network ("makes sense") then it is integrated with no further assessment. If however the new data contradicts a significant portion of our knowledge database then we will react and think that it "doesn't make sense." That is what I call "common sense."
Here you're making a similar argument that is common in the psychopathic middle eastern cultures, namely that if a woman is raped it's her own fault and SHE should be punished (by death) for infidelity/out of wedlock sex. Of course, they have found a "market" solution to this, namely to bag women up in Burqas and never letting them out of the house without a male family companion at their side. In this case there is a psychopathic "market" solution to a psychopathic problem.
Also note that in this case YOU took the common sense stance that piracy = lost sales, but here on this forum you will find many people who say "lost sales? What lost sales? You cannot lose something you don't own." These people are prime examples of insane people who have left planet earth and gone to bonkersville. They are actually promoting a morality which allows people to completely guiltlessly pirate someone else's hard work and not consider that they have taken something from him or that they have done something immoral in any way.
Piracy will always exist, btw. No amount of common sense is going to get rid of the phenomena.
Yeah, but so what? Today piracy is a (largely) fringe problem. If pirate distribution were LEGAL (so that anyone can pretend to be the original) then piracy would obviously be a much greater problem.
Onar Åm:Well, how many anti-IP people on this forum are using common sense to challenge their reasoning? I've seen frighteningly few. Here's an example: common sense dictates that an author who sells zero books because his books have been pirated and who starves to death because he didn't make money from the book has been robbed of his livelihood and even his life due to piracy.
Onar, this sort of common sense (armchair) reasoning, is typical from people who have exposure to philosophy and not economics, and so imagine everything they perceive as an objective truth, frequently without a meaningful epistemology or rigorous application of logic.
Economically, you are appealing with this example to a labor theory of value. You're rejecting subjective value theory. The LTV is completely false.
Your author who sells zero books may be a lousy marketer. He might be a lousy author. He might have picked a boring topic. He might be writing books when we are in the age of YouTube. That he starves to death, has nothing to do with piracy, and everything to do with his poor entrepreneurial decision to produce something people will not pay for. No one is guaranteed a profit just because they produce something.
Also, I can speak to plenty of anecdotal experience that if your product's market only appeals to [sic] pirates (people who will not pay directly for the product) than you are producing something which was never commercially viable in the first place. The market has rendered its judgement, and that product is found by consumers to be wanting.
Very few authors make their living exclusively from book sales, publishers frequently pay advances to established authors, writers also have opportunities to cross over to other mediums, like film and music, as well as to do incredibly lucrative speaking engagements.
But that someone writes something, and no one is willing to pay cash for it but would read it for free, speaks more to the failure of the author to develop a product of high value, than to the fact that people will prefer to pay nothing rather than something. Man is an economizing being.
FYI, a lot of the modern digital world is working on a model of "freemium", a commercial product with a free component, which is used to attract the customers willing to pay for more features, depth and support. 30 day trials, free trials, shareware versions etc are examples of this.
At the end of the day, you misunderstand IP, particularly the fact that there are thousands if not millions of examples which destroy the objective claims you have made. A simple one, is the content of Project Gutenberg. If people are still willing to pay for hundred and thousand year old classics which are in the public domain, what pathetic author cannot sell his book of fresh, new and unique content, and who is to really blame for that?
Nitroadict:Piracy will always exist, btw. No amount of common sense is going to get rid of the phenomena.
It's not piracy though.
Live_Free_Or_Die:I think I have consistently advocated you own something as long as it is 100% in your control and if it is not 100% in your control it is a claim in society.
I'm not sure what that has to do with the discussion. IP is not property.
Well, what if I said to you that I've been an entrepreneur all my life, doing innovative business? What if I told you that I am thoroughly familiar with not only micro-economics, but also macro-economics and I know the classics (Smith, Say) and the (good) Austrians (Menger,Bohm-Bawerk, Mises, Reisman) in addition to being well-aquainted with Keynes, Marx and other branches of economics? I would say I have had sufficient exposure to economics to understand it better than most.
Yet, despite my extensive knowledge of economics I still think that your position is completely insane and that you know next to nothing about epistemology, metaphysics and ethics. The rest of your reply was so confused that I cannot stomach to reply to it all. but I will just answer one of your points:
"No one is guaranteed a profit just because they produce something."
Well, duh! No pro-IP people that I know of are claiming this. Suppose now that a farmer produces potatos and a thief at night comes and takes his crop and then justifies it with "no one is guaranteed a profit just because they produce something." What would you say to those who defend this based on such an argument? You'd hopefully say that they were full of horse manure and their argument stinks. Furthermore you would say: "the farmer owns the right to control his product and try to gain a profit from it." And that would be the right, non-insane answer. You would NOT claim that the farmer then adheres to the Marxian labor theory of value and that it was "just supply and demand" that left him with no profit.
I'm not sure that it will make the slightest impression on you that you've so seriously misjudged both my knowledge about economics and my (or any other's pro-IP) arguments, but somehow I doubt it.
You can't claim you own your body and also claim a part of your body falls outside the concept of self ownership.
You are exactly right. So if I produce a huge amount of potatoes, thereby lowering the market value of the farmer's patatoes next to nothing, I haven't robbed him of his livlihood, right? He's still free to try and gain a profit, right?
faber est suae quisque fortunae
Live_Free_Or_Die:You can't claim you own your body and also claim a part of your body falls outside the concept of self ownership.
And what part of our body am I implying falls outside the concept of ownership?
Onar, check the comments section of our thing
If you're appealing to IP existing as property because it exists physically in the brain, then you also have to realize that same IP can exist in someone (perhaps many) brains simultaneously. You can't claim a part of someone else's body falls outside the concept of self ownership. On the other hand, if you pluck an apple off a tree, there is only one of that apple. There are other apples on that tree and on other trees, but that apple cannot simultaneously exist elsewhere (excluding the possibility of hypothetical parallel universes and the like).
Say you write this old B language Hello World program and claim it as IP, as it is part of your brain:
main( ) { extrn a, b, c; putchar(a); putchar(b); putchar(c); putchar('!*n'); } a 'hell'; b 'o, w'; c 'orld';
Onar Åm:Well, what if I said to you that I've been an entrepreneur all my life, doing innovative business?
So you want a cookie? My claim wasn't against your experience, it was against the quality of your argument.
Onar Åm:I would say I have had sufficient exposure to economics to understand it better than most.
Then why are you promoting a labor value fallacy (as most IP proponents do)?
Onar Åm:Yet, despite my extensive knowledge of economics I still think that your position is completely insane
And what is my position?
Onar Åm:and that you know next to nothing about epistemology, metaphysics and ethics.
Can you demonstrate where I have failed each of these three?
Onar Åm:The rest of your reply was so confused that I cannot stomach to reply to it all.
Guts are in short supply in this thread.
Onar Åm:"No one is guaranteed a profit just because they produce something." Well, duh! No pro-IP people that I know of are claiming this.
Well, duh! No pro-IP people that I know of are claiming this.
Well then how can you blame [sic] piracy for starvation?
Onar Åm:Suppose now that a farmer produces potatos and a thief at night comes and takes his crop and then justifies it with "no one is guaranteed a profit just because they produce something."
The difference is that a potato is property. If the thief takes it, the farmer no longer has a potato. If I take the idea of growing a potato, the farmer still has that idea. So what has been lost? You claim future value in exchange.
Back to the author, you're claiming that the author is losing his idea in the book, not actual physical books. This is the entire debate. Ideas are not physical goods. When we manifest them as physical goods, we have a property right in that physical good. But we still don't own the idea inside it because we can only control ideas with regard to how we choose to make them available to others. You cannot control what I think or know, you cannot claim a property right IN MY MIND.
The only way you can claim a loss when someone steals an idea, is to assign an objective value to that idea. But we know that values are subjective, not objective. So how do you claim a loss for the author, when you cannot prove what value was taken?
Your position is a labor value position. You're equating real goods like potatoes with ideas to create a concept of intellectual property. To do so, you have to reject subjective value theory. Why do you reject subjective value theory?
Onar Åm:Furthermore you would say: "the farmer owns the right to control his product and try to gain a profit from it."
The author can try to gain a profit from his book as well. No one is denying that. I gave an example of how the publishing industry has developed to allow authors to gain a profit. Or are you saying that authors are also entitled to a profit for trying, even if they try the wrong way (back to the labor theory)?
Onar Åm:You would NOT claim that the farmer then adheres to the Marxian labor theory of value and that it was "just supply and demand" that left him with no profit.
You adhere to the labor theory. Not the farmer. Your position requires a labor theory of value to work. It is incompatible with subjective value theory and marginalism.
Aposiopesis:If you're appealing to IP existing as property because it exists physically in the brain, then you also have to realize that same IP can exist in someone (perhaps many) brains simultaneously.
I was setting him up ...
Sorry LS, I've been itching for someone to make that argument so I could post the picture of the mice.
CSJtheory wrote the following post at Fri, Oct 22 2010 11:35 PM:
Good points and research David. As far as the 3rd party issue... Assuming the original work of authorship qualifies for property protections, similar to the way copyright is treated... Morally: Once a 3rd party is made aware they acquired illegitimately derived property (however the means), they would be morally obligated to remove/return their copy. Future copies derived from their illegitimate copy would be immoral as well as subject to sanctioning. Legally: In an anarcho-capitalist society, sanctioning could be handled by a private organization - through voluntary contracts people agreed to as part of other economic transactions (similar to private rights/insurance/enforcement organizations). In a minarchist society this might still be enforced by a limited government. Of course, people in any society can go renegade and ignore all that, but the immorality and sanctioning will be a deterrent that will minimize aggressions.
Thanks for making the distinction between the moral and legal issues CSJtheory. My questions have more to do with the moral/ethical side and apply to the idea of honoring contracts. I also have questions concerning what falls within the realm of aggressive acts.
At first, I felt it was necessary to determine if a thought or idea can be recognized as property at all (I still don't think it can) in order to determine if it deserves any protection. But going back to Rothbard's reasoning, I now recognize that these moral questions about contracts and aggression can be answered apart from answering the question about whether a thought or idea is actually property.
I think there are some on this thread who insist that a thought or idea is by nature entitled to the same protection as tangible property. I think in isolation this leads to an inherent conflict with principals such as non-aggression, scarcity and subjective utility. OTOH, if you look at copyrights as a voluntary common-law contract as Rothbard has, it leads to different conclusions. Rothbard is not saying that a thought or an idea is property at all. I understand what he says to mean that a book, a CD or even a mousetrap can be exchanged voluntarily without passing the right to reproduce it. The free market is what should determine if this is a viable business. It also doesn't need a government definition or some arbitrary length of time applied by decree.
To summarize my understanding:
None of this has to do anything with the state, nor does it need the state for enforcement or coercion.
What am I missing? What have I misunderstood?
Aposiopesis:Sorry LS, I've been itching for someone to make that argument so I could post the picture of the mice.
I didn't have a picture of mice, so at least you created a derivative work from THE PRODUCT OF MY MIND.
A simple one, is the content of Project Gutenberg. If people are still willing to pay for hundred and thousand year old classics which are in the public domain, what pathetic author cannot sell his book of fresh, new and unique content, and who is to really blame for that?
Idk. I would say they do that because existing copies are rare, and you're not allowed to plagarize it as far as I know.
That's what the issue boils down to me. I don't care one way or another, but in my view, we should not allow plagarizing. Recognition rights, at the least.
In States a fresh law is looked upon as a remedy for evil. Instead of themselves altering what is bad, people begin by demanding a law to alter it. ... In short, a law everywhere and for everything!
~Peter Kropotkin
liberty student: Aposiopesis:Sorry LS, I've been itching for someone to make that argument so I could post the picture of the mice. I didn't have a picture of mice, so at least you created a derivative work from THE PRODUCT OF MY MIND.
Yea, but I totally ripped that off from some movie or something. Arrest me now, make me walk the plank, I'm a scurvy pirate... arrrrr.
Epicurus ibn Kalhoun:A simple one, is the content of Project Gutenberg. If people are still willing to pay for hundred and thousand year old classics which are in the public domain, what pathetic author cannot sell his book of fresh, new and unique content, and who is to really blame for that? Idk. I would say they do that because existing copies are rare, and you're not allowed to plagarize it as far as I know.
You can go to any bookstore and pick up dirt cheap paperback copies of all of these classics AND you can download and print them yourself. There are no IP claims to these works, and people STILL continue to spend money on them. According to the IP proponents, this paradigm cannot exist, because if a [sic] pirate takes a copy (for the price of zero) and distributes the content freely (as Project Gutenberg does) then the author must starve.
LvMI is a fantastic example of this. They give away the book for free in printable format. They publish it to the web without a claim beyond attribution. They even sometimes create audiobooks and give those away for free. And yet people flock to the bookstore to buy these books just the same. According to our IP friends, this cannot happen. So much [sic] piracy should have driven the LvMI bookstore out of business.
liberty student: Epicurus ibn Kalhoun:A simple one, is the content of Project Gutenberg. If people are still willing to pay for hundred and thousand year old classics which are in the public domain, what pathetic author cannot sell his book of fresh, new and unique content, and who is to really blame for that? Idk. I would say they do that because existing copies are rare, and you're not allowed to plagarize it as far as I know. You can go to any bookstore and pick up dirt cheap paperback copies of all of these classics AND you can download and print them yourself. There are no IP claims to these works, and people STILL continue to spend money on them. According to the IP proponents, this paradigm cannot exist, because if a [sic] pirate takes a copy (for the price of zero) and distributes the content freely (as Project Gutenberg does) then the author must starve. LvMI is a fantastic example of this. They give away the book for free in printable format. They publish it to the web without a claim beyond attribution. They even sometimes create audiobooks and give those away for free. And yet people flock to the bookstore to buy these books just the same. According to our IP friends, this cannot happen. So much [sic] piracy should have driven the LvMI bookstore out of business.
Not that I disagree even in the slightest, but do you know a reason (either via praxeology or some other means) as to why people choose to buy a freely available product? I'm fairly certain there's a term for this (having to do with a natural tendency to support what's perceived as beneficial to the species at what's likewise perceived as an acceptable expense), but such is escaping me at the moment.
Aposiopesis:Yea, but I totally ripped that off from some movie or something. Arrest me now, make me walk the plank, I'm a scurvy pirate... arrrrr.
Not that I disagree even in the slightest, but do you know a reason (either via praxeology or some other means) as to why people choose to buy a freely available product?
I have a leather-bound copy of The Complete Works of Shakespeare. It looks much better on the shelf than my print-outs would.
Aposiopesis:Not that I disagree even in the slightest, but do you know a reason (either via praxeology or some other means) as to why people choose to buy a freely available product? I'm fairly certain there's a term for this (having to do with a natural tendency to support what's perceived as beneficial to the species at what's likewise perceived as an acceptable expense), but such is escaping me at the moment.
I'm really not sure. I think it really comes down to perception of value, which is why the notion of lost value from ideas spreading isn't quantifiable. This may be why Kinsella has gone on the offensive (and rightfully so) in asking IP proponents to quantify their claims. It's impossible to quantify subjective loss.
Well, regardless of that, I suppose, it is an observable fact. And agreed about Kinsella going on the offensive.
JackCuyler wrote the following post at Sat, Oct 23 2010 1:29 PM:
No, that's ok, because the farmer next door didn't steal HIS potatoes. He PRODUCED his OWN and did so cheaper. The correct analogy in IP is that some other author produces his own novel which is so good that people prefer to buy this novel over the other author's novel. THAT's competition. Stealing your neighbor farmer's potatoes is NOT competition. It's theft.
Aposiopesis:Well, regardless of that, I suppose, it is an observable fact.
I agree, it occurs. I wouldn't go so far as to attribute a universal motive to it.
We agree; stealing potatoes is theft. The owner of the potatoes can show clear damages -- he no longer has his potatoes. What are the damages can the author show? He still has his novel. Not a single copy is missing.
David, "I'm still not finding any explanation yet as to why or how Rothbard is mistaken."
See the Contract vs. Reserved Rights section of my Against IP. I go into it in detail. http://www.stephankinsella.com/publications/#againstip
Stephan Kinsella nskinsella@gmail.com www.StephanKinsella.com
Onar: "I've seen frighteningly few. Here's an example: common sense dictates that an author who sells zero books because his books have been pirated and who starves to death because he didn't make money from the book has been robbed of his livelihood and even his life due to piracy."
To be "robbed of his livelihood" implies there some owned thing called a livelihood (it could not be robbed, or stolen, if it is not owned). Since this livelihood apparently means royalties from sales of books, the property right in the livelihood really means a property right in other people--in putative customers; or in their money. It means you have a right to have people patronize you, and/or do the money in their wallets. Wahtever this is, it's not libertarianism. By similar reasoning we should give any business a monopoly--otherwise his competitors "steal" "his" customers. And I own my girlfriend--this prevents some other guy from stealing my gal!
David, "Help me understand where Rothbard's explanation breaks down?"
I just answerd it in another post: See the Contract vs. Reserved Rights section of my Against IP. I go into it in detail.