Do Patent Rights allow Monopolies in Capitalism?

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Anenome replied on Thu, Oct 4 2012 12:23 PM

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h.k.:

You sound like a minarchist with that rhetoric. Patents only exist because of the state, in a free market more subsidies for research would be available. Relax dude people are still going to make things, and products will be higher quality with more competition.

 

Face the facts, patents that you supposedly "own" are imaginary-mystical-magical property that belongs to me anyway, since I've homesteaded my mind and property.  All your ideas belong to me, any future ideas you have will be my property as well. I'll make sure to plagiarize you whenever possible. :]

So you do suggest that if I write a book, that I can't own that book? Or is there something different about a patent?

Seems to me that you feel a thing can't be property if it's intangible. I don't see why intangible property necessarily disappears in a free society.

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h.k. replied on Thu, Oct 4 2012 12:40 PM

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Yep, it means you don't understand the basic purpose of Austrian economics, which is that it deals with scarcity.

I am God when I am able to copy something with my sheer will without taking it from you, not a thief. Pat me on the back if anything.

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Anenome replied on Thu, Oct 4 2012 2:33 PM

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I understand that the nature of digital goods are different from that of physical ones. That's not really at issue.

Question: do you deny the existence of digital property?

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Autolykos replied on Thu, Oct 4 2012 2:54 PM

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Anenome:

What's wrong with that. We effectively have an infinite universe. It produces a finite amount of money because human energy to produce out of the infinite physical canvas is limited.

Are you sure about that? I'm not - at all.

Anenome:

If he chooses not to keep the idea secret in exchange for a limited grant of monopoly, then yeah he's being stolen from. The only other way to prevent being stolen from is to keep the idea secret, which will long-term hurt the prosperity of that society. I suppose my argument sounds utilitarian then :\ I don't intend it to. However you guys aren't attacking that aspect, but rather the idea of ownership of an idea in the first place.

How in the world is he being stolen from? What is being stolen from him? If ideas aren't scarce, then nothing is being taken from him when someone else uses "his" idea. Why is that apparently so hard for you to understand?

Anenome:

It doesn't, but as Rothbard puts forward in Ethics of Liberty, no one can have a higher right over property than its first user. This is the homesteading concept. Thus, the inventor of an idea is its owner, and how we choose to handle that from there is important because of the nature of ideas. We can't simply say he's not an owner, nor can we say he should have indefinite ownership because the nature of an idea is that its indivisible from other ideas. So a time-based grant of monopoly is a decent compromise. How long should be handled explicitly within a society.

There are for instance a lot of people saying drug patents are too short right now given how long it takes to bring a drug to market in the US. That's really the fault of the regulators for requiring 7 years of trials tho, imo.

Your argument assumes that ideas are property - the very thing you're being asked to prove in the first place. So it's entirely circular. You're also repeating the non sequitur (yes, that's what it is) that a person can't/shouldn't have indefinite ownership of an idea because the nature of an idea is that it's indivisible from other ideas. Finally, whether anything is a "decent compromise" is entirely a matter of opinion, so I don't appreciate you treating it as though it's a fact.

Anenome:

Nah, see above.

Nah, you didn't explain what you mean by "using an idea". Try again.

Anenome:

If you own a property then you own whatever value is derived from that. How is that different than owning land? You said a particular value. I say only value. If someone drains millions of dollars in oil from your land, or just $10 worth of cactus, they've stolen from you in both cases. The number doesn't matter, the fact that stealing is occurring does.

Just what kind of distinction are you making between "a particular value" and "only value"? I'm not making any myself, so I'm frankly baffled by your statement. If someone drains oil from my land or takes cactus from my land (presumably without my permission),  they're stealing from me because they've taken something that I own (presumably). How much that thing is worth is irrelevant to whether they've stolen it.

Anenome:

Nah, it depends on the vertical limits of your property. Which currently most people are considered to have a sub-ground ownership all the way down to the center of the earth :P Altho in some parts of the country they do limit it typically to a few feet.

Nah, I've never heard of any modern-day conception of land ownership as extending all the way down to the center of Earth. AFAIK, the ad coelum et ad inferos doctrine has been out of use for a long time.

Anenome:

So, say you intend to put in a ten thousand acre solar farm. You clear the first hundred acres and install panels. Then someone else jumps in and builds on the rest before you can get there. You must now abandon what you did install because it was only economical if installed in mass amount, not a mere 100 acres.

In the same way, if you put a shovel in the ground to dig what you're sure will make a great gold mine and someone begins shovelling next to you, now you have conflict. The claim avoids this. It's not a grant of property, but a statement of intention that others should respect because you got there first and are in the process of homesteading the territory.

First off, this doesn't refute the points I made, which I'll repeat lest you "forget" them: 1) there's not always a time lag between intended use and the completion of that use, and 2) all the ways in which a person intends to use something don't really matter either - all that matters is whether he starts using it in some way.

Second, even if this hypothetical group of people expect everyone to respect pre-homesteading claims over land (and who knows what else) doesn't mean that one of them has necessarily aggressed against another if he doesn't respect the other's pre-homesteading claim. If the other forcibly removes him from the area that the other has claimed, then I'd say the other has necessarily aggressed against him.

Anenome:

A patent is a limited grant of exclusive property to an idea. Title to a car doesn't physically prevent others from stealing your car either. Coercion would take place in the courts, just like if someone stole your car.

Yes, I understand the idea of a patent. But you said that a patent bars people from using the idea contained within it. By "bar" I assumed you meant "physically prevent". If that's not what you meant, then please say so and please explain what you did mean.

Aside from that, I'll note that this again assumes that ideas can be owned, which is what's being challenged.

Anenome:

In this case 'to make use of legitimately.' I suppose you could leave out legitimately since, as a secret, no one else can use it at all.

How is an idea necessarily a secret? It isn't. So why are you seemingly acting as though it is?

Whether someone is using something in no way means that anyone (let alone everyone) is bound to consider it to be legitimate. So what do you think constitutes legitimate use of an idea? That is, what makes a particular use of an idea legitimate?

Finally, I'll note that your definition of "own" is different from mine. I've already explained what my definition of it is.

Anenome:

Just agreement to do so by others in that society. It's adjunct to the homestead principle, it's a way to put it into effect and avoid disputes. A respects B's claim because B wants A to respect his claim. It's just a previous agreement to respect claims and be bound by them.

And just how is this agreement put into effect? And what about those who aren't parties to the agreement?

Anenome:

In this case, [I draw the line between one "society" and another] on their agreements or laws on patents.

Just to be clear: you're defining "society" for the purposes of this discussion as "a mutual agreement or set of agreement on patents"? And you're also defining "law" as "a mutual agreement"? Is that correct?

Anenome:

So your position on owning a book then?

My position is that owning a book entails owning the physical object, not the words printed on its pages.

Anenome:

The patent process has a hurdle, the hurdle whether it's obvious and new enough to justify a limited grant of monopoly ownership. That seems to address your point here.

No it doesn't. My whole point is in challenging what you just said. Why is an innovation okay only when it's "obvious and new enough", whatever that means?

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Mike99 replied on Thu, Oct 4 2012 3:14 PM

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How are property rights not an idea themselves? All these things are fictional constructs in our minds, if we are going to remove intellectual property rights, then property rights have to go, they are also just an idea - as are rights. Sure, they are ideas based off observations, as in "I move my body, therefore I am governor of it, govenance denotes ownership and freedom of use" etc. But what of an inventor of free energy technology, for example. If he develops a cheap simply quantum energy device of some kind, is that idea, that process now everyone's?

Isn't the external world only perceived in the mind anyway? When you touch your house, the atoms of your hand, and the atoms of the house in fact never actually touch. All you have is perception. That said, what we do know is real from that point of view, is consciousness itself. Therefore, ideas have value do they not?

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Mike99 replied on Thu, Oct 4 2012 3:20 PM

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As a matter of fact, can't we say that an idea, specifically a process, pattern, etc, on a DVD, the shape of a steel piece, functionally, is not dissimilar to a piece of computer code, and in that sense, is not computer code essentially mechanical - both products of the mind? Can not a programmer be the owner of his software design? Why does he have incentive to write it then? If ideas are not scarce how come it took so long for someone to invent computers, transisters, aeroplanes etc.? When does the abstract become mechanical? I think when you anaylise it seriously, there really isn't any line. Everything is of the mind and in the mind even perception, even property rights.

I must say I like the idea of prizes put up by the market as a solution to this. Imagine the prize for free energy technology. It would be huge by now, certainly worth any inventor to sell his invention for unless he was crazy.

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Anenome replied on Thu, Oct 4 2012 4:27 PM

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Autolykos:

Anenome:

If he chooses not to keep the idea secret in exchange for a limited grant of monopoly, then yeah he's being stolen from. The only other way to prevent being stolen from is to keep the idea secret, which will long-term hurt the prosperity of that society. I suppose my argument sounds utilitarian then :\ I don't intend it to. However you guys aren't attacking that aspect, but rather the idea of ownership of an idea in the first place.

How in the world is he being stolen from? What is being stolen from him? If ideas aren't scarce

But an idea that no one has ever thought of before--that's not scarce? What happens when the idea is only in one person's head, that's not scarcity?

Autolykos:

then nothing is being taken from him when someone else uses "his" idea. Why is that apparently so hard for you to understand?

Nothing except the value he could derive from the creation of that idea.

I'll ask again since you continue to ignore it: if I write a book are you claiming a book cannot be owned and that the value derived from selling that book cannot be owned? Can anyone just copy a book and sell it? You think there's nothing wrong with that?

Autolykos:

Anenome:

It doesn't, but as Rothbard puts forward in Ethics of Liberty, no one can have a higher right over property than its first user. This is the homesteading concept. Thus, the inventor of an idea is its owner, and how we choose to handle that from there is important because of the nature of ideas. We can't simply say he's not an owner, nor can we say he should have indefinite ownership because the nature of an idea is that its indivisible from other ideas. So a time-based grant of monopoly is a decent compromise. How long should be handled explicitly within a society.

There are for instance a lot of people saying drug patents are too short right now given how long it takes to bring a drug to market in the US. That's really the fault of the regulators for requiring 7 years of trials tho, imo.

Your argument assumes that ideas are property - the very thing you're being asked to prove in the first place. So it's entirely circular.

Perhaps, but your argument so far consists in assuming ideas aren't property, as you've provided no rationale why they shouldn't be.

Autolykos:

You're also repeating the non sequitur (yes, that's what it is) that a person can't/shouldn't have indefinite ownership of an idea because the nature of an idea is that it's indivisible from other ideas.

No, I said that would be an agreement among people. I didn't say it follows from the nature of ownership. It's a bargain, the bargain is: reveal your idea to everyone so everyone benefits and we'll given you an exclusive right for a term.

Autolykos:

Finally, whether anything is a "decent compromise" is entirely a matter of opinion, so I don't appreciate you treating it as though it's a fact.

I don't, I said it would be up to the bargaining of whomever wants to implement such a system.

Autolykos:

Anenome:

If you own a property then you own whatever value is derived from that. How is that different than owning land? You said a particular value. I say only value. If someone drains millions of dollars in oil from your land, or just $10 worth of cactus, they've stolen from you in both cases. The number doesn't matter, the fact that stealing is occurring does.

Just what kind of distinction are you making between "a particular value" and "only value"? I'm not making any myself, so I'm frankly baffled by your statement.

You said previously 'particular value' it was you who raised the idea. Whatever value can be derived is the owner's. They actual amount is immaterial.

Autolykos:

Anenome:

So, say you intend to put in a ten thousand acre solar farm. You clear the first hundred acres and install panels. Then someone else jumps in and builds on the rest before you can get there. You must now abandon what you did install because it was only economical if installed in mass amount, not a mere 100 acres.

In the same way, if you put a shovel in the ground to dig what you're sure will make a great gold mine and someone begins shovelling next to you, now you have conflict. The claim avoids this. It's not a grant of property, but a statement of intention that others should respect because you got there first and are in the process of homesteading the territory.

First off, this doesn't refute the points I made, which I'll repeat lest you "forget" them: 1) there's not always a time lag between intended use and the completion of that use

How could there not be? Between intending to put the first shovel into soil and actually doing so is a finite time lag. I don't see how you can possibly reasonably disagree.

Autolykos:

and 2) all the ways in which a person intends to use something don't really matter either - all that matters is whether he starts using it in some way.

It's statements like this that make me feel we libertarians have a deficient theory of homesteading.

Autolykos:

Second, even if this hypothetical group of people expect everyone to respect pre-homesteading claims over land (and who knows what else) doesn't mean that one of them has necessarily aggressed against another if he doesn't respect the other's pre-homesteading claim. If the other forcibly removes him from the area that the other has claimed, then I'd say the other has necessarily aggressed against him.

I'd tend to agree.

Autolykos:

Anenome:

A patent is a limited grant of exclusive property to an idea. Title to a car doesn't physically prevent others from stealing your car either. Coercion would take place in the courts, just like if someone stole your car.

Yes, I understand the idea of a patent. But you said that a patent bars people from using the idea contained within it. By "bar" I assumed you meant "physically prevent". If that's not what you meant, then please say so and please explain what you did mean.

It would be obtuse to make that assumption; the prevention is via lawsuit, by injunction.

Autolykos:

Aside from that, I'll note that this again assumes that ideas can be owned, which is what's being challenged.

Yet you continue to ignore the question of whether a written story can be owned. Probably because it's obvious that it can be owned. One does not simply own the matter that makes up a book, one owns the idea the book contains.

Autolykos:

Anenome:

In this case 'to make use of legitimately.' I suppose you could leave out legitimately since, as a secret, no one else can use it at all.

How is an idea necessarily a secret? It isn't. So why are you seemingly acting as though it is?

In the scenario you'd force by barring patent protection, all ideas would be forced to be secrets. Why aren't you assuming that all idea must remain secret, since that's the only option you'd leave to idea creators???

Autolykos:

Whether someone is using something in no way means that anyone (let alone everyone) is bound to consider it to be legitimate. So what do you think constitutes legitimate use of an idea? That is, what makes a particular use of an idea legitimate?

If they can establish ownership rights of an idea, as with any property, then they are legitimately titled to its use and fruits thereof.

Autolykos:

Anenome:

Just agreement to do so by others in that society. It's adjunct to the homestead principle, it's a way to put it into effect and avoid disputes. A respects B's claim because B wants A to respect his claim. It's just a previous agreement to respect claims and be bound by them.

And just how is this agreement put into effect? And what about those who aren't parties to the agreement?

It would be part of the libertarian legal code that arises in a free society. Those who aren't parties to the agreement would not receive access to the expiring patents.

Autolykos:

Anenome:

In this case, [I draw the line between one "society" and another] on their agreements or laws on patents.

Just to be clear: you're defining "society" for the purposes of this discussion as "a mutual agreement or set of agreement on patents"? And you're also defining "law" as "a mutual agreement"? Is that correct?

Yes.

Autolykos:

Anenome:

So your position on owning a book then?

My position is that owning a book entails owning the physical object, not the words printed on its pages.

You have completely lost me. That's awful. You're saying the author of a book does not own anything but a physical object? That anyone who buys that book can freely reproduce it?

Awful. Screw that.

Autolykos:

Anenome:

The patent process has a hurdle, the hurdle whether it's obvious and new enough to justify a limited grant of monopoly ownership. That seems to address your point here.

No it doesn't. My whole point is in challenging what you just said. Why is an innovation okay only when it's "obvious and new enough", whatever that means?

You've clearly never applied for a patent. The main hurdle, as I said, is convincing the patent attorney it isn't obvious.

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Jack Roberts replied on Thu, Oct 4 2012 5:03 PM

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There currently exists many successful producers that continue to exist that are not the best producers of good or services in their respective industries. Just because a producer is not the most successful of the market, does not necessarily mean that the producer will die out. Monopolies even in the common misunderstood sense of the term do not have any power over their competitors. I recommend that you look up the differences between a good and a bad monopoly.

Patents are literally a government enabled monopoly. They are not a function or a by product of capitalism.

I don't think patents would exist without a state and a monopoly police force enforcing patent law. Patents and IP would most likely not exist without a state.

A form of Trademark however i think would most likely exist in a free market. At least in the sense of branding. I do not think that selling counterfeit goods would be illegal, if it was stated that they were fake. However i think that if they were sold under false pretence that they were real then the seller could be guilty of fraud. In the same way if a seller copies a shop for example, the brand and starts selling a similar product and claimed to be the original shop, but just another branch, then that would be fraud. But if someone copied the exact shop and the product but did not claim that they were just another branch of the shop they copied then that would not be fraud. A viable market function of trademarks or branding could be for pragmatic reasons ie to prevent brand confusion and to facilitate people finding the business and so on. Where sellers could voluntarily join a business register to facilitate the public recognition of their brand, so that if an individual decides to create a business they don't make the mistake of using a brand that is already in use. So that when someone is looking for your business they don't find 100s with the same name.

Of course just because there would be no patents does not mean that people can not have trade secrets and force the competition to have to reverse engineer their products in order to copy them.

I do not see any problem with an individual printing books that he did not write and selling them for a profit. But if an individual claimed that he wrote a book when but he did not, then that would be fraud. I don't think we can differentiate between a book and any other copyable good. What about if you create a model air plane in a specific way and then I copy that method and start selling model airplanes, how is that any different than a book?

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Autolykos replied on Thu, Oct 4 2012 5:49 PM

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Anenome:

But an idea that no one has ever thought of before--that's not scarce? What happens when the idea is only in one person's head, that's not scarcity?

Not as I define it ("where one person's use excludes another's use").

Anenome:

Nothing except the value he could derive from the creation of that idea.

Wait a minute. Earlier you said that no one is entitled to any particular amount of money from any piece of property. But now you seem to be saying otherwise, except here you're using the term "value" instead of "money". Same difference, if you ask me. My point is that you're now contradicting yourself.

And please tell me, if a person uses an idea, how does that conflict with anyone else using it? If I publish a book, for example, how does you also publishing it conflict with that?

Anenome:

I'll ask again since you continue to ignore it: if I write a book are you claiming a book cannot be owned and that the value derived from selling that book cannot be owned? Can anyone just copy a book and sell it? You think there's nothing wrong with that?

Where in the world did I ignore that question earlier? I demand that you point it out or retract your accusation.

Now then, as I mentioned previously, I think a "book" is a certain kind of physical object. That can be owned, while the words on the page cannot. I think anyone can legitimately copy a book and sell it, unless they have contractual obligations to the contrary. No, I don't think there's anything wrong with that whatsoever. And to say that the value derived from selling the book can be owned is the same as saying a person can own (i.e. be entitled to) a certain amount of future income from selling the book. By that reasoning, why can't I own (i.e. be entitled to) a certain amount of future income from selling my house?

Anenome:

Perhaps, but your argument so far consists in assuming ideas aren't property, as you've provided no rationale why they shouldn't be.

Sure I have. How many times have I asked you to explain to me how one person's use of an idea conflicts with another person's use of it? The implication is that their different uses of the idea do not conflict, and thus ideas aren't scarce. As I said before, if you define "use" as "get a certain amount of money from selling something" instead of "undertake an action on/with something", then one person's "use" of an idea can conflict with another person's "use" of it. And it's this other definition of "use" that you've now admitted to using (except you're referring to "value" instead of "money", which I think is surreptitious by the way), even though you explicitly denied using that definition beforehand.

To me, using an idea means creating something based on it. If someone else creates something else based on the same idea, he's not conflicting with me in any way. As I see it, both of our uses of the idea are legitimate, so no one has an exclusive right to using the idea, and hence I don't consider ideas themselves to be ownable.

Anenome:

No, I said that would be an agreement among people. I didn't say it follows from the nature of ownership. It's a bargain, the bargain is: reveal your idea to everyone so everyone benefits and we'll given you an exclusive right for a term.

You did say that. You said it right here: "And because ideas are non-scarce and infinitely replicateable, that "fence" cannot therefore exit in perprtuity, for it would be silly to claim someone can own X idea forever." And again here: "We can't simply say he's not an owner, nor can we say he should have indefinite ownership because the nature of an idea is that its indivisible from other ideas." In other words, you're arguing that because ideas aren't scarce, a person can't own them forever. Please tell me how that logically follows.

Anenome:

I don't, I said it would be up to the bargaining of whomever wants to implement such a system.

Just where in the world did you say that? I don't see where you said that anywhere, so please point it out - if you can.

Anenome:

You said previously 'particular value' it was you who raised the idea. Whatever value can be derived is the owner's. They actual amount is immaterial.

You do understand that there's a difference between the value one imputes to a thing and the thing itself, right? I was responding to the apparent implicit notion that one is somehow entitled to more than just the thing itself. By "whatever value can be derived", do you mean "whatever things can be produced"? If so, why do you use the word "value" there? To me it implies something imputed to a thing, not the thing itself.

Anenome:

How could there not be? Between intending to put the first shovel into soil and actually doing so is a finite time lag. I don't see how you can possibly reasonably disagree.

By "intended use" I meant that an actual action on or with the thing is already being undertaken. So intending to put the first shovel into soil isn't an intended use by that meaning because the shovel hasn't actually been put into soil yet.

Anenome:

It's statements like this that make me feel we libertarians have a deficient theory of homesteading.

Please do go ahead and explain yourself.

Anenome:

It would be obtuse to make that assumption; the prevention is via lawsuit, by injunction.

A lawsuit doesn't physically prevent anything either.

Anenome:

Yet you continue to ignore the question of whether a written story can be owned. Probably because it's obvious that it can be owned. One does not simply own the matter that makes up a book, one owns the idea the book contains.

Again, I demand that you point out just where I've ignored that question. As far as I'm concerned, this is the first time you've raised that specific question.

Anenome:

In the scenario you'd force by barring patent protection, all ideas would be forced to be secrets. Why aren't you assuming that all idea must remain secret, since that's the only option you'd leave to idea creators???

No, not all ideas would be forced to be secrets. Language is an idea, isn't it?

There's another option available, and that's a performance bond. More specifically, you could ask others to take out performance bonds with you as a precondition of buying your book. These bonds would be legally separate from their purchases, however. The bonds would stipulate that, in the event that they produce their own copies of the book for sale, you're entitled to a certain amount of money and/or other property.

Anenome:

If they can establish ownership rights of an idea, as with any property, then they are legitimately titled to its use and fruits thereof.

Well how do you see those ownership rights as being able to be established?

Anenome:

It would be part of the libertarian legal code that arises in a free society. Those who aren't parties to the agreement would not receive access to the expiring patents.

And just why would they necessarily not receive access to the expiring patents? Who would enforce that?

I really don't see this legal code as arising in a free society - as opposed to one that you establish on your property and which you require people to agree to before setting foot on it.

Anenome:

You have completely lost me. That's awful. You're saying the author of a book does not own anything but a physical object? That anyone who buys that book can freely reproduce it?

Awful. Screw that.

It's not awful - you just think it's awful. That's fine. I'm not surprised in the slightest, since you've already said that you want to make money off of selling copyrighted books. Yes, if my beliefs were prevailing, your whole business model would be ruined. Quite frankly, I'd be fine with that.

But it's this desire to make money off of something that isn't scarce - that is, your desire to make money by imposing artificial scarcity on people - that makes you such a firm believer in "intellectual property". I don't see any basis for that belief that's consistent with voluntaryist principles.

Anenome:

You've clearly never applied for a patent. The main hurdle, as I said, is convincing the patent attorney it isn't obvious.

Whether I have or haven't applied for a patent is irrelevant. And I was going on your words: "whether it's obvious and new enough to justify a limited grant of monopoly ownership". I assumed "whether it's obvious and new enough" meant that "whether it's obvious enough" was implied. But it seems I was mistaken there, so I stand corrected.

You didn't answer my question, however. I'll rephrase it to reflect my corrected understanding of what you said: Why is an innovation okay only when it's not "obvious" and is "new enough", whatever those mean?

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Anenome replied on Thu, Oct 4 2012 6:00 PM

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Jack Roberts:

Patents are literally a government enabled monopoly. They are not a function or a by product of capitalism.

Property is a privately enforced monopoly on an item tho, sans government. So...

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Jack Roberts replied on Thu, Oct 4 2012 7:19 PM

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Property is not understood to be a privately enforced monopoly over an item. The ownership of property I guess you could say is a monopoly over that specific item of property. Although property shares the name with IP i don't think this is directly relevant to a discussion about patents or even IP. Property ownership does not prevent other people from owning a different item but one that is identical, thus I don't think it can be described as a monopoly very well. Property ownership does not always require enforcement, while patents and IP depends on it. As an example even young children claim ownership over objects and do not need any enforcement for that claim of ownership. If a child claimed ownership over the idea of a sand castle, it would certainly need an enforcing party to prevent people all around the country that found out about the sand castle from creating their own sand castle.

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Mike99 replied on Thu, Oct 4 2012 7:51 PM

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But claiming ownership over an idea that nobody can trace ownership to - a sand castle - is rediculous. But claiming ownership of a musical recording that you have performed and engineered - that is actually tangible. It may be of the mind - but what is not? And it can be tangibly demonstrated. I came up with this song, nobody else wrote it, I can prove it, I can prove I recorded it, performed it, engineered it. So is it not tangible?

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Anenome replied on Thu, Oct 4 2012 9:33 PM

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Jack Roberts:

Property is not understood to be a privately enforced monopoly over an item. The ownership of property I guess you could say is a monopoly over that specific item of property.

Exactly, that's what ownership gives you is monopoly control over a specific thing.

Jack Roberts:

Property ownership does not prevent other people from owning a different item but one that is identical, thus I don't think it can be described as a monopoly very well.

Right, well the concept of property needs to adapt to the concept of IP, which has a slightly different nature. We shouldn't expect the concept to be directly applicable. Doesn't mean there shouldn't be some concept of property regarding IP.

Jack Roberts:

Property ownership does not always require enforcement, while patents and IP depends on it.

Your ability to own a house depends on enforcement. Either by yourself or by those your hire to secure you and yours.

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h.k. replied on Thu, Oct 4 2012 9:33 PM

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Again it is easy to define tangible property, if I take it away you don't have it anymore. Intellectual property is an idea that occurs in someone else's body, where you have no jurisdiction.

I'm going to think whatever I want to think, and do whatever I want to do on my property, with my labor.

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h.k. replied on Thu, Oct 4 2012 9:37 PM

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Your arguments are not economic in nature Ane, they sound more moral if anything. Property is valid because you homesteaded it, you have never in your life homesteaded an idea, the way you define it.

Your utilitarian argument is not going to help the industry either, they should embrace piracy and make money off it.