It would have been so simple for you to provide an answer, and yet you did not.
Because the question was absurd. You might as well have been scoffing at the idea that there are men who cook and do their own laundry.
I'm one of those elusive non-IT Linux users. So was the person who introduced it to me. So was the person who introduced it to him, whose brother is a Linux nerd hobbyist but works as a landscaper. Of the literal dozens of Linux users I personally know, only one is an IT professional.
And not only am I not an IT professional, I am generally pretty bad with computers. I FAILED Q-BASIC TWICE IN HIGHSCHOOL for crying out loud. And yet I find Ubuntu, a completely free Linux distribution, to be only slightly more difficult than Windows XP was to me when I switched over from Mac, and not only that but it works better than Windows did in almost every respect. Your characterization of Linux as being unusable at a consumer level is flat-out objectively WRONG.
Pro Christo et Libertate integre!
This is precisely my point. Open source consists of tools made by producers towards the end of delivering a completely different product to consumers. By the nature of information, it benefits from a network effect where multiple producers can cooperate with each other to improve their tools. However, there is never and has never been a design consideration for consumers in open-source software, because such a consideration requires R&D investment and entrepreneurial risk, thus consuming capital. Open-source cannot be capitalized. Such a thing would compete with the producers' markets, to which end open-source is designed to serve. In short, open-source cannot be more than an intermediate good in the division of labor economy.
This is precisely my point. Open source consists of tools made by producers towards the end of delivering a completely different product to consumers. By the nature of information, it benefits from a network effect where multiple producers can cooperate with each other to improve their tools. However, there is never and has never been a design consideration for consumers in open-source software, because such a consideration requires R&D investment and entrepreneurial risk, thus consuming capital. Open-source cannot be capitalized. Such a thing would compete with the producers' markets, to which end open-source is designed to serve.
In short, open-source cannot be more than an intermediate good in the division of labor economy.
I think I understand your point, however I am going to shift it back to [primarily] physical property as that is what I am most familiar with. I work with surgeons to design implants that no lay man (patient) has any significant interest (other than safety). Yes, there is the opportunity to "patent" such emergent technologies but that is immaterial to me. The bottom line is that I learn from what has been done before despite the patent system precisely because I wish to improve the outcome for the end user (patient). Personally, I see this as a valuable goal absent of profit conflicts raised by IP. Thus, my utilitarian argument (since much of this thread has been) is that if you want the most efficient medical care, IP is only a barrier. [I'm assuming that by my description the products I create are in the same realm as a backhoe]
P.S. There is certainly another argument to be had regarding entrepreneurial risk and how the FDA affects that, but I choose not to explain that at this time since it's not a subject of this thread.
Stranger: "What has largely happened is that open source has kept its niche of the marketplace (catering to producers instead of consumers) and the status quo prevails."
Wut? What about Chromium, Android, WordPress, and Firefox?
To paraphrase Marc Faber: We're all doomed, but that doesn't mean that we can't make money in the process. Rabbi Lapin: "Let's make bricks!" Stephan Kinsella: "Say you and I both want to make a German chocolate cake."
What about Chromium, Android, WordPress, and Firefox?
Producer goods.
The fallacies of intellectual communism, a compilation - On the nature of power
Stranger: "Do you know a Linux user who is not a trained IT professional?"
LS knows me. Also, my cousin uses Ubuntu and I got another cousin who has a Droid 2. Also, most of the people I know who use a web browser use either Firefox or Chrome.
Producer goods.
Again not trying to be contrary, but what proportion of users must adopt a different product before it becomes a consumer good? Wikipedia is identifying a slim majority over the rest by IE ("consumer good" correct?). What would be interesting is an overlap graph comparing that usage to windows users as I think windows has quite a bit higher number--implying those users chose a separate solution for their web browsing (as I have).
Edit: Yes, here are the OS usage numbers. It implies that there is a 30% gap between windows users and IE users--is this not enough to establish the other web browser products as consumer goods regardless of their monetary cost? Honest question.
Stranger: "Producer goods."
There aren't people who consumer Chrome, Android, WordPress nor Firefox?
Is a television not a consumer good or is it just the media viewed through the television that is a consumer good?
I think the interesting thing you identified here is Android because it has an emergent market share and while the choice of OS was perhaps made by the phone manufacturer during development, it's now obvious that the consumer has agreed with the choice if the sales of the latest phones are any indication.
Stranger, what, according to you, actually qualifies as a consumer good?
Again not trying to be contrary, but what proportion of users must adopt a different product before it becomes a consumer good?
That is not the point. These goods are produced as inputs to other goods. Chrome is produced to act as an input to Google web apps, for example. It is designed to provide the best web app experience. That is how Google can afford to give it away for free and to open its source code. It cannot lose any business on its web apps by opening the source code to the browser input.
The Android software is an input to cell phones and the Android App Market.
Contrast this with Mac OS X, which is designed to provide the best desktop experience. That is a consumer good. It exists for its own end.
So one of your statements (please correct me if I'm wrong) is that there is a difference between software products that is also dependent on their intent--i.e. seeking profit thru other means or just for the hell of it?
I understand the "loss leader" concept, I'm just trying to apply it in the situation you imply.
Hypothetical: Dell currently sells computers with open source operating systems--were the open source OSes to become a majority, how would that affect your views regarding open/closed source? (Surely you can claim that would never happen but since we are speaking in the theoretical I thought I might ask it).
Hypothetical: Dell currently sells computers with open source operating systems--were the open source OSes to become a majority, how would that affect your views regarding open/closed source?
It wouldn't. Their economic nature would remain exactly the same.
Stranger: "That is not the point. These goods are produced as inputs to other goods. Chrome is produced to act as an input to Google web apps, for example. It is designed to provide the best web app experience. That is how Google can afford to give it away for free and to open its source code. It cannot lose any business on its web apps by opening the source code to the browser input.
Contrast this with Mac OS X, which is designed to provide the best desktop experience. That is a consumer good. It exists for its own end."
Are you saying that whether a good is either a consumer good or a producer good is determined by the producer of the good?
Stranger: Why MUST studio-quality music still be produced? Only a communist mind would ask such a question. Nothing MUST be produced. Things are produced because consumers demand them. IP communism interferes in the relationship between consumers and producers by denying ownership of the product to producers, and thus making consumption impossible.
Why MUST studio-quality music still be produced?
Only a communist mind would ask such a question. Nothing MUST be produced. Things are produced because consumers demand them. IP communism interferes in the relationship between consumers and producers by denying ownership of the product to producers, and thus making consumption impossible.
So you are saying that you are a communist? Or that I am a communist, because I ask you why you think there MUST be something produced? You where the one stating that studio-quality must still be produced. I think we agree that it must not, only what the market demands.
Here goes another attempt to explain what's wrong with the concept that it's ideas that should be protected and is scarce:
- Your mind is scarce, and it's your private property. You can protect it. - Your land is scarce, and it's your private property. You can protect it.
Both of these properties can be transformed to anything you want, it only requires your mental (and later your action) power to do so. The brain can be used to understand unlimited different ideas, theories, concepts and hold any type of arbitrary information. The mind is limitless, in the sense that you can use it to form any new or old idea. (Do I need to clarify that I'm not talking about limitless number of ideas, but limitless in whatever ideas you choose to fill your mind with?)
Your land can equally be transformed to anything you want, if you could manipulate at a nano-scale, you could probably make whatever your mind thinks about, using some of the dirt on your ground.
After you have created products, either in your mind or on your land, you are free to sell those as you choose. You can sell your idea to your friend for a dollar and you can sell a corn to the same friend for another dollar. Now your friend is in the possession of one corn and one idea. He is the master and commander of both of these and he can do with them as he see fit.
---
What are the logical errors in this? What false are there in this example?
You should be happy to know that both Mises and Rothbard argued for copyrights in their core economic treatises. IP communism is really quite marginal and new. It will pass.
Thank goodness evolution in thought is truth, not origination of thought, or one might be stuck forever with Mises or Rothbard.
I am happy to see you are overwhelmingly outnumbered in this thread and that people are not interested in freeloading, symbol pirating, technology piggybacking, royalty weasling, hypocritical, pro IP Nazi Monopolists imposing the costs and burden of IP contract enforcement upon everyone else using force.
If not wanting to be coerced into paying the enforcement costs of someone elses IP contracts makes me a communist I will proudly wear the label.
Stranger:Do you know a Linux user who is not a trained IT professional?
I know hundreds of linux users who are not trained IT professionals. It is not 2001.
This is just one of hundreds of possible examples which devastatingly undermine your thesis. A thesis which you now seem to be modifying on the fly.
But guys, Linux is dead, again! using ubuntu 10.10 btw
and now for some humor
Being overwhelmingly outnumbered by lower quality minds was also the burden of Mises and Rothbard, and today we still talk of them, never of their detractors.
If the ultimate argument of IP communism is mass appeal, I don't see that there is anything else for me to add.
I will add that Rothbard denounced the Whig theory of scientific evolution, which you seem to be enthusiastically embracing.
Stranger:Do you know a Linux user who is not a trained IT professional? I know hundreds of linux users who are not trained IT professionals. It is not 2001. This is just one of hundreds of possible examples which devastatingly undermine your thesis. A thesis which you now seem to be modifying on the fly.
My dad is 60 years old. He grew up without plumping. He has a highschool diploma. I taught him how to use a computer last year. It runs linux. surfing the web and doing email on those platforms is pretty easy. Installing the OS is even easier than installing windows, and my friends who don't even know how to use torrents can do it.
It's nothing short of pathetic that Stranger appeals to technology to defend his position on IP, hoping that people who aren't so understanding of technology will back down. He doesn't care about being right. He cares only about winning an argument.
Just a heads up, though. You're not going to confuse me on IP by appealing to computers. I'm doing a master's degree in CS/CE. So instead of going to technology for examples and confusing people in the hopes that they'll give up, why not argue on things they understand/present the ideas of IP clearly? Is it because IP itself isn't clear?
If the ultimate argument of IP communism[...]
There we go again. No one is aruging for "communism". No one is asking that everyone control everyone else's minds. I don't know why you assume this is the case and why you repeatedly erect this strawman. Are you confused as to what physical property rights are?
Again, you miss the point. You do not need to teach someone to use a Mac or an iPhone. It comes with a very simple manual.
The fact that you didn't even notice that it took yourself, a graduate in IT, to train someone using Linux, speaks volumes about your misunderstanding of consumer products.
^ lol ^
Actually, you do if they don't understand modern technology. If the most complex device they have ever used is a car, then they'll probably need some help understanding how to operate a cell phone or computer. Some people need training to understand these things.
The argument over Linux is a strawman either way. Under IP communism the GPL would be invalid and none of the programmers would even bother investing their time in it, much less share any of their work. Not even open source software can exist under IP communism.
Being overwhelmingly outnumbered by lower quality minds was also the burden of Mises and Rothbard, and today we still talk of them, never of their detractors. If the ultimate argument of IP communism is mass appeal, I don't see that there is anything else for me to add.
In my capitalist universe, most ideas sold measures success. I am confident in the markets ability to select among competing ideas based on their utility. Hence the reason I am happy. :)
liberty student: Stranger:Do you know a Linux user who is not a trained IT professional? I know hundreds of linux users who are not trained IT professionals. It is not 2001. This is just one of hundreds of possible examples which devastatingly undermine your thesis. A thesis which you now seem to be modifying on the fly.
I find it fruitless to discuss IP with Stranger.
At most, I think only 5% of the adult population would need to stop cooperating to have real change.
"You do not need to teach someone to use a Mac or an iPhone."
Are you serious? None of my friends need help understanding Ubuntu. My grandma needs help understanding her remote control, even if it comes with a manual.
However, none of this is relevant.
I've made money using open source software, and businesses have made money by my using open source software.
And there are loads of advantages with promoting access to the source.
Of course you did. You are a producer. Open source software is designed to make producers money. As I said before, it is not, never has been and cannot ever be, designed for the consumer.
How do you define capitalism? I don't see it in this statement.
Presumably then, there are far more "producers" of Android phones than there are "consumers" of the iPhone:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Smartphone_share_current.png
Sounds like a horrible business model.
I don't see it in this statement.
Which part? The part about IP being privately owned by individual actors in the market? The part about decisions regarding the supply, demand, price, distribution, and investments of IP being made by private actors in the market rather than central planning by government? Or that I place greater utility on not being coerced to pay the enforcement costs of IP contracts by other private actors in the market?
Complements to the Creative Commons Capitalism Wiki:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capitalism
Somewhere on this thread, Onar (I think) stated that all the anti-IP people are just greedy punks who want to get things for free and are trying to come up with jsutifications for it to not feel guilty or to excuse their immoral behavior (does anyone konw where this post was?).
Anyway this is blatantly untrue. There may be elements of truth to this with respect to the leftists and hippies, who oppose IP in part b/c they accept Onar's view that IP is part of property rights and reject it because they are against property rights and capitalism. But they and IP libertarians like Onar all make the same mistake: they think IP is part of capitalism. It is not. The leftists are against IP for the wrong reason.
In my own case, I do not pirate; I am happy to buy the legitimate copy of music or movies from iTunes for example--the stupid media companies price it too high and delay it, thus leading to the temptation to engage in piracy. they are truly moronic. But in my case I was (and am) a practicing patent attorney. I assumed Rand was right about IP being part of capitalism, but I saw that her arguments were flawed. I tried for years to find a way to justify IP but kept hitting snags; finally I realized why. I expalin this in http://mises.org/daily/3863 . So do not accuse me of having bad motivations. this is dishonest and scurrilous of you. My position is sincere and came after a decade of thought on it and deep experience iwth the actual field of law.
Stephan Kinsella nskinsella@gmail.com www.StephanKinsella.com
So do not accuse me of having bad motivations. this is dishonest and scurrilous of you.
I've stopped expecting honesty and politeness from the IP proponents in this thread. The namecalling started on the first page.
Spideynw: liberty student: Stranger:Do you know a Linux user who is not a trained IT professional? I know hundreds of linux users who are not trained IT professionals. It is not 2001. This is just one of hundreds of possible examples which devastatingly undermine your thesis. A thesis which you now seem to be modifying on the fly. I find it fruitless to discuss IP with Stranger.
Well, I hope that everyone will notice this, not just me and you.
(english is not my native language, sorry for grammar.)
Stranger: I've made money using open source software, and businesses have made money by my using open source software. Of course you did. You are a producer. Open source software is designed to make producers money. As I said before, it is not, never has been and cannot ever be, designed for the consumer.
Why this falce dichotomy? Producer and consumer??? Everybody is a producer and a consumer. People do not live in vacuum.
MaikU: Stranger: I've made money using open source software, and businesses have made money by my using open source software. Of course you did. You are a producer. Open source software is designed to make producers money. As I said before, it is not, never has been and cannot ever be, designed for the consumer. Why this falce dichotomy? Producer and consumer??? Everybody is a producer and a consumer. People do not live in vacuum.
Actually one could consider Apple as the grand example on how an IP-strong company wants most people to be consumer-only. Don't get me wrong, Apple make great products that help people be creative, yet their iPhone and iPad platforms are almost entirely geared towards consume, not produce. Apple have rock solid control in this game and they are playing their cards well, just look at the number of patents they get approved.
Stranger is clueless with regards to software licensing, the license of the software have no direct correlation with the way it's being developed or paid for. All open source software are paid for, in the same way as closed software, with the time anyone is devoting towards writing it.
nskinsella wrote the following post at Thu, Oct 21 2010 12:51 AM:
You oppose efforst to abolish the patent system, but then when we point to obvious outrages you crawfish and say, "but I'm not in favor of THAT."
Actually it was *I* who pointed out the obvious outrage of the Amazon patent in this debate. But seriously? Is *this* what you are going to nail me on? That I have the ability to be critical of a system I am in favor of? Would you rather I react in the way that so many anti-IP people do: to *defend* obviously outrageous and insane consequences of abolishing IP? Example: we point out that no IP protection allows people to rob the author of his labor, e.g. by simply copying and distributing his work. The anti-IP people's reaction? The author isn't being robbed of anything! Piracy is morally perfectly ok! This is such an outlandishly unintelligent and shamefully vicious response that it makes you wonder whether you belong to the same species. Please point to similarly outrageous positions of the pro-IP people.
You may point to the unjustice of an inventor being blocked out by someone else's patent who developed the invention in parallel, but we pro-IP people will agree with you that this is unjust. We do not pretend that the other inventor does not lose something which rightfully belongs to him in this case, and precisely therefore we are open to modifying the patent laws in a way that minimizes the problem. But this is the exception, and you cannot abolish normal morality for the exception because that would truly be an unjustice. So long as injustice is unavoidable, occasional exceptional injustice is preferable to normalized systemic injustice.
Also, note that we place certain *limitations* on IP such as an expiry date, freedom of fair use, a threshold for patentability etc. You critize us for being "arbitrary" when in reality we are concerned about the rights of ALL parties involved, not only the rights of the creator.
In short, it appears to me that most people who are against IP really just don't like to pay for other people's hard work and want to be able to parasite on them for free, and that they find it opportune to hide their gross immorality behind a thin veil of "principles" that allows them to invade other people's lives. Will you find an abundance of pro-IP people with a similar motivation to violate other people? No.
You say that you are utilitarian and that this is not a moral debate, but I disagree. I think that most of you have chosen a utilitarian anti-IP stance motivated by your own morality to parasite on other people's labor against their will. Since morality is the strongest force in the human psyche no amount of rational arguments for IP will move you, because rationality plays second fiddle to morality.
Live_Free_Or_Die wrote the following post at Thu, Oct 21 2010 2:54 PM:
"Sharing is caring"
Well, there's some IP communism for ya. It is also interesting to note that the two "sharers" are children, since socialism is the morality of childhood.
SondreB:Actually one could consider Apple as the grand example on how an IP-strong company wants most people to be consumer-only. Don't get me wrong, Apple make great products that help people be creative, yet their iPhone and iPad platforms are almost entirely geared towards consume, not produce.
You misunderstood his point. All producers are consumers and all consumers are producers. The person selling the iPad is a producer of the iPad and a consumer of cash, and the person buying the iPad is a producer of cash and a consumer of iPads.
Cash and iPads are goods. Both must be obtained in order for these transactions to complete. At the end of the day, much of the reasoning here fails a basic understanding of free market economics. And this is surprising from Stranger, who at one time was heroic in defense of the market. But methinks he is so invested in his IP position, that even if he realized he was incorrect, he is unable to admit it (he has never admitted an error here, ever).
Pride can be a bitch.
Onar Åm wrote the following post at 10-20-2010 5:22 PM:
Onar, Presumably under COPYRIGHT the piece of intellectual property is NOT released to the public, but rather sold to an individual on the condition that he/she does not permit any copy to be made of the work.
Presumably under COPYRIGHT the piece of intellectual property is NOT released to the public, but rather sold to an individual on the condition that he/she does not permit any copy to be made of the work.
Even if we ignore the fact that some people eventually will come to be exposed to the work, even if they haven't bought it, it is impossible to contain information. It will leak to the public eventually, from parents to children, cultural references, newspaper reviews etc. Therefore, ANY information that is not kept strictly secret is made available to the public. It may take some time, but eventually it sieves into the public domain, primarily from parents to children.
Would a situation where 6 billion copies be sold of "Atlas Shrugged" justify cancelling the author's ownership?
Yes, if it were practical then such an extensive diffusion of "Atlas Shrugged" into society in, say, only 10 years, would be grounds for cancelling the copyright well ahead of its expiration date. (Note: the author never fully loses ownership of the book. The author still has attribution rights, and her work may not be altered or distributed under a different name) In practice, however, the primary diffusion occurs from one generation to another, i.e. from parents/society to children. Let me give a very obvious example of this: reading and writing. Literacy is actually an invention (a very old one, but still a kind of technology). However, try to imagine what your life in a modern industrial society if your were not allowed to read and write. EVERYTHING, including the law(!), depends on literacy. Life would simply be impossible for you without reading and writing, because it has become so diffused into the culture and society that it is impossible to avoid. (In fact, the illiterate do in fact very often become criminals. No other parameter is a better predictor for criminal behavior than illiteracy.) You depend entirely on the ability to read and write for your survival and you cannot escape it. Suppose now that you were requested to pay royalties for using reading and writing. This would amount to structural violence. You would immediately recognize the parallel between this state and the serfs of the medieval times. Literacy is an extreme example to illustrate the point, but the principle is the same: diffusion of IP into the culture and society at large makes it inescapable and hence charging money for it becomes structural violence.
You correctly point out that PATENTS are a much more damaging creature, and they certainly end up affecting everyone. As you also point out they are mostly sold on a licence basis to other producers, often an a unit produced basis. So when we go out to buy a cellphone or switch on the TV we're benefiting from a huge number of inventions. Now those patented inventions packed into the cellphone naturally have the licence fees baked into the price, that is, it's much more expensive than it would have been in the absence of PATENTS. (That's the point of PATENTS.)
This is true, but it is also much cheaper to steal a product than to pay for it. Slavery can bring down the cost quite significantly too. As far as I am concerned that is a non-argument.
If the argument for timelimitations is merely the higher price it would seem argue for the abolishment of the PATENT system altogether, not for imposing a timelimit.
Absolutely not. Suppose you build a fence around your property. No problem, right? It's just an excercise of your property rights. Well, suppose now that you own all the land around your neighbor and set up a fence, thereby effectively trapping him. Now there is a problem. Now, you are excercising FORCE. In a similar way, it is no problem with patents so long as the extent of its usage is small, but as it becomes more and more widespread and diffused throughout society it gradually grows into a fence that traps you. Such inexapability is called structural violence.
It is true that, in a sense, under the PATENT system you would become an eternal renter, but there is no shame renting another man's property
It IS a problem if you are FORCED to rent, because you have no way to avoid it.
I look forward to you pointing out where I misunderstood your position, as I undoubtedly must have since the development of your arguments either points to the abolishment of IP altogether or perpetual IP (to save us from serfdom)
With some luck I have nudged you in the direction of a greater understanding.