Stranger:Funnily enough, even software pirates have a system of intellectual property amongst themselves. (They will want their 'rips' to be distributed with their own authorship files and denounce those who take their rips and claim it as their own.) In that sense, pirates are less dangerous than IP communists - they actually recognize the necessity of intellectual property. Much like them the centuries old high seas pirates needed a code to determine the ownership of the loot they stole, and thus their piracy was not an act denying property rights but just simple banditry.
Haha, excellent point!
It's not that excellent.
The desire for recognition on freely exchanged information bears absolutely zero resemblance to being opposed to the legal framework which currently exists.
Remember this: The anti-IP stance is NOT opposed to "Intellectual property" per se as Stranger seems to define it at times; it refers, rather, to the legal, non-voluntary, coercive State framework.
Stranger:I don't know where you are getting such an outlandish idea. Purchasing limited-rights media is much more convenient than renting.
You missed the point. Such an arrangement was never agreed to apon purchase. What you call it is irrelevant. The only thing outlandish here is your apparent notion that your bound to a contract you that you weren't even aware of.
Why do you persist in attempting to degrade my posts by petty name calling? (IE outlandish, what even is outlandish?) It's fairly consistent of you in every response you've given me.
This website is not physical property, how could one ban someone from it without appealing to some kind of right to informational/intellectual property?
Your act of posting requries the server to physically change in order to represent your post as bits and distribute it to other readers. The owners of the server don't have to let your posts be stored on their server if they don't want them to be.
It's called declaratory law.
Stranger:Here's a question that just brought up for me LS. And I mean this honestly, it's not a trap, or an attack or anything. This website is not physical property, how could one ban someone from it without appealing to some kind of right to informational/intellectual property? Note also that the forums are not rival - unwanted posts being made in no way stops anyone from posting.
Note also that the forums are not rival - unwanted posts being made in no way stops anyone from posting.
This is a trivial strawman. Your focusing on the data content and blatantly ignoring other factors involved. Whats scarce is the bandwidth and power that goes into running this site. There is also the issue of maintaining a certain type of community, which LvMI has every right to do given they own, maintain, and pay for the medium which operates it.
No one is stopping you from downloading the entire site, hosting it on your own and posting forum posts to yourself on your own site. Just don't get upset if no one joins you.
Why do you persist in this way? I can't tell if this is an elementary error on your part, or a genuine attempt to foul someone up.
Stranger: "Note also that the forums are not rival - unwanted posts being made in no way stops anyone from posting."
However, the hard drive in which that content is stored is rival. Next...
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."
Epicurus ibn Kalhoun:Here's a question that just brought up for me LS. And I mean this honestly, it's not a trap, or an attack or anything. This website is not physical property, how could one ban someone from it without appealing to some kind of right to informational/intellectual property?
We can appeal to the terms of service and forum rules. We can also appeal to the fact that LvMI leases and controls its software and hosting.
There is no need to appeal to intellectual property, the website is a medium just like a magazine, and a magazine editor can choose which letters to publish, just as LvMI can choose which posts, threads and blog posts to publish, through the mechanisms above.
Epicurus: "This website is not physical property, how could one ban someone from it without appealing to some kind of right to informational/intellectual property?"
The servers are physical property. Next...
Stranger:Note also that the forums are not rival - unwanted posts being made in no way stops anyone from posting.
They are rival. The resources to provide the forums have hard limits. Bandwidth, the software license, disk space, not to mention less obvious factors like placement.
That is scarcity, not rivalry. As long as those limits aren't reached, there is no conflict, and, under IP communism, no legitimate exclusion of any post is allowable.
The fallacies of intellectual communism, a compilation - On the nature of power
There's no conflict in posting on internet forums?!? (until hard limits are reached?)
LOL
Stranger:That is scarcity, not rivalry. As long as those limits aren't reached, there is no conflict, and, under IP communism, no legitimate exclusion of any post is allowable.
They are rival because the use of one unit of anything, is a lost unit to the host. Not to mention, they aren't IP. They are physical limits. This isn't even a question of IP.
There's no conflict in posting on internet forums?!? (until hard limits are reached?) LOL
There's no conflict in posting on internet forums?!? (until hard limits are reached?)
This is exactly the absurdity that one gets if one does not consider property as fully sovereign, but only exclusive on conditions of rivalry.
Regardless, even if forums were magically hosted w\o servers, posters conflict in the space that is shown. Which is why there's posters who spam, posters who make a lot of threads, posters who like to post "first", posters who like to get the last word... and posters who just want to have a high post count.
I KNOW A LOT ABOUT FORUMS BRO :O
Onar Am:
"I wholeheartedly agree that it is completely ridiculous to say that killing someone is ok unless you explicitly agree not to kill them. By the same token it is completely ridiculous to say that copying and distributing someone's intellectual product is ok unless you explicitly agree not to copy and distribute it."
It is disingenuous question-begging to equate these. Killing someone invades the borders of their body--which all of us libertarians agree is their property--without consent. Using information to guide your actions is not an invasion at all.
"Classical liberalism is the appropriate term for this, and how you get private property to be a form of socialism is beyond me."
Classical liberalism does not view state-granted monopolies in informational patterns as natural rights. Asserting that such artificial grants of state monopoly privilege are "private property" is totally unwarranted, if not perverse.
Stephan Kinsella [email protected] www.StephanKinsella.com
They are rival because the use of one unit of anything, is a lost unit to the host.
The length of a webpage or forum thread is virtually infinite. There is no lost unit to the host. The only claim to loss is a loss of exclusivity, and the same claim is also true for home privacy and copyright.
The servers are physical property. Next
If you'd have read a little further you would have seen this question was answered much better than this.
The servers would play no role in it. You gave me permission to your servers when I accepted membership. What is significant is the informational content of the site,
But of course the much better answer was that I had to agree to the forum rules when I signed on.
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
The length of a webpage or forum thread is virtually infinite.
Or more accurately, "not even approaching infinite", or "nothing like infinite". Do you know what "infinite" means?
faber est suae quisque fortunae
Stranger:The length of a webpage or forum thread is virtually infinite. There is no lost unit to the host. The only claim to loss is a loss of exclusivity, and the same claim is also true for home privacy and copyright.
But its a none issue since the forum is hosted on private physical property, and the institute is welcome allow and disallow occupants of it.
Epicurius: "Now, what if I hacked LvMI with a team."
Yawn.
"The webiste is not physical property, I have agreed upon no contract against hacking it. Have I aggressed upon the (members of) the institute?"
Define hacking.
This is in reaction to the article itself.
It seems that the author was not really that familiar with the anti-IP arguments after all. He assumes anti-IP is about the denial of the existence of ideas or 'spiritual' aspects of humanity, when anti-IP differentiates 'physical' things from ideas, based on scarcity and abundance.
He also seems to be a believer in libel and assumes that libertarians would be horrified at the thought that anti-IP permits libel. As if spreading lies or embarrassing information does not reflect badly on the messenger and can serve to make them less 'marketable'. Anti-IP folks on the other hand recognize that the reputations of both the messenger and the 'victim' of libel could not actually be owned.
Coercion by 'mere' words and gestures is nonetheless a threat on scarce resources, namely, one's body, as opposed to ideas, which can't be 'destroyed' or threatened to be destroyed.
The 'honor' aspect of contracts is also quite distinguishable from IP. Indeed, contracts regarding scarce resources need not be fulfilled by one party, but doing so comes with consequences. Courts' recognition of the validity of contracts and the obligations imposed on the parties has come about is indicative of the people's attitudes towards property rights. Hence when people ignore the implications of property rights, courts can be manipulated into defending socialistic ideas.
It is at this point that we realize that 'to IP or not to IP' is based on utilitarian grounds. Society must be geared to reject IP because it is harmful to the economy, just as society has embraced property rights to a certain degree, because property rights serve to direct scarce resources where people can gain maximum utility from them.
But anyway, IP is ultimately a choice between specific parties. If someone wants to keep some trade secret or would not want his associates to engage in sharing certain knowledge, then contracts can be drawn accordingly, without covering third parties.
I kno. It's totally ametuer to need a team. I'm just trying to get the job done faster.
Changing code; I don't have to touch the physical servers at all.
Perhaps if you would realize I'm not attacking your (I assume you are anti-IP) position (stop being paranoid as Strangeloop would say) you would realize I am just trying to gain a better understanding (or just read my posts wherein I said even if IP were legal, I would still pirate it).
Epicurius:
Oh, come on! You're changing the physical state of the server when you hack it.
So what? What makes physical property legitimate property if it is not rivalrous? Why do I have the right to exclusivity in my servers, my house, but not exclusivity in my intellectual products? It is obviously not rivalry since all the IP communists have dropped the pretense. There is no reason to allow for one but not the other.
nskinsella wrote:
I agree that to a materialist using information to guide your actions is not an invasion at all, but that's the point. You are simply ignoring the fact that the information was produced by a limited resource, namely the mind, and that by copying the unique products of someone's mind without consent you are invading the borders of their life, which includes both their body AND their mind.
Asserting that such artificial grants of state monopoly privilege are "private property" is totally unwarranted, if not perverse.
Even if that were true (which it isn't), it would still not be socialism. You could argue it is dictatorship or feudalism or whatever from a materialistic viewpoint, but socialism!?!?
MnoruS:
It seems that the author was not really that familiar with the anti-IP arguments after all.
I can assure you that I am VERY familiar with it and that nothing new has come up in this debate.
He also seems to be a believer in libel and assumes that libertarians would be horrified at the thought that anti-IP permits libel.
Some libertarians are horrified by that, but those who are more consistently materialistic are not. Those who are consistently materialistic end up with communism or mayhem.
Society must be geared to reject IP because it is harmful to the economy
If it ever was deemed that banning cannibalism or slavery is harmful to the economy, does this then justify the legalization of these practices?
Mises Pieces wrote:
So you see no difference between copying and trespassing, even though the latter involves using someone else's physical property and the former doesn't?
To a materialist there is a HUGE difference, but to me there isn't. When you rob a bank with your own gun you are also only using your own property. Isn't it a horrible, horrible restriction on your private property usage not to be able to use your own gun as you please? In general, materialistic libertarians accept that this is not ok, because you threaten or damage someone else's *physical* property. But you do not recognize that you damage someone by copying and distributing their intellectual work. In fact, many people here argue that lies and defamation are perfectly ok, and they argue that espionage and peeping is ok too. If you find some DNA sample of your neighbor in the trash then it's ok to clone him and to post all his genetic diseases on the internet, because it's just information, right? In other words, you are taking a stance that something is not harmful because it only involves information, and in a sense information does not really exist.
But espionage and invasion of privacy IS harmful to the person, because information is real and very important to him. Information is as real and important to him as physical property.
Onar Åm:When you rob a bank with your own gun you are also only using your own property.
Onar Åm:But you do not recognize that you damage someone by copying and distributing their intellectual work.
Onar Åm:If you find some DNA sample of your neighbor in the trash then it's ok to clone him and to post all his genetic diseases on the internet, because it's just information, right?[...]But espionage and invasion of privacy IS harmful to the person, because information is real and very important to him. Information is as real and important to him as physical property.
And even if it isn't, then what, how are IP laws going to stop someone from grabbing samples you left elsewhere? Or are you going to control the whole internet w\ the state? If an issue can't be resolved within property rights theory, most likely, it can't be resolved at all. IP enforcement is always counteractive in fact; the only way to truly defend information is in the realm of "materiality".
Society must be geared to reject IP because it is harmful to the economy If it ever was deemed that banning cannibalism or slavery is harmful to the economy, does this then justify the legalization of these practices?
Dude you cut my quote. The whole sentence is:
Society must be geared to reject IP because it is harmful to the economy, just as society has embraced property rights to a certain degree, because property rights serve to direct scarce resources where people can gain maximum utility from them.
To suppose that banning cannibalism and slavery were harmful, is to completely twist the fabric of the universe. But playing along, if cannibalism and slavery provided more utility than social rejection of cannibalism and slavery, then yes, I would have to advocate for such. But it just isn't the case; property rights provide maximum utility for society and its members. FYI these utilitarian arguments are rather Misesian and as far as I know are not embraced by Kinsella, Hoppe, etc.
Anyway, your arguments still fail to address exactly how someone gains 'ownership' of an idea just because they thought it, even though others could think such and use such ideas on their property. Contracts, the agreements of which may be 'non-materialistic,' do still pertain to very specific, scarce resources. So it isn't accurate to refer to anti-IP folks as 'materialists' as though ideas neither exist nor have value to them.
Oh well it looks like you won't change your mind so this will be my last post on this thread. Good luck in your intellectual journey.
if cannibalism and slavery provided more utility than social rejection of cannibalism and slavery, then yes, I would have to advocate for such.
disgusting
Epicurus ibn Kalhoun:Good point Mr. Civil. I guess that about sums it up. Now, what if I hacked LvMI with a team. And overnight we switched all the Mises articles with Marxist ones but left Mises's name on them, and encoded protections against them being put back to normal? The webiste is not physical property, I have agreed upon no contract against hacking it. Have I aggressed upon the (members of) the institute?
Now, what if I hacked LvMI with a team. And overnight we switched all the Mises articles with Marxist ones but left Mises's name on them, and encoded protections against them being put back to normal?
The webiste is not physical property, I have agreed upon no contract against hacking it. Have I aggressed upon the (members of) the institute?
While the website itself is not physical property, it's hosted on servers which are physical property. In order to "hack the website", one must actually hack the serves which host it. This constitutes trespass and vandalism of said servers.
The keyboard is mightier than the gun.
Non parit potestas ipsius auctoritatem.
Voluntaryism Forum
MnoruS wrote the following post at Mon, Oct 18 2010 12:48 PM:
To suppose that banning cannibalism and slavery were harmful, is to completely twist the fabric of the universe.
I would like to see you provide som evidence for that. There have been many cannibalistic societies and many of them have persisted for thousands of years. The same is true for slavery. Obviously THEY didn't think that this was ludicrous to the point of completely twisting the fabric of the universe. In fact, abolishing slavery was not a slam dunk. It's not like someone said "slavery is bad" and then everyone rolled over because they realized what a complete twist in the fabric of the universe this was. On the contrary, there were hardcore proponents of slavery that fought bitterly for the right to enslave people. They made a whole lot of utilitarian arguments, which aren't easily dismissed out of hand: 1) slavery is good for Africans, they have a better life as slaves than as free men in Africa, 2) freeing the slaves will release havoc on America and destroy the country, 3) it's too expensive to send them back, 4) slavery is the backbone of the southern economy. To abolish it is to wreak economic depression on all.
These were utilitarian arguments for slavery and they were very convincing to a whole lot of people.
But playing along, if cannibalism and slavery provided more utility than social rejection of cannibalism and slavery, then yes, I would have to advocate for such.
See, THIS is the reason I asked this outrageous question. I'm pretty sure that many libertarians are so far out that there is no hope of ever recovering them in the realms of the rational, but at least such a question then brings out the rationalistic answers that scares the bejeezes out of a few people, and in that case I have at least achieved something.
Anyway, your arguments still fail to address exactly how someone gains 'ownership' of an idea just because they thought it, even though others could think such and use such ideas on their property.
First let me add that one does not gain ownership over the IDEA but over a certain UTILIZATION of an idea (typically distribution for commercial gain). In other words, you are free to think the idea and to use it in your personal life. You're even free to tell people about the idea. The only thing you're not free to do is to commercialize it.
Second, you start with the difficult exceptional cases first and use them to undermine IP at large. Let's start with a simpler case, namely novels. What you copyright is not an idea but the particular word sequences.Those word sequences are so unique that it is highly improbable that anyone will produce the same word sequences and thereby infringe your copyright. Thus, in the case of novels and other complex information patterns your criticism simply does not apply.
The way you build up intellectual property rights is exactly the same way you build up physical property rights: by mixing your labor with the natural state. The natural state is the information equivalent of a blank slate. You start with no information and then you produce information which is the fruit of your labor. If that information is unique you have earned the right to make it your property.
Contracts, the agreements of which may be 'non-materialistic,' do still pertain to very specific, scarce resources. So it isn't accurate to refer to anti-IP folks as 'materialists' as though ideas neither exist nor have value to them.
Unlike the marxist folks they don't practice materialism consistently. One of the cases where they DO practice materialism is with respect to intellectual property. They seem to understand that hard-disks are limited resources (cf the strange debate about hard-disks and hacking in this thread) but fail to understand that the MIND is a limited resource, and that it is the MIND that is protected by intellectual property. Marxists have no problems with this and they are very open about it: they don't believe in mind, and therefore they deny both IP *and* private physical property. They understand that in a materialistic worldview there is no such thing as a choice to mix one's labor with the natural state and hence no grounds for lockean property.
Only on one point to the marxists and the anti-IP libertarians agree: they disregard the mind. Marxists dismiss it altogether saying that it really doesn't exist (because they only believe in atoms), and libertarians end up with a similar view by implication since they act as if it does not matter that the mind is a limited resource and does not factor it into their equation for IP.
OK, maybe this is a dumb question, but... as far as I can tell, patterns of information appear to be, by nature, (positive) externalites. Is this wrong?
That said, the difference seems to be that the creator wants to retain some degree of control over how the externality is used by those who receive it.
Are there any other examples of externalities that are treated in this way, where their producer still retains partial control of them after emitting them?
e.g. if my neighbor creates a spectacular Christmas light display, am I allowed to photograph it and sell postcards of it? Or if he gives an outdoor concert, am I allowed to make recordings of it from my property and sell them?
Or, in terms of physical property rights (I realize this is more complicated because it involves physical invasion of property), if a factory belches smoke over my property, but I find a process to capture this smoke and extract chemicals from it, does that factory retan any control over how I use those chemicals? OK, that's not very realistic, but what if I live by a golf course and balls are hit onto my property? Am I able to keep those golf balls? Am I able to sell them? I have no idea, and am just thinking out loud... but is there any fundamental difference between IP and other externalities?
Once an idea becomes public knowledge, it is not scarce anymore. What harm is there to the author of a book if you copy the book (and there was no contract signed stating you would not copy it)?
At most, I think only 5% of the adult population would need to stop cooperating to have real change.
Those word sequences are so unique that it is highly improbable that anyone will produce the same word sequences and thereby infringe your copyright.
"So Unique" is a definitional nightmare but just for giggles please define "unique" and also at what complexity something becomes "unique".
Oh, bugger I may have just infringed on your creation of the phrase "so unique".
Spideynw:What harm is there to the author of a book if you copy the book (and there was no contract signed stating you would not copy it)?
This ^^^.
Arguments for IP are themselves IP. Therefore, advocates of IP cannot use pro IP arguments without the original creator's permission. If I recall correctly, it was some King in the 17th century. Don't violate his property rights!
[edit It was queen liz the 1st She had no children. IP should have died with her]
Here is my initial response to Onar Åm's blog post. I haven't addressed everything, but I think I've addressed (what I see as) the most important issues. Again, I'd like to thank Onar Åm for joining the Mises.org forum so quickly after his blog post was brought up here.
What Are Intellectual Property Rights?
Åm defines “intellectual property rights” as “rights to ownership over products of the mind such as novels, music, articles, research data and software”. The definition hinges on the phrase “products of the mind”, for which he does not provide a systematic definition or explanation. On the face of it, the phrase “product of the mind” points to anything and everything produced by people, as all action requires thought. However, this is obviously not what Åm means by the phrase, since he provides examples which are intended to contrast what he would call “products of the mind” against what he would not call that. Given this ambiguity, perhaps he would do well to use a more precise phrase instead of “products of the mind”.
Materialism
Åm makes two mistakes when introducing the allegedly materialistic attack on intellectual property rights by Marxists and “some libertarians”. First, he confuses the Marxist materialist conception of history with materialist metaphysics. Thus it cannot be accurately stated that the two groups in question are making the same attack on intellectual property rights. Second, the metaphysical materialism that he criticizes is a straw man. The key issue of all metaphysics is the nature of existence, which is a semantic issue at heart (i.e. how should one define “existence”). Metaphysical materialism asserts that physical objects are the basis for existence. As a result, information can only be said to exist in terms of physical objects. This is not the same as saying that information does not exist at all.
Denying the concept of information leads to a performative contradiction. Since all combinations and interactions of physical objects can be called “information”, denying the concept of information entails the inability to reason about anything other than the most fundamental objects of existence. However, in order to deny the concept of information, one must (at least implicitly) reason about more than just those objects. Thus a performative contradiction is reached. None of Åm’s consequentialist examples can then be consistent with denying the concept of information, as they all involve denying some information while accepting the rest.
Codification
Åm seems confused about the concept of lien. It is not, as he states, “the combination of physical property with contracts that were tied to the property, and not merely to the owners”. Rather, a lien denotes “the right to retain the lawful possession of the property of another until the owner fulfills a legal duty to the person holding the property, such as the payment of lawful charges for work done on the property” (source). In other words, a lien is the right for someone to hold a piece of property as collateral against the property owner’s debt to him. Åm’s example with the farmstead would be unenforceable – upon selling the property, the farmer relinquishes all claim to it. For him to enforce the maintenance of the old farmhouse after the sale would mean he retains a controlling interest in the property.
Sieben: "Arguments for IP are themselves IP. Therefore, advocates of IP cannot use pro IP arguments without the original creator's permission. If I recall correctly, it was some King in the 17th century. Don't violate his property rights!"
Yep. I argued somethign similar here: An Objectivist IP Argument for Taxation http://www.stephankinsella.com/2010/02/24/an-objectivist-ip-argument-for-taxation/