Stranger: restricting action even when it doesn't affect anyone? If it did not affect anyone, we would not have this argument.
restricting action even when it doesn't affect anyone?
If it did not affect anyone, we would not have this argument.
the only effect, I can see (and you yourself have "proven"), is future possibility of profit. Sadly, like many people have mentioned before, one can not claim property in mere possibilities. It is still an Imaginary Property after all.
(english is not my native language, sorry for grammar.)
Stranger: How will you practically restrict the action of others in regards to creative works? How will you prove that others have violated your IP? The example that Onar gives with music sampling is clear, digital copying of anything is much easier to prove as digital bits doesn't change. How will you protect information that have entirely gone through the mind of any individual? The human mind cannot process enough information without using copyrighted media that this problem would come up. Regardless the burden of proof is on you to prove that your creation is an original and not a copy. It is simple to show.
How will you practically restrict the action of others in regards to creative works? How will you prove that others have violated your IP? The example that Onar gives with music sampling is clear, digital copying of anything is much easier to prove as digital bits doesn't change. How will you protect information that have entirely gone through the mind of any individual?
The human mind cannot process enough information without using copyrighted media that this problem would come up.
Regardless the burden of proof is on you to prove that your creation is an original and not a copy. It is simple to show.
Burden of proof is upon you, you would be the one accusing someone of violating your rights. If you accuse me, I can present my alibi. My alibi would be that I discovered a tree with fruits after spending thousands of dollars traveling the world and living in the forest for one year. Since I have been living in the forest for one year, without any outside contact, I have a decent alibi that I made this discovery independent of your own, which happened on the other side of the planet.
Onar Åm wrote the following post at Wed, Oct 20 2010 3:03 AM:
Normally I try to be flexible with my opponents' terms and their semantics. I don't try to quibble when a different word than expected is used (e.g. "threshold" instead of "boundary") as long as the meaning conveyed is appropriate, but in this case I must react because you seem to genuinely not understand what an analogy is. The example you gave is NOT an analogy, but another *example* or *instance* of a category. A cat as a mammal is not *analogous* to dog as a mammal. They ARE both mammals. The example YOU gave is just an *instance* of intellectual property. Analogies however refer to when there are essential differences, yet some impotrant similarities. Example: an airplane is analogous to a bird.
Okay, I understand English is probably not your native language, so I will overlook this. As a tip, here is a quote from Dictonary.com:
a·nal·o·gy/əˈnælədʒi/ Show Spelled [uh-nal-uh-jee] –noun, plural -gies. Logic . a form of reasoning in which one thing is inferred to be similar to another thing in a certain respect, on the basis of the known similarity between the things in other respects.
–noun, plural -gies.
But intellectual work and its fruit (the particular information pattern that results from that work) cannot be touched and therefore you deny that it is something real. THIS is the crux of the debate. Everything else, including the examples you gave, is just noise.
If the knowledge copied is common knowledge or of common engineering grade then it is nothing unique and hence no information theft has occurred. If on the other hand, the farming technique is unique and very beneficial then the inventor of that technique has a right to protect that technique for a limited period of time (say 20 years) to reap the full benefits of it.
Onar Åm:- That Marxists are not metaphysical materialists I simply regard as silly. I know very well that marxists are materialists in every sense of the word. I've talked to them, claimed that they are materialists and they say "yes, we are materialists." Though their materialism goes deeper and is more consistent than the IP communists/anarchists. They do not merely deny the existence of information, but of the mind. Hence they reject lockean property rights, not only in the intellectual realm but also in the physical realm. I chose to ignore this argument of yours because it is so silly and so ignorant that it was not worth responding to.
Are you sure that, when they said "Yes, we are materialists", they didn't mean they're historical materialists?
Quoting Wikipedia:
Wikipedia:In sociology, in the Marxist view, materialism is extended to refer to a "materialist conception of history", which goes beyond metaphysics, centered on the roughly empirical world of human activity (practice, including labor) and the institutions created, reproduced, or destroyed by that activity (see materialist conception of history). In Psychology, a similar view is called Behaviorism.
There's also an entire section on "Marx's Materialism". So based on this evidence, I conclude that Marxists are not metaphysical materialists but historical materialists.
Onar Åm:- There are of course those who think that information exists independently of the mind. This are called platonists, but generally speaking that is not important in this respect. What I am referring to here is a FUNCTIONAL definition of existence, i.e. to abstract what the meaning of yout notion of existence from your ACTIONS. I'm sure you've heard the expression "she treated me like I was air." By this he means that she treats him as if he doesn't exist. And this is what is common for all materialists. They treat information (or rather mental work) as it doesn't exist. They might have words for it and accept that it's nice, but their actions speak louder than words. Suppose that there was a village and all of them had fences around their property, but poor Bob experiences that no-one respects his fence. Everyone walks through his garden as they please, they enter his house without knocking and without asking. They take his food and pick apples from his garden. All these actions speak very loudly towards one and the same conclusion: Bob doesn't really exist. He is treated as air. No-one respects his boundaries. And it's not that he is bullied or anything, people simply don't care to notice his existence or his objections. This is precisely how anti-IP libertarians behave with respect to information and mental work. They have ZERO respect for the fact that someone put a lot of effort into creating that information and treat him and his products as if they are nothing.
Although this doesn't address my point about materialists actually not denying the existence of information (and thus the point stands as given), I do appreciate your candor here. In fact, your opposition to anti-IP libertarians has nothing to do with metaphysics and everything to do with ethics. Your real argument (as I figured) is that anti-IP libertarians don't give "enough respect" to people who have created information -- especially when that creation took a lot of effort.
Unfortunately, this begs the following questions: What is meant by "respect"? And how much of it is "enough"? Do you have answers to these questions? Can you prove that they are correct?
Onar Åm:Well, I would have no problem with people copying information ad infinitum IF they didn't USE it. "Using" it means to directly or indirectly apply one's mind to its content. It doesn't matter that there are millions of copies of a song out there so long as no-one listens to it. It is the act of listening, however, that pertains to information, not the physical music disc itself, because listening is a mental act.
Onar Åm:Ah! But this is the crux. As a materialist this is completely alien to you, but once you understand this concept you will also immediately start to understand IP. Notice that you materialists are very concerned about the physical act of copying, but this act in itself is completely irrelevant to IP. As mentioned previously it is in the MENTAL ACT that information lies. Once you start thinking of information as something that exists exclusively in people's minds it is easier to see how states of mind can be used up. While information can be infinitely copied, minds are a scarce resource. Minds can only contain such an such amount of information and dedicate their actions to filling it with a certain amount of information. Reading a book is to devote a limited resource (the mind) to an act of engaging in information. So even if you can copy information indefinitely, that is completely irrelevant because the mind is a scarce resource. There are only so and so many potential readers, and for every person that reads a book, there is one less person to read that book. That mental state has now been used up. But getting you materialists to think of information in terms of minds and not in terms of storage on hard disks is frustratingly hard. I don't think it is because you are stupid, but simply because you have programmed your brains in such a way that wipes the mental nature of information out of existence.
But getting you materialists to think of information in terms of minds and not in terms of storage on hard disks is frustratingly hard. I don't think it is because you are stupid, but simply because you have programmed your brains in such a way that wipes the mental nature of information out of existence.
Okay, now you're presenting a more coherent view on things, although I've had to infer some of it. Tell me if this sounds accurate to you:
The thing is, however, that you seem to treat states of mind as scarce in a different way from minds themselves. Namely, you seem to treat states of mind as being metaphysically unique. Maybe I was wrong above -- it seems that metaphysics actually does have a place in your thought after all. The reason I say that is because considering states of mind as being metaphysically unique necessarily implies metaphysical idealism. You treat the ideas (states of mind) as having a more fundamental existance than the minds which hold them.
With that in mind (no pun intended), your treatment of IP becomes clearer. Essentially, in your view, the first person who attains a given mental state exerts the most mental effort in doing so. He then produces something to represent that mental state to others so that they can also enjoy it. However, this "product of the mind" doesn't (likely cannot) force others to go through the same mental effort as its originator. For them to enjoy the same state of mind without exerting the same effort for it (in the eyes of the originator) is thus, in your view, the same as stealing. They should then be forced to provide an equivalent for that effort. Who says what the equivalent is? The originator says.
Unfortunately, your notion of scarcity with regards to states of mind would mean that only one person at a time can have a given state of mind. Obviously that is not the case. Two people could be reading the exact same word of Tolstoy's War and Peace at the exact same time. Furthermore, how exactly does one delineate one state of mind from another? In other words, how do we know when two states of mind are equivalent?
There's also the fact that no one is obligated to use your definition for "information" over any other. Of course, as I mentioned before, we could dispense with talking about "information" altogether and concentrate on the concepts of "mental effort" and "states of mind".
Finally, if states of mind aren't scarce in the way you claim they are, then why should anyone compensate e.g. an author a certain amount of money for a book that he took a year to write?
Onar Åm:Yes, maybe that is what is needed. Any talk of information seems to get you materialists into the track of talking about the physically non-scarce nature of copying, as if that is somehow relevant to the question at hand, namely intellectual activity.
I agree that it's intellectual activity that is the main thrust of your argument.
Onar Åm:Indeed! IF someone uses a year of their finite life to write a book, and someone engages mentally in that book by reading it then that intellectual activity should be compensated monetarily.
Compensated by how much, exactly? Whatever the author thinks is enough?
If so, that's akin to saying that, because it took me a year to build this robot, anyone who wants to buy the robot must pay me over $9,000. With this, we're getting back to the discredited Labor Theory of Value.
Onar Åm:Well, it's really about respect. Poor old Bob was treated like air by his fellow villagers. They ignored his boundaries and just went into his garden and his house and took whatever they felt like. That's a form of rape, and that is also what intellectual property is about. It is about respect of other people's lives. A book isn't just ink on a peace of paper. The information content of that book is PART OF THE AUTHOR, just like a leg is. Of course, it is not PHYSICALLY a part of the author (although sort of through the time and effort spent into creating it), but certainly mentally a part of the author. And to take that content without his consent is to rape his mind.
Onar Åm:If someone doesn't read an author's book then of course he is not entitled to any compensation! It is only if someone actually enters the domain of the author's mind, by reading his book that the author is entitled to compensation.
I can understand being upset about someone passing off an idea of mine as his own. However, if he simply makes a copy of my idea and tells people "Hey, here's a copy of Autolykos' idea", I'd blame no one but myself for letting him copy it so easily. But that's just me. Many people feel entitled to money or other things (and typically certain amounts thereof) in exchange for the mental labor they performed. They think it has a certain value or price, if you will. What they're apparently unwilling to accept is that no one else is inherently required to ascribe that same value or price to it. Quite frankly, it amazes me the amount of theorizing some of them will go to in order to convince others (and themselves) that this is not the case.
Onar Åm:Actually that's a very bad example, because in the real world capitalism would solve this in the form of PROPERTY. The person who OWNS the bridge will of course have to pay the guy who repairs it, and the owner then charges money for people to cross the bridge. To demand someone to pay for reading a book is like a bridge owner who demands people to pay for crossing his bridge. But in order for this to make sense you have to respect and recognize that there IS a bridge that you are crossing and that this bridge is OWNED by someone.
Ah, good point. Now I see what Yuberries meant by my bridge example being weak. :P
To salvage the example, I guess I'd have to stipulate that the bridge is not owned by the person who repairs it -- maybe it's in the apartment complex where the repairer lives, and it didn't get fixed soon enough by the apartment management for his taste.
The keyboard is mightier than the gun.
Non parit potestas ipsius auctoritatem.
Voluntaryism Forum
If the person still has the full use and benefit of what they had originally it can not be theft or larceny.
Actually, no. Benefit is too weak a word. Control is more appropriate. I can argue that there is no loss in any way to a woman to be forced to have sex with men. Nothing has been taken from her. She still has her body, in full healthy condition, and she still has the full use and benefit of it. The key here, though, is that she has the right to CONTROL her own body and do with it as she pleases. So the "something" that has been taken from her is not material in any way, it is mental, namely the right to self-determination. THAT is the issue at hand here, not whether information can be copied and that the author still has the use and benefit from his original manuscript.
You say a thought or idea is "something". But you admit it is totally arbitrary.
I admit no such thing. You are projecting your subjectivistic philosophy onto my opinions, but there is nothing arbitrary about respecting reality and being empirically oriented.
If most people can recognize the Enya clip, doesn't that make it "common knowledge"?
Wow, I didn't see *that* one coming. What I *obviously* meant was that any normal mind will recognize the *similarity* between the Enya clip and Fugees, even if they do not know Enya or Fugees from before.
I can argue that there is no loss in any way to a woman to be forced to have sex with men. Nothing has been taken from her.
I would suggest that you don't use this example in attempting to prove your point. Regardless of the harm you subscribe has not been rendered, the act of "rape" is not instantaneous and thus regardless of the absense of harm the person has been robbed of their time. In this respect if you want to apply the term "control" as coercion then it is applicable. No such direct coercion exists in your author example.
I am attempting to anticipate your response that you will claim the author is also robbed of their time, however they had previously invested it to create their "product". This is not equitable in your example.
Actually, rape is not just "mental" harm, but physical too (damn, it is not even dualism), she was FORCED physically, not through magic or even mentally. You again try to equate different and not analogous concepts. That's absurd, what's wrong with you, people. Piracy is NOT forcing author to give his mind or his thoughts. Again, stop making such ridiculous analogies.
Autolykos wrote the following post at Wed, Oct 20 2010 4:00 PM:
Yes, I'm absolutely sure. They are certainly also historical materialists, but that comes in addition to the physical materialism. I recommend the documentary "The Bloody history of Communism." It is made by muslims(!) and their target is really Darwinism. If you ignore this religious part of the documentary and focus on the philosophical narrative you will find a surprisingly accurate and relevant description of materialism and how communism is an embodiment of that philisophy.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tIeics8jHUY
Darwinism grealy impacted communist thinkers because they immediately drew a materialistic conclusion, namely that "we are only animals" and by this they meant that we don't have free will. We are simply blobs of matter that are determined by our natures in response to the environment. What is interesting is how the communists react to this idea. Since we "are only animals" it means that we can do whatever we want with people. The documentary nicely shows how Lenin wanted to use behaviorism (psychological materialism) to mold people to become an image of his communistic ideal.
This is PRECISELY the line of reasoning of a lot of anti-IP libertarians. They say: hey, since information doesn't really exist we can just do whatever we want with intellectual work. In the physical domain communism led to guiltless mass murder, in the intellectual domain communism leads to guiltless mass piracy.
The rest of your post is frustratingly confused, but I do see signs of emerging but very faint brain activity. You've probably been a materialist your whole life so thinking in non-materialistic terms is like learning to walk for the first time. Considering this you're learning quite fast. At the moment you seem to be on the level of understanding of a four year old. Keep working at it and you'll understand it.
Two states of minds can never be identical, but if we use our minds to abstract the essential similarity in two mind states we will see that the abstraction of the two states are identical. Even if they have different emotional responses, they do have certain things in common: they've read the same words and extracted from that the same narrative.
Also clearly you didn't understand what I was talking about when I said that the mind is a scarce resource. Time is limited. You can only fill your mind with so and so much. This is true for all minds. Scarcity plays a role in TWO ways in intellectual property: 1) the scarcity of the mind that produce the information, and 2) the scarcity of minds available to consume the information.
I was shocked about your low level of understanding of market economy, or lack of ability to connect very simple dots. Maybe it is because non-materialistic thinking is so alien to you that you are confused. I dunno. In any case you write:
Yes, the author is free to set whatever price he wants, and the (potential) reader is free to NOT accept that price (and hence not read it).
OR the author sets a price and sees how many are willing to pay for it. That's called supply and demand. That's how prices usually are set in a market economy when dealing with physical products. Non-materialistic products are no different.
I can understand being upset about someone passing off an idea of mine as his own. However, if he simply makes a copy of my idea and tells people "Hey, here's a copy of Autolykos' idea", I'd blame no one but myself for letting him copy it so easily. But that's just me.
Yes, that's just you, or more preceisely you projecting your own morality onto the situation. Many men from rather primitive cultures think that it is the girl's own responsibility to make sure that she's not raped, and if she is so unlucky to be raped they blame HER for letting herself be put in such a situation. You're like those neanderthal men who think like that.
In general, you seem to have cooked up a wonderfully complex but completely wrong image of what information is and then make economic deductions based on that. Here is a tip: do any IP-adherents actually hold the position you've reasoned yourself to? If not, then you're obviously not on track.
"The Moral Basis for Intellectual Property Rights"
THAT'S WHAT YOU SET OUT TO CLARIFY TO ALL OF US, SO WHY DON'T YOU LET US IN ON THE SECRET OF THE TIME LIMITATION?
I finally understood the analogy with the "Feudal society", after all IP is also created by King's grant (ie false title), and leads to a loss of liberty for all for the rest of us. However that would lead me to limit the time to 0. (Though that maybe wasn't your point).
Why don't you wan't to let us in on the long explanation?
Don't tell me Ayn Rand distributed it under as strict a contract as Galambos?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Joseph_Galambos
Are you prevented by contract to divulge the brilliant reasoning of the goddess?
Stranger your creating a false dichtomy between open-source and closed source software. You appear to be afraid to admit the truth about reality however.
Unfortunately for you capitalism has taken open-source software and really exploited it, and I imagine it will continue to do so. You and I have been through this before and you've always hit the same brick wall.
Linux is one of the most widely used development and server hosting platforms. The entire open-source industry exploded in growth during the recession. There are literally hundreds of thousands of articles, research, and information revolving around the open-source community.
Being in the server IT industry myself, I see Microsoft/Adobe and other closed source bloatware firms getting slapped around by these competitors. This angle you've taken as always has been an assertion, one that is entirely disconnected from the actual current condition of the software development market.
JohnDoe wrote the following post at Wed, Oct 20 2010 7:17 PM:
Obviously you didn't understand what i said. False title is of course part of feudalism, but not it's essence. It doesn't really matter if it is a king or whoever who grants someone a title to some land so long as it is just. The problem with feudalism is generational DEBT. If you as an independent person take up debt that is ok, but it is not ok for you to pass on that debt to your children. Children cannot inherit debt. That is why IP only lasts about one generation.
According to Onar, an original thought worthy of the classification of property must satisfy the three basic characteristics below:
Once a thought or idea satisfies all three of these conditions (maybe more?), it is temporarily worthy of the classification of property. According to Onar, this property is homesteaded by its creator and belongs exclusively to him for "about a generation". After that approximate period, the item is no longer considered property. During this generational period, the classification as property survives even if one of the original conditions are no longer satisfied. For example, even if the thought becomes common knowledge or becomes obvious, the original owner maintains a royalty bearing monopoly on this thought for "about a generation".
This explains Onar's concept of intellectual property (which curiously sounds an awful lot like the definition or qualifications for a patent). However, this explanation does nothing to justify the moral basis for this concept.
Separately he goes on to explain that copying this idea or thought, even the smallest recognizable fragment of it and even after it has been put into practice is some form of spiritual attack, equivalent to a physical assault on the soul of the original owner, because it deprives him of universal "control" over that thought. He goes on to equate this loss of control over his original thought to mind control imposed by external force over the owner.
I think this is a pretty good summary of his position and I could go back and insert his own words to support each point. Where this breaks down is the significance of this so-called loss of control. He hasn't explained anywhere what is actually lost other than the potential for future profit. Perhaps there is something more spiritual that is lost, but he has not described that either. If one of my patents is copied and implemented is some foreign country that does not respect US patents, what have I lost besides these potential profits? If one of my photos is copied and used without my permission, what have I lost other than future potential profits?
As a patent holder, and copyright holder, I can tell you what else I would be giving up under the current law and that is precisely control. Under patent and copyright law I have the control over how and where the products of my mind are used. For example if I don't like the philosophy of an author's book or magazine, I can refuse to grant permission to use my photo. If a potential licensee of my patented technology has bad body odor, I may refuse to grant a license. Neither of these examples is about giving up future profits, they are about giving up control. I think it is this control that may be what worries Mr. Åm.
It seems to me the principal here is very weak. That principal is that just because I am the first one to think of adding a handle to a pail, I should be able to use the state's power to prevent anyone else from coming up with this same idea independently and making use of it themselves. One thing I've observed in my profession is that given enough time, almost anyone can find the same solution to a problem. No invention is ever totally original, and often the measure of "first-to-invent" comes down to days or even hours between independent concepts of the same exact idea. If this is true, I ask again: What is the moral basis for this need to control?
[edited to correct misspelled name]
It seems like especially the part about rights wearing off would be hard to enforce. I'm reminded of a quote from Atlas Shrugged:
"One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws. Who wants a nation of law-abiding citizens? What's there in that for anyone? But just pass the kind of laws that can neither be observed nor enforced nor objectively interpreted – and you create a nation of law-breakers – and then you cash in on guilt."
So what is "intellectual property" anyway? If I dream up about 3 and a half meters in diameter half blue half yellow sphere with a number 42 on it, can I declare this image my property and prevent anyone from "imagining"?
oh boy... what I have DONE!!!! EVERYBODY IN THIS THREAD OWE A 1000 dollars EACH!!!
Onar Åm wrote the following post at 10-20-2010 1:13 PM:
"If you as an independent person take up debt that is ok, but it is not ok for you to pass on that debt to your children. Children cannot inherit debt. That is why IP only lasts about one generation."
But Onar, are you telling me that a Patent or a Copyright is a Debt? That is, the holder contracts the obligation to pay someone for the privilege of obtaining the monopoly? I know it used to be that way (you'd pay off the King to obtain your monopoly), but it is no longer so (not considering the general taxation issues).
Today IP must surely be a pure asset (benefit) to the holder of the title. Why should not his children inherit it? In what sense are these liabilities? And if they are liabilities why not abolish them altogether?
In the natural sense you are ofcourse correct in that (some) intellectual property is lost upon death of the person that holds it in his head, it also happens when you forget (ie the intellectual property returns to the state of nature).
However you seem to be indicating that if this person had trained his son (ie transferred his knowledge to his son) so as to ensure that all your valuable knowledge passed from father to son, then upon the death of the father the State (or individuals?) would be entitled to extract this intellectual property from the son as it would properly belong to humankind and no individual. In a sense the son would be found to be in possesion of "stolen property" maybe we even could label him a "Pirate"!
Maybe the difficulty in understanding your point is that you don't argument anything without using analogies, and they tend to be misleading and/or difficult to understand. Appreciate your answer though, as it seems you have genuinly tried to answer my question.
--So what is "intellectual property" anyway?
intellectual property is theft.
Actually intellectual property does exist, that is you own your thoughts, your mental capacity, etc
What most here are opposed to are the legal monopolies that go under the names of Patents and Copyright, not intellectual property per se.
MaikU wrote the following post at Wed, Oct 20 2010 10:51 PM:
Here is some advice for you, and this also goes to a lot of you people in here. When you are debating with an opponent and you hatch out what you believe to be an implication of their position, then check to see if the best of your opponents hold this view. If you're not even remotely close there are two possibilities:
1) you're so smart and brilliant that you've figured out something that not even the smartest of the smartest of your opponents have figured out.
2) you're thinking is so moronic that it is borderline ape manure.
Now, *before* you open your mouth and release a brain dump of your most recent idea think a little bit about which of these two possibilities are more likely, and act accordingly. If all the people involved in this debate made a habit out of doing this, we could have had a much, much shorter thread with much, much less noise and more relevant arguments.
But Onar, are you telling me that a Patent or a Copyright is a Debt?
I've already explained this several times so I will be brief: In feudal times the serfs were renters. They didn't own their own land. What's more they worked the land and had no option, they were stuck to the land. Yet, they didn't gain property rights with time, even if they mixed their labor with the land. And here is the clue: the children *inherited* the debt of their parents. They too were stuck to the land and so generations of serfs worked the land without getting an inch closer to building themselves property rights. They were slaves, shackled by debt.
Now, there is an analogy between renting and paying royalties for IP. BUT as we have discussed previously information doesn't exist independently of the mind. The only way for a novel or a song to be instantiated is through the mental labor of another human being. So once a piece of intellectual property is released to the public people immediately start mixing their mental labor with it. Once it is in their head they're stuck with it, they can't escape it. Now, if IP is to last generation after generation, people would in effect become serfs. They would be eternal renters, and that obligation to rent would be passed on to their children. To avoid this, IP must expire after approximately a generation. This is especially true for patents since they have huge effect on everyone. Copyrights may last longer than patents because it takes longer for most books and songs to diffuse throughout society. You can live your whole life without ever having heard of Atlas Shrugged, but you'll definitely have heard of electricity and cell phones.
Before you understand this line of reasoning there is really no point in answering you any closer.
David wrote the following post at Wed, Oct 20 2010 9:57 PM:
According to Omar
I hope your reading skills are not a reflection of your ability to correctly understand an argument. I have no idea how you've managed to do so, but after dozens of replies and mentions of my name you manage to spell it wrongly.
Your summary wasn't half bad and I was thinking that you might actually have something of value to add to this debate. You even understood an important point about control. If you as an owner of IP don't like socialists you should be able to prevent them from using your invention or reading your book, because it's YOUR book. But then you just end up in the same ol' same ol' story. You're now using the specific implementation of patents (which I think is thoroughly broken) to attack the *principle* that one has a right to own the fruit of one's labor. Sorry, it's not good enough. Try again.
Let me add that I think it is way too easy to obtain patents on something, especially in the united states. Remember the one-click-buy Amazon patent? A disgrace. It's no wonder that it doesn't take long for others to reinvent something when the bar is set this low for patentability. Generally this is a sign of sickness, that something is wrong with the implementation of patents. I've addressed this issue earlier in this thread at length, where I describe a parallel alternative to patents, namely academic property rights. In most cases I think that people will prefer such an IP over patents. Patents then should be reserved for true inventions where an author really is ahead of his time, and not just 3 months.
But the quick answer to your question is this: what is the moral basis for this need to control your own body? If you know the basis to this you also know the answer to your question, because they are identical.
Onar: "Let me add that I think it is way too easy to obtain patents on something, especially in the united states. Remember the one-click-buy Amazon patent? A disgrace. It's no wonder that it doesn't take long for others to reinvent something when the bar is set this low for patentability. Generally this is a sign of sickness, that something is wrong with the implementation of patents. I've addressed this issue earlier in this thread at length, where I describe a parallel alternative to patents, namely academic property rights. In most cases I think that people will prefer such an IP over patents. Patents then should be reserved for true inventions where an author really is ahead of his time, and not just 3 months."
Typical of IP advocates. 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." You are not in favor of every obvious injustice we point out--and there are so many as to make the whole thing suspect to any normal person--yet you don't want to abolish it. Typical. You say the bar is "too low" for patentability. Oh, glad you are a central planner and know the "optimal" "bar". What should it be, O Great Onar? This is all terrible: you are just advocating some incoherent mishmash of statist grants of monopoly privilege to try to "optimize" whatever the current stated goals of the regime happen to be. This has nothing to do with libertarianism, whatever it is. IT's just some kluge of kleptocratic utilitarian unprincipled incoherent dishonest mercantalism or something. Not that there's anything wrong with that....
Stephan Kinsella [email protected] www.StephanKinsella.com
--"Actually intellectual property does exist, that is you own your thoughts, your mental capacity, etc...<snip snip snip>"
ftr, my "intellectual property is theft" comment was meant to be tongue-in-cheek.
since the IP advocates have taken to calling anti-IP libertarians "communists", i figured i'd indulge a bit.
yeah, yeah, i know: stick to your day job.
moving along...
i really don't know about the above quote. what does it even mean to say that your thoughts and mental capacity are your property? you certainly own your body and, of course, your brain, but i don't think it makes sense--or, rather, i don't think it's necessary--to say that your thoughts are also property. saying so seems analogous to saying that you have property rights in the sounds generated by your stereo.
Onar Åm wrote the following post at 10-20-2010 5:22 PM:
"Now, there is an analogy between renting and paying royalties for IP. BUT as we have discussed previously information doesn't exist independently of the mind. The only way for a novel or a song to be instantiated is through the mental labor of another human being. So once a piece of intellectual property is released to the public people immediately start mixing their mental labor with it. Once it is in their head they're stuck with it, they can't escape it. Now, if IP is to last generation after generation, people would in effect become serfs. They would be eternal renters, and that obligation to rent would be passed on to their children. To avoid this, IP must expire after approximately a generation. This is especially true for patents since they have huge effect on everyone. Copyrights may last longer than patents because it takes longer for most books and songs to diffuse throughout society. You can live your whole life without ever having heard of Atlas Shrugged, but you'll definitely have heard of electricity and cell phones."
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. I also note that he/she has paid (normally) an upfront sum for HIS copy of the work. Upon his death this copy would then presumably be inherited (or tossed in the garbage).
I can't see how they could possibly "diffuse throughout society" provided the COPYRIGHT protection is complied with according to the letter of the law. (It could do so illegaly very fast, but that's hardly an argument for limiting the time of COPYRIGHT.). The only way it could legally "diffuse throughout society" would be if everyone bought a copy (and let the copy pass on in inheritance). Would a situation where 6 billion copies be sold of "Atlas Shrugged" justify cancelling the author's ownership?
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.)
Now, what would happen if there was no time limitations to the patent, ie that it was perpetual. Well, presumably the cellphone would be even more expensive, however we'd still voluntarily decide to purchase the cellphone (or not). The only way PATENTS would legally become "diffused throughout society" would presumably be if everybody voluntarily bought a product that incorporates the PATENT in question. A perpetual PATENT would then, by increasing prices dramatically, presumably slow down the dreaded speed of "diffusion throughout society" which ends up making us serfs.
Hence the perpetual PATENT will undoubtedly save millions from the fate of becoming serfs, simply by putting lots of goods way outside what they would be able to afford. Although it doesn't seem to me that anyone becomes serfs for by buying a $3,000 iPhone, nor by buying a $300 one instead of paying a mere $100 for it without ANY PATENTS, unless ofcourse you consider that one becomes a serf because one ends up paying a higher price for the product than you would without PATENTS.
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. 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 (if it truly is his legitimate property as I pointed out in the response to the false Serf Analogy). Time-limitations would then be more akin to a rent-control system, where the state always is trying to get the price of the rent "right", however doesn't rent-control by the State violate the owner's property rights? (Now you got me into the stupid analogy game!)
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)
2) you're thinking is so moronic that it is borderline ape manure. Now, *before* you open your mouth and release a brain dump of your most recent idea think a little bit about which of these two possibilities are more likely, and act accordingly. If all the people involved in this debate made a habit out of doing this, we could have had a much, much shorter thread with much, much less noise and more relevant arguments.
Glad we got that out of the way and now have a proper label for IP: Borderline ape manure brain dump. I smell retreat which often occurs when one side of a debate introduces vibrant lables and gets completely outwitted by opponents using even more vibrant lables that are far more convincing to the average spectator.
The [see previous posts for a brilliant, colorful, vibrant use of labels] pro IP [insert label] argument is that human beings create ideas that merit some blessing to use force against other human beings. If that argument is true I would expect to see more patents from human beings that have received minimal influence from other human beings, like under the age of 3. But it isn't true, not even Admiral Obvious [thanks fish :)] would agree because the only time human beings create anything is during reproduction. Among other things, human beings observe, react, communicate, or transform matter/energy.
Truth is evolution in thought not origination of thought.
The IP argument is that some privileged human beings should be able to cherry pick from the evolution in thought and pool of ideas contributed by millions of other human beings. The argument is, thanks human race for all of your ideas that have enabled my thinking to evolve up to this point but FU I want to get paid for my little contribution to the idea pool and I am willing to use force against you to insure I benefit.
I have read the one side of the debate bring up the concept of land ownership to make a property argument. I am not impressed with the application of the concept. Does anyone actually own land? No. You purchase title to borders established by human beings. Claims to voluntarily recognized borders are often preferable for any minority force versus claims to highly contested borders. Nothing is owned in a context of absolute control beyond the body, the word owner is often used in society but with regards to land, ownership is a border claim, the concept owner just means the individual who has the most recognized claim.
With regards to IP people already own their thoughts. The IP argument defies personal responsibility. The IP argument wants to impose the costs of enforcement on other people. It's like the immigration argument in the United States. The Federal Political Subdivision has only been delegated power to create a uniform Rule of Naturalization not redefine terms to regulate immigration. A Rule differs from a Law in that the concept of a Rule does not involve police power. There is no United States border defined anywhere in the United States Code. A Federal Political Subdivision border does not exist. States have borders defined in State Constitutions and Federal Political Subdivision Territory is defined in Treaty. Treaties do not refer to any Federal Political Subdivision border but they have refered to the Border of Canada or Border of Mexico. Having set the foundation I will now make the analogy. The analogy is people in States along the Border of Mexico apparantly do not want visitors and tourists but refuse to take on the cost to trespass visitors or tourists at State borders. They want to live in those States but they want people in other States to pay for protectionist policies. This is the IP argument. I want to force everyone else to pay for the enforcement of my IP contracts because I deem the enforcement cost too expensive. I can't afford to investigate or develop evidence for every potential breech of contract that involves sharing my works of IP.
I haven't even touched on capital. Capital has a distinct advantage in the market to produce, market, and distribute. Apparantely this advantage is not enough for IP to compete and force is also required.
communeofone: --So what is "intellectual property" anyway? intellectual property is theft.
lol ok I get it.
Onar Åm: MaikU wrote the following post at Wed, Oct 20 2010 10:51 PM: So what is "intellectual property" anyway? If I dream up about 3 and a half meters in diameter half blue half yellow sphere with a number 42 on it, can I declare this image my property and prevent anyone from "imagining"? 1) you're so smart and brilliant that you've figured out something that not even the smartest of the smartest of your opponents have figured out. 2) you're thinking is so moronic that it is borderline ape manure.
or 3) you open your wallet and give me my 1000 bucks because you have just imagined my idea unless you proved that your idea wasn't copied from mine idea, ok?
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.
The fallacies of intellectual communism, a compilation - On the nature of power
Regardless the burden of proof is on you to prove that your creation is an original and not a copy. It is simple to show. Simple to show, impossible to prove. I guess we all need to have notaries following us around in case we have an idea.
Simple to show, impossible to prove. I guess we all need to have notaries following us around in case we have an idea.
Actually it is quite easy to prove. If you are the original creator, then some record of your production will remain, as well as witnesses to this. It's as simple as asking if someone has an alibi.
If you claim to have produced an original recording of Jackass 3D, but Johnny Knoxville cannot recall ever taking part in it, then you are obviously not an original producer.
Onar Åm wrote:
I have no idea how you've managed to do so, but after dozens of replies and mentions of my name you manage to spell it wrongly.
Please accept my apology, I meant no disrespect. I have corrected the mistake. Please understand I am an equal opportunity misspeller; I also misspelled Mr. Kinsella's name in an earlier post too.
Your summary wasn't half bad and I was thinking that you might actually have something of value to add to this debate.
I appreciate your responses and the effort and patience you have extended in this discussion. I am a newby on this forum and am simply trying to understand some complex issues. I am certainly not an expert in this area and have only started reading Mises, Rothbard, Block and the others in the past year. Two years ago I had never heard of any of them. They have provoked me to challenge some of my assumptions and reconsider some of my biases. As someone with a vested interest in copyrights and patents, it has been something of a struggle for me to sort out. With the help of this discussion I think I now have a better sense of the arguments for and against.
Stranger your creating a false dichtomy between open-source and closed source software. You appear to be afraid to admit the truth about reality however. Unfortunately for you capitalism has taken open-source software and really exploited it, and I imagine it will continue to do so. You and I have been through this before and you've always hit the same brick wall. Linux is one of the most widely used development and server hosting platforms. The entire open-source industry exploded in growth during the recession. There are literally hundreds of thousands of articles, research, and information revolving around the open-source community. Being in the server IT industry myself, I see Microsoft/Adobe and other closed source bloatware firms getting slapped around by these competitors. This angle you've taken as always has been an assertion, one that is entirely disconnected from the actual current condition of the software development market.
Unlike you I was in this business a decade ago, and the same things were being said about open source then. 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.
I am certainly not an expert in this area and have only started reading Mises, Rothbard, Block and the others in the past year. Two years ago I had never heard of any of them. They have provoked me to challenge some of my assumptions and reconsider some of my biases. As someone with a vested interest in copyrights and patents, it has been something of a struggle for me to sort out. With the help of this discussion I think I now have a better sense of the arguments for and against.
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.
Stranger:Only a communist mind would ask such a question.
I wonder when you flipped from trying to reason bad arguments to just out and out namecalling. It's sorta funny, because in lieu of a real argument, you just call everyone who disagrees with you (or in some cases, that you strawman) a communist.
Stranger:Things are produced because consumers demand them.
Say's law much?
Stranger:IP communism interferes in the relationship between consumers and producers by denying ownership of the product to producers, and thus making consumption impossible.
That's not true. Open Office and Linux are produced and consumed.
Apples and bananas are also produced and consumed, yet some people would rather buy software.
Stranger:Unlike you I was in this business a decade ago
Is that ^^^ actually part of your argument? Because I have been in this business much longer than you, if we're appealing to time served.
Stranger:the same things were being said about open source then.
That doesn't invalidate anything.
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.
So now you have moved the IP goalposts to being a distinction between consumers and producers? Doesn't this fly in the face of everything we know about exchange, that is everyone is both a consumer and a producer?
Also, doesn't any exception invalidate your claim if you're appealing to some objective state of reality and not some arbitrary fiat?
And can you prove that Linux is a producer good and not a consumer good? That is, by what metrics did you draw that conclusion?
So now you have moved the IP goalposts to being a distinction between consumers and producers? Doesn't this fly in the face of everything we know about exchange, that is that everyone is both a consumer and a producer?
I am not sure I understand what you are saying, but I don't think you understand what a division of labor is. Additionally, I mentioned the distinction between consumer and producer goods in all my threads about IP.
Do you know a Linux user who is not a trained IT professional?
Somewhat of an aside, but there are a couple open source software items I prefer to the mainstream products. I understand the layman probably chooses based upon what is either advertised or has the largest user base (e.g. marketshare), but that's not to say they are actually superior products. The particular example I was thinking of when I started writing this reply was Foxit which is a pdf reader that is incredibly more efficient at opening pdfs (with time as a metric), or at least it was a few years ago when I first discovered it.
...Did you seriously just ask that?! Better button up, your ignorance is showing.
Pro Christo et Libertate integre!
While I appreciate this observation it is not unique to software--it's simply a narrower consumer base. Do you know many people other than excavators/construction workers that use a Backhoe?
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.
It would have been so simple for you to provide an answer, and yet you did not.