I assume that in a free society, many, if not most people will sign a contract that enforces intellectual property rights. So intellectual property doesn’t have to be actual property right, but instead can be derived from a consensual contract.
What do you think?
If it’s consensual than there’s no problem as far as aggression goes for the consenting parties, but it’s still based on the fallacy that there’s a scarcity of ideas. If it involves third parties than there’s a violation of the NAP, but it doesn’t seem that you mean that. If it’s consensual, I’ve no problem with it unless it aggresses against third parties.
I don’t think it really makes any sense to say “enforces intellectual property rights”, but yeah, you have the right idea. There could be stipulations in contracts that prohibit an end-user from copying and so on.
Obviously I don’t think contracts can make third parties comply, that would beat the idea of a contract. However I do think intellectual property is essential for the material well being of society, and as long as it is agreed upon consentually, such as with IP contracts, that would not be against NAP in any way.
I understand what you’re saying. All I’m saying is saying is that it would be a misnomer to call it intellectual property. The contracts you are talking about restrict or prohibit the actions of one party, but they don’t transfer property titles of the thoughts in the mind of the other party.
Next step:
What incentive will somebody have to sign such a contract which restricts their freedoms?
Hint: avoiding the implicit threat of force or retaliation.
How is the threat of force or retalition implicit in the OP?
How is the threat of force or retalition implicit in the OP?
It is not implicit in the OP.
I am just pointing out rhetorically that without such threats, it is pretty unlikely that people will sign a contract that restricts their freedoms. [Any appeal to packaging these contracts with security and protection services comes down to the same thing, by the way.] What other incentive could there be? paying people to sign these contracts?!?
Rothbard spoke like this. You still get into some messy situations, as Kinsella points out. Please see Against Intellectual Property.
I was impressed when someone here told me that ancaps didn’t support intellectual property rights. I should have known that there would be a catch…
Signing such contract might be mutually beneficial in the form of “I respect your IP, so you respect mine”. I assume companies will sign such contracts if they believe it is beneficial to their business.
Specifically, what freedoms are you talking about? If Microsoft sells me a copy of Windows 7 (may it be a license), then what freedoms am I giving up? Surely, it couldn’t be the freedom to make copies of Windows since I didn’t have the freedom to do so to begin with.
Would you care to explain what you mean by this?
Off the top of my head…
Would you care to explain what you mean by this?
When someone told me that ancaps don’t support IP, I thought that meant I would be able to buy a copy of Windows, make a copy of it myself, and distribute it to other people. But if I have to agree not to distribute it when I buy it, then it’s not really any different in practice than the current system. Although I suppose I’d be able to copy and distribute a copy that someone else illegally made.
It is different.
I don’t know what Muff is talking about. What you just described is definitely do-able. Hell, you can obtain a copy of an LvMI work, make copies of it, and sell them if you wanted, right now. And you don’t even have to pay for the original work…you could download it for free. Everything produced by LvMI is released under CC BY 3.0 license (which is basically as close to no copyright as you can get, aside from CC0, and the only reason they don’t use that is because “efficacy looks doubtful to [Kinsella], and it’s still embryonic as far as [he] can tell”). Even the mises.org website is CCBY3.0.
So yes, you could easily go to the resources page for, say, Lesons for the Young Economist, download it, send it to a printer, bind it into book form, and start selling it. Or you could download the epub and offer it for sale on your own website.
And again, as I said, Rothbard talked about using contracts in IP type situations. It doesn’t really work. Please see Against Intellectual Property (which you can also download, print, and distribute (for a profit, if you like)). But really just think about it. How in the world would anyone be able to enforce such a contract? How the hell would the company know where you got it? They could only legally go after the person who breached the contract, and they would have no way of knowing who that was. If they caught you distributing it, they would have to prove they have a contract with you. And even then, in a libertarian society the contract would be unenforcible because there would be no transfer of title taking place…and you can’t force someone to uphold a simple promise.
He said that current IP and “IP” under an-cap aren’t really different. I said, “It is different.”
The freedom you would be giving up is the freedom to agree to the contract and then renege on the agreement by copying the Windows program or the freedom of using a pirated copy.
OK but after that agreement, if you choose to renege on the agreement, then what?
Bottom line is that IP laws under ancap eventually hinge on the threat of force or the threat of retaliation to enforce them. The OP is right, it is just a contract and has nothing to do with any definition of what constitutes property.