To clarify…
We don’t need IP laws to defend against fraud.
So in all 3 cases, no, I would not be for enforcement of IP.
Why is lying to the consumer different from lying to the author (that you wouldn’t profit from his creation)? Why is one type of honesty prioritized over the other for you? After all, the consumer’s feeling of being defrauded would be there to the extent that he would feel that his author has not rightfully received the proceeds and the credit for the nice novel that he just read. Piracy or plagiarism, lying is lying. Acting fairly is not.
Z.
No. Copyright is an IP concept, and plagiarism is about honesty.
The author is not the direct subject of defrauding.
Beside, no authors is entitled to profits from his own creation. It must be earned from voluntary exchange. If the authors can’t make a living, than it is obvious that he could not find enough customers to do a voluntary exchange. Thus, he deserved to starve on the street.
Piracy is not lying when you acknowledge that something is a copy.
Otherwise, fashion items sold at wal-mart would be outlawed, because they’re just a copy of the original fashion designer’s good.
The fashion industry is remarkablely resilient in spite of physical copying. You might even say it thrive on this “piracy”.
Edit: never mind, I entirely miscontues the argument that z1235 made. Nonetheless, it was an accusation that come from nowhere.
Where was it promised that I wouldn’t profit from the author’s work?
It isn’t. I didn’t promise the author that I wouldn’t profit from his work. So if I profit, I’m not lying. I also do not tell others that I am the original creator of the work. So again I am not lying.
Fraud is wrong. I didn’t say it was right. Where did you get that I said it was right?
This is how i view the counterfeiting example:
With commodity money, gold etc, the case is simple. It is obviously not wrong to mine gold - even though you reduce the purchasing power of all gold in circulation. Nor would it be wrong to create more gold using alchemy (or the “meteor of pure gold crashed on my property” metaphor used in such discussions). There is no right to value.
Nor is it wrong to make or possess materials that look like gold (pyrite is sometimes called fool’s gold). Creating fool’s gold coins that look like real coins in circullation is not theft. Nor is the production of various alloys with various proportions of gold. Nor is it wrong to sell them to other people, or make coins out of these alloys and sell them.
What is wrong is to claim during a property exchange that a particular coin is .999 gold when, in fact, it is not. Wether its fraud (lying) or theft (title transfer was based on conditions), the receiver of the fake coin was wronged and can demand compensation. If he knew ahead of the trade, he just made a bad deal.
With paper notes, its a bit more difficult, as unlike gold, they are completely worthless themselves.
What gives them value is the promise of the bank to redeem them for whatever the contract states (gold for a typical system of sound money). No shop owner would accept just the paper bills for his goods, it is the promise (the title to the gold) that is transfered. Similar to how a written contract is not the contract itself, but just evidence for the contract, the paper note is not the promise but evidence of the promise, and it is the promise to redeem (or the title to the gold in the bank) that gets transfered between buyer and seller. Printing your own paper notes does not defraud “society”. Neither is giving them to a shopkeeper. Either you correctly represent the nature of those bills (“i made them myself, there is no promise of any bank to honor them”), in which case the shopkeeper is stupid. Or you do not, in which case you attempt to transfer a title you do not hold (the gold in the bank), and whatever you receive in return is considered stolen. You defraud the recipent of the fake money, and noone else. At no point in time can the bank intervene and aggress against you (unless they act as a PDA for the defrauded shopkeeper).
Exactly the same thing applies to IP.
If you want IP, then you must insist on state monopoly, there is no other way. Mutual contracts would probably not produce IP. In fact, there is an interesting efficiency paradoxon:
Lets say that there is no IP law, just contracts. A sells information (a book, source code, a prime number, a song, basically anything that could fall under IP) to B under the condition that B does not disclose it. The next day, the information is freely aviable on the Internet. A therefore assumes that B broke his contract and fills charges against him. Now it is not clear how the information got out in the first place. It could be deliberately released by B, in which case he broke his contract. It could be released by B as a result of an accident. Maybe a hacker stole it from B, maybe a hacker stole it from A. Maybe A accidently put it onto a public FTP or just got drunk and told everyone. A cannot aggress against C to Z (the rest of the internet) because he has no contracts with them. So all the damages the “leak” caused will have to be repaid by B even though C to Z profited.
If A is successful in expropriating millions out of B, everyone else will avoid signing anything even remotely close to a blanket NDA, maybe accepting fines only in the case a due process convicts them of willful conspiracy. The more efficient the enforcement is, the less likely people are willing to sign the contract in the first place. “information wants to be free” is not just a political slogan. The cost of containing information is extremely high, and a small mistake opens the floodgates once and for all. Either companies go after 12 year old girls who play the song at a birthday party without making every guest sign a NDA first - in which case everyone remotely sane would avoid signing the contract, and thus paying for the information, and instead get a “clean” version. Or the information would be out there anyway, and only in extreme cases (trade secrets only few key people need access too etc) would NDA-type contracts make sense.
In other news, my first post, so greetings everyone.
What if your access to his creation was conditioned on you making such a promise? Why would you have anything against making it? It would cost you nothing and it would enable him to receive his due proceeds fair and square. What’s your problem with this?
But your anti-IP stance supports it. You can do whatever you want with your property (paper and ink), including slapping your name onto a copy of someone else’s novel/code, right? You’re supporting fraudulent and dishonest actions, whether you do them yourself or not.
Z.
Z,
How about you start answering some of my questions?
Where was it promised that I wouldn’t profit from the author’s work?
Fraud is wrong. I didn’t say it was right. Where did you get that I said it was right?
And there are market forces to deal with plagiarism. IP-laws are unnecessary in that regard.
It was the creators risk at giving you access. He should have attempted to get his proceeds first before sharing. The market rewards people who service immediate demand first, not those who think of it.
If our worlds wealth was created by people who simply thought up brilliant things we wouldn’t need to act. We would likely not have scarcity. Idea’s need to be employed. If an idea is good it needs to be placed into practice to service consumer demand. If the genius who thought of such an idea was incapable of fabricating his idea into existence he does not deserve to be rewarded for anything. If he, the original thought, was incapable of bringing his idea to the market than it is not him who has suffered but the immediate demand of the consumers which is placed on hold. If he thinks he can make an entire market force wait for him at his leisure to fabricate his idea it will be he who has lost. What has happened here however is the use of government force in making the market wait for said idea to be fabricated at his pace, rather then letting market forces provide the good/service in a timely fashion.
A copy/cat however steps up to the plate and fills immediate demand. If he is late to the market his reward is nullified, if he is early to the market and fulfills immediate demand he is rewarded, and rightly so. We do not reward louts despite how brilliant they are. We reward those who service consumer demand, regardless of where they got such an idea.
NO ONE is entitled to an income, or a revenue stream.
How are you going to enforce your IP rights, Stranger?
That is blatantly false. Where are you coming from? Here, I’ll fix it for you:
The entire body of Austrian economics, and economics in the larger sense, is founded upon utilitarianism value free.
The same market forces that would produce booming sales in $5 Roolex watches, Luiss Vuiton handbags, $2 Windoos 7 and $1 Avvatar DVDs? Why not just let the market forces deal with murder, as well, instead you choking them with your “monopolistic” NAP? The hypocrisy is stunning!
Yes, they are. They are entitled to profit from THEIR creation, the same way you are entitled to your life. By saying that the quickest one on the market can STEAL his proceeds you are saying that the quickest one can STEAL your car or kill you. Speed has nothing to do with ownership and fairness.
Z.
[EDIT: “monopolistic” in quote marks, for the sarcasm impaired.]
Do you ever think before you post, or do you just type the first bit of nonsense that comes to mind?
You must suck at poker. The above “I’m cornered and I’m out of arguments” tell is repetitive and blatant.
Z.
The same way you’re going to enforce your NAP rights. By hunting down and punishing the criminals.
Z.
Seriously Z. You should go back and re-consider your response to me. It is pretty embarrassing. I wouldn’t blame you for deleting your post.
re: your creationism
The monolithic NAP meme is cute. Thanks for sharing.
Seize the assets of violators.
Go ahead, take your best shot. The post stays.
Z.