Lets say I take a cow out of a field. Does it matter that I didn’t know the cow was yours?
No, it does not matter. Nor does it matter in IP rights. I was simply giving evidence to you to show those were entirely different analogies.
bicycles are rival, if i take your bicycle to ride, you cannot have it to ride.
any one particular instantiated book is rival, if i take a book with me to france to read it, you cannot take that same book to moscow to read it simultaneously
an idea concept pattern is not rival. if i take knowledge of the law of diminishing marginal utility with me to London so as to contemplate on it, you too can also take knowledge of the law of diminishing marginal utility with you to Tokyo .
I see. Why present evidence for an irrelevant factor? If the fact that you knew Mises wrote the book in one case and didn’t know that I wrote a book in the other case doesn’t matter in IP rights, why bring it up?
So, going back to my original question: Lets say I write a history book. Then you research the same material I researched and write an identical history book (in different words, of course) without researching or citing my book. What should happen and why?
“if i take knowledge of the law of diminishing marginal utility…”
I see. But as the first formulater of the concept of diminishing marginal utility, do I not have the first rights to profit off of it?
And as far as the history book goes, that is a fringe issue. Is the book just a general layout of history, or are we trying to argue something and using history as evidence? If we are both making an argument, and the “heart” of the argument is the same, did I know you had written it? If I did not know you had wrote it, I would not consider myself a theif. If I did know, there is no abstractness to it, I stole from you.
no, you can try to profit from it by trying to have people pay to spend time with you, or have them bribe you to write them a book, or whatever else you want to try. but you can’t charge them for coming to know your non-rival ideas.
why not?
you have to pay me for the answer to your question, and because I knew the answer before you did, you have to pay me if you find out about it by thinking about it yourself or by asking someone else.
It’s not a fringe issue, it’s critical to showing the error of pro-IP thinking. I prefer to go through it step by step since we seem to be having a fairly rapid dialogue.
I don’t see why the book being a general layout of history or whether we are trying to argue something should matter (does it matter if the cow I took from the field was a milking cow or a cow for beef?), but lets assume we are trying to argue the same point in our books so the discussion can continue. You are now saying that it does matter whether or not you knew I wrote the book. If you didn’t, you are not a thief. If you did, you are a thief.
Now we are back to my other question: Let’s say I take a cow out of a field. Does it matter that I didn’t know the cow was yours? Why does it not matter here but it does matter with the book?
Does the first car salesman in town have rights to the profit from selling cars, making anyone else who moves into town and opens a dealership a thief?
That is your right to do so with the contents of your own mind. And I will just have to live in ignorance until I find a more reasonable person to share this information with me.
Since you have not copyrighted this information, you have given your consent for its use in the general public, and therefore have no right to stop me from recieving it from an alternative source.
I’d tell you, but I only know the answer because the original thinker let me know. 
I need his permission to tell you the answer. 
what should i have done to ‘copyright it’, is it some magical voodoo dance? I know it. you do not. I tell you i know it, and yet you persist to deny me ‘my rights’ rather you found out i knew something, and now you are going to go round my back and find out another way than by paying me what i am due?
this is so silly
“I don’t see why the book being a general layout of history or whether we are trying to argue something should matter (does it matter if the cow I took from the field was a milking cow or a cow for beef?”
Because noone has a right to facts. Those exist regardless of who found them. An idea, or argument does not exist regardless of the person that thought it up. It was created in their mind to explain said facts.
It doesn’t matter if the cow was for milking or beef, it is still my cow. The ideas that make up the core of Human Action are still Mises’ ideas. He was the first to formulate them.
It is a voodoo dance. You dance down to the copyright office and tel them about it. They voodoo dance you a contract saying you have the first rights to profit off this idea. It would be no less silly than a dispute between me and my neighbor on where his property ends and mine begins… who has the right to decide that?
I’m going to repeat AJ here, because I think this sums up the issue nicely. Everything else is in this thread is starting to look like the same old utilitarian rationalization, sometimes hinging on the LTV.
Great, so why does it matter if you knew I wrote an [argumentative] history book or not, or if you knew Mises wrote the book or not? You so far have expressed that it matters and that it doesn’t matter. Please pick one so we can continue.
It has my support. But I am a writer, so I am biased. But either way, I have to go. Perhaps you guys can “school” me later. Thanks for the engaging debate 
This is a song that influenced a lot of my views as a child, perhaps it is relevant.
"Freedom is a state of mind
A mind is a state of being
Stay the F*#$ out of my mind, and my being."
It would be no less silly than a dispute between me and my neighbor on where his property ends and mine begins… who has the right to decide that?
if your land was magically ‘non-rival’ (like ideas) then it would never be an issue, you would both use it and neither interfere with the other ! now if you wanted to gain an artificial monopoly rent on this magically non-rival land that would be different.
“neither interfere with the other”
But is your profiting off my ideas, not interfering with my ability to profit off my own ideas. It still seems to be a circular argument in opposition to IP rights. “I can’t hold an idea in my hand, therefore it is not property.”
If someone made a clone of me, without my permission, is that theft of my likeness?
I really have to go tho… feel free to try to help me see from your point of view.
Someone down the street is selling lemonade. I decide to start selling a better drink at a cheaper price. Isn’t my business limiting the other person’s ability to profit?
I fail to see the circular argument in this statement: “I can’t hold an idea in my hand, therefore it is not property.”
The case has to be made first that ideas are property, instead of just presupposing it.