you can claim the space that the water flows through. you certainly claim the space inside your home, even as the wind rushes through
you could homestead fish by electronic fences etc.
Can you own sand dunes, as they can move quite rapidly?
But the question still stands, can you claim the water?
You aren’t claiming the water itself, just the plot. Build a fence.
Ok. That makes sense.
But since you cannot claim the water; what about water I have put in a cup, or air I have put in a bag. Do I only own the bag/cup, or the air/water in it as well (let us go further and assume they are not so much “in” the cup/bag as they are continually being fed “through” the cup/bag)?
It does seem to get a bit dicier when you start setting frames of reference. Thus far we use essentially a static frame around the earth and I would athink this is the most useful at present. Has there been any consideration for how this works in a larger volume–let’s say the solar system to start?
You can claim water. People generally don’t because it isn’t convenient or necessary given the quantities involved (this is especially true in regards to ocean water) for their other purposes. It’s just like air. I don’t care if air from my neighbor’s house blows into mine until he starts polluting it. Then I can say to him “keep your air, or at least your pollution, out of my house”. If we were on the moon, however, air would be a resource limited enough to be rivalrous an we would both want to contain, purchase, and claim rights to specific quantitites of air.
This behavior even occurs for things we geerally deem valuable, like land. When land is so plentiful compared to usage requirements, people were fine letting their herds graze unclaimed land because there was enough as to be effectively non-rivalrous at the time.
Perhaps this will give you some insight into why the rival nature of resources is important to the formation of property rights.
“Any further reading I could find on the issue would be much appreciated.”
You should check out Against Intellectual Property - it makes a good case of explaining how many inventors, writers, and musicians made money before our current IP system. It also makes quite a few interesting arguments against IP. Here’s the link:
http://levine.sscnet.ucla.edu/general/intellectual/againstfinal.htm
scroll down to where it says entire book as a pdf file, download it, and happy reading!
A question about IP. So I recently sold a screenplay to a studio. Under Mises’ ideas of IP, would it be okay if, while shopping it around, someone in that chain (agent or production company that would see this screenplay during this process) simply scratched off my name and put theirs and sold as their own? Would I have no protection?
How is “To Kill a Mockingbird” and a Big Mac not rival unto each other? (I buy the book, I can’t afford the burger, and vice versa) So is McDonalds “stealing” from Borders, or is the other way around? How do you decide?
That is correct as far as you go. Didn’t you register it with the Writer’s Guild? That should maintain for the record your credit.
How is “To Kill a Mockingbird” and a Big Mac not rival unto each other? (I buy the book, I can’t afford the burger, and vice versa) So is McDonalds “stealing” from Borders, or is the other way around? How do you decide?
Come on dude, you can do better than that. Analogies don’t just work cuz you say they do.
I’d love someone to address my necessary complexity argument:
IP requires that you define a necessary complexity where “ideas” transform into something patentable (“IP”). The USPTO has it’s own criteria which is certainly arbitrary in it’s own right but ironically it’s completely possible to patent something that infringes on another patent. I can provide an example if necessary.
The idea is simply: At what objective level of complexity does a confluence of ideas become IP?
If it is different from individual to individual, how do you defend/enforce it?