You seem to misunderstand. There can be a society that defines what you call IP to be legitimate property, and thus, could have societal norms and laws surrounding it to protect it. In fact, we live in an example of a society with such a thing.
Many libertarians believe copyrights are legitimate how they are. Murray Rothbard is a prime example. Other libertarians do not. Like Stephen Kinsella. It doesn’t make one more or less of a libertarian. Some even believe(d) patents and trademarks to be legitimate. Others don’t.
I’m saying that I don’t view it as legitimate. It’s fine if you do.
This one is interesting because Copyright is actually impeding on Mike Tyson’s ability to do what he wants with his own body. Any company he deals with has the potential to be extorted.
Algorithms
Maps
Business Methods
Software (disasterously had IP added to it recently… ~1990s was when it officially kicked in in the US)
There are hundreds of thousands of examples, hundreds more coming out every day. My favorite is the Patent Nuclear War going on in the mobile phone market:
Also, how long, in your ideal system, would Intellectual Monopolies last? If not saying forever, why only a limited time?
There are currently differences in how long IP lasts in certain sectors, should this be unified into one single year (or maybe they should all last FOREVER)? If not, why should certain sectors get different treatment? Are not all ideas ownable?
Read Walter “Moderate” Block’s famous book Defending The Undefendable:
You should listen to him, he is a Moderate just like you.
Nope, just have actively read the information and given deep thought to the Intellectual Monopoly issue, and also applying the idea of non-aggression consistently, across the board, in all sectors.
Oh yes there is. Exactly in the example you just gave, a mom sharing songs, not selling them. That is non-commercial use. What are the people who are suing her arguing?
IP Law is an arcane subject, and does in no way work as most people ASSUME it works (aka… most Pro-IP supporters). So you keep on referring to this “common sense” “man on the street”, but they know nothing about IP Law.
If you asked the common man about Minimum Wage, Tariffs (to “protect country X jobs!!”), Price Ceilings, war is good for the economy, almost all “common men” say YES to all of those, but you, with your economic knowledge, know that all four of those are completely wrong, and will do the exact opposite of their stated goals.
The economic answer is usually not the one you will think of as “common sense”.
Go read Against Intellectual Monopoly. Boldrin and Levine cover these examples in their book. Sure, you will still have SOME people who do not pay the original creator of the idea, but there are economic incentives against it! (And ways that the author can COMPETE). Read Against Intellectual Monopoly for more details.
Take this scenario:
Movie A: Author endorsed. The movie directors decide to pay the author a large contract to help come up with designs and plots, and make the story fit more in line with the rest of the famous book series. Who knows the author’s fans and what they like better than the author himself?
Movie B: Decided to make a movie using their own writers.
Movie C: Some fan made movie put on a streaming site.
Version D: Some pirate releases a cam version of movie A online.
Yes, Movie A might have higher costs than Movie B, but the quality of the work will be much higher, and fans of the book would be much more likely to see the one endorsed by the actual author. Sure, people might still see Movie B (even fans of the work), but there is an economic advantage in the favor of Movie A.
It is up to the author to say “If you are a fan of my book X, don’t see Movie B, I approve of Movie A because I helped work on it!” and it is up to the producers of Movie A to advertise this fact.
Maybe the author can say “if you buy a copy of the book from my website, you will give you a $2 discount to see Movie A”.
Movie A can even blow Version D out of the water by the fact that… THEY HAVE THE RAW MOVIE. They can release a much higher quality video than the pirates, and people will pay a premium for it. (see Netflix, Amazon Video).
Sure, you will still have people watching D (happens EVEN WITH STRONG IP PROTECTION), but you have to compete and give the customers a reason to buy! (aka… being an entrepeneur).
This example can easily be seen right now in FASHION (because there is no IP). Why do people pay a premium for Uggs when there are knockoffs right next to it for a fraction of the price? Because people will pay a premium for the “real thing”.
This is what competition in the marketplace is. You are saying that you demand to get the monopoly shoe factory from the King?
Kinsella has already written about plagarism many times. See one of the articles here:
I recommend in the future, type in “topic X” + “stephan kinsella” into Google, and you will get hundreds of articles he has written about it.
That is fraud (all depends on if the customer was actually defrauded), but there is no reason for IP protection in this case. Kinsella covers this in his class, and his articles. It is a problem between the customer, and the person who sold him the fraudulent goods, not the musician/author and the seller. See one of his articles here:
Why is it legitimate for me to make a shoe that looks like Uggs, and I don’t have to pay the Ugg company a dime!
Why is it legitimate for me to make a cake and not pay a dime?
Why is it legitimate for me to make a cheesesteak and not pay a dime?
Why is it ok for me to take your map (no IP protection will be granted to map makers) and not pay you a dime?
So you believe IP should be own until time immemorial?
Luckily, Algorithms are not patentable, or who knows how long Isaac Newton and Gottfried Leibniz would have battled it out. And imagine if we weren’t able to use Calculus for their life + however many decades.
Do not associate a monopoly grant by the government with abuses of actual Property Rights. See again, Kinsella and the muddling of words (the word Intellectual “Property” instead of Intellectual “Monopoly”).
You can see how effective those propogandists are by taking over such a word with such positive connotations.
Not just sooner or later it would fail, it would fail because it is impossible, Property Rights arise from scarcity (see Hoppe lecture).
I took care of this above with the Tariff/Minimum Wage example above. You should now be in favor of War, Tariffs, Minimum Wages, and Price Ceilings.
No it is not. Go listen to the Kinsella examples.
My favorite is the meme of Hitler from Der Untergang, and the subtitles saying hilarious things. Although this is illegitimate, how dare Youtube profit off of all the advertisements they are getting from derivative works!!!
This is illegitimate, all of the people who created the Hitler memes should pay Der Untergang, and Google should too! I do not care if Der Untergang might get indirect benefits, I DEMAND THE GOVERNMENT GIVE ME DIRECT BENEFITS!
No. The whole thing should be abolished because it conflicts with actual Property Rights. (See Hoppe, see Kinsella).
Yes, the shoe maker would MUCH PREFER it is he was the only one allowed to make shoes in town.
Listen to the Hoppe lecture. You have to go back to the basics of how Property Rights arise.
If I change one word, is that yours. If I change half the words, is that yours. If I change one beat of the song, is that yours? Where is the arbitrary point where it is not your work any more?
What if I create this character who is a wizard, and name him “Barry Trotter”?
How is it stealing? Have I taken his property? No. All that I have maybe done is “dilute his value” in some way, but the thing staying at a “given value” is unownable.
If I own the only shoe factory in town, and my competitor opens a shoe factory across the street and sells shoes for cheaper. Now I have to compete and lower my shoe prices. In your thought process, he is STEALING, because he is lowering the value of my shoes.
But he planted his plants in the same exact pattern as mine. THAT THIEF!
Or what if I owned a plant shop and laid my rose bouquet a given way. I visit the gardener across the street and he COPIED STOLE THE WAY I LAID OUT MY ROSES. THIEF!! THIEF!!!
Kinsella already covered this in his critique of Rothbard. Yes, it would be voluntary to try to emulate Copyrights with contract, as to how enforcable and effective it would be is dubious.
A key thing to note though is… IP LAW DOES NOT CURRENTLY, NOR EVER DID WORK THIS WAY.
I love in Against Intellectual Monopoly when they bring up the example of Sheet Music. Those damn “pirates” were even pesky way back when!
This one is interesting because Copyright is actually impeding on Mike Tyson’s ability to do what he wants with his own body. Any company he deals with has the potential to be extorted.
Algorithms
Maps
Business Methods
Software (disasterously had IP added to it recently… ~1990s was when it officially kicked in in the US)
There are hundreds of thousands of examples, hundreds more coming out ever day.
Also, how long, in your ideal system, would Intellectual Monopolies last? If not saying forever, why only a limited time?
There are currently differences in how long IP lasts in certain sectors, should this be unified into one single year (or maybe they should all last FOREVER)? If not, why should certain sectors get different treatment? Are not all ideas ownable?
Read Walter “Moderate” Block’s famous book Defending The Undefendable. He is a Moderate, just like you, so you should agree with him!
Nope, just have actively read the information and given deep thought to the Intellectual Monopoly issue, and also applying the idea of non-aggression consistently, across the board, in all sectors.
Oh yes there is. Exactly in the example you just gave, a mom sharing songs, not selling them. That is non-commercial use. What are the people who are suing her arguing?
IP Law is an arcane subject, and does in no way work as most people ASSUME it works (aka… most Pro-IP supporters). So you keep on referring to this “common sense” “man on the street”, but they know nothing about IP Law.
If you asked the common man about Minimum Wage, Tariffs (to “protect country X jobs!!”), Price Ceilings, war is good for the economy, almost all “common men” say YES to all of those, but you, with your economic knowledge, know that all four of those are completely wrong, and will do the exact opposite of their actual goals.
The economic answer is usually not the one you will think of as “common sense”.
Go read Against Intellectual Monopoly. Boldrin and Levine cover these examples in their book. Sure, you will still have SOME people who do not pay the original creator of the idea, but there are economic incentives against it! (And ways that the author can COMPETE). Read Against Intellectual Monopoly for more details.
Take this scenario:
Movie A: Author endorsed. The movie directors decide to pay the author a large contract to help come up with designs and plots, and make the story fit more in line with the rest of the famous book series. Who knows the author’s fans and what they like better than the author himself?
Movie B: Decided to make a movie using their own writers.
Movie C: Some fan made movie put on a streaming site.
Version D: Some pirate releases a cam version of movie A online.
Yes, Movie A might have higher costs than Movie B, but the quality of the work will be much higher, and fans of the book would be much more likely to see the one endorsed by the actual author. Sure, people might still see Movie B (even fans of the work), but there is an economic advantage in the favor of Movie A.
It is up to the author to say “If you are a fan of my book X, don’t see Movie B, I approve of Movie A because I helped work on it!” and it is up to the producers of Movie A to advertise this fact.
Maybe the author can say “if you buy a copy of the book from my website, you will give you a $2 discount to see Movie A”.
Movie A can even blow Version D out of the water by the fact that… THEY HAVE THE RAW MOVIE. They can release a much higher quality video than the pirates, and people will pay a premium for it. (see Netflix, Amazon Video).
Sure, you will still have people watching D (happens EVEN WITH STRONG IP PROTECTION), but you have to compete and give the customers a reason to buy! (aka… being an entrepeneur).
This example can easily be seen right now in FASHION (because there is no IP). Why do people pay a premium for Uggs when there are knockoffs right next to it for a fraction of the price? Because people will pay a premium for the “real thing”.
This is what competition in the marketplace is. You are saying that you demand to get the monopoly shoe factory from the King?
Kinsella has already written about plagarism many times. See one of the articles here:
Search “Stephan Kinsella” + “Plagarism” in Google.
I recommend in the future, type in “topic X” + “stephan kinsella” into Google, and you will get hundreds of articles he has written about it.
That is fraud (all depends on if the customer was actually defrauded), but there is no reason for IP protection in this case. Kinsella covers this in his class, and his articles. It is a problem between the customer, and the person who sold him the fraudulent goods, not the musician/author/watchmaker and the seller.
Search “Stephan Kinsella” + “Fraud” in Google.
Why is it legitimate for me to make a shoe that looks like Uggs, and I don’t have to pay you a dime!
Why is it legitimate for me to make a cake and not pay a dime?
Why is it legitimate for me to make a cheesesteak and not pay a dime?
Why is it ok for me to take your map and not pay you a dime?
So you believe IP should be own until time immemorial?
Luckily, Algorithms are not patentable, or who knows how long Isaac Newton and Gottfried Leibniz would have battled it out. And imagine if we weren’t able to use Calculus for their life + however many decades.
Do not associate a monopoly grant by the government with abuses of actual Property Rights. See again, Kinsella and the muddling of words (the word Intellectual “Property” instead of Intellectual “Monopoly”).
You can see how effective those propogandists are by taking over such a word with such positive connotations.
Not just sooner or later it would fail, it would fail because it is impossible, Property Rights arise from scarcity (see Hoppe lecture).
I took care of this above with the Tariff/Minimum Wage example above. You should now be in favor of War, Tariffs, Minimum Wages, and Price Ceilings.
No it is not. Go listen to the Kinsella explanation of how ideas work in concert with human action.
My favorite is the meme of Hitler from Der Untergang, and the subtitles saying hilarious things. Although this is illegitimate, how dare Youtube profit off of all the advertisements they are getting from derivative works!!!
This is illegitimate, all of the people who created the Hitler memes should pay Der Untergang, and Google should too! I do not care if Der Untergang might get indirect benefits, I DEMAND THE GOVERNMENT GIVE ME DIRECT BENEFITS!
No. The whole thing should be abolished because it conflicts with actual Property Rights. (See Hoppe, see Kinsella).
Yes, the shoe maker would MUCH PREFER it is he was the only one allowed to make shoes in town.
Listen to the Hoppe lecture. You have to go back to the basics of how Property Rights arise.
If I change one word, is that yours. If I change half the words, is that yours. If I change one beat of the song, is that yours? Where is the arbitrary stopping point?
Hint: Trick questions, it is unownable. hahaha
How is it stealing? Have I taken his property? No. All that I have maybe done is “dilute his value” in some way, but the thing staying at a “given value” is unownable.
If I own the only shoe factory in town, and my competitor opens a shoe factory across the street and sells shoes for cheaper. Now I have to compete and lower my shoe prices. In your thought process, he is STEALING, because he is lowering the value of my shoes.
But he planted his plants in the same exact pattern as mine. THAT THIEF!
Or what if I owned a plant shop and laid my rose bouquet a given way. I visit the gardener across the street and he COPIED STOLE THE WAY I LAID OUT MY ROSES. THIEF!! THIEF!!!
Kinsella already covered this in his critique of Rothbard. Yes, it would be voluntary to try to emulate Copyrights with contract, as to how enforcable and effective it would be is dubious.
A key thing to note though is… IP LAW DOES NOT CURRENTLY, NOR EVER DID/WILL WORK THIS WAY.
I love in Against Intellectual Monopoly when they bring up the example of Sheet Music. Those damn “pirates” were even pesky way back when!
Hi Tex - I think you need to maybe read my previous posts you are asking me to clarify things I already have.
Of course its’ absurd to criminalise end users (such as single moms). I’ve said that repeatedly.
Reproduction by your own means is ok. Copying material verbatim is not a reproduction. Playing the song live is. For example I personally find the need to pay royalties for playing a song live absolutely absurd. It’s a new performance, a new creation. Clothing - NO unless they stole the templates from your factory. They can make their own clothes that look the same - they’re not the same clothes. Again, digital (books, photos, music, movies) are non-physical items.
Copyright should be a property: no expiry, or no copyright at all. If it’s not property, then I agree, it’s just a fraud (essentially) to enforce it.
The tattoo example is a good one of absurdity that makes no sense to anyone. etc.
I’m talking if I finish a piece an album and someone just copies it and sells it to profit from my work, destroying most of the market for the original. Same with art, paintings, movies, books etc. That to me is the argument and circumstances that stand up to common sense. The rest do not. If you play it live, a lot of people won’t be sure if it’s stolen or not. If you copy a section, a chord progression or you paint a painting that looks just like it (but is not a verbatim duplicate) - that’s also a new creation. A digital duplication is not a new creation. Details beyond that should be worked out. I’m just trying to say that to me as I’ve specified, copyright is a property. You don’t even need to criminalise it. It will always happen, like drug use, but you should be able to sue people who commercialise your creation instead of making their own creation even if it’s to sample yours and stick a different beat to it at least that’s something new.
As I’ve repeatedly said througout the thread, combining copyright and IP is impossible for me at least. Too complex. I haven’t considered broader IP enough to comment on it just now.
@Clayton: I’m not changing horses, I think you’re actually missing my point entirely maybe it’s philosophically convenient for you to do so, just saying. SOPA PIPA etc have nothing to do with protecting copyright and everything to do with killing free speech. The ones who lobbied for it were the same people who distributed the piracy software (see a video I posted earlier about it). Those laws are anti-copyright - they obfuscate the law so much that it becomes useless and only works selectively enforced, which is exactly what tyrants want. No law for them, but full force tyranny for anyone not in the club.
I’ve repeated, again and again, and you guys are maybe just ignoring it or not reading it, copyright laws that criminalise the end user are absurd. When someone takes it and commercialises it - sells a verbatim copy and kills your market for it without doing performing any creativity - that is someone you should be able to sue and have shut down.
Thanks for that clarification I kind of gathered that but thanks anyway. Yes we can agree to disagree, and I think it’s fair to say that the way things are is in nobodies interest except for a few thousand sociopathic maniacs who have weaseled their way into favor and make a living by licking boots and having them be licked. What good is a copyright law to me if the government takes all my money through taxation and fraud anyway. I’d rather have freedom. But if we get rid of the criminals, and we want to run a society based on principles, logic, reason and sanity - there is only one question for me about copyright. Is it property, or is it not. To what degree is it? I think laws that exist are already half way there - if it’s altered significantly from the original, such as in a remix, then yes, I think it’s fair to say that’s a new creation and copyright should have strict boundaries. But verbatim, commercial use can’t be right. Everyone recognises it as a rip off - plagiarism, that’s what it is in essence even though the name wasn’t used, it still is.
The statement regarding switching horses mid-stream was a direct response to your statement regarding copying of only blank DVDs being inexpensive. My response was a clarification of an earlier point I was trying to make (long since lost… sigh): that the copying itself is has become cheaper, irrespective of the costs of content-creation. This is a true fact.
And I’m not missing your point at all. The problem is that your point is nothing more than a reiterated summary of status quo ideas regarding IP. You’re not actually responding to the arguments that have been raised to challenge the status quo. You’re simply summarizing again and again the status quo as if it should be obvious that this refutes arguments that were devised to challenge the status quo. Clearly, it does not. Boldrin and Levine haven’t simply failed to “get it”. They get it. I get it. I have offered a quote from the above article that gives a detailed and specific rebuttal to the status quo concept of IP. It’s based on a bad metaphor that, when followed to its logical conclusion, leads to absurdity.
Well I would just like some reclarification for some slightly different examples. For example, should each of those in the list be added to the list of things which need government granted monopolies.
But he is playing “your” song, if you never placed those words in that exact pattern, and tied it to music of this exact pattern, he would never have been able to play it at his concert! Everyone who plays it should owe you money, until time immemorial.
What if he accidentally hits the wrong chords or sings in the wrong pitch, or messes up the words… That thief still owes you money.
This whole concert talk also reminds me a lot of the NFL shutting down churches and bars for “public showings”:
But I did not steal the templates of the book/music from your computer. I have duplicated them, and have used my own physical resources to reproduce it. There was zero theft. The only thing is this mythical “value” you have somehow lost… just like the shoe monopolist.
So how much do you owe the caveman who invented the wheel?
This reminds me of the Objectivist, Joseph Andrew Galambos who put a nickel in a box every time he said the word “liberty”, so he could give it to the ancestor of Thomas Paine:
Well it is not absurd. The tattoo artist owns the art, it is his creation! You cannot just show it off and have people make money off of HIS tattoo!!! Perfect example of Mike Tyson not being able to do what he wants with his own property (his body) because of Copyrights.
So you have to compete and try to flood the market. See Against Intellectual Monopoly, also see the printing of the Mises Institute books (Jeff Tucker speech). Because the Institute releases the books for free, and in very cheap book form, you will not see many competitors trying to print those same books (very low profit margins). Anyone is still still free to print their own, but the incentives are minimized because the institute is filling most of the demand.
No, they are allowing the large Music/Movie companies to protect people from STEALING their “property”. Your site will be able to be shut down for posting links. There is nothing free speech about posting stolen material.
By spreading my music/book/idea without my permission, you are STEALING my value. If you put it on your website, you are making money off of ads. If you download it from a site, and they make money off of ads, you are abetting them in theft. You must be sued, and the site must be taken down for being a bunch of thieves.
What should happen instead of using the government thugs, just focus on competition. Most pirates are just unsatisfied potential consumers. For example they can release their OWN legitimate streaming site (see Hulu, see BBC). Not the greatest examples though, because they still have region locked nonsense… but ok enough.
A remix is a derivative work. If Harry Potter was never created, Barry Trotter would not have as much market value. He is stealing value from the Harry Potter franchise without doing any work.
I make a remix and I sell it. That is commercial use, thus a remix should be crushed by the government thugs.
A remix is posted on Youtube, and Youtube makes money off of ads. They should be paying me a piece of the ad money for MY IDEA.
Anyway… I am done typing these for now until you have finished the Kinsella class/book + Hoppe’s Property Lecture + Against Intellectual Monopoly.
It takes many months/years of just absorbing and listening to both sides of the arguments. When Jeffrey Tucker first read Against Intellectual Property, he thought the arguments put forth by Kinsella were crazy on their face (as most people do). It took Tucker years to come over to the Kinsella view, but he was won over by the consistency of the arguments.
It is also GREAT to have an anti-IP patent attorney, because he actually knows about how IP Law currently works. As I stated before, most of the Pro-IP people know nothing about IP Law, and assume they know how it works, but couldn’t be further from the truth.
I would recommend putting Kinsella’s site on your RSS feed, and also his site C4SIF.org.
See Tucker’s review on Against Intellectual Monopoly here:
Yeah I have a lot to go through as well, but had to do a lot of running around today for something and as you do with such things it’s a good opportunity to mull things over and I kind of arrived at a point of saying that basically I’m with Rand on intellectual property morally, or roughly close to it - I would take a simplified view: a verbatim copy is fraud, since it’s got my name on it, and it’s not you, or if you change the name, you didn’t write it, so it’s still fraud - BUT if you change it in any way, add work to it, then I’m wiling to let it go as “another thing” or “another idea”. I can’t deny we all get ideas from everywhere and make something new out of that. I’m quite persuaded by the point that it’s not the task of government to police it all - that it’s a societal problem and for society to work out. In other words, it’s for society to say “hey lets support this guy who does original stuff, and not the guy whose knocking off his records”. “Oh did you buy a knock off, come on man, you should support that guy he does good work”. etc. And of course, to value ones own product appropriately for sale, and to saturate the market enough such as that it doesn’t create opportunity for anyone else to fill it. I was thinking about the fashion industry, and the way that works with fraud versus knock offs, and how at some levels of society, people are fine buying knock off’s whereas others would never think of it - point being, the designers DO make a living if they supply the wants of the people who do buy from them. So long way around it but I see a real argument there. What was just chiding with me and not feeling right was the idea that if I create something it’s morally ok for someone to just rip it off verbatim and make money on it without doing any work. Seems to me like any “moocher” as Rand calls them (love that word) can just piggy back on your efforts - the litmus test being, did that person do any work or perform any valuable function before getting paid for it, or did they just use your work to make money. But I do agree that it is better solved at a societal level AND that it can be solved at a societal level. Not 100% clear yet, but that seems to feel right to me. In other words, I don’t have to give up my conviction that it is mine, that doesn’t mean I need the government to partner with me to protect it, I can rely on the over-riding morals of society to confirm that. Anyway, like anenome, much more research to do…
Fraud =/= Plagarism. (Read that Kinsella article on Fraud, and he covers this in his class).
Fraud is illegitimate, but as I stated earlier, this is a problem that must be settled between the buyer and the seller, NOT with the creator and the seller. IP Law is not needed to protect from fraud, nor does it (see article below).
What currently happens with knockoff in fashion is the companies try come up with some artificial workaround. The companies have their logos trademarked, and then plaster their logo all over the item, so it would be impossible to make the same item without infringing on it… then government thugs can be sent in to steal the goods that CUSTOMERS WERE WILLING TO BUY (cheap knockoffs).
Check out his article Leveraging IP (first link in this article), and the Ars Technica article (linked in the post):
I would definitely recommend reading Leveraging IP, since it has the weird case of Omega (Swiss watchmaker) who used the process of Price Discrimination, but did not like the arbitrage opportunities that arose.
All ideas are built upon previous ideas. At what point does it stop being “your idea” and begin being “his idea”? How would you divy up the fractions of “your idea” and “his idea”?
If he decided to use his (or is it your?) idea and begin selling some good, does he owe you money?
By the way, if your mind changes on IP, I demand some compensation for you stealing copying “my good ideas”. I will be sure to forward a fraction of the funds to Kinsella and Tucker as well.
Indeed, legitimate ways to “protect ideas” are Non-Disclosure Agreements (NDAs), and maybe Rothbard’s “Copyright” contract example (the effectiveness would be dubious). What you have to see though is that the state binds not just A and B to the contract (legitimate), but EVERYONE to it.
It is also up to the entrepeneur to try to give REASONS TO BUY, and tying the non-scarce good (idea, pattern of notes, pattern of words, algorithms/science), to scarce goods and services (speeches, concerts, books, satellites, machines, 24/7 support).
Such is the nature of ideas, infinitely reproducible, and the costs of copying them have dropped to nearly $0. (See Clayton’s post, see Tucker’s Publishing speech).
Before you had to actually work very hard to sell books, and get your music out there and heard, now it can be replicated in less than a second, it can spread like wildfire in the blink of an eye, and be around the world in every single person’s pockets, making a large impact on the world and everyone’s lives, making everyone better off. How amazing is that?
I see more where you are coming from but you say ideas can be replicated. Lets just stick to music for a moment - copying an album of music verbatim is taking someone elses work effort and creativity, doing basically none yourself, and profiting of the end result. That’s what I’m talking about. I’m basically more or less willing to concede that government is not the apparatus to deal with it (more work to do), but I’m definitely not willing to concede that morally it’s a void concept. I’m not talking about bits of ideas put together. I’m talking about a discreet unique whole individual expression. An album, a song, a book, etc. Sections, bits - yeah, you got to let that go in the real world anyway whether you like it or not, we’re all influenced - absolutely. But complete works verbatim, that’s someone’s unique expression. Unless you came up with the identical book on your own (impossible) - it’s not legitimate. Government to regulate? Ok, maybe not… but you can take my creative efforts in whole and profit form them performing no work adding nothing yourself? No way. Can I stop you? Most likely not, but can society arbitrate that through market choices? Yes, I believe so.
I would recommend staying AWAY from music. You are too close to the topic and it is muddling your thinking. I believe if you try to apply the same concepts to everything BUT music, you will see it fail in every case.
“Copying Newton’s Laws of Physics verbatim is taking someone elses work effort and creativity, doing basically none yourself, and profiting by providing a service (teaching Physics).”
“Copying the Pythagorean Theorem verbatim is taking someone elses work effort and creativity, doing basically none yourself, and profiting by providing a service (teaching Math).”
“Copying your cake recipe verbatim is taking someone elses work effort and creativity, doing basically none yourself, and profiting by providing a service (placing ingredients in a certain quantity at certain time periods).”
“Copying your chair verbatim is taking someone elses work effort and creativity, doing basically none yourself, and profiting by providing a good others want (something to sit on, and looks a certain way).”
“Copying your hairstyle verbatim is taking someone elses work effort and creativity, doing basically none yourself, and profiting by providing a service (cutting hair in a certain way).”
“Copying your joke verbatim is taking someone elses work effort and creativity, doing basically none yourself, and profiting by providing a service (making people laugh).”
“Copying your tattoo verbatim is taking someone elses work effort and creativity, doing basically none yourself, and profiting by providing a service (putting a specific pattern of colors/shapes on your body).”
“Copying your software verbatim is taking someone elses work effort and creativity, doing basically none yourself, and profiting by providing a good (an algorithm).”
“Copying your boat design verbatim is taking someone elses work effort and creativity, doing basically none yourself, and profiting by providing a good (a boat that cuts through the water a certain way).”
“Copying your shoe verbatim is taking someone elses work effort and creativity, doing a whole lot of work, and profiting by providing a good (a shoe that I see has a market that is untapped).”
“Listening to your music and making sheet music is taking someone elses work effort and creativity, doing a little bit of work, and profiting by providing a good (a series of notes so you can play the song too).”
“Copying your book verbatim in the 1700s is taking someone elses work effort and creativity, doing a whole lot of work, and profiting by providing a good (a book that I see has a market that is untapped).”
“Copying your book verbatim in the 2000s is taking someone elses work effort and creativity, creating an exact duplicate with barely any work, and profiting by providing a good (a book that I see has a market that is untapped).”
“Copying your shoe verbatim in the year 2 million, is taking someone elses work effort and creativity, sticking it in the replicator and pushing a button, and profiting by providing a good (a shoe that I see has a market that is untapped).”
I believe this shoe manufacturer in the year 2 million is a dirty thief, because he barely put any work, he was just able to push a button! If you listen to the Tucker speeches, you can see that capitalism (and technology) is all about battling scarcity. Because of capital accumulation, we are able to create massive amounts of stuff, with much less labor (and resources) input. For example, computers a few decades ago took up whole warehouses, now they fit in your pocket and are billions of times more powerful.
Technology is constantly pushing Marginal Costs down (creating more with less). Sadly, the Physical World will never reach a Marginal Cost of $0 (but the replicator would be pretty close), but the realm of ideas is ALREADY THERE (ok ok you caught me, almost there, there are still Opportunity Costs associated like time (see the later chapters of Against Intellectual Monpoly)).
What Intellectual Monopolies try to do is create ARTIFICIAL SCARCITY (the exact terminology that is used in IP Law). It tries to artificially raise the costs associated with ideas from $0 to some positive amount.
Forget the book example, what about math equations and algorithms. Are you telling me that if Pythagorean did not stumble upon the Pythagorean Theorem, that somebody else would have never found it? Or Newton’s Laws, if Newton himself never created that “discreet unique whole individual expression” it would never exist otherwise?
What about a basic geometrical proof, (not unique, long, or discreet enough), then what about very long and complicated geometrical proofs, or what about such a long and complicated geometrical proof I can fill a book with?
Impossible I say, no one else would have been able to put together that combination of geometrical logic if I never came along!
This reminds me of one of the lectures (I believe it was maybe at an Austrian Scholars Conference a few years ago?) where they had a mathematician give a speech, and he found a very large and complex proof that got named after him and made this exact point. I will have to hunt this lecture down now.
So just because people can and have come along to argue things into the ground and sue people for a 2 second sample, and other even more grotesque absurdities, we must throw the whole thing out?
I am reading carefully everything you are saying and appreicate your time honestly. But I’m not seeing your examples equate to what I’m seeing. You say I can’t use Newtons laws to teach physics? Wrong - I’m not saying that. I’m saying you can absolutely do that. What you can’t do is copy his book verbatim and sell it as though it’s your own even if you leave his name on it. Write your own book and base it on his, heck, don’t even quote him - go ahead, people will find out - but at least write your own book. I think this is easy to define and easy to administer in law certainl relative to today’s situation. Likewise, a piece of music - you can sample it, copy the chord progression, the melody, lyrics, and do all kinds of things - it will be YOUR performance if you play live, YOUR album if you take the trouble of recording it - it’s something NEW created with your energy - but other’s ideas, even if it’s a total rip off, it will at least be YOUR ripoff. I have no problem with that. But taking my album, verbatim, selling it effectively as though it were your property to sell, that does not compute, to me. Sorry.
I hope you see what I mean. I’m just saying your examples do not equate to what I’m understanding in my mind.
Another example: “copying your hairstyle verbatim…” - you are copying the hairstyle, the idea of the hairstyle, but not the product. You are not magically stealing the haircut off someone’s head, and transporting it to someone elses head, or to be more precise replicating it. That would be akin to what I am getting at (though of course not the same).
To go into a studio and copy my album by creating a new performance and a new recording, is to me, legitimate - at least the person had to do something. In otherwords, if they can just copy it and sell it as though it’s their own work, they are undermining my work. Nobody is stopping them producing their own work, but they are destroying the value that was in mine and stealing that value. I know what the theory is behind what you say, but I just think these things are a different catagory and hoenstly the theory is missing something. Unless you are saying they have no value as property, don’t exist as property and that is the sad reality then yeah, these things - studio albums, and the like will go out of existance except for hobbies. Which seems sad to me, as does the idea someone being able to make a living as an author, as opposed to someone only being able to write because it’s their hobby. The irony is it seems to very “collectivist” the way this is all going. All my work (as I’ve defined it) is everyone’s… Hmmm… Would books in your society be filled with product placements… ? Could be legit I suppose… I’ll have to start putting corporate subliminals into my recordings then I can get sponsors to justify the music…
If I take your book, “Mike99’s Treatise” By Mike99, and I print my own version of it and begin selling it, I would be selling it as “Mike99’s Treatise” By Mike99. It is still the exact same book. I did not change it to “Mike99’s Treatise” By Tex2002ans. If that example doesn’t work for you, then just substitute in something like Harry Potter.
Plagarism =/= Fraud. Read that Kinsella article on Fraud I pointed to above (and listen to the class). Kinsella covers this better than I ever could.
Kinsella likes to use the example of Aristotle’s book “Nicomachean Ethics”:
Right now you are free to take all of the ideas of Aristotle Mike99, you can even print a book “Nicomachean Ethics” by Aristotle Mike99.
Nicomachean Ethics by Mike99 is your book. and your property, It was created with your own ink, your own paper, your own printing press. There was no fraud here, just plagarism. Though they might have been expecting to buy “Nicomachean Ethics” by Aristotle. Then that would be fraud, but it would be a problem between the buyer and the seller, NOT with the “original creator”.
Or how about this thought example that just popped into my head.
What if you released your book with font size 4 on gold sheets of paper for thousands of dollars. I loved your book so much, but thought it was impossible to read at size 4. I decided to be an entrepeneur, and printed it with a font I believe more people would enjoy (size 12). Or maybe a different font entirely. The content is exactly the same, but I just presented it in a much nicer way.
I may have also decided to be an entrepeneur and sell it on normal paper for tens of dollars, or maybe I thought people might like a paperback version, or maybe I sold a crappy version printed on looseleafs for a few cents.
Would this be ok if I put lots of labor into changing the font sizes? Would it be ok if it just took one second of pushing a button in my word processor?
What if I took your exact book and translated it to Greek. Would this be ok for me to sell? I put lots of work into translating it! And you had no interest in putting your book into Greek.
This is currently possible to do with ANY BOOK THAT IS IN THE PUBLIC DOMAIN. What is the difference between the year work goes into the public domain + 1 day, and releasing the book on “copyright expire - 1 day”?
It would be up the the original creator, to outcompete me by flooding the market and anticipating what format my customers would enjoy best. (Against Intellectual Monopoly goes into this).
This is what currently happens in the realm of recipes. You decide to make me the best spaghetti ever to touch the face of the earth. You use the finest ingredients, you hand make the dough, you use the finest tomatoes in all the land. I take the original recipe (X amount of pasta, Y amount of tomato sauce), and I compete with you. You are still free to use your recipe to create your super expensive plate, and I am still free to use that EXACT SAME RECIPE YOU CREATED, and sell it for less (gold paper book versus normal paper book). I can even use the same exact expensive ingredients you used if I think that is what the customers (STEALING YOUR IDEA), or tweak it slightly and use a different brand of tomatoes, and I use a different brand of pasta from you (keep size 4 font, but just change the font from Arial to Times New Roman).
Does not compute because your thinking is muddled because you are in the business of selling music. Copying your spaghetti recipe in the above example, that is stealing your idea verbatim.
Look at the Industry X chapter in Economics In One Lesson, and look at all of my sentences above (inserting X). The same exact logic applies in every example. Music/Books are your “Industry X”.
But you spent hundreds of dollars coming up with cutting your hair that way, while I, the simple observer, had done NO WORK WHATSOEVER but seeing the way your hair looked and have decided to steal copy it.
The shoe creator in the year 2 million. He is a thief? He just pushed a button (no work) and replicated the shoe.
Value is unownable. You are saying you are on the side of the shoe monopolist who doesn’t want a competitor to be able to open up his own shoe factory? If he gets to open up his factory, I am going to have to lose the value of my shoes!
The price of a good tends towards its Marginal Cost. The Marginal Cost of the idea in digital form has dropped to nearly $0. What you have to do is tie the idea (non-scarce, price tending towards $0), with a SCARCE good/service (concert, ease of download, teaching cooking/physics/math, etc etc.)
There are still professional cooks even though recipes are unownable, there are still professional teachers, even though Physics/Math/Algorithms are unownable, there are still Comedians even though jokes are not ownable, there are still fashion designers even though there is no IP Law in their sector, there are still mixologists, even though their mixed drinks are unownable.
I don’t know, I am not a book entrepeneur, maybe that would be the best way to make money selling books. It sure is working as a great way to make money on websites (lots and lots of words in a given pattern in digital form for everyone to read for free).
That might just work. It is great to see some thoughts flowing through your head on how to compete with others.. this is what entrepeneurs have to do in the marketplace!
Nike Air Max Force 1 Lux 07, the selection of 100% natural alligator as a raw material, carefully crafted handmade by Italian craftsmen, the most surprising signage and shoe buckles are 18K gold material. Of course, as the highlight of the 25th anniversary of the pricing reached the unprecedented 16,000 yuan, also issued the highest price paid for a pair of shoes sold in China.
Dont know if anyone recommended this mike, but I would just not worry about. IP protection was one of the last things for me to let go. If you just keeping studying you will reach the same conclusion. So if you don’t understand why yet you will get it sooner rather than later. You aren’t getting it because there is probably another underlying flaw in your theory of economics/liberty. Once you start sorting all the economic laws in your head it will hit you.
Yeah thanks for the recommendation and advice. I’m still going through the motions really but so far I have made peace with the idea politically and practically. I’m still not 100% on it morally. I suppose I find some of the moral arguments thin - such as the notion that becuase you could just throw anything at the thing that means it does not stand. For example we have laws against other things, but there are people out there who would argue similarlly against them. Such as rape for example, you could say “but what if / but what if / but what if” - at the end of the day though, it is easy to define, it is determinable in a court, and just because people abuse the system and get away with rape, or, on the other side, use rape charges as a weapon where no rape has occurred and use it that way, so now the underlying principle is void. But, let me keep going with it, I will come back to it I’m listening to that lecture now.
Edit: It’s funny actually but I found out that my main concern was not financial, but that recordings as an artform might be lost - once I was able to see how that commercially would not be the case without copyright - that quality and ambition would continue to be the driving focus because of commercial reasons as well as artistic ones - that was when I was able to make peace with the whole thing commercially. It was not so some people can make lots of money but rather that great recording artists, engineers, producers etc, would still have AN incentive to make great records. In fact I figured that albums would still be a main focus of an artist even if they didn’t make money off the sale of them directly, they will still need to be a central focus of any artists career - so their existance is still justified. Perhaps a petty wish of mine, but I was just not feeling good about this art form being lost for any reason other than a very good one - now that I can see it won’t be, I feel better about the rest of it
As for films and such, I think cinemas will make a comeback with first release rights, and black box based subscription downloads or the like working for home viewing. So I can see it all working. Anyway again, morally was always my central concern even if I asked other questions just to play devils advocate and get clear about things myself. Thanks for humoring me so far everyone
