I was thinking about this on my way back from Vegas yesterday. There’s a lot of talk about a Maglev train going from Anaheim to Las Vegas, and I was thinking. Let’s say that a company builds the tracks and runs trains to and from. That company owns the tracks. If he doesn’t want competition to use those tracks, we wouldn’t see a problem with that, after all, it’s his property. This means that prices will go up because competition is being slightly stifled (there is a price barrier to get into the industy where you have to build tracks to get in or pay the company a usage fee). All of us see absolutely no problem with this, right?
So then, what is the differrence between this and say the process by which a prescription drug can be made? A company had to pay for the research and development of the process, so why should competition be allowed to get their hands on that for free? The process of making the pill are like the railroad tracks from the analogy. Research and development is the price barrier.
My question is, if it is okay for physical property, why is it not okay for intellectual property? Maybe we have to compromise and say that for someone to get into the industry they must either buy the idea from the company or they must come up with it themselves?
Okay, you’re definitely right about that, but doesn’t a problem still exist with the book that was shown last week advocating for the elimination of copyright and patent laws? It seemed to me like they were saying that any company should be able to use the though (like the tracks) without having to pay for it. In the more physical sense, a company would either have to get an agreement to use those tracks or build the tracks himself. Why shouldn’t that be the same with intellectual property?
No. What they are saying is that any company should be allowed to build and use their own tracks, regardless of where they got the idea (of tracks) from. Nobody is saying that they can go and use anothers equipment, land, capital, etc, without permission.
Because there is no such thing as IP. It is a state created fiction. We’ve had numerous huge debates here on it. You can search for them. I really don’t have the stamina to take on the statists (minarchists, objectivists) (who believe otherwise) yet another time.
Taxi licenses have value. They are state created. They do not exist in a free market. A title to an idea or process is also state created. It does not exist in a free market.
One problem with IP laws (at least the way they are written today) is that they conflict with property rights. You can’t have conflicting rights. IP laws say that if Person A patents MagLev rails, then Person B cannot use his own steel to make MagLev rails without the permission of Person A. Therefore, Person A also has rights over your steel simply because he patented MagLev.
It seems like an idea, although a non-physical thing, is something that I can make into property and sell. If I come up with a way to get 90% efficiency on a heat engine for a car (pretty much impossible, but just an idea), build a car to demonstrate that efficiency, and then sell it to Ford, then it really seems like something physical.
And I’m really not a statist, just someone who is trying to figure things out.
I thought that what I was being told before (with the arguments I’ve heard against IP rights) was that basically this idea would be free to steal, or at least there would be no legal problems with stealing it.
People don’t like being called statist because it’s pejorative, and I didn’t mean you any disrespect, so I apologize. I was framing it more for others who love to endlessly argue this topic, as I mentioned, has been done here many times before.
Bingo.
Worthless.
Valuable.
Another example. I come up with the most beautiful poetry ever. Worthless. But if I put it in a book, or record my reciting it, now I have enabled it’s transmission. Now it is property. Not the idea, but the expression of the idea.
I understand that the idea is worthless until it is used to produce some good, but if I have a method to produce a drug and I come up with it and don’t want to sell it, doesn’t being against IP rights mean that other people have access to the idea and get to use it? There’s no problem if they come up with it independently, but if I just have to give it up then the other guy doesn’t have to spend the money for the research and that doesn’t seem right.
Actually, no. Because the entire premise behind IP laws is theft/stealing/robbery, not copying/duplicating/imitating. But like I said before:
One problem with IP laws (at least the way they are written today) is that they conflict with property rights. You can’t have conflicting rights. IP laws say that if Person A patents MagLev rails, then Person B cannot use his own steel to make MagLev rails without the permission of Person A. Therefore, Person A also has rights over your steel simply because he patented MagLev.
With that analogy though, why should the other company be able to build them unless they either came up with the idea themselves or got the idea from another company?
Isn’t the only other way that they can get the idea basically via theft?
No. That sounds like you are concerned that other people have a right to demand your thoughts from you. You’re under no obligation to share your ideas or processes.
You don’t have to give anything up. But if you tell me about your process, and I go and use it, then you shouldn’t have told me, because there is no way you can prove that I didn’t come up with it on your own. Forget the law. Forget what you think is or is not fair. Consider how you learned to read. To write. To speak. To drive. To walk. All of that was copying someone else’s idea. The notion behind ‘Against Intellectual Monopoly’ is that by monopolizing ideas (assigning them fiat exclusivity) we actually hinder progress because it is the human experience to learn not only by research, but by emulation.
I wouldn’t say that both should have monopolistic rights over it, and if two people own it, then two people own it. If they want to spread it around, then that’s fine. If one pays money and wants to keep it and the other wants to give it away for free, then he should be allowed to.
I guess my confusion is in how the idea spreads. If I come up with it and no one else develops it for 100 years and I would rather die with the idea than let humanity benefit by spreading the idea, should I be allowed to?