Some confusion exists as to what intellectual property actually is. The reason for this is that it is entirely administered by governments. Of course governments will badly administer IP! They badly administer everything they put their hands on! In a true free market people would be more free to contract different licenses for their works. Some may choose to “work for hire” with the understanding that their work would be the property of the company they work for. Some may choose a contract that states that in 50 years after their death the work would become the property of their favorite charity (i.e. The LVMI). Some artists might recognize that they benefit from allowing some teenagers to post video of their concert on YouTube. Others might want to be more restrictive. Some artists might want to release everything they create under a GNU Free Documentation license (or a free market equivalent thereof). Right now, artists don’t have the options of setting their own rules for intellectual property. They have to pick from those options offered them via government.
Our current patent system is favored toward big corrupt companies. Copyrights can be protected by contractual agreements such as shrink-wrapped licenses. Currently, in the US, shrink-wrapped licenses are allegedly not supported by courts.
If copyright laws were abolished, then they would be replaced with shrink-wrapped licenses. These shrink-wrapped licenses then must be enfoced by courts, not copyright protection agencies. Abolishing the copyright agencies would shift the burden to courts enforcing shrink-wrapped licenses. We currently have copyright protection agencies because copyright protection agencies are more efficient than courts because copyright protection agencies are more specialized.
In some forms of market anarchy, contractual enforcement is not guaranteed. So IP would not likely to exist in some forms of anarchy. However, voluntary states that internally respect copyright would arise. If an author or artist wants to make a living, then he has to move to a voluntary state that respects copyright. In order to avoid the free rider problem, the voluntary state forbids the showing of copyrighted material to some place outside the association. The voluntary state can sell copyrighted material to some entity outside of itself to make money. In order to make the business have an incentive to buy copyrighted material, the voluntary state have to sell the copyright material less than the temporary profit of a business using such copyright. However, the voluntary state’s profit from selling is small. The voluntary state can also sell copyrighted material to other voluntary states that respects copyright.
Voluntary territorial monopolies in anarchy can provide technological innovation by using techniques such as copyright, patents, etc., and can figure out other forms of innovation, better than the state.
Writers and artists can theoretically make money in anarchy. But their profit is limited and temporary. Their can have profits until other competitors copied their work. Thus, it is (almost) impossible to make a living out of writing in anarchy.
According to Stranger’s definition of anarchy, “voluntary territorial monopolies” that internally enforces copyright cannot exist. Perhaps “voluntary” with “monopoly” is an oxymoron.
Open source licenses are shrink wrap contracts. wikipedia.org/wiki/Shrink_wrap_contract They probably cannot enforced entirely in some places in anarchy, because copyright insurance companies would not have the incentive to threat violence for some minor copyright abuse. Therefore voluntary states that enforce contracts internally would arise. These voluntary states would make copyright treaties with other voluntary states.
This may not work in some forms of anarchy as described above.
However, voluntary states that internally enforce copyright might invent technology that would conquer the world.
I am a bit torn on this issue.
On the one hand, I like the model used by the website www.purepwnage.com. They create webisodes and post them for free online. They make their money by selling products associated with the show, like t-shirts and other accessories. So they use the creative component to attract customers and make their money selling physical items. There is no issue with IP laws.
One could expand this into other creative outlets. I could see a future where musicians create their works and make them available for free, and make their money selling collector CDs, t-shirts, and performing live. Digital photographers would make their money selling signed prints, or holding gallery showings, or doing custom work like portraits and event photography.
But my idea breaks down when you move into other avenues. What about video game development? If I spent hundreds of thousands of dollars creating a video game how do I get compensated? In this case the creative component is not just the catch to draw in customers…it IS the final product. Especially when you start talking about digital distribution.
Movies are another issue. PurePwnage is great, but its production levels aren’t exactly Sin City, or even Cloverfield. If you remove IP protections do you spell the end of big-budget entertainment?
Some possibilities: release your game for free and charge for membership to an online community, charge for physical game memorabilia, charge for admittance to competitions or “game nights” or game expos, charge for advertising placed on the online community or physical game memorabilia or signs at game nights or expos, etc.
I don’t know what PurePwnage is, but if its production levels are not great perhaps it simply does not have enough money or talent, yet (this is not meant as an insult). Suppose the first “product” of a person has OK quality but a lot of people like it for other reasons (humor, intellect, story, whatever); these people (and their friends, etc.) may be more likely to buy the person’s next product with the expectation of more good humor/stories/etc., so more money would come in. With more money, perhaps the person could invest more into writing talent or special effects or whatever. Or suppose Joe is about to release his first movie, so we don’t know about his reputation; maybe Jane, who already has a great reputation for high quality movies, endorses Joe’s movie - now more people may pay to see it (and then Joe has more money for his next project, etc.). Or maybe Joe can attract investors, convincing them he can produce a great quality movie with their money and can earn them a profit with the sales of toys to McDonalds, or whatever.
Even with IP, today, there are big budget movies and tiny budget movies, and you find excellent quality and poor quality in both categories.
I don’t think the lack of IP means necessarily that quality deteriorates or has an upper limit, or that it is the end of big-budget entertainment.
But big-budget entertainment usually means a large initial outlay of capital, in the hopes that the investment will be returned with at least the initial outlay and perhaps a profit on top of it.
I don’t know…I have problems with a lot of this stuff that I’m trying to wrap my head around. I read Kinsella’s papers and I don’t buy his arguements…mostly because on his site he is plugging software which, according to his ideas, I shouldn’t need to pay for. He also has tons of ads on his site. According to his ideas he should have no problem with me putting up my own site, called StephanKinsella2.com, and make a complete copy of his existing content but just removing the ads. People can then come to my site and get all the content without any of the ads.
Usually the paradigm is that every person who copies a work from someone else is one person who has not paid the creator of that work. If you buy my book, run it through a scanner, and then post that book online for everyone to get (which is fine according to Kinsella) then I am losing potential customers…people who would have bought my book if they didn’t have access to it for free.
Now I have no problem with the idea of a creator not having control over their work once that work has been purchased by an end user…if I create a video game and you purchase that game, you should be able to install it on as many computers you like…make as many backup copies as you like…do whatever you want. You own it…I shouldn’t maintain partial ownership of it and restrict your use. But I should be able to stop you from giving it…or even selling it…to other people. They should have to buy it too, and then use it however they want.
Those are good ideas, by the way…they fit right into my existing ideas for other kinds of digital products. Thanks!
But again it all comes down to production values. While a low-budget product might be able to fully compensate itself with those avenues, I don’t know how a big-budget product could do it.
Thanks!
This is a tough one. Who knows how much initial capital will be necessary to create a “big budget” movie in a free market. Would the US dollar be worth what it was in 1912, and hence would making Titanic in 1912 (if the technology existed) cost $4 million instead of $100 million? In addition to the lack of inflation in a free market, the lack of licensing and the ability to trade freely will likely greatly affect the cost of everything (e.g., labor, equipment, services, products), so would the cost of a $4 million movie drop to $3 million? $2 million? less? Also, I’m not yet convinced that a great initial capital investment prohibits a thing from being done, even in the free market. If it takes way more money than I have in order to produce a “big budget” movie, I can have partners and we can each invest a portion, etc.
Does this mean that you wold “prohibit” gifts? How about bulk buying your book to distribute to your students or friends? Garage sales? Used book stores?
The sale of a good can be restricted in a way; e.g. selling a game on the condition that the person receiving it does not copy it. That would render copying the game by anyone involved in the contract into a violation of the contract.
In no way would it prohibit gifts, since as I said once a person purchases a product they can do whatever they want with it. If Bob buys my book he can read it, and then sell it used at a garage sale. Or give it to a friend. Or burn it. Same goes for bulk sales…if Teacher Bob wants to purchase 20 copies and give one to each of the 20 students in his class that is perfectly acceptable.
But this all expects existing copyright laws to be in effect. If we followed Kinsella’s ideals then Teacher Bob could purchase my book (or download a copy for free), make 20 copies, and give them to his students…or sell them to his students himself. Is that okay? I don’t know…but if that is the paradigm that we are willing to follow for music and digital photography then I see no reason why we can exclude other media.
That’s not what Kinsella or many Libertarians would say. They say that copyright and IP laws are wrong…so there can be no restrictions on copying and distributing music, movies, books, video games, photography…basically anything that does not have some physical existence. I’m trying to determine if I believe that or not.
Where do he say this? If he does, he’s wrong.
The links are on page 2 of this thread. Specifically, from his “In Defense of Napster” article he says:
“…copyrightable works should not be viewed as property, and copyrights should not be granted.”
and…
“…property rights in ideas are not justified…”
I’m just trying to figure out that if we say that music, digital photography, movies, and other forms of intangible “stuff” are not property and can be copied/traded freely and without restriction, how do we rationalize not applying that same philosophy to things like online books, video games, news outlets, chemical substances (drugs), etc.
Ah, I see. That doesn’t preclude contractually limiting what one may do with what they buy though. It’s against IP laws as they currently exist.
IP law is not contract law though. Violation of a voluntary contract is and should be actionable in a civil court. But IP law both criminalizes IP infringement and creates predetermined legal terms between IP traders - terms which can then be used in civil court even though not negotiated and explicitly agreed to.
They have a problem with the whole IDEA of a copyright, though…not just an issue with current IP law. They disagree that intangible things such as ideas should create a monopoly that imposes restrictions on how a third-party can use their own property.
So is the general feeling in this thread that intangible items such as music, movies, or any digital media should not be protected by any federal laws, but can be protected via contracts agreed upon between a “creator” and a “purchaser”?
Of course, as Kinsella points out, this contract would only be binding between the creator and the purchaser. There is nothing stopping the purchaser from lending/giving the book/CD/DVD/video game/newspaper to a friend who can then make all the copies they want…since the friend has no existing contractual obligation with the creator to not do these things.
So, in effect, you might as well allow free distribution of all these things since contacts in no way prevent the free distribution of intangible media to the public.
I may have missed something, but couldn’t the contract (between the creator and the purchaser) stipulate whether the purchaser could lend/give the book to anyone else?
I don’t think so…once you purchase something you own it. If the contract contained such a clause it would give the creator rights over your property…something which libertarianism strictly denounces. Also, I doubt anyone would ever agree to such a contract.
In addition, as Kinsella points out in “Against Intellectual Property”, there is nothing stopping the friend from simply learning about the idea. So let’s say for giggles that the creator writes a book about Hobbits and a ring or something. The purchaser buys the book (either in physical or digital format) and agrees to a contract stating that they will not give nor lend it to any other person…ever. There is nothing stopping the purchaser from dictating the story to a friend, who then types it down and sells it as their own work. So will the contract state that you cannot read the book aloud? What if the purchaser just talked about the book to the friend? While the friend couldn’t make an exact copy, they could come up with a reasonable facsimile.
There is also no way for the creator to enforce the contract. What if the creator starts to see copies of the book being distributed online. Which purchaser broke the contract? Even if you find them, what’s to stop the purchaser from simply saying they lost the book on the bus and someone else (who would not be contractually bound to the creator) found it and copied it?
I think contracts are best left for handling the physical representation of the media (a hardcover book, a limited-edition signed DVD, etc) and not the intangible media or ideas themselves.
Like I said, eliminating copyright would simply shift the burden from copyright agencies to courts.
Your statement is contradictiory. You can “rent” some commidity, but not own it. For example, you can “rent” an employee but you can not impose some actions to him that contracts the contract.
If you “rent” property but cannot impose some actions that contract your contract. Humans are property too. If you agree to rent a book the contractor is allowed to restrict distribution.
If you “rent” a human you are not allowed to cut him open (if denied by the agreement). If you “rent” a television you are not allowed to deassemble it (if specified by a contract). If you “rent” a human you are not allowed to deassemble her artificial limb or artificial organ. Deassembling the television is intrusion of the owner’s property. Therefore there is no distinction between humans, constraints, property and intellectual property.
These kind of contracts you said are already widespread and are enforced by courts.
Hi Austrian folks,
I’ve been trying to follow this thread, quite “heavy” with legal stuff, philosophical debate and so on, but until now I wasn’t able to make it clear enough to myself.
If, for instance, according to the libertarian perspective, ideas/ thoughts/ intangibles are not scarce - thus cannot be “owned” - and copying something creates no damage to the first guy who had the idea and published it, then using the same logical principle, I would produce the following “pearl”:
- Academic knowledge and good grades are not “scarce”, and copying from my “nerd” colleague doesn’t reduce his grade, THUS, I’m entitled to copy from him during the exams and, as a reward to my enterpreneurship and successful marketing techniques I would be able to beat him, say, on a selection process for an opportunity to work as an assistant to the professor.
The above line of reasoning could be extended to all business areas, so the corollary to the application of the principle that ideas are not classified as “property” and that no contract is enforceable to protect the undesired use of one’s original ideas would lead to the extinction of professional ethics and other devastating consequences for the economy.
Is this consistent ???
This is not consistent. I can think of a counterexample:
Ideas are enforceable. Let’s say that you wanted to buy a newly invented airplane that has an advantage. But the builder of that airplace said that once you deassemble the airplane, its internal atomic bomb would automatically blow up the airplane and everything surrounding it. Therefore, you cannot steal the internal designs of that airplane because atomic bombs would vaporize you after you deassemble it.