But I haven’t done any physical harm.
you threatened to…
Agreed. But you are threatening to do physical harm (and it’s not self-defense) so you are in the wrong - I do think that threats can be morally wrong, but I still don’t see the connection between threats and patents.
I think there are many variations of what people mean when they say “intellectual property”. “Thoughts” cannot be owned, simply by the nature of what they are; they are electric signals in the brain in the is most simplistic way to describe it. You cannot own actions, the only things that can be owned exist in a real form. But I think others may mean a specific application of a specific idea, i.e. a schematic, the content of a book. It is more closer to being “an idea” than “a book”, though. That is, if you answered yes to my question on page 4.
Until you express your idea in ANY tangible form, there is no way to even plausibly suggest you own the idea. I read a story a while back about a guy who patented the word “Edge”. He did absolutely nothing with this supposed “idea”, all he did was patent it. And he sued companies that used the word edge (including EA, who made the game Mirror’s Edge). “Intellectual property” like that is completely invalid.
(http://kotaku.com/5349642/tim-langdell-resigns-from-igda-board-[updated] , link if interested)
Why?
Because he has not applied the idea to anything. It’s like if I patented a laser beam that creates a rift in the space-time continuum. I haven’t begun to build it, make it, or let alone demonstrate it is possible. Or even write a schematic. It would at least be coherent to discuss whether or not I can own all of those kinds of laser beams once it was first built (I’d say no, unless it was a very specific design with a specific name). But the guy I mentioned really did nothing more than say “The word Edge is mine, thinker’s keepers”. It is not a specific product of any sort, purely a concept.
Should weapons of mass destructions be available to everyone who wants to buy? Or should it be illegal to fabricate them?
This is actually a pretty good question, although I think it’s been asked here before.
I think the debate is getting sidetracked. The question is not formulated in the proper way.
Does cost of inputs mean out puts are valuable? No. But that not the question. Neither is monopoly the question, although legalistic interpretations often confuse the question into: copyright holder has monopoly; it is violated; pay damages. There was a case where a company I know produced a good, but a couple years later a larger company applied to patent and patented the good. They don’t produce it; first company, however, lost lawsuit. Now nobody produces good. But this is miscarriage of justice. It is not that the knowledge wasn’t valuable: the first company sued the second company, to get back its right.
Let’s begin with a different perspective.
Common knowledge is not valuable. No one ever has to choose between a scarce object and a known formula, says Mises. But what about a formula that is not common knowledge?
Suppose A owns land, on which A own factory B. Suppose private provision of security. A has a formula that is not common knowledge. Assume C physically trespasses into B.
If A catches C in the act, B is punished. But what if A never catches C in the act, however, B physically trespasses into C repeatedly. Does B escape punishment? No. This is violation of property; private or public provision of security will see to C.Or A will see to C, whenever he meets C.
Now, assume there was a formula in A’s factory B, that is not common knowledge. C trespasses into B, then leaves, and reveals the formula.
A has lost something valuable.
In other words, if we privately or publicly don’t treat knowledge as property, then corporate spying is punished just as trespassing, when it, in fact, causes greater loss of wealth to A then trespassing of A’s property.
If I am threatened with a knife to reveal my business knowledge, does the knife-wielder go unpunished if he doesn’t, pardon the language, stick me?
We must follow Menger and Mises , in ascribing value to anything that is scarce. Anything valuable is property. Its just a mechanism for economic calculation. Property is a question of calculation given division of labour.
For instance, interest is result of time-preference. Temporal disposal of goods is valuable; it is property, but it is not a physical quantity. Bohm-Bawerk denied temporal disposal is valuable, however, Mises showed Menger was right.
If someone takes my computer for a time, then gives it back; and all this without permission, don’t I get interest for time I lost computer? Don’t I get damages? Is interest not physical, hence not property?
In conclusion, we are entering a variant of the debate for and against interest. Except instead of interest, we are talking about another not-physical but valuable thing: knowledge of physical quantities. As that was solved, so we should solve this. Mises’ and Hayek’s whole case for calculation rests, for instance, of value of knowledge of time and space. As there, so here.
After all, remember what Gossen, and then Bohm-Bawerk wrote, all people do control orderings of physical forces when they are producing goods. Is not knowledge of how to produce a good?
Was the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings legitimate, since the Japanese were warned?
How do we know that they are more fundamental?
No.
There are no rights that are “more fundamental”; rights are rights. This is why so many support things like taxation. Many think there are various rights like “civil rights” or “woman’s rights” are more important than rights like property rights. What he should have said is that you can’t violate some rights to protect other rights. You’d be protecting the same right you’re violating.
So if he does apply it to something, he therefore, has the right to prevent other people from using their own property in a way that violates his patent?
So if someone patents the chair and them makes chairs and sells them, he now has the right to prevent other people from using their own wood to construct a chair and sell it?
It may or may not, all I’m suggesting is that an idea must at least be applied to something in the real world.
I would say no, at least if you don’t claim that the new and improved iPod you invented is an iPod. If you said it was an iPod, you’d at best be trying to claim that you came up with the idea (which does matter when deciding if a product is worth buying or not). Either that or it’s outright fraud. But I see nothing wrong with ever using an idea for whatever purpose you wish. If you can reverse engineer an iPod with the same materials, but make the production costs cheaper, more power to you. The point is with that is even naming a product something else is plenty to say it is different; obviously with existing patent law, that isn’t true at all.
I would prefer to call property rights involving things like books, video games, software as “intellectual property” rights, but maybe I should call it by a different name. When basically what you’re purchasing is specific content rather than than the tangible object itself. The main reason to buy a book is to learn something, not to look at the letters on the pages.
I see no one agrees understand INFORMATION is a valuable good, which is the primary question. It hasn’t got anything to do with other goods, such as wood, which possess separate goods-character. Every higher-order good is imputed value according to its revenue contribution to the lower-order good (this would our question concerning value of design of chair vs value of wood for chair, both contribute to revenue shows Carl Menger.)
Recall Hayek’s 1945 article. Knowledge of time and space is valuable, because it is not common knowledge to all people. It is not usually treated as property, but it is, in fact, valuable. How do we know? Services to obtain it are not free.
For instance, Google uses search information for Advertising services, else it would not provide “free” searching.
Now, what if that knowledge cannot be obtained except through me: not-common formulae of combinations of physical quantities. They possess as much goods-character as knowledge of time and place, but are more related to temporal disposal of goods, because they can only be obtained through the owner of the good [this is the answer to our question.] Question: are they obtained voluntarily or involuntarily?
We are essentially saying, if we deny information is property:
I have a formula, but am threatened to give it up, else be shot (or something else I don’t want to happen). I do not voluntarily give this information away, but am forced.
If I give it up, and am not shot, no theft was committed. (If I am shot, I am compensated only for getting shot, not losing my business knowledge.)
Is this really how we should treat information: I am obliged to share? Something like socialism isn’t that?
No. The only way you may effectively “own” intellectual property is if you keep it to yourself. Sharing it and then demanding restitution is the mistake being made. But you are under no obligation to share anything and threats aren’t acceptable under any circumstance.
Here’s the kink; the information is in the product; not the product. I am not sharing the formulae, which are higher-order goods, only the lower-order good.
Every operation, unless co-discovery, to get information product in hand is reverse engineering. Same as using force. In what sense as force? In the sense of sneaking into my factory, but me not catching you. The trespass did occur, but is not known to me (yet).
Just because I sell chairs doesn’t mean buying a chair entitles you to my whole supply of wood besides the wood of the chair. Why does this analogy hold? Remember, information is not physical.
It ISN’T possible to buy some information, unlike it IS possible to buy SOME wood. A formula is the whole marginal quantity. Remember, a marginal quantity is the least unit. But it is part of my capital goods, not a lower order good I sell. It has a contribution, a marginal revenue product, but the marginal quantity is boolean, phenomenal-logical: 1 or 0.
How is that a kink? Don’t sell the product if you don’t want to share the information contained within it.
Not even in the slightest is that the same as using force.
The analogy doesn’t hold. (The whole supply of woof is physical.)
Sell or don’t. 1 or 0.
It’s not sell or don’t:
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I’m never selling the higher-order goods if I’m selling a lower-order good. I’m selling a lower-order good, nothing more.There is no such thing as summation of utilities/values/preferences. The information is valuable without the object it produces; it has separate goods-character and value: a separate preference rank in the preference order. This is the breakthrough of Carl Menger.
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Unless I sell my information on a Capital market, I don’t sell it, because I never agreed to sell it. See why below.
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I sell what the information produces, which is a consumption good. This is not synonymous to me with selling information too if I value the information (which I do since its not common knowledge). If I was selling a computer and information to make it, I would ask (once) a great lump sum. But instead, I sell the computer, for a much smaller sum: and with a contract that you only buy the computer.
4a. If you buy the big package, I sell it all: 1 or 0.
4b. If you buy a computer, with contract, to reverse engineer it you break the agreement by which you paid less for the computer than I was willing to sell it for otherwise. All exchange is voluntary. If I didn’t agree to it, and you take it, its theft. I agreed with provision. Buy my computer like this, or don’t. Or buy it on the other provided terms.
The information isn’t common knowledge until I sell it (yes, once: 1 or 0). But if I never sell the information in the first place, but only computer and contract, then I have never made my information public, because anyone who accepted my offer of lower price agreed to contract. They are bound by contract, else they have committed theft.
It IS exactly theft, because it is a breaking of contract.
- Never forget every item you buy comes with a notice of this sort. When you buy it at that price you accept that notice, else you don’t buy it (or commit fraud, which is forceful not voluntary, like theft).
Example: It is like interest. If you borrow X and pay monthly interest, then I maintain ownership of X, whereas you maintain ownership of temporal disposal of X (for the time period T) in exchange for Y (for the time period T).
Because you pay interest, its not that you own X, in the sense of not having to pay back principle X and interest Y. You pay back the principle too, but in installments along with interest payments.