IP -- partial ownership of object/rent of information?

[FlyingAxe]

Well, if you want a strictly utilitarian argument

No, I don’t want one. I want an argument based on morality.

There are utilitarian arguments in favor of copyright. The first answer to them is: even if the copyright increased overal utility, it wouldn’t matter, since we are worried about morality, not about utility. So, I want to use a non-utilitarian moral justification of property rights and then explain why it doesn’t apply to non-scarce resources.

I don’t know who the owner of an improved property could be if not the person or people who developed it from its unimproved natural state into the dwelling, crop, or what have you that exists now.

The society could own the property. It could appoint some central planners that would oversee the property development. It would suck economically, yes (because of the calculation problem, etc.), but why would such a turn of events be immoral?

If you’re the homesteader, it is your prerogative to control the property and assert your right to use it unimpeded by someone else with no claim to the property. If I homesteaded the property and someone walked inside one day and throws me out the door, you can bet I’m going to assert my rightful ownership and undertake whatever means to remove the aggressor.

I don’t see a moral justification for property rights here. Why is it my prerogative to control the property if I am the homesteader? And how come this reason applies only to scarce resources?

I know you’d want to re-assert your control over the property that you have homesteaded, but what would be the moral justification for your doing so?

Heck, if you lock the door when you leave your house you are doing so to restrict unauthorized entry, so it doesn’t really seem like a moral dilemma. Or maybe I misunderstand you?

For sure I would, but why would it be moral for me to do so and to restrict other people’s access to my property? Maybe I am using a utilitarian argument, as opposed to a natural-rights argument? Maybe I am using a religious argument?

[MaikU]

90 percent of the arguments against IP is about morality. It violates private property, which is immoral. Enforcement also violates NAP etc.

[FlyingAxe]

That depends on the definition of private property, whose logic is still unclear to me. See my comments above.

[gotlucky]

@FlyingAxe

That depends on the definition of private property, whose logic is still unclear to me. See my comments above.

Do you own anything? If so, why? If not, why not?

[FlyingAxe]

As I said, there could be a number of reasons. For instance, religious or utilitarian. I am interested in hearing a non-utilitarian natural reason that uniquely applies to scarce resources.

I have seen conflict resolution given as a reason. But there are mutliple ways of conflict resolution – for instance, communal property. Communal property is worse than private property, but for utilitarian reasons. But I am looking for some justification of private property whose foundation is purely non-utilitarian (to deny IP supporters the right to argue in favor of IP on utilitarian ground).

[gotlucky]

As I said:

@gotlucky

Do you own anything? If so, why? If not, why not?

I would really like to help you understand, and it will make my explanation easier if you choose to answer my question.

[FlyingAxe]

OK, let’s say I own things for a religious reason.

[gotlucky]

That has got to be the most vague answer I could have possibly imagined.

So you have property for religous reasons. There you go. No utilitarian argument needed.

[FlyingAxe]

I am not trying to justify property use or IP non-existence for myself. I am trying to explain that for the wide audience who may hold different beliefs. If the reason is natural, it has to be logically deduced, not dictated from above.

Incidentally, I heard someone give the following religious-utilitarian reason:

[T]he whole concept of recognizing property to begin with is utilitarian in nature - “G-d’s is the earth, and all therein” [which means, everything belongs to G-d] - but we, as a society, agree to allow people to take control of G-d’s property, and restrict the access of others to it, so that there will be an incentive to produce. Isn’t that utilitarian?

[gotlucky]

@FlyingAxe

I am not trying to justify property use or IP non-existence for myself. I am trying to explain that for the wide audience who may hold different beliefs. If the reason is natural, it has to be logically deduced, not dictated from above.

I thought you said that religion was your reason for having property. Is this not true?

[ClaytonB]

“we … agree”

No, property does not arise from “us” “agreeing” to anything. Property law is a particular body of law, that portion of the law that is concerned with possession, ownership, exchange, etc. Law is like language in that no one makes language or law. Even a group of people cannot sit down and say “we hereby agree to create a new word - this word is ‘fuzzle’ and refers to the fuzzy texture of belly-button jam. From now on, we all hereby agree to use this word in this way whenever speaking of the texture of something with the fuzzy texture of belly-button jam.”

It is obvious that language does not come about in this way. Yet we falsely imagine that this is how laws come about. Governments come very close to being able to do this and sometimes a government so completely alters the status quo that it appears as if it has created law. But the reality is that laws are simply social norms and social norms emerge from the uncoordinated, autonomous behavior of many, independent individuals. This is the essential feature of social norms that makes laws like language in that no one (not even any group or authority) can make language or law.

If you want to apply a praxeological approach to the question, you need to start with the brute facts of human behavior. Humans engage in property-like behaviors. You need to investigate the conditions under which human beings understand and accept property claims as valid. When you do this, you will realize that so-called intellectual property is a bastardization of the ordinary human conception of property and is actually inconsistent with human ideas about property, despite its prevalence. The root problem with IP is that it is an ownership claim over a class of physical objects. Humans do not acknowledge such property claims as valid (except for IP claims, which I think is the result of persistent confusion not because we make a real exception).

For example, if I said, “I hereby own all red objects” or “I bought all blue-stenciled China plates in the entire world from the King of England” no one would take these as serious property claims. A pattern or description of a class of objects is not a valid ownership claim. Let’s say I was more specific, “I hereby own all objects imprinted with Shakespeare’s Sonnet 116” - still no one would accept this as valid. But people get confused if it turns out that I’m Shakespeare… “I am Shakespeare and I hereby assert that I own all objects imprinted with my Sonnet 116.” Of course, IP is slightly less grandiose: “I hereby claim royalty rights and copy rights of all objects imprinted with my Sonnet 116.” As you can see, we’ve whittled down the extent of the ownership claims from “I hereby own all red objects” but the essential principle remains unaltered: an ownership claim in a class of physical objects. This manner of claiming ownership is simply incompatible with human behavior and it is, in my view, a perversion.

Clayton -

[gotlucky]

First of all, most of us here seem to use the NAP as our lens for morality. So, right there you have a non-utilitarian argument.

Second, most animals have some sense of property/ownership/possession/territory. Humans are no different. The difference between humans and other animals is that we have the ability to resolve our disputes with argumentation. Humans have an inborn sense of property. Have you ever seen a 2 year old shout at you (or anyone else), “MINE!”? Why isn’t everything the two year old claims to be his, in fact his? Well, because other people have made claims as well. I don’t really need to go into how people resolve disputes and end up deciding what belongs to whom. The point is, we all have a sense of property/ownership/possession/territory.

If you want to know how to refute IP, then you need to ask, “How can intangible things be property?” Similarly, “How can gotlucky own his reputation?” My reputation is in the minds of everyone else, how is it that I can own what is in everyone else’s head? It’s the same with an idea. The idea can be in many people’s minds at the same time. How can someone else claim to own what is in other people’s heads?

Thirdly, I was going to finish my post, but then Clayton went ahead and decided that he would explain it even better than I would be able to.

[John_James]

@FlyingAxe

You misunderstand. Neither I nor my friend are saying that such a society is sustainable or at least sustainable for a long period. It will necessarilly revert to a lot of small communes that will operate on a primitive level of small barter economies.

But this argument against this system is utilitarian. Isn’t it?

No, the argument is that your assertion is wrong. A policy of everyone can take anything they want would not lead to less conflict, but would in fact lead to more. And how anyone could suggest otherwise is just baffling.

Another question that I want to ask, returning back to my partial ownership model:

In the model of information as being bound within the object (i.e., rejecting the model that information is an independently existing ideal entity, but accepting that information is merely a property of a physical object, just like shape is), can we not say that this particular instance of this information is scarce, because the physical object that holds it is scarce?

For instance, star shape “in general” is not scarce; hence, arguably it cannot be owned. But individual star-shaped cookie cutter is scarce. What, then, is the status of that specific cookie cutter’s shape? Is that specific instance of star shape not scarce? (Proof being that it can be used by only one person at a time and only on one piece of dough at a time.)

That doesn’t make any sense.

In that case, one could argue that the specific instance of the shape can be owned. One could go back to my model where the original cookie cutter manufacturer says: “I am selling you the metal of the cookie cutter, but not the shape – the shape still belongs to me, and I am merely leasing it to you. The conditions of the lease are such that you may only use the shape to cut cookies, but not to cut paper shapes.” (Or whatever.)

…which again, I thought I proved wasn’t sound.

@FlyingAxe

I am not trying to justify property use or IP non-existence for myself. I am trying to explain that for the wide audience who may hold different beliefs. If the reason is natural, it has to be logically deduced, not dictated from above.

Again, if you’re looking for logical deduction, please see the resources on “argumentation ethics” (in particular “Law and Economics” 2009).

Incidentally, I heard someone give the following religious-utilitarian reason:

[T]he whole concept of recognizing property to begin with is utilitarian in nature - “G-d’s is the earth, and all therein” [which means, everything belongs to G-d] - but we, as a society, agree to allow people to take control of G-d’s property, and restrict the access of others to it, so that there will be an incentive to produce. Isn’t that utilitarian?

What is “G-d’s”?

[gotlucky]

@JJ

In order to avoid spelling God, many Jews replace the “o” with a hyphen.

[John_James]

Why do Jews avoid spelling “God”?

[gotlucky]

I can’t remember exactly - I’ve been an atheist for so long - but I think it’s just out of respect for God. I don’t think there is a law forbidding it.

[ClaytonB]

The third commandment forbids the use of God’s name in vain (i.e. in the utterance of a curse or blasphemy). In an abundance of caution, they don’t use it altogether, out of respect. God’s name is the Tetragrammaton but in English he is God with capital G. In respect to showing an abundance of caution even though this is English, you might strike out the ‘o’ to show that God’s name should not be spoken casually in any language, lest it be taken in vain.

Clayton -

[John_James]

@Clayton

The third commandment forbids the use of God’s name in vain (i.e. in the utterance of a curse or blasphemy). In an abundance of caution, they don’t use it altogether, out of respect. God’s name is the Tetragrammaton but in English he is God with capital G. In respect to showing an abundance of caution even though this is English, you might strike out the ‘o’ to show that God’s name should not be spoken casually in any language, lest it be taken in vain.

Jesus Christ that’s stupid.

[FlyingAxe]

It’s just a custom. No more stupid than using articles or hanging your grandfather’s picture on a wall.

Clayton – your example with Shakespeare is excellent.

[John_James]

@FlyingAxe

I am interested in hearing a non-utilitarian natural reason that uniquely applies to scarce resources.

Kinsella’s recent interview had a part on this (with a few resources as well), and it reminded me of this thread. Here ya go:

Daily Bell: You provide non-utilitarian arguments for intellectual property being incompatible with libertarian property rights principles. Can you explain this?

Stephan Kinsella: I alluded to this above in my discussion about negative servitudes. An IP right gives the holder the right to stop others from using their property as they wish. For example, George Lucas, courtesy copyright law, can use the force of state courts to stop me from writing and publishing “The Continuing Adventures of Han Solo.” J.D. Salinger’s estate was able to block the publication of a sequel to Catcher in the Rye, for example. This is censorship. (See The Patent, Copyright, Trademark, and Trade Secret Horror Files.) And Apple can get a court order blocking Samsung from selling a tablet if it resembles an iPad too closely. This is just protection from competition. (See Intellectual Property Advocates Hate Competition.)