Without IP laws, how can there be fraud in the music/literature/etc. business? If you don’t “own” the order and everything of those words, how is it possible for someone to committed fraud against you by claiming that the book you wrote was actually written by them?
Likewise, would there be any libel laws in a stateless society?
It is called Plagarism, and It is looked down upon? You cannot own an idea, but what you can do is have the best claim to the being the first to come up with the idea/song/book, and then compete in the market. Being the creator of this work gives you the First Mover Advantage in the market (people would rather see you in concert than some cover band, you can sign books/CDs, go on tours, etc.).
Kinsella has covered Fraud a lot in his articles, here is one:
Do you mean how would Fraud in business be handled without IP (Trademark)?
That question is covered under Kinsella’s “Against Intellectual Property”:
But as a quick answer, Trademark Law in its current form is not just “people cannot use your symbol” as most people imagine, there is a whole lot of illegitimate baggage that comes along with it as well.
See Kinsella on Fraud/Title Transfers.
No, you cannot “own” a reputation. A reputation is just the idea of how every individual percieves you. Closely related to Libel is Blackmail, and I think Walter Block does a very fine job of explaining this in “Defending The Undefendable:”
Here is Rothbard on the subject: http://mises.org/rothbard/ethics/sixteen.asp
Kinsella also has massive amounts of pieces of comments/articles on the subject, but from a quick search I cannot find an all encompassing article (I assume it is out there). I just remember changing my views on the subject over the years by reading all of his comments everywhere, and it is hard to just point to one single location on the subject (damn you Kinsella for writing too much!!! haha).
Fraud is essentially just misrepresentation. In the specific case of content, misrepresenting someone else’s work as your own means deceiving the consumer—selling or otherwise providing goods on the premise that it’s something it’s not. Really, it’s not about producer’s rights at all in such a case.
Tex2002ans, thank you for all of the links. I’ll be sure to look at all of them tomorrow when I have time!