“Intellectual property” is a contentious issue. I think it’s clear that patents are sometimes unjust: if two men invent the same thing independently, the first one to the patent office can forcibly prevent the other from profiting by his idea. That just isn’t right. Some libertarians, in trying to capture exactly what’s wrong about it, end up convincing themselves that “intellectual property” isn’t property in the first place: it amounts to ownership of an idea in someone else’s head. If I show you a picture, I can prevent you from drawing similar pictures of your own? If I sing you a song, I can stop you from making up similar songs? If I teach you a useful knot, I can prevent you from using it at work? Put that way, none of those things sounds just.
Copyright does resist that characterization somewhat. It’s hard to shake a nagging sense that a recording of your voice is somehow your own property. Can I secretly record you at a party, and then sell the recording? Can I edit the recording to make you confess to being the 20th hijacker, and post it on Youtube? Can I create fake nude pictures of you? Most of us intuitively consider those things wrong. But it can be difficult to justify sometimes–which is why papparazzi make a living selling non-consensual photographs. To ban photographing famous people is akin to banning people looking at them, and we’d readily agree that, if they don’t want to be looked at, they should stay home with the shades drawn.
I like to think that voluntary contracts can resolve most of those problems. For example, if I invite you to my party, I can contractually bind you not to post pictures of me dancing on tables. The contract can be struck informally, at least if I trust you well enough.
I don’t consider intellectual property to be a legitimate form of property, therefore one can’t have rights to it and the government shouldn’t enforce such “rights.”. Quite a few other libertarians think the same. I recommend doing a search on this website for articles on IP by Stephan Kinsella. Also, do a Google search for an article by Roderick Long on IP. They’ll give you the answers you seek.
I tend to agree with what Len Budley says here:
Although to hold up in a court of law, there would probably have to be strict contracts involved: i.e., written, signed, with property title transfers, with certain conditions attached (and maybe only right to use sold rather than the entire bundle of ownership rights).
Okay, I understand that. But you used extreme examples so I’m still not satisfied. Here is an example, and I want you et all to tell me if the government, in your opinion, has the right to step in and protect property rights:
Lets say I am a musician and I sell my music on CDs and digital download (through iTunes) to make $$. Many people buy my CDs, rip them onto their computer, and upload them onto the internet. On the internet, my music can be downloaded from a plethora of sites for free. Is this not a violation of my property? People who otherwise would have bought my music are now downloading it for free without my permission… and thats not a violation of my property rights?
I agree with 99% of Austrian economics, but I cannot accept that the example above is not a legitimate case for government protection of rights.
Again, just because we give someone a monopoly of the banana market, does not mean you could not get bananas. It just means they would probably be much more expensive to get, because the monopolist could reduce production to drive up prices and therefore profits. It is how monopolies work.
That’s not what monopoly means. By your definition, Honda has a monopoly on Civics, and Pontiac has a monopoly on Solstices. And Pamela Anderson has a monopoly on “sex with Pamela Anderson,” so an antitrust suit should be brought to compel her to have sex with anyone who wants it.
Patent/copyright law is not common law. They are legislation. So no, they are not contracts. Even if they were common law, common law is not contracts.
No. It is possible that movie producers would own the theatres, and only show the movies in their own theatres. Who knows? Again, you are trying to second guess human ingenuity.
Wikipedia.org is now one of the most used resources for information, and it is completely copyright free.
Again, only the wealthy profit from copyright/patent laws. So no, it does not offset the cost of distribution for everyone, just a very few.
Again, yes and no. As it relates to patents/copyrights, yes. As it relates to trademarks, no.
Now you are confusing property with monopolies. Unlike Microsoft, which can limit production of their operating system, Pamela Anderson cannot even produce one more Pamela Anderson. Your comparison of “sex with Pamela Anderson” is more comparable to “running a Microsoft operating system”.
If it is trademarked, it is a “monopoly” in every sense of the definition. A monopoly by definition is a single supplier of a good. Therefore, Chevy is the ONLY supplier of Cobalts. Toyota is the only supplier of Corolla’s. Mcdonald’s is the only supplier of Big Mac’s. But being a monopoly and “acting” like a monopoly are two different things. Monopolies by themselves are neither good nor evil. A natural monopoly can arise in the free market…although it is very unlikely. It’s hard to hold such a high market share and constantly outbeat your competitors. Now, I do not believe Microsoft was ever a monopoly to begin with…even with the patent. The microsoft case doesn’t even consider them a monopoly because of the patent on the OS. It had to deal with Internet explorer..and how every Windows OS was packaged with IE. AOL and Netscape argued that Microsoft shouldn’t be allowed to do that since consumers had no choice to buy Windows without IE. But this is a silly argument. I will allow the other posters to explain. I get it from Bob Murphy.
No, it is not. A trademark is simply an identifier of property. It is like marking cattle with a brand. It identifies who produced the property. It does not mean other people cannot produce the same product, with a different brand.
And trademarks have nothing to do with being a single supplier of a good.
The reason no one else can produce a car that is exactly like a “Cobalt” is not because of trademarks. It is because of copyrights on the design of the vehicle and because of patents on the working parts of the vehicle. The trademark simply means no one else can stamp their car with the same logo as Chevrolet.
But you’re wrong. Any car will do the same job as any other, except in highly specialized cases, like drag racing. The Civic and the Solstice are interchangeable. Therefore neither Honda nor Pontiac is a monopolist.
You’re confused. The good in question is “sex with Pamela Anderson.” The property in question is “Pamela Anderson’s body.” Because Pamela Anderson owns the property, she has a monopoly on the good. Similarly, the owner of the last surviving dodo bird has a monopoly on “feeding dodo birds.” If he opened a petting zoo featuring his dodo, he would be, by your definition, a monopolist.
“No, it is not. A trademark is simply an identifier of property. It is like marking cattle with a brand. It identifies who produced the property. It does not mean other people cannot produce the same product, with a different brand.”
Then my question is this…why can people have a monopoly on names…and not products? Why can’t I call my operating system the “window OS?” I mean, companies have been persecuted for that kind of stuff. For example, the world wrestling federation(WWF), was attacked by the World Wildlife Fund(WWF) for their name. Linux created an operating system called “Lindows.” Microsoft sued them for breaking trademark rules for their name. If you believe in trademarks, do you support these kind of court cases? Why do you think the WWF changed their name to the WWE? Or Linux was fined because they had a name close to “windows?”
If someone has already established a reputation selling cars under the name of Chevrolet, then if you (who aren’t Chevrolet) go around selling cars under that name, you’d be committing fraud on your customers who think they are buying real Chevrolet cars. Similarly, if you write, for example, a military science fiction novel, it would be fraud to your customers to pass it off as a John Scalzi novel in an attempt to make more money. On the flip side, it would also be fraud if you took John Scalzi’s Old Man’s War and passed it off as your own work while selling it.
The question why people can have a monopoly on names and not products is a bit misleading though. What most anti-IP libertarians object to is the idea that ideas can be property. One can’t own ideas. Having come up with the idea doesn’t automatically give you a natural right to own said idea. But one can own the physical objects (products) that they are instantiated in, such as physical copies of a novel or physical copies of a blender.
I’m getting the impression that people here who haven’t already done so aren’t making an effort to read the article I mentioned by Roderick Long and the articles by Stephan Kinsella. I suggest you do so. It will make things easier on all of us.
Arguably, you can’t own a name any more than an idea. Otherwise I could clean up by copyrighting all unused euphonious names and charging African Americans royalties. “Landrika,” for example. I just made it up, so why can’t I charge people to name their baby girls that?
But many cases can be prosecuted as fraud. I can take up painting under the nom d’art “Picasso,” but if I started selling “Picasso paintings,” I’d be committing fraud. That would cover most trademark law.