giles ,be fair, LS is not wrong, he is merely emphasising that the contractual obligations must regard the use of ‘actual’ property, and not ‘fantasy’ property. Intellecctual property would fall into that category
Strawman. Now see, there you go making a fool of yourself. And I warned you too. I mean, why even bother to warn you, if you’re just going to go off and do it anyway?
All things can be contracted, and should be enforced through relative ownership. With your example of the sky, person A may enter into a binding contract with person B to have ownership of the sky (and let’s say that it can’t be looked upon without the owners approval)… Through homesteading and in reality, neither A nor B have exclusive property of the sky - BUT, the contract will put into effect the dismissal of B’s property rights of the sky and relative to B, A owns the sky - but from the view of A he relatively co-owns the sky with everyone else, excluding B who has given up his “piece of the sky”. In this way, contracts are relative, and need make no rational sense to anyone besides those agreeing to the terms.
Why? Contracts refer to the exchange of tangible goods, this “idea” is exactly that, not a tangible good. It’s not sufficient to merely tell me, as that amounts to nothing but a promise.
If I’d said that you believe that it would be a strawman, I didn’t.
So clarify, if I own a good can I sell it to you on the basis that you will only use it in certain ways?
wrong. the idea is never property. the piece of paper that might come to have a pattern on it, is always property before and after pattern added.
Whether or not you are communicating an idea, or before or after you do, you have the right to enter into contracts with people over how they themselves will behave. This will not involve Intellectual Property, as by definition Intellectual Property does not exist. so if it involves some key ingredient you feel is missing, you best find another name for it, cause IP isnt it.
No it doesn’t. It’s a nonsensical contract. It’s void.
Why must contracts refer only to the exchange of tangible goods? I create a blueprint of an invention so that I can show a company that may be interested in buying it from me, why am I unable to contract them into not disclosing or acting upon the information I show them (since the idea contained within the blueprint is obviously not a tangible good, but an idea)?
I believe so. I know there was discussions on this regarding home owner associations and I never really considered it.
But again, it’s not relevant to the discussion, we’re talking about IP, which is non-property, which I have stated many times, is a condition that must be satisfied prior to being able to make a contract to limit or transfer ownership.
its not true that all things can be contracted. you cant contract someone to have certain feeling on tuesdays, ; also you cant contract someone to do something that would breach a 3rd parties rights, eg. hire a contract killer to knock off some innocent party.
you can contract legitamate behaviour, that is all.
as for the sky, you want to claim that A can contract with B that B ‘owns’ the sky. but then you claim that this doesnt mean that he owns the sky, but something else, that A promises not to behave in ways which would interfere with B’s use of the sky. so tell me what good came of the nonsense of pretending that B owned the sky in the original conract. why not just have a contract that says. despite B not owning the sky, A will agree to defer to B in all matters regarding the sky and to not interfere with B’s use of they sky.
it is wrong to introduce ‘ownership’ in the sky example.
lets talk pain people./
Because that’s their purpose, perhaps?
To answer your question, yes, you may contract that. Not that the contract refers to an idea though, but the paper you’re giving them.
Is a contract where one party agrees ot provide an idea to the other in exchange for money not a valid contract. If i took your money then didn’t provide the idea wouldn’t I be in breech? Or is that contract void because the idea is not a good by your definition?
Well, you could contract them. You could have them sign a NDA. But someone on the other side of the world could come up with the same invention. How can you enforce a contract for a NDA against me, if Jackie Chan from Cambodia tells me about his identical invention?
You couldn’t. You would be unable to satisfy the burden of proof that I gave up your invention and not his.
Again, property has to be scarce. It can only have one owner at a time. It doesn’t matter if it took you 30 years or 30 seconds to come up with an idea, there is no scarcity of ideas or the ability to discover them, unless everyone else is under contract or becomes brain dead.
IP isn’t relevant here, IP is a statist intervention. I’m talking about legitimate contracts regarding tangible property. In this case, selling you a CD on the grounds that you don’t lend that CD to your friend for him to copy it. This has nothing to do with IP, just that actions you take. I don’t need to presume ownership of any ideas, just the CD, implicit is also the presumption that you own your body.
why cant you just do this, without claiming property over the idea in question. here you posed the scenario without mentioning propoerty. you offered perfectly proper possible contracts which enforce the physical behaviour of acting parties. you didnt need property concept to do that. so jettison IP.
Not an economic good. I can pay you for the right to breathe, doesn’t mean you own the air…
your agreeing to perfom a physical act. the act of communicating an idea. try to do this non-physically. not possible. its a physical act. If you took the money and failed to perform the act that you promised to do , you would indeed be in breech.
Again, your making needless distinctions. The blueprint in my head is nothing but the same blueprint on a piece of paper is now property. For practical purposes the distinction is irrelevant. I can see why a lot of so called Austrians are lost on this issue.
What constitutes a contract in your eyes? Must I meet with you face to face, draw up a sheet of paper lay out my terms and then we both sign with a quill pen? Or, can there be a contract published at the beginning of a book, i.e. “you agree by opening this book and reading the pages herein that the arrangement of words and ideas contained are the sole property of the author, and you may not reproduce them in any way”? Or, can a contract be said to be an end-user license agreement (for instance, you must agree to the contract before you can use the product)?
Now, MaxLiberty, what does economics teach us about human action?