My thoughts on IP and anti-IP tunnel vision

[JParker]

@liberty student

Then we’re just talking past one another. I’m no socialist of the mind. You’re a minarchist, who agrees there should be IP laws. IP laws are state granted monopoly privilege, and create artificial scarcity and market distortions.

I don’t expect you to give up anything to anyone if you do not want to (profit or altruism). But if you plan to use state laws to distort the market, and infringe on the abilities of your fellow man to act freely on the capacity of their own minds, then yeah we got a big problem.

LS, I think that we may in fact be talking past each other. If you’re willing to concede that by copying a book/software/etc when you had agreed in contract not to do so, you would be

@liberty student

Then I would be violating a contract. No dispute there.

then I think that we have no dispute. It would follow that if you’re agreeing that you are able to sign a contract limiting your action in exchange for the use of the goods, that this is a way for the market to enforce copyright, withouthe the coersion of the state. Granted, you say you wouldn’t want to sign the contract, or it would be a hassle to buy a book and have to sign all these documents, but if it was the only way to get at most books, wouldnt you? Authors could choose to give away their books for free, or sell them online and hope that people still chose to pay. Or they could choose to sell them through publishing companies that would require these types of contracts. Ditto with software, the author could put the ELA contract on it or give it away free.

Same with inventions, such as my cold fusion example. You keep mentioning my using the state to claim monopoly on the idea. I never suggested such. I have said that if someone came up with it independently, they have as much right to it as I. But if they came into my plant and copied my design (and they couldn’t enter the premesis of my plant w/o signing a contract that they wouldnt use anything they saw for their own profit) they are clearly in violation of a contract. So you dont have to agree that copyrightable materials are property. You merely have to agree to the sanctity of contract to limit your action. The market would quickly determine if the ideas were of value, or necessary. The contention Jack and I make are that they are. But we argue to enforce the creator’s rights through this measure of contracts, not government coercion. I don’t think we have a disconnect on this issue after all, you’re merely assuming that we’re referencing the state, when we are in fact not. Easy to make that mistake with all the other people on this thread muddling each other’s positions

[JParker]

@meambobbo

in this example, what does the contractor forsake before he is given the ship? money, then it should be returned. if he is paying on delivery, simply don’t pay. if the ship is delivered, then both parties would be viewed to benefit, at least at the time they signed the contract. of course, if the ship got built but money was not delivered, the builder shouldn’t simply get his ship back…

and there is obviously a gray line here…if the ship builder failed to produce anything but spent his advance and had no property, justice would compell his future action to repay his debt. i’m frankfully unsure how to remedy cases of much larger scenarios, such as how one could produce justice should he destroy something beyond his net earning potential.

See this is the problem, there is a gray line. But if the penalty for breach of contract were in the contract, there is no gray line at all.

@meambobbo

Can you take away some portion of my brain that has learned a fair bit about your cold fusion invention?

No, but I can take away, via contract, anything that you ever produce using my invention, assuming you learned it while under my contractual terms.

@meambobbo

It seems at any moment if you did not consent and someone attempted to kill you, they would be claiming ownership of your life, independent if or when any contract was made.

Rothbard addresses these as the immutable properties of life and liberty, which can never be contracted away. They are superior to freedom of contract, as they are both a requirement.

To be able to pick and choose when you feel like consenting to the terms of a contract is quite a slippery slope. What if I say monetary penalties would destroy my life so I no longer consent to them? What if people could back out of any contract they want because they dont feel like it any more? These issues are addressed in the contract with penalties and early termination clauses, etc.

As for Rothbard, he is wrong. By saying I cannot sign a contract ending my life, he is saying that his ideology owns my life, not me. I can sign contracts to end my life. Think of a terminally ill patient who chooses to die rather than suffer any longer. You’re saying that he is not allowed to contract a doctor to help him kill himself? Via that situation, or the one I proposed with the shipbuilder, the subject is allowed to end his life via contract, because to claim he cannot is to claim ownership of his life. To say he changed his mind means we allow people off the hook of their contracts. He should have known the seriousness of the contract when he signed it. Now, I think that monetary penalty and loss of possesion would be sufficient penalties for copyright situations, not loss of life. That is rather extreme, though in the case of cold fusion it may very well be used due to the magnitude of that discovery.

[MacFall]

@JParker

More pathetic than having my ideas robbed from me

Your ideas can only be robbed from you if you keep them to yourself. Once they enter the minds of others, they become their ideas. You propose to give government the power to grant ownership of other people’s minds by yourself. That is abominable.

my creations given away for free to all who would want it

Only if you decide not to sell a product.

Competition? You dare to say that blatantly stealing a man’s ideas and inventions is competition? I invent marvelous new technology, you rip it off and have the audacity to call that competition?

Oh shit! You mean people might have to compete on the basis of excellence in production and distribution, rather than on the basis of having been the first person to get monopoly privilege from the government? What horrors!

You’ve created a new god to worship and call it anarchy. You’re no different than Marx in this regard, at least to my eyes.

You’re hilarious. What I am describing is a free market. What you advocate - a state with the ability to enforce intellectual monopoly - would have to be monstrously powerful. It would need extensive powers of surveillance, to ensure that nobody does business without the permission of the patent bureaucracy. It would need a vast funding mechanism to feed that bureaucracy. It would need the power to go to war against nations that did not enforce their patents. And you call yourself a libertarian? Absurd.

Why would the inventor ever let the invention leave his mind when you are guaranteeing that he will never earn anything from it?

We do not guarantee that he will earn nothing from it. Do you simply lack the imagination to realize that there are ways of protecting one’s invention without patents, or are willfully refusing to acknowledge the possibility?

And yet again, this entire argument is based upon a stateless society, whereby freely entered contract controls copyright. Quit throwing the current state on my argument.

You are the one who is calling upon the state to enforce monopoly. Not I.

From whom would you loot?

Nobody. I am not a looter. I don’t believe in doing things like using the government to force everyone in the market to come to me, and suppressing anyone else who might be better than I at what I do. That’s what you advocate.

Oh and referencing the wheel, which was invented before written history, is kind of rediculous, seeing how you cannot possibly prove that it was not a closely controlled secret during the inventor’s lifetime.

LOL. Oh, that’s precious. You can see how a wheel works BY LOOKING AT IT. No reverse engineering required!

By the way since you seem to be unable to come up with a voluntary means of ensuring compensation for innovation on your own, I’ll cross post one I posted elsewhere.

[NOTE: this is an expansion of an idea originally by the Tannehills in their book, The Market for Liberty ]

As with many other present functions of government, the insurance industry could take the place of patents. An inventor would buy an “inventor’s insurance” policy on his invention, guaranteeing a certain amount of profit within a given period of time. Such an amount would be worked out between insurer and inventor, and would be based upon the projected success of the product on the market over the period of time specified.

The insurer, guided by their preference for not having to indemnify the insurant, would sell the plan/prototype/whatever to the manufacturer whom they believe would be most capable of producing it and in competing with emerging copycat manufacturers.

They would look at the manufacturer’s ability to prevent or dissuade reverse engineering, their ability to market, and other things. The manufacter would give the inventor royalties on their sales. Eventually, if the insurer chose wisely, the inventor would recieve the guaranteed amount in royalties, and his policy would “mature”. If the insurer chose poorly, they would have to pay the inventor the amount promised at the end of the specified period of time.

A further role of this process would be to guarantee to the manufacturer that the product idea is worth purchasing in the first place, as no potential manufacturer would guarantee anything to an inventor without first seeing proof of the viability of his idea. And it may be that a trusted inventor’s insurance agency, having well established their ability to predict the profitability of new ideas, would simply sell the idea to the manufacturer for a portion of the projected income, and just pay the inventor a lump sum up front rather than dealing with the whole policy business.

Of course, the risk to the manufacturer in buying the rights to the idea is another insurable liability, so I don’t believe that the business model would simply disappear in any case.

No such process has anything to do with intellectual property (which is a non-concept in the first place). It is simply an insurance policy, having no more to do with an inventor’s right to profit than fire insurance has to do with the right of a homeowner not to have their house burn down.

That’s just one idea. Given a free market, there is no limit to the possibilities that people might dream up. Certainly, there is a demand for innovation in the market, and innovators want to profit. Those who want what the innovators have to offer will help to ensure that the innovators have an incentive to innovate. There is absolutely no reason to assume that political force would become necessary in that process.

[JParker]

@MacFall

Your ideas can only be robbed from you if you keep them to yourself. Once they enter the minds of others, they become their ideas. You propose to give government the power to grant ownership of other people’s minds by yourself. That is abominable.

Strawman. I have stated innumberable times that I have not once said the government would be involved. The solution I proposed was for voluntary contract to be the protection system.

@MacFall

having been the first person to get monopoly privilege from the government?

Strawman #2. See same explanation above

@MacFall

What you advocate - a state with the ability to enforce intellectual monopoly - would have to be monstrously powerful. It would need extensive powers of surveillance, to ensure that nobody does business without the permission of the patent bureaucracy. It would need a vast funding mechanism to feed that bureaucracy. It would need the power to go to war against nations that did not enforce their patents

Strawman # 3. Who are you posing an argument against?

@MacFall

Do you simply lack the imagination to realize that there are ways of protecting one’s invention without patents, or are willfully refusing to acknowledge the possibility?

Didnt I propose the very solution before, via voluntary contract? That’s what i’ve been arguing for since I came back into this thread yesterday.

@MacFall

. I don’t believe in doing things like using the government to force everyone in the market to come to me, and suppressing anyone else who might be better than I at what I do. That’s what you advocate.

Strawman # 4? 5? who knows. You’re clearly having an argument with someone else, as i’ve never said any of this. If you wont debate my actual proposition (which, along with the one you posed, could work) then why even reply?

In fact, from reading your suggestion, we advocate the exact same thing! We both want the inventor/creator to be able to profit. We both agree that his idea is his, and that he would not release it without something giving him compensation. You’re somehow assuming that I’ve brought the state into this, which I NEVER have. I suggested voluntary contract. You have previously suggested insurance companies. Both could work, I believe. Both accomplish the exact same thing. We have no disagreement, other than you throwing up strawmen claiming I want the state to interfere.

[MacFall]

…Oh.

My sincere apologies, I mistook another poster’s argument for your own. It was a strawman in that sense, I was arguing against someone else.

[Maxliberty]

@JParker

@meambobbo

in this example, what does the contractor forsake before he is given the ship? money, then it should be returned. if he is paying on delivery, simply don’t pay. if the ship is delivered, then both parties would be viewed to benefit, at least at the time they signed the contract. of course, if the ship got built but money was not delivered, the builder shouldn’t simply get his ship back…

and there is obviously a gray line here…if the ship builder failed to produce anything but spent his advance and had no property, justice would compell his future action to repay his debt. i’m frankfully unsure how to remedy cases of much larger scenarios, such as how one could produce justice should he destroy something beyond his net earning potential.

See this is the problem, there is a gray line. But if the penalty for breach of contract were in the contract, there is no gray line at all.

@meambobbo

Can you take away some portion of my brain that has learned a fair bit about your cold fusion invention?

No, but I can take away, via contract, anything that you ever produce using my invention, assuming you learned it while under my contractual terms.

@meambobbo

It seems at any moment if you did not consent and someone attempted to kill you, they would be claiming ownership of your life, independent if or when any contract was made.

Rothbard addresses these as the immutable properties of life and liberty, which can never be contracted away. They are superior to freedom of contract, as they are both a requirement.

To be able to pick and choose when you feel like consenting to the terms of a contract is quite a slippery slope. What if I say monetary penalties would destroy my life so I no longer consent to them? What if people could back out of any contract they want because they dont feel like it any more? These issues are addressed in the contract with penalties and early termination clauses, etc.

As for Rothbard, he is wrong. By saying I cannot sign a contract ending my life, he is saying that his ideology owns my life, not me. I can sign contracts to end my life. Think of a terminally ill patient who chooses to die rather than suffer any longer. You’re saying that he is not allowed to contract a doctor to help him kill himself? Via that situation, or the one I proposed with the shipbuilder, the subject is allowed to end his life via contract, because to claim he cannot is to claim ownership of his life. To say he changed his mind means we allow people off the hook of their contracts. He should have known the seriousness of the contract when he signed it. Now, I think that monetary penalty and loss of possesion would be sufficient penalties for copyright situations, not loss of life. That is rather extreme, though in the case of cold fusion it may very well be used due to the magnitude of that discovery.

Kudos to you JP and to Jack Skylark you guys have absolutely dismantled the anti-ip crowd clinging desperately to their mantra. They can never answer individual questions because it immediately illustrates the flaws in their theory of how the market is working.

As for the defintion of property, the only one that matters is the how the market views property and that is anything of value that is under at least some control. So ideas in the marketplace are treated like property, it doesn’t matter what definition anyone else has of it.

Again, well done JP and Skylark. The anti-protection of ideas crowd and anti-contract group have been sent back to the drawing board.

[JParker]

@MacFall

My sincere apologies, I mistook another poster’s argument for your own. It was a strawman in that sense, I was arguing against someone else.

No problem

I think that I just got LS and you to agree with Jack and I’s position. Assuming LS doesnt come back today and refute my last post, which I dont believe he will, then we can call this argument closed.

[nirgrahamUK]

i feel confident to speak for LS as well as myself. the concept of Intellectual property is bankrupt. its a conceptual contradiction. it can not be rationally maintained. there is some serious crazyness on this board. and a good dose of cognitive dissonance

[JParker]

@nirgrahamUK

i feel confident to speak for LS as well as myself. the concept of Intellectual property is bankrupt. its a conceptual contradiction. it can not be rationally maintained. there is some serious crazyness on this board. and a good dose of cognitive dissonance

The concept of IP, sure. Neither Jack nor myself were arguing for the conept of IP. Rather copyright, and the inventor’s right to protect his invention. Macfall, LS, et al seem to have agreed that a protection scheme based around voluntary contract is a valid, if cumbersome, method of doing this. Again, my involvement with this conversation is not to discuss the relevance of the term IP, but rather to make my point about inventor’s protecting their creations. I think we have settled this.

[nirgrahamUK]

@JParker

Neither Jack nor myself were arguing for the concept of IP

oh really?

@JackSkyLark

In this way, without some form of IP (free-market contract or some legal standing), there is no reward for the development of a digital product (or any other infinite good)
later on
Once again, I am not saying this is good or bad, but rather what I believe would happen to the market for infinite goods, in the absence of any form of IP.
even better
But as to why I am posting, I assert that anyone who is in complete disregard of IP is just as detrimental to liberty as a communist.

@JParker

Current IP laws are a form of fascism, sure. IP, not so much.
Granted, IP is so overblown it’s laughable right now, but basic IP/copyright laws should exist.
Without IP, why would anyone produce anything but tangible goods?

@MaxLiberty

So Coke does not have traditional government IP protection it has marketplace IP protection

[JParker]

You’re pulling quotes where we use the term IP b/c its commonly understood. We’re referring to copyright. Clinging to our use of the term IP doesnt say we’re arguing for the concept of IP as it exists today. The term is dynamic, and in our context references copyright.. as the post you quoted of mine alludes to with me putting copyright right next to IP.

**also, please dont include max’s argument within my own. Same mistake macfall made just a bit ago. If you have issue with him, talk to him. I am not making the same argument

[nirgrahamUK]

so what, you agree with me and LS that IP is a contradictary concept, it makes no sense. yet you feel happy using it to get your message out. ???

the words ‘intellectual’ and ‘property’ cant go together and mean anything.

[JParker]

Then replace them with the word copyright in every statement i’ve made in this thread. If your argument with me really is semantics, you’re wasting both of our time.

If however you dont agree with my (or macfall’s) hypotheticals as to how copyright could be enforced through the market, please make that case.

[nirgrahamUK]

if libertarian institutions can provide the kind of copyright you feel important in a voluntary fashion. how could i oppose it morally? or conceptually?

i do feel that its overly optimistic on your part. as a copyright (on its own, outside of other laws or contracts) could not bind 3rd parties, it would only take a single contract breaker (where potentially a copyrighted work may have millions of customers , i.e. potential breakers). for the cat to be out of the bag, and the balloon of conract secracy to pop. perhaps the devices of freemarket will be so engenius they will think their way out of these problems, but that remains to be seen.

I hope that from now on you will be consistant and not use ‘unwords’ in place of your perfectly servicable vocabulary.

[liberty_student]

@JParker

f you’re willing to concede that by copying a book/software/etc when you had agreed in contract not to do so

Why would I argue otherwise? Again, you’re the minarchist, I’m not. I believe in voluntary contracts. If I agree to a contract, I should try to abide by it, or be prepared to pay the costs of not fulfilling it. You on the other hand, have supported a system of non-voluntary contracts. That, I do not agree with. Coercion is wrong, under all circumstances.

@JParker

Granted, you say you wouldn’t want to sign the contract, or it would be a hassle to buy a book and have to sign all these documents, but if it was the only way to get at most books, wouldnt you?

Yeah, but it wouldn’t be. The market has already shown that people will surrender IP for markt share. Mises.org does it very successfully with it’s bookstore. There are numerous other examples. Which is to be expected, because exclusivity is just something else to negotiate when setting prices. If I have no need to purchase your IP exclusivity, then someone will fill that market void and provide IP without exclusivity in contracts for a lower price (or a higher price, depending on the circumstance).

@JParker

I never suggested such.

Yes you have. It’s been referenced by both myself and NUK.

@JParker

I have said that if someone came up with it independently, they have as much right to it as I.

The burden of proof would be on you to prove they did not do it independently. So unless you have the resources, and the confidence you can establish a burden of proof, this is a business killing move, trying to enforce IP.

It’s substantially different than the current IP model in the US.

@JParker

But we argue to enforce the creator’s rights through this measure of contracts, not government coercion.

So you’re advocating the end of all IP laws?

@JParker

I don’t think we have a disconnect on this issue after all, you’re merely assuming that we’re referencing the state, when we are in fact not.

But you guys are. Because you claim to ba minarchist, and the role of government is the protection of rights and property. So if you are for government protection, and you consider IP a form of property that can be contracted, then it logically follows that you expect the state to enforce your “property” rights.

I’m not the one who is confused. I’m crystal clear. IP is not property. Using the state to enforce IP is coercion. Coercion is wrong.

[liberty_student]

@nirgrahamUK

i feel confident to speak for LS as well as myself. the concept of Intellectual property is bankrupt. its a conceptual contradiction. it can not be rationally maintained. there is some serious crazyness on this board. and a good dose of cognitive dissonance

100%. IP is not property. No one responded to my property definition post. Probably, because it’s the most powerful thing I have written in weeks.

Property cannot exist in two or more places, with two or more owners simultaneously. By this standard, IP is not property. Everything else is moot. Utilitarianism, moralism, statism, Maxism. Irrelevant.

There is cognitive dissonance, because we have minarchists trying to defend coercion and state created artificial monopolies. Those are indefensible positions.

[JParker]

@liberty student

There is cognitive dissonance, because we have minarchists trying to defend coercion and state created artificial monopolies. Those are indefensible positions.

sigh I am a minarchist. My argument was made in the frame of your complete anarchy. I am able to make an argument from outside my own beleifs. Please examine my argument again: not once is the state referenced, only voluntary contract.

@liberty student

But you guys are. Because you claim to ba minarchist, and the role of government is the protection of rights and property. So if you are for government protection, and you consider IP a form of property that can be contracted, then it logically follows that you expect the state to enforce your “property” rights.

What I believe and what I argued here are two different things. I played along with your stateless world, and demonstrated how the market would protect “IP” (copyright). No state is involved in my scenario, no matter how much you want to inject it in to make my argument easy to refute.

@liberty student

The burden of proof would be on you to prove they did not do it independently. So unless you have the resources, and the confidence you can establish a burden of proof, this is a business killing move, trying to enforce IP.

It’s substantially different than the current IP model in the US.

Well of course its different than the current laws, thats why we’re saying its different. And of course the burden of proof would be upon the original person. If its worth defending, or he truely beleives the other person broke the contract, the burden of proof is upon him. I fail to see how this refutes anything i’ve said.

@liberty student

Yeah, but it wouldn’t be. The market has already shown that people will surrender IP for markt share. Mises.org does it very successfully with it’s bookstore. There are numerous other examples. Which is to be expected, because exclusivity is just something else to negotiate when setting prices. If I have no need to purchase your IP exclusivity, then someone will fill that market void and provide IP without exclusivity in contracts for a lower price (or a higher price, depending on the circumstance).

Once again, where is the refutation of my point? I never said someone couldnt give away thier book for free. I said there would be protection available for those who thought it worth it. Photoshop software (highly expensive to develope, limited market to sell to), cold fusion, etc grand ideas would probably use this protection. But you seem to say that this protection is possible, which refutes you saying that its worthless because its not property. The market values it, the market protects its exclusivity. Thats all i’ve argued for, is that such exclusivity via copyright CAN and WOULD exist in a stateless society. You have yet to refute this.

@liberty student

Property cannot exist in two or more places, with two or more owners simultaneously. By this standard, IP is not property. Everything else is moot. Utilitarianism, moralism, statism, Maxism. Irrelevant.

I’m going to be totally evil here, but then by your very definition, nothing qualifies as property. Physics has essentially proven the existance of multiple universes (multiverse theory, as demonstrated through einstein and hawking’s works, and proven countless times). This multiverse allows for things to exist and not exist at the same time, for you to own your house in one universe, and someone else to own it in another. Both universes are completely real, by all natrual laws. Therefore, because ‘property’ cannot exist in twho places at once, or be owned by two people at once, nothing that exists within the multiverse can be owned. Thus, nothing is property. Everything else is moot. All bow before the physics god!

*While multiverse theory is completely true, I am obviously kididng in applying it to this situation, so dont waste your time actually trying to refute that argument.

[liberty_student]

@JParker

sigh I am a minarchist. My argument was made in the frame of your complete anarchy. I am able to make an argument from outside my own beleifs. Please examine my argument again: not once is the state referenced, only voluntary contract.

@JParker

What I believe and what I argued here are two different things. I played along with your stateless world, and demonstrated how the market would protect “IP” (copyright). No state is involved in my scenario, no matter how much you want to inject it in to make my argument easy to refute.

Yes, when you copy my position, we agree. However, that’s not your real position. I’m not arguing with people who are pretending to agree with me.

No offense, but it’s a complete waste of time arguing with you. Thanks for the insincere argument.

[kiba]

@JParker

@kiba

Absolutely pathetic. Your concerns has already been addressed ad nasuem in books like Against Intellectual Monopoly, on websites, and on this thread. No business model apperantly, can please you.

Kiba, your ‘business model’ was disproven by me long ago. Work for hire is not an answer, as it only solves the small jobs that any college kid (aka you) could complete.

@kiba

Other people already did and will make a profit inventing stuff/writing softwares/etc. So shut up your whining about how you won’t produce X without Y. Because clearly, you sucks at entrepreneurship and deserve to starve on the street.

Compelling evidence. I see your schooling has taught you well. First i’m ‘fucking stupid’ now ‘i suck and deserve to starve on the street’. If you aren’t prepared to actually provide a response, please refrain from speaking to me.

You’re “fucking stupid” because you happen to misread me several time already? I recalled calling you fucking clueless but never stupid.

It is not an answer how? You have not disproven it.

You haven’t show how it won’t work on the large scale. I clearly show that it can work on large scale with people raising larger amount of money than me and were much more skilled than me. As a matter of fact, let me throw in blender in and the attempt to free Ryzom MMORPG. Blender raised 100K euros to become free and open source and Ryzom to my knowledge reached their pledge drive.

And yes, you sucks and deserve to starve on the street because clearly some businessmen times and times again do it all the time.

[Nitroadict]

@JParker

I’m going to be totally evil here, but then by your very definition, nothing qualifies as property. Physics has essentially proven the existance of multiple universes (multiverse theory, as demonstrated through einstein and hawking’s works, and proven countless times). This multiverse allows for things to exist and not exist at the same time, for you to own your house in one universe, and someone else to own it in another. Both universes are completely real, by all natrual laws. Therefore, because ‘property’ cannot exist in twho places at once, or be owned by two people at once, nothing that exists within the multiverse can be owned. Thus, nothing is property. Everything else is moot. All bow before the physics god!

*While multiverse theory is completely true, I am obviously kididng in applying it to this situation, so dont waste your time actually trying to refute that argument.

Where’s the concrete evidence beyond mathematic models & the beauty of said models?

AFAIK, It has mounting theoretic evidence, but I have not read of recently the indisputable evidence that this is true. That you are claiming the multiverse theory to be completely true is complete idiocy on your part, regardless of the argument your using it in.

You, or anyone else for that matter, are kidding yourself in claiming scientific theory as fact prematurely, when there you haven’t provided proof, let alone a simple citation or link.

I’m afraid you are being a bit evil here; hijacking a scientific theory before it is completely proven by evidence towards the perceived statement of “nothing qualifies as property” is too mystical for my scientific tastes.

Btw, good job at incorrectly thinking the market will do this or that as if it were a being (another mystical projection?). A free-market might have free-market agents attempting some form of I.P. (especially in light of a transactionary period between the state & stateless society), and other agents might eventualyl outcompete it’s use by seeing the problems of I.P.

You can’t really predict how the market of a stateless society will look like, anymore than you can predict how the television industry will look like in 50 years. I suppose the crystal ball obsessions continue on this forum, regardless.

*On the off chance you were being sarcastic about a theory not proven yet as being true, I take back the allotted criticism.