Gutless, what you can not explain is that the free-market is acting in contrast to your stated theory of what will happen in a free-market. What you are predicting will happen in a free-market is in fact not happening. Like your assertion that Money-back guarantees and lifetime warranties are negative value contracts for the issuer. Yet, we see in the market-place the widespread use of exactly these contracts and have seen them for a very long time which on the surface would indicate that these types of contracts are in fact beneficial to the parties that issue them. Again, free-market activity is contradicting your theory of how it will behave.
I think Jack is making sense and I don’t see much different in his arguement and mine or JP’s.
What free market?
i take it back. you are as hopeless. it comes from having an inadequate theory of property.
The free-market…in his head?
In any case, I find it a complete irony that Max is decrying “gutless” when he only comes back to necro-post his previous arguments that most are either tired of or have refuted already.
If you look at some areas in the market place they are essentially free markets. If we look a the example of Coke as has been cited, the ability for people to think of the Coke formula independently is not being prevented by any coercive force. Coke’s action to protect the idea through contracts does not have any coercive force. In fact Coke has deliberately chosen not to accept government force and the Coke formula could be copied and reproduced without any concern for government response.
So this example is a free market. There is nothing to prevent the things that you and the others predict will happen in a free-market which is that without government coercion any effort to protect ideas or inventions will fail. Yet, those things are not happening. Your theory does not match the facts on the ground. Coke has been able to protect the idea and has this protection of the idea has enabled them to capture the value of that idea.
I disagree with the doublespeak of “essentially free-markets”.
I could sit here & proclaim The Free State Movement (more specifically, the FSM community in New Hampshire) as an example of the free-market, but The State still exists, and thus, it’s very existence threatens any free-market activity being attempted in the FSM (i.e. the possible development for camps to be utilized for possible martial law to imprison dissidents).
The most you could say is that free-market activity being attempted under the non-free market is ‘more’ free than non-free market activity, or less “coercive” than non-free market activity.
In other words, at least from what I can see, you are playing the lesser of evils card to hoist up “freer” market activity as example of the free-market already existing.
Why don’t we just conclude the free-market “requires” the existence of The State, while we’re at it, for all sorts of reasons & call it a day, aye? It’s not like that hasn’t been refuted before…
Leaving aside the issue of the existence of a free market, so what? They protected their formula without the state. And? That isn’t IP, by any definition of the term.
It’s not conjecture, I laid out a detailed explanation of the position. You still haven’t defined precisely what property is, but I was able to show, what it clearly is not. And ideas, are not property. Ideas written down on paper, or in a book, can be property. But no one can “steal your idea”.
If you’re going to challenge me on this, which would be great because I need to refine this argument further and improve how I communicate it, but if you are going to challenge me when I have supplied a reasoning beyond a bare assertion, then please don’t play childish antics like “Conjecture…”
There is an argument there, argue it if you disagree.
Pemberton Recipe
This recipe is attributed to a sheet of paper found in an old formulary book owned by Coca-Cola inventor, John S. Pemberton, just before his death (U.S. measures).[8] Makes 10 gallons of Soda
- Ingredients:
- Flavoring:
This recipe does not specify when sugar, coca, caramel or the rest of the water are added, or the flavoring oil quantity units of measure.
[edit] Reed Recipe
This recipe is attributed to pharmacist John Reed[9]
- 30 pounds (14.2 kg) of sugar
- 2 US gallons of water
- 1 quart of lime juice
- 4 ounces of citrate of caffeine
- 2 US ounces of citric acid
- 1 ounce of extract of vanilla
- 6 drams(3/4 US fluid ounce) of fluid extract of cola
- 6 drams fluid extract of coca
[edit] Merory Recipe
Recipe is from Food Flavorings: Composition, Manufacture and Use. Makes one U.S. gallon (3.8 L) of syrup. Yield (used to flavor carbonated water at 1 fl oz per bottle): 128 bottles, 6.5 fl oz (192 ml).[10][11]
- Mix 2,400 grams of sugar with just enough water to dissolve the sugar fully. High-fructose corn syrup may be substituted for half the sugar).
- Add 37 grams of caramel, 3.1 grams of caffine, and 11 grams of phosphoric acid.
- Extract the cocaine from 1.1 grams of coca leaf (Truxillo growth of coca preferred) with toluol;dry the cocaine extract.
- Soak the coca leaves and kola nuts (both finely powdered; 0.37 gram of kola nuts) in 22 grams of 20 percent alcohol.
- California white wine fortified to 20 percent strength was used as the soaking solution circa 1909, but Coca-Cola may have switched to a simple water/alcohol mixture.
- After soaking, discard the coca and kola and add the liquid to the syrup.
- Add 30 grams of lime juice (a former ingredient, evidently, that Coca-Cola now denies) or a substitute such as a water solution of citric acid and sodium citrate at lime-juice strength.
- Mix together 0.88 gram of lemon oil, 0.47 gram of orange oil, 0.20 gram of cassia (Chinese cinnamon) oil. 0.07 gram of nutmeg oil, and, if desired, traces of coriander, lavender, and neroli oils, and add to 4.9 grams of 95 percent alcohol.
- Shake.
- Add 2.7 grams of water to the oil mixture and let stand for twenty-four hours at about 60 °F (15.5 °C). A cloudy layer will separate.
- Take off the clear part of the liquid only and add the syrup.
- Add 19 grams of glycerine (from vegetable source, not hog fat, so the drink can be sold to Jews and Muslims who observe their respective religion’s dietary restrictions) and 1.5 grams of vanilla extract.
- Add water (treated with chlorine) to make 1 gallon of syrup.
I’ve been saying that for months. He’s got the time to waste and the stamina to go in circles pretty much indefinitely.
All 3 of these guys refuse to argue honestly. I’m going to go back and review what meambobbo wrote for something to further the discussion.
Well as has been pointed out the term IP for the anti-IP crowd has an entirely different meaning than the comon use of that term. What most people are discussing is the protection of ideas and inventions from other’s using them when they are referring to IP. As a mechanism for this protection the government enforces this coercively through copyright and patent laws.
The only relevant question is can you protect ideas or inventions and prevent other people from using them in a free society without coercion. If you believe in voluntary contracts being binding then the answer as has been demonstrated is yes.
Your refusal to acknowledge the actual issue is why you can’t deal with real examples.
Typical anti-contract protection of idea nonsense. I have come to the conclusion that your definition of IP is just simply not what anybody else is even talking about. No wonder there is such confusion on your part. You have developed an alternate universe with your own definition of everything and then try and argue everyone else is wrong because they have a different definition of the word. Again, this is why your arguements can not address what is actually happening.
p.s. coca-cola formula being ‘secret’ is almost certainly a superioir marketing angle than a defense from rival competitiors over ‘taste of drink’. generic cola’s are widely available, we could all start up cola factories, set up a few taste tests like pepsi did and for all you know you might have hit on the formula. or something as good as the formula as far as the consumer cares.
obviously its intellectually dishonest of max to miscategorise the anti-IP crowd as not being amenable to voluntary contracts over physical property and agent behaviour, when that has been a major point in our own arguments in which we demonstrated the absurdity of the IP concept.
Oh noes, a majority doesn’t agree?
max, how could two people possible have the same idea of IP. when IP is an absurd contradiction in terms. do you have the same idea of the meaning of 1=2 as i do. does it even make sense to ask the question?
Sure, you could make a contract that said that. But would it be valid? You can’t compel specific performance in a personal contract, something that we discussed months ago, and I not even sure that you could claim damages; what is being exchanged that must be returned in case of a breach?
Who are you talking to?
Coca Cola is not really protecting any advantages. It thinks it is doing so, which is not the same thing as actually doing.
Heck, ever heard of OpenCola? A company managed to sell 150,000 of them and their recipie was open for anybody to copy and make using Coke factories. Go figure.
You continually state you are not opposed to contracts but Wombatron who has the same arguement openly questions are they valid. If you could just answer the simple questions definitively without changing your view on contracts then we could know exactly where you stand. You keep bringing up your definition of IP. Forget about your private definition and just respond to what has been presented.
The facts would seem to indicate otherwise, there is no one selling a product that tastes exactly like Coke nor even marketing a product that tastes exactly like Coke, which according to your groupthink should have already occurred. You make the assertion that Coke and presumably all other persons or companies that use Non-compete or Non-disclosure agreements are acting irrationally. Just maybe all those people have their own experiences that might indicate otherwise.