My thoughts on IP and anti-IP tunnel vision

Miscellaneous General
41

Copyright is a contract, and like any other contract is enforcable though a legal framework. I recommend reading Rothbard’s differentiation between copyright and modern patent protection. He clearly says that anyone copying (even if not the first buyer, and the good has been resold) is in violation of contract and would be prosecuted in an anarcho-capitalist legal system.

Secondly I would like to respond to the topic of business models. First read what I quoted from Mises (so you know where I am coming from), then I would argue that there is no (repeat: NO) business modle capable of making profits (not hobby money) that would justify creating an infinite good (which would fetch a 0 price on the market). Your FOSS example is such BS, I am truly sorry you hope that to become the norm in electronic development.

I would also argue that within an non-IP world there would be a complete disruption in the pricing mechanism in the development of Ideas - I may be way off course here, but I am now convinced that the entire “infinite goods” market will fail in the same way socialism would- due to there being no market signals as to where and what to focus resources in idea development (this is due to the disconnent between before and after the good becomes in infinite supply). Of course, just like socialism there is the illusion of a market price (your “business model”) which would include advertising or perhaps a rate of consumer ownership (ie. downloads, etc), but the profit motive in missing (unless you count the socialistic concept of recognition as reward enough) . What I am trying to say is the main thesis of Mises’ “Socialism”, that without proper pricing signals, consumer demand will not be met and the system will ultimately fail. This is, I suspect, why Mises supports the monolpoly pricing of ideas, and Intellectual Property, in Human Action.

Remember though, this is assuming a good of Infinite supply. So in reply, we are arguing the complete removal of IP (copyright, license keys, contract, patent, etc.)

42

Copyright as it is currently exists is not a contract. It is a corecive monopoly. If it were like physical property, the sellers would be bounded by the contracts, not third parties. What anti-IP critics argue is that copyright is not like physical property at all.

As for the infinte goods business model:

Infinite goods that cost money is a distortion of the price signal and misallocate resource from which could be spent on other things. In a free markets, DRM and other technologies will fall to the wayside as businessmen take into account that infinte goods will tend toward the price of 0 as it is currently happening right now. The forces of the market, however hampered it is now, will make the insitution of copyright powerless. (Underground filesharing, etc) Similiarly, in an anarcho-capitalist legal system, such contracts would cost too much to enforce and those who used such contracts will be outcompeted quickly. Such contracts are anaglous to forbiding people to pour milk on cereal as the condition to sell cerals to people who want them.

The true price signal would actually be what is used to make it because these are actually the scarce resource. The production of new and different goods, or eyeballs, tech supports for example. This is what the market will actually pay for, not the infinte goods itself and infinte goods(like air) cannot serves as price signals.

it would be actually pretty difficult to refute the economic theory of infinte goods, because the emperical evidence is actually huge and the theory stays within the laws of economics. (RedHat, TechDirt, etc)

As for my game development example, I don’t see what so ridiculous to sell scarce resources such as my labor and time to develop video games. It is, after all, indistinguishable from being paid web development work.

43

  1. The formula for Coca-Cola is information, true?

  2. They keep that formula in a vault, true?

  3. If it quacks like a duck…

Maybe you mean non-secret information cannot be property?

44

This is exactly my point, and you yourself admitted it!

“If on a competitive market” (or in this case, the perfect competition or infinite good) “one of the complementary factors, namely F” (which is the idea, or the concept previously defined by IP) “needed for the production of the consumers good G, does not attain any price at all (since it is non-scarce), although the production of F requires various expenditures (which is the scarce resources such as labor and time, etc.) and consumers are ready to pay for the consumers’ good G a price which makes its production porfitable on a competitive market, the monopoly price for F becomes a necessary requirement… The Public would not derive any advantage from the absence of monopoly prices for F. It would, on the contrary, miss the satisfaction it could derive from the acquisition of G.”–Once again the I am quoting Mises

The assumptions are obvious, and the examples you are giving are filled with the errors of not referencing the actual good itself. The case I am making is one of what better grants consumer satisfaction, and so I am not commenting on natural law or property rights (although It is absolutely rediculous to claim libertarianism holds a subjective value theory of property rights, like someone said). But from this analysis we can make certain preditions about the market for Ideas.

As I mentioned earlier, there is a clear, temporal disconnect in goods produced under IP. They do not exist, or are extremely scarce (in the case of a prototype, etc.) prior to their entering the market. Then, upon entry, become infinitely abundant - thus fetching a market price of 0. All of this has been said before, and I believe is agreed to by everyone. Now, we enter muddy water.

I argue not only that a monopoly price is necessary for the maximization of consumer satisfaction (purely the utilitarian argument forwarded by Mises), but also absolutely necessarry for the allocation of scarce resources among various endeavours. With IP (i.e. copyright), there is created a market price that differs from other IP works, and thus (assuming basic copyright, as promoted by Rothbard as well as Mises) there is created a system of relative prices on the market side of the IP disconnect. This allows entrepeneurs to see the demand structure for Ideas (whereas, without IP we can only see a very rudamentary estimates of demand, since supply is infinite), and as such, acts as a guide to the allocation of resources. I argue that this whole process is due to the disconnect between the production and subsequent distribution of Intellectual Property based goods. Without IP, we would see the same blindness of production that plagues a socialistic economy. Based on this, I would predict a complete colapse of the market for Ideas and IP based goods (i.e. goods of infinite supply that act as necessary complementary factors in the production of a good demanded and fetching a price above 0).

Remember, I am not arguing on the basis of natural rights.

45

i agree - hence face charges…which could be avoided by giving a prosecuting party a source.

46

Yes they can.

47

Infinite goods cannot be part of the market in the long run because they are well…infinite. It is impossible to make IP goods into a price signal(At least a good one) because they are not scarce. The increasing enforcement issue meant that the IP regime cannot enforce an artifical scarcity in a market.

Digital goods, once produced like people said, are infinte. The demand might as well be infinite. Thus there is no need to perfrom economic calculation in that area.

Meanwhile, digitals goods that are not produced remain scarce, along with its ancillary scarce goods that come along with it(reputation, performance, swags, etc). Thus a market for digital goods that were not produced still exists.

48

Big assumption, and one that is absolutely wrong. Infinite goods are infinite, but there is a finite demand for them. ie there are only so many people who want the new computer game. With infinite supply, absolutely no one would pay for it. Economic calculation is needed.

Maybe I’m not following here… but are you suggesting that I give away my software, and charge people for the software I didn’t write?

49

They cannot be downloaded to be played on a console.

50

Look, the IP people that argue IP is property fail because 1) if IP really exists, there should be no arbitrary time limit, 2) if IP really exists, then one should be able to buy and sell the letter A on the market, and 3) they cannot even identify IP.

The OP states that he is afraid that there would not be enough video games if we did not have IP laws. However, if I were to ask him how long the IP should last, he would have to give some arbitrary number. As such, it obviously is not property. If it is not property, it is a monopoly, and has all the negative side effects of a monopoly, including lack of innovation, not increased innovation.

51

This is where you are absolutely wrong on fundamental economcs. I don’t have time to write a longer response now, but I will reserve time to do so. But overall I would recommend re-reading the sections in “Human Action”, “Principals” and “Man, Econ., and State” that have anything to do with prices, the distinction between demand and supply, and economic calculation - then extrapolating them to take into account, infinite goods that are required as complementary to a consumer good.

Hint: you will find that there is need to perform economic calculation in that area…

52

Then, perhaps it should be forever, or the life of the copyright holder… would that make it any better (since obviously we are taking the same time consideration as physical property).

Note: Do not take this as a serious argument.

Secondly, have you read my posts at all? You switch your argument away from natural rights to utilitarian (by virtue of invoking the “negative effets of monopoly”) and here I have the upper hand. Without the monoloply price, the good would recieve a price of 0 on the market, due to an infinite supply (demand can not be measured). A consumer good demanded and recieving a price greater than 0 requires the 0 priced good to be produced. Thus, in order for there to be the maximization of consumer satisfaction, the monopoly price is required.

Also, I have brought in the prospect of economic calculation, and with a market price of 0 - Ideas all have the same relative price (which is obviously not the case in relation to demand, people obviously demand one idea over another. But, demand cannot be measured without IP) - Thus, potential investors and developers have no guide of what consumers demand within the market of Ideas. This causes the “blindness of production”, I refered to earlier (even assuming they do produce). All in all, the situation can not be maintained - and there will be a general removal of resources from a infinite goods market, leaving the market with only a few hobby “producers”.

53

Property rights do not expire, if it is property.

OK. So, you agree that I should be able to “own” the letter A and force everyone to pay me whenever they use it?

54

Please do research before you make these kinds of statements. PS3/X360/PS2/Xbox/etc can all be hacked with readily available firmware hacks to play pirated games from sites such as piratebay. In fact, the biggest names in recent gaming (Halo3, Gears 2, resistance 2) were ALL released on piratebay weeks before they were available to consumers at retail.

55

You’re on a slippery slope with this… if this is true, please remove yourself from my tribe’s land. The ‘property rights’ most americans claim are rights only because they are enforced at the point of a gun against the native peoples who homesteaded the land. See, your property rights involve just as much coersion as mine. *I am referencing the native peoples of the northeast coast, who did have stable communities, governments, built houses, etc. They had homesteaded the land, so dont come back with the argument that plains indians did not homestead.

This is where logic is used. Obviously the letter A is not property. The book I write is. You’re breaking everything down to its smallest part, which we can do with physical property as well. You’re claiming ownership of all individual bricks, and intend to charge anyone to use them? Obviously not. You claim ownership of your house. We are claiming ownership of the letter A? Obviously not, we are claming ownership of the works we create using it.

56

No, I meant information. Note, “inform” is a part of the word information. I believe you are referring to “knowledge”.

But let’s even suppose you are correct, that the secret recipe for Kentucky Fried Chicken is locked in a vault, accessible only to a handful of people, all of whom are contractually bound to keep it secret, and not to INFORM anyone else about it.

What stops me from discovering the exact same formula through my own experimentation? What stops me from making a coke, having only the knowledge of what coke looks, smells and tastes like?

And if I do “discover” this “knowledge” on my own, hasn’t this rendered the secrecy of the vault and contracts null? Because surely, as coming to the idea by my own method and process, expending my own time and energy, do I not also have the right to license it?

This is why knowledge, even specific knowledge, cannot be unique property. There is no way to keep someone else from reaching exact or similar conclusions.

57

LS, in the case you’re making, discovering on your own is one thing. But blatantly stealing it from others is another. If you discover the formula to my new superglue compound independently, more power to you. If you take my superglue and reverse engineer it or bribe someone to give you the formula, there is no honor in that, and logically you are stealing. You are benefiting from the fruit of my labor while not putting in your own (or very minimal amounts at best).

58

But you can’t steal non-property. Now you are adding the distinction, that if I ever tasted coke, then I was reverse engineering.

But what if I tasted Pepsi and came up with Coke?

It’s an irrational loop.

Honor is an arbitrary concept. Make a case for fraud. You’ll have better luck (although not too much more).

LTV.

59

Very well LS. You can throw theory at people all you want with this. You may even be correct in your theory. Though again, Jackskylark has pointed out how you’re going againt the founders of your theory of economics.

But you have yet to use logic. I am not a libertarian, I think much of what you say is crazy because it does not pass the logic test. And much much more is genious because it does. But this idea of yours does not. Logically, why would anyone create ideas? Profit is the motivation behind great invention. Very few people do it for the joy of bettering society. Remove those seeking profit, and you’ve just destroyed progress, much more so than even current horribly restrictive IP laws could. Without IP, the pc would still exist. But Gates wouldnt have been able to turn it into a household item. Universities/researchers would have no reason to publish their works, as they would all be stolen and claimed by someone else. You think the honor and pride they get from being famous and important doesnt figure into their research? Of course it does. Rothbard loved being controversial and well known. Without IP, why would anyone produce anything but tangible goods? You seem content to live in the stone age, hoping someone will come along and give you a computer and software for free, because you claim it has no value.

Last I checked, the market determines value, not you and your definition of property. And the market wants to pay for windows. I know I could use linux, but I dont want to. I prefer something that requires less work, that more people develope software for, that more people know how to use. So I choose to pay for windows. The market has spoken on this issue, even in the face of anti-ip developments such as linux.

60

I’m trying to use reason, not theory. I’m not big on theory.

He’s incorrect, if you mean referencing Rothbard. Rothbard would never promote social contract theory. And that is what IP is. We’re collectivly meant to accept contractual terms on ideas as property, whether we want to or not. There is no negotiation, and there is no opportunity to abstain. You are contracted, because well, “that’s just how things are”.

That’s an assertion, not a fact.

You assume that (1) everyone seeks profit, (2) profit can only be maintained by IP, not by superior production or value added service, and (3) progress is contingent upon new ideas, not refining old ones.

This argument is false. Bill Gates and Microsoft did a lot of shady stuff when digital copyright enforcement was weak. He has even admitted that with today’s IP atmosphere, it is unlikely they would have ever had been able to bring Windows to market.

Why do people write poetry? For profit? Why do people paint? Why do they dance? Sing in the shower?

Now don’t make this personal, it undermines your argument when you behave like this. Make strong points in discussion, back them up with reason and/or facts and let’s achieve some meeting of the minds. Juvenile name calling doesn’t serve either of us well.

But you just argued that value was related to effort, which is a labour theory of value.

Anyway, I believe I agree. The market determines value.

As you are implying that my definition of property may be different than yours, how do you define property? Does it have to be unique in ownership?

I don’t believe people can own the same molecules at the same time. That is a conflict of ownership. Well, if two people come up with the same ideas in isolation, then surely that idea is not unique. They both have a claim to it as they both came to it honestly and independently.

But I am interested to hear about your definition.

I have no issue with that. Although there is also a lot of windows piracy, so you could say that there is a portion of the market who want windows if the price is free as well.

It’s actually a very good operating system, although I use Windows 90% of the time.

Well, Linux is gaining share, and Microsoft is losing share, so I’m not sure you want to make absolutist comments like that. Yes the market has spoken, and it is refuting your position.

I do find it funny you paint Linux as “anti-IP” as though people producing something collaboratively and offering it for free is a bad thing. Damn those anti-IP people! How dare they be so generous with their own property!