Any rebuttals to his criticisms? IP is an interesting topic.
What criticism? He simply notes that some people might deny that “creation” is an independent source of ownership. So what? “Creation”, however defined, provides no objective boundaries for ownership, thus it is of no use in resolving property disputes. That’s why I think IP will not exist in a natural order society. Boundaries in space in time, however, are of use in resolving disputes, since these boundaries define who may do what, when.
I prefer my own definition of IP: “property in classes of objects”* as opposed to “property in specific objects”. This definition of IP illustrates the problem of IP in black and white. How can anyone meaningfully come to own a class of objects and how can the space-time boundaries of a class of objects be meaningfully defined? By and large, I think the answer is that it just doesn’t make sense.
Clayton -
*If I claim ownership of the digital and analog patterns that conform to a music recording I once made, what I am really claiming ownership of is a portion of every physical representation of that pattern, wherever it may be. I own the “copy rights” to a CD containing that pattern, meaning, that you may not use the CD in just any way you wish but only certain ways. The problem is that there is no clear-cut division of use-rights in space and time, there is just this amorphous, ill-defined “right” that I have to prohibit anyone from making copies of certain physical media which they own.
Clayton: "I prefer my own definition of IP: “property in classes of objects”* as opposed to “property in specific objects”. "
This is perfect. It’s so subtle that it’d be easy to miss the significance, but I believe this cuts to the very very VERY core of the matter. Just keep repeating this until people get it, because while they will not see it as relevant at first, I don’t think it’s possible for (propertarian) IP proponents to get past this one. Like the monopoly argument against statism, you can just keep bringing it back to this and they must give in eventually. Is this your original conception?
AJ: As far as I know, putting it that way is original with me but the idea that IP is property in “many, disparate objects at once” is not original with me. This is one, standard argument against IP.
Clayton -
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