The Moral Basis for Intellectual Property

Economics Political Theory
241

Well, you have the element of an argument here, but you are mixing two different topics in one: 1) intrusion and 2) homesteading information space. Let’s talk about them. There is nothing wrong with being the first to homestead part of information space and receive certain rights to that space. That’s no different from homesteading physical space, and in practice information space is far less crowded than the physical land of earth. Therefore, if you don’t have any problems with homesteading in the physical domain you shouldn’t have any problems with such a homesteading process in the information domain either, based on crowdedness and scarcity.

HOWEVER, there is something to this intrusion argument, and IP must be designed with this in mind. Remember, information does not exist without a mind that animates the information. In intellectual property there are necessarily TWO minds involved, namely the creator (the author etc.) and the consumer (the reader), and BOTH their rights need to be protected in the process. Information implies that a mind needs to become intimate with the creation of the author, and since he is bombarded with impression everywhere and this amounts to stepping into the mind of another person. If done inappropriately this amounts to trespassing. (an obvious example is to show a violent grown-up movie to small children.) A mundane example of this is to run commercials for a movie on TV and in the movie theaters, except that it is first released in the United States, and then only 6 months later it comes to Europe. Viewers who are teased by the trailers and not allowed to enjoy the movie until many months later due to silly DVD zones and antiquated film practices are to a mild extent violated. The movie producer is allowed to intrude someone’s mind, and that can never be undone. Then it is wrong to set unreasonable restrictions. Personally I have no problems with people who download a DVD-rip of a movie just to get hold of it fast and view it there and then, so long as they pay for the DVD.

While the intellectual property rights are clearly biased towards the creator (as they should be) this does not mean that the consumer should be ignored. He has certain rights which pertain to intrusion. In general intellectual property should be created in such a way as to (within reasonable boundaries) minimize the intrusiveness of information. The rights of the consumer is here protected by declaratory laws. That is, in order to receive the protection of the law by default the creator needs to fulfill certain standards of non-intrusiveness. If the creator wants to deviate from these requirements and still be protected by law he must label his products in a certain way. Consider the following warning on e.g. music from iTunes:

“Warning: this product contains restrictions which may be experienced as annoying or intrusive.” Then followed by a list of what is intrusive and annoying.

Let me first give you an example from the physical world of such intrusiveness. Suppose that in order to get out of a shop you have to go thtough quite intrusive security controls, body scanning and maybe even cavity search. Then you would definitely like to be warned about this before you go INTO the shop. In this case there would be grounds for a declaratory law that states that you need to warn people with a well-placed sign, both outside your physical shop and in commercials.

Most people would find such security measures highly intrusive, especially since 98% of all people are NOT thieves. Because of this most shops prefer to accept 2-3% theft and then just add the extra price on top to cover the losses. Much less intrusive and people are allowed to go through shops without full cavity searches!

In a similar manner it is perfectly reasonable for people to be mad about all sorts of DRM on music that generates a lot of hassle. In most cases music should be just a plain file, that CAN be stolen (just like the candy in the shops) but in most cases isn’t. The creators normally protect their music in five ways: 1) high quality, 2) great availability, 3) great accessability, 4) reasonable prices and 5) good consumer morality. With all these five in place you don’t need DRM, and piracy will be a fringe phenomenon. You still need the IP laws, however, to prevent legal organized piracy.

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It was pretty simple; property rights at that level would be protected no differently than what is conventionally acceptable.

I have a different perspective in regards to homestead (you wouldn’t recognize multiple independent authors). I don’t think you fully understood the consequences of that - but it could be a rather minor issue anyway, depending on the time limits.

At this point, I merely object to IP pragmatically. I may have more objections in the future based on this perspective, but for now thats all, ty. Good Luck answering others, and GL making a more elaborated argument.

243

Your statement is both contradictive and flawed. It is not easy to dissect what is your personal wishes for intellectual property right laws and what your moral argument for intellectual property rights are, but I’m going to try and explain your contradictions.

You think it’s perfectly moral (and probably should be legal?) to break the wish of a movie producer to control his own works (“download a DVD-rip to watch it”).

You think it’s perfectly fine that someone uses illegal means to get what they want, if the producer of such a thing have “teased” the individual. From this logic, I would conclude that it’s perfectly legal in your world to rape a girl (have non-consensual sex) if she earlier the same evening have “teased me sexually”. As long as I pay her in some way(?), perhaps a couple of vodka shots? (“if the movie producer shows you a trailer, which you really want, you should have the right to watch the full movie, as long as you pay for it”).

In both declarative laws and in the introduction of movies, you are informed about your legal rights to only use the movie in a very narrow and specific manner (viewing in private home for a limited number of individuals). Yet still, you think it’s fine to break that agreement as you see fit.

I totally agree with the idea that the consumer needs to have his rights protected. In today’s IP-law world, the consumer rights have been reduced to a bare and absolute minimum. It’s gone as far as, content owners remotely disabling your access to games, software and media you have purchased - if you violate their demands on how you use (consume) it. This is a gross violation of private property rights, the rights of the consumer, that is.

The example with a security in stores is irrelevant, not based on reality. No stores would enforce security in such a manner, as they would be out of business quickly, due to competition in a free market, where other stores clearly wouldn’t enforce such harsh security protocols. In the world of intellectual property rights, the creator has the right to enforce any extreme form of security to control it’s creation.

DRM is not here due to the (lack of?) moral amongst the consumers, it’s the wish to have complete control of the distribution, use and licensing of the content. Wouldn’t you want to control it, if you could? Movie producers want money when you watch a movie in the cinema, they want money when you rent or buy the same movie on a physical medium. When you buy the movie digitally, it’s copy-protected. And obviously they want money whenever the same movie is shown on your network TV channels. Additionally they want money if you want the music (official sound track) from the movie and they even want money if you want to have music from the movie as your mobile phone ringtone (ref. Apple iPhone and “SMS ringtone providers”). At the end of the day, they make it very hard to reuse (in a mashup for instance) any of the very same creative work. I have previously done multiple attempts to contact right-owners to get a right for re-use, with no response at all. If I was a big-shot movie producer, it wouldn’t be a problem arranging with the legal contracts and payments for a right to re-use the creative works, but for anyone else with limited resources - it’s not even remotely possible to get any rights to any creative work of other (“important people”, most normal people freely share photos and content under Creative Common terms) people.

“Homesteading information space” does involve contributions of other existing “information objects” that you mentally process. Original and new ideas doesn’t spawn from the inner depths of our brains, they are transformations of existing knowledge and experience combined with the conscious processes to produce something unique and new. Therefor “homesteading” a mashup of other creative works, which is not legal today, should with your reasoning in reality be completely legal.

This image of Obama is an illegal creative work, a mashup of an existing creative work done without permission of the original author: http://cosmopolisjournalen.files.wordpress.com/2010/05/obama.jpg

Is it destructive moral to allow this type creative works? And how is this different than if someone actually painted the same illustration instead of using another persons photograph?

244

I noticed the pro IP, freeloading hypocrites are still pirating symbols to advocate theft.

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IP communists have yet to give any reason why anything could be owned by an individual. No wonder they are communists.

246

You confuse me with someone else because in order to be a communist someone must be coercing you to freeload and pirate symbols to advocate theft. I was under the impression you were voluntarily freeloading and pirating symbols. Please correct me if there is in fact a communist holding a gun to your head coercing you to freeload and pirate.

247

Except, of course, for the volumes published in which we have. But go right on pretending they don’t exist instead of addressing them; it makes our job much easier. After all, the purpose of a debate is not to convince one’s opponent, but the spectators.

248

I noticed the pro IP, freeloading hypocrites are still pirating symbols to advocate theft.

As I said before, I consider piracy to be much less evil than communism. The pirates, clever as they are, realize the necessity of property rights by instituting those rights amongst themselves. They just enjoy, for reasons of short time-preference, invading property. They also must realize that, without property rights, the very things they are pirating could not exist. (If boats were not protected, there would be no boats to hijack. All production would take place within the home and there would be no trade. If software was not protected, no software would be sold. All software would be made in-house and there would be no division of labor in software.) They can only live as parasites as long as there are some property rights allowing hosts to grow.

The supreme evil of intellectual communism is not so much that it promotes piracy but that it condemns to death a major share of industrial civilization for purely ideological reasons. It is no different from any other kind of communism in that respect.

249

I gave that argument earlier in the discussion thread. Private property can be owned by an individual, through homesteading of the physical property. You only have right to the property that you can control (“protect”) and on which you improve the value through productive means. Meaning, you don’t own the north pole because you visited it first, but you are free to use productive means in the region to pump oil or sell ice. That is how you can own something.

When you sell what you produce, you exchange that perhaps for money. The same money, you might use to buy bread. Hence, you know own a piece of bread. If someone takes part of the bread away from you, they have initiate physical force and stolen that from you, robbing you from parts of your property. All throughout this process, you had to apply knowledge and consciousness to achieve what I just explained.

“IP communism” would involve a stance that everyone has a right on the same information? I’m against intellectual property rights, yet I still don’t think everyone have any right on any information at all. If I write a book or a screenplay, nobody has a right to read them or copy them. They are mine, until I decide to share them with someone, at which time that information becomes the knowledge of the receiver. That knowledge is the receivers and he is in his right to do what he chooses to do with that information. These two statements are not in conflict with each other, if they are (which I believe you think), then perhaps you could explain the error in my logic?

I’m in favor of the non-aggresion principle: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-aggression_principle. The consequence of this is that I believe no individual has the right to initiate force upon another individual. I believe you agree with such a reasoning?

The next step in the logical argument is then the following: If you want to control ideas you have shared with someone, you need to initiate physical force upon them to ensure (it’s mostly punishment after the fact) they don’t violate whatever right you think they have violated. This is immoral, as nobody should initiate force against another being.

Pro-IP’s will argue that violating whatever controlling right on the ideas, is in itself the initiation of force, but there are absolutely no logical reasoning that can get any rational human being to such a conclusion.

I gave that argument earlier in the discussion. Private property can be owned by an individual, through homesteading of the physical property. You only have right to the property that you can control (“protect”) and on which you improve the value through productive means. Meaning, you don’t own the north pole because you visited it first, but you are free to use productive means in the region to pump oil or sell ice. That is how you can own something.

When you sell what you produce, you exchange that perhaps for money. The same money, you might use to buy bread. Hence, you know own a piece of bread. All throughout this process, you had to apply knowledge and consciousness to achieve what I just explained.

“IP communism” would involve a stance that everyone has a right on the same information? I’m against intellectual property rights, yet I still don’t think everyone have any right on any information at all. If I write a book or a screenplay, nobody has a right to read them or copy them. They are mine, until I decide to share them with someone, at which time that information becomes the knowledge of the receiver. That knowledge is the receivers and he is in his right to do what he chooses to do with that information. These two statements are not in conflict with each other, if they are (which I believe you think), then perhaps you could explain the error in my logic?

I’m in favor of the non-aggresion principle: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-aggression_principle. The consequence of this is that I believe no individual has the right to initiate force upon another individual. I believe you agree with such a reasoning?

250

Linux and Open Office are free software products, why are there so few people using them as oppose to Mac OS X + iWorks or Windows + Microsoft Office?

Most software did not have the level of protection which they have today in the earlier years, yet software was still sold. Software has been pirated since the early days of computing.

Most software are built by individuals who work at or for corporations that have business needs they need to fulfill. These individuals does not own the right in their creative works, the companies they work for own the rights. Most of these software solutions are built by leveraging the existing work of other programmers, of which a lot is open source. Lots of developers share their creative works without restrictions. The way most people look at software is how Microsoft builds and sell software products, yet that is only a very small portion of the software industry.

“Pirates” who like to put their names on whatever they distribute doesn’t care about intellectual property rights, they care about their “street-credibility”. They want fame and glory. When I do any writings, I share them under Creative Commons Attributions. If anyone else can make money on what I write, then they should be free to bear fruits of the labor of actually transforming my creative works into something anyone would pay for. All I want in return, is recognition as the original author.

251

And that attribution can be justly required, since it would be fraud for someone to claim that the unaltered work was their own. Though the fraud would be against the consumers of the work, not the creator.

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21`Stranger: “IP communists have yet to give any reason why anything could be owned by an individual. No wonder they are communists.”

Ah! Yes! Because we believe that IP should be owned communally. /facepalm

253

The IP-monopolists could do well looking at the history of IP:

Patents:

Copyright:

Now, I wonder why they called it “Statute of Monopolies” to begin with?

Allow me to quote:

“The granting of these patents was highly popular with the monarch, both before and after the statute of Monopolies, because of the potential for raising revenue. A patentee was expected to pay heavily for the patent, and unlike a tax raise (another method of raising Crown money) any public unrest as a result of the patent was normally directed at the patentee, not the monarch. Over time, this became more and more problematic; instead of temporary monopolies on specific, imported industries, long-term monopolies came about over more common commodities, including salt and starch.”

Ofcourse, the way IP was born does in no way prove that IP is unjust, and simply a State-Granted Monopoly (ie artificial property).

However, on the other hand it does give some cause for suspicion, and as always I believe the burden of proof is on those that wishes to use State Power to threathen others with violence. Now if Onar would just respond to the issue of the time-limitation (without any more falsa analogies). You’re not scared of me are you?

Myself, I believe in intellectual property without any time limitations, so you will all understand that the fact that Onar wishes to use the State to take away all my valuable intellectual property and distribute it free to to all is something I find thoroughly disturbing, especially since most of it is inside my head!

254

Onar,

You responded to a fallacious farmer analogy above,

I like the analogy presented by a one of the contributors here with growing grop. In growing a crop a farmer is using three resources that are renewable and virtually unlimited: water( rain), light (sun) and CO2 (air). Why shouldn’t people be allowed to freely take the crop from the farmer?

This analogy was repeated and developed by several members on this forum, but the analogy is not relevant to this topic since it describes taking crops from a farmer (theft). This is not analogous since the crops are physical property and are not the information in his mind. Your position was that the information in the mind is property that can be stolen. But when I corrected your analogy to make it more appropriate to the discussion, you ignored it. I see you have been busy with other matters. Let me summarize my post of the new analogy here:

  1. Farmer A’s mind recognizes certain climatic and environmental conditions are favorable to growing certain crops including and obscure flower called crocus. Farmer A’s mind recognizes certain unmet consumer demand and high prices for products derived from crocus flowers (saffron). Farmer expends further brain power to study and learn the production techniques associated with saffron production. - these are all “products of the mind”.

  2. Farmer A plants acres of crocus flowers and begins saffron production. Before this, no one has ever planted crocus or produced saffron in this region. His “idea” is unique and original and the result of genuine intellectual efforts.

  3. Farmer B drives past crocus flowers and saffron stand and “steals idea” from farmer A, planting his own “copy” of the crocus field on his own land.

  4. Farmer A, enlists the state power to stop Farmer B and prevent him from profiting by the theft of Farmer A’s intellectual property, since such duplication of his plan and idea would diminish Farmer A’s “future profits.”

Now I shall dissect the analogy as it applies to property rights extending to the so-called products of the mind:

  1. This step includes inspiration and preparation or training – necessary prerequisites to any creative endeavor such as music composition, writing a book or farming.

  2. This step is turning the product of the mind, into human action. If “A” were writing a book this would be typing those unique concepts or thoughts in an organized way.

  3. In this step, another individual, with whom there is no existing contract “reads the book or hears the music”. In effect his mind is equally inspired to action, so he duplicates the planting patterns of Farmer A – potentially diminishing Farmer A’s opportunity for monopoly on saffron. Farmer B takes nothing physical from Farmer A. Farmer B uses his own land, his own seeds, his own water and builds his own produce stand. Farmer A still maintains full ownership and control over his own fields and production, he has not been assaulted nor trespassed upon in any way.

To put this into the book or music scenario, I would say that “B” printed his own book, poem, or music with the same formula as “A”. For the sake of the analogy, let’s also say it uses the all the exact same words or notes. It is a true copy. In the copying process “B” also uses his own paper and ink. Still, nothing has been taken from “A”, he has suffered no theft, assault and no trespass on his person or property.

  1. In this step, “A” enlists the coercive forces of the state to block the competition from “B” in order to protect is “future potential profits” that he hoped to enjoy from his monopoly. But this force harms “B” and deprives him of the use of his own property (land, seeds, water or paper and ink).

To bring this all the way back, it should be plain to see that the use of force in this way by the state harms the property rights and prevents competition. How can this be moral or ethical?

Having read your numerous posts, I anticipate that you would say that you would object to my conclusions in step 3. You would probably assert that the “product of his mind” has been stolen from “A” and that is his property since he had a “homestead claim to the information space”. You might even say that since the concept applies to authors and musicians, it should also apply to farmers. If not, why not? If so, we must go down the slippery slope that others have already brought up:

  • How long does “A” own this simple idea?
  • How long should competition from “B” be suppressed by the state?
  • What happens if “B” is inspired by a dream or develops the same idea through the same mechanism as A’s original process?
  • What if “B” never even sees A’s crocus fields but only reads about it in the newspaper?
  • What if B’s copy is similar to A’s book or music, but not an exact copy?

Can property rights be so arbitrary and subjective? Who is smart enough to decide?

255

Can property rights be so arbitrary and subjective? Who is smart enough to decide?

Why, the magnificent and benevolent state, of course!

256

Linux and Open Office are free software products, why are there so few people using them as oppose to Mac OS X + iWorks or Windows + Microsoft Office?

Because open source software cannot be produced under a capitalistic division of labor, and so the only people who can use Linux and Open Office are those with the skills to create it.

Most software are built by individuals who work at or for corporations that have business needs they need to fulfill. These individuals does not own the right in their creative works, the companies they work for own the rights.

Karl Marx wrote the exact same complaint. Capitalists pay for labor in advance of the product being ready, and so take the entrepreneurial risk that goes with it. That is a mutually beneficial relationship for the worker and the capitalist.

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Pro-IP’s will argue that violating whatever controlling right on the ideas, is in itself the initiation of force, but there are absolutely no logical reasoning that can get any rational human being to such a conclusion.

Onar Am is perfectly right, you simply reject the materiality of information. Information is a thing. It can be invaded. It can be restricted. It meets all the standards that you set for property ownership. The only reason that you could avoid this conclusion is blindness.

258

When I do any writings, I share them under Creative Commons Attributions. If anyone else can make money on what I write, then they should be free to bear fruits of the labor of actually transforming my creative works into something anyone would pay for. All I want in return, is recognition as the original author.

That’s great, but what does that have to do with other people needing to own the product of their investment in order to take entrepreneurial risks to create goods under the division of labor, which is what you are claiming needs to be stopped?

259

For years now, each time you speak about technology, you completely miss the mark. I use Open Office and Linux, and I do not have the skills to create either. In fact, there are 100s of thousands (if not millions) of people in a similar situation.

Your claims about the market don’t even pass the most basic evidence or a quick test of reality.

Linux is produced under a division of labor, and true market anarchy. It is designed, tested and deployed in a decentralized fashion, adopting temporary heirarchies as necessary along the way, with no prevailing hierarchy permanently entrenched at the top.

Examples like this completely undermine your argument.

260

What happens when all the workers become capitalists as well (i.e. self-managed workers, increased access to the means of production & utilizing co-oordination without an explicity capitalist role present) ?

Are they then exploiting themselves? Should they be shamed for it? I mean, some of them can get lonley sometimes & might be in-between relationships, so…

Er, yea, no, I don’t see how this is true at all.

Unless the “capitalistic divison of labor” never changed from day one of inception (to my knowledge, with the rise of technology & more access to the means of production paralell to the increased capabilities of the worker, including the ability to better utilize technology to self-manage & be the capitalist planner at the same time with others,) it has indeed changed over time.

I do not see how open source software cannot be created under such a circumstance, unless we are using different definitions of open source software.

Further, the availability of differing open source liscencing, which allow different permissions & contractual agreements upon use of different software, kind of imply some sort of notion of private property. To quote Linus Torvalds himself: “…he who writes the code gets to choose the license, and nobody else gets to complain.”

Also, I’m pretty sure Open Source Software develops stigmergically…

How cannot agents who specialize in specific tasks, roles, labour, etc. indirectly co-ordinate? Isn’t this what de-facto occurs in most open source projects, where people, to each their own abilities, contribute to the greater whole project?

You can understand with the last part why I find your post a little ridiculous, unless of course you merely meant there is no one single planner in the role of capitalist in open source projects, of which I would say both: “Maybe not in a lot of cases, but some people do emerge as planners, or trend setters in projects, regarding the direction of said project”. & a resounding "Duh."

Then again, I happen to think that in actual free-market (meaning no preferential madness or enforcement of capitalism upon those who want to have none of that capitalism stuff), OSS would probably operate a lot more efficiently, what with the lack of forced use & laws regarding proprietary softwares, so perhaps I’m talking past you or something.