The Moral Basis for Intellectual Property

[SondreB]

@Stranger

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.

That’s clearly rubbish. Unless I woke up this morning and some big news have happened, we still don’t have the tools to do precise manipulation of the human mind. If information is a “thing”, then clearly you should somehow be able (and allowed) to remove that information from the head of any individual who have gained access to it without your permissions. Additionally, you should obviously be allowed to install surveillance cameras on the property of all those individual you have given your information too, as a means to document any violation of your right to control that information.

Anyone claiming right on any information, would be the one responsible for documenting the claims that a third party has violated it’s rights. But since this clearly is impossible in most normal cases (which doesn’t involve copying and sharing full copies of books and music), you have the state give individuals patent (and other) rights, which gives exclusive access, no matter how third parties came about the same information patterns.

A correct analogy in the physical world to the concept “homesteading of information space”, would be that you find a piece of land that contains a tree with fruits. Then at the same time, across the planet, I find another piece of land that also contains a tree with the very same kind of fruit. In this situation, you think it’s morally correct to utilize an armed state to rob that property from me, due to the fact that you found a similar piece of land “before” me. I write “before” me, cause you actually don’t need to find it before me, only be the one who claims to have found it with the state before anyone else. Even if I spent thousand of dollars to travel across the world and I lived in the forest a whole year to find the discovery of this fruit, and you only spent an evening taking a stroll in your back yard, you think you are the one with the right to control and restrict.

That my friend, is what I think is clearly rubbish and I think it’s highly immoral.

[Live_Free_Or_Die]

Let me see if I got this correct:

The freeloading, symbol pirating, hypocrite pro IP Nazi’s want a blessing to use force against employed engineers, scientists, and programmers who act on their own ideas outside of the workplace but thought up in the workplace in order to protect IP because engineers, scientists, and programmers own their own thoughts?

I never knew it made such perfect sense. Where can I apply for this benevolent slavery?

[onarchy]

David wrote the following post at Wed, Oct 20 2010 3:10 AM:

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.

Normally I try to be flexible with my opponents’ terms and their semantics. I don’t try to quibble when a different word than expected is used (e.g. “threshold” instead of “boundary”) as long as the meaning conveyed is appropriate, but in this case I must react because you seem to genuinely not understand what an analogy is. The example you gave is NOT an analogy, but another example or instance of a category. A cat as a mammal is not analogous to dog as a mammal. They ARE both mammals. The example YOU gave is just an instance of intellectual property. Analogies however refer to when there are essential differences, yet some impotrant similarities. Example: an airplane is analogous to a bird.

The analogy I was referring to is the following situation:

anti-IP focus on the WRONG and IRRELEVANT non-scarce resource (the physical copyability of information), and ignore the one that is important (the scarcity of a mind)

in the farmer example, the people who steal the crop and the farmer’s labor (which is a scarce resource, just like the mind) focus on the WRONG and IRRELEVANT abundant resources (sun, rain, air).

The reason why you are obviously capable of seeing this is because a crop is a physical thing, and as materialists you recognize that as an existent. You can touch and feel it and therefore you more easily imagine that it is something that can be owned. But intellectual work and its fruit (the particular information pattern that results from that work) cannot be touched and therefore you deny that it is something real. THIS is the crux of the debate. Everything else, including the examples you gave, is just noise.

In your example of the farmer who copies another farmer, the question is this: was this common knowledge or was he copying something unique and very innovative, for instance a special kind of farm practice? If the knowledge copied is common knowledge or of common engineering grade then it is nothing unique and hence no information theft has occurred. If on the other hand, the farming technique is unique and very beneficial then the inventor of that technique has a right to protect that technique for a limited period of time (say 20 years) to reap the full benefits of it. As I mentioned earlier, the best way to protect it may not be patents, but might often rather be academic property rights.

How long does “A” own this simple idea?

How long should competition from “B” be suppressed by the state?

Well, simple farming was maybe innovative 10-12,000 years ago. Clearly it is not now. Any novelty has worn off long ago. The approximate lifetime of intellectual property should be about 1 generation +/-.

What happens if “B” is inspired by a dream or develops the same idea through the same mechanism as A’s original process?

Shit happens. Life ain’t supernaturally perfect.

What if “B” never even sees A’s crocus fields but only reads about it in the newspaper?

He has still accessed the same information.

What if B’s copy is similar to A’s book or music, but not an exact copy?

Similarity can be accurately measured and if it is clear that a music work is a copy if not exact, then copyright laws still apply. Here is an example of something that in my view is a violation of copyright:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MqBQ9eA5-P4

This is Fugees “Ready or not” which “quotes” a phrase from Enya’s Boadicea:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N_uE9Qkm1-0

In this case Fugees weasles out of paying royalties to Enya by only quoting a few second’s worth of Enya, yet they LOOP it and it goes as an element through the whole song. Any normal MIND is capable of immediately recognizing that this is sampled from Enya, and since information only exists in the mind this is where the similarity must be judged. Copyright laws should be revised for music to include musical quotes that make up a significant portion of a song. Fugees would thus have had to pay Enya for quoting her so extensively and making it an integral part of the song.

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

Did YOU recognize Enya in Fugees’ song? Do you think most people will recognize this? If so then you have just seen an example of something that is not arbitrary. Information exists only in the mind and therefore one constantly have to measure the mind’s response to information to determine where the boundaries of IP are.

You confuse reality orientation and empirical investigation with being arbitrary and subjective. There is nothing arbitrary about IP. The principles used to determine what the IP should be are the same. I would liken the process to archeology. In archeology you unearth new and surprising things all the time that you could not have known in advance. Every site is unique and may have to be treated differently due to different issues, such as flooding, soil condition, structural integrity etc. However, this does not mean that archeology is an arbitrary and subjective field. There is a strict method behind it to uncover and preserve the evidence. So what you should be asking is not why the boundaries in IP are such an such, but by which method one arrived at them. What is the reasoning behind them? Is there a consistent methodology? What is it? What are the principles of unearthing the structure of IP?

[onarchy]

Re symbol pirating:

Symbols that have been in use for a long time are no longer intellectual property. Their novelty has worn off long ago. This is not piracy.

[Live_Free_Or_Die]

THIS is the crux of the debate.

Shit happens.

The crux of the debate is that when Shit happens it should never involve pointing a gun at someone else. Gun pointing should be reserved for something serious, not just some Shit happening.

Musicians must be estatic about the internet and such a cheap distribution medium where they can forgo traditional record labels and also weasel out of paying royalties while piggybacking on other peoples ideas who think up all this technology. They are first in the weasel line when it comes to using other peoples ideas and first in the bitch line when it comes to anyone using their ideas.

[boniek]

Novel to whom? I assure you they are pretty novel to each child that learns to read and write.

[Mises_Pieces]

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.

You don’t have to invade something to copy it. Expectations of future monopoly profit cannot be homesteaded.

[Live_Free_Or_Die]

I think we could benefit a thing or two by helping the freeloading, symbol pirating, technology piggybacking, royalty weasling, hypocritical pro IP Nazi’s out by lobbying to stilfe more competition in the current economy and expedite the future. Heck, I can sell this:

Underpaid? Overworked?

Let’s face it you are getting screwed by the man.

They tell you what to do, pay you peanuts, and steal all of your ideas in the workplace.

Support HR-GETPAID today and demand Congress reform minimum wage laws to include minimum mental wages!

While were at it let’s demand an inflation raise!

Again Support HR-GETPAID… thats HR-4387243 for those in the know…

Let’s get the minimum wage laws doubled and really make the economy interesting.

[Stranger]

That’s clearly rubbish. Unless I woke up this morning and some big news have happened, we still don’t have the tools to do precise manipulation of the human mind. If information is a “thing”, then clearly you should somehow be able (and allowed) to remove that information from the head of any individual who have gained access to it without your permissions. Additionally, you should obviously be allowed to install surveillance cameras on the property of all those individual you have given your information too, as a means to document any violation of your right to control that information.

This objection is nonsensical. The ability to remove illegal property intact is not a condition for maintaining ownership. If I build a house illegally on someone else’s land, the only way for him to remove the house is to destroy it. That does not mean he loses ownership of land.

Regardless no one is arguing that minds need to be invaded except you. IP is quite reasonably based on restricting action, not denying information from entering the mind.

[Stranger]

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.

The question asked to me was why Linux and OpenOffice were less popular than MacOS X and Pages. The reason, if you understand economics and the division of labor, is obvious. The features of MacOS X were carefully chosen for the typical customers that Apple cultivates. The features of Linux were chosen for the programmers of Linux. Since Linux cannot be capitalized, it cannot be turned into a customer-driven product.

Whether or not open source is stigmergy is irrelevant, it is still not a division of labor relationship.

[Stranger]

Musicians must be estatic about the internet and such a cheap distribution medium where they can forgo traditional record labels and also weasel out of paying royalties while piggybacking on other peoples ideas who think up all this technology.

The role of record labels was to finance the production of studio-quality music out of their own capital, taking an entrepreneurial risk on an artist using the limited professional-grade recording studios available. This is why they were owed royalties or even owned the music produced. It was pure capitalism and it made possible a consumer music business.

It is not so much piracy that has changed the relationship between musicians and labels, since studio-quality music must still produced. What has changed is that the costs of setting up a studio have fallen significantly. Popular music can almost be produced by computer software alone. Once that happens a label investment is no longer needed.

[SondreB]

@Stranger

That’s clearly rubbish. Unless I woke up this morning and some big news have happened, we still don’t have the tools to do precise manipulation of the human mind. If information is a “thing”, then clearly you should somehow be able (and allowed) to remove that information from the head of any individual who have gained access to it without your permissions. Additionally, you should obviously be allowed to install surveillance cameras on the property of all those individual you have given your information too, as a means to document any violation of your right to control that information.

This objection is nonsensical. The ability to remove illegal property intact is not a condition for maintaining ownership. If I build a house illegally on someone else’s land, the only way for him to remove the house is to destroy it. That does not mean he loses ownership of land.

Regardless no one is arguing that minds need to be invaded except you. IP is quite reasonably based on restricting action, not denying information from entering the mind.

Since you did not comment on my analogy, I have to presume you agree to the absurdity of claiming ownership on being “first” to find a tree with fruits.

My example with the mind is only to illustrate that it’s not possible to remove information that enters the brain, and which you surely confirm. If someone builds a house on your property, that clearly is a violation of your private property and you can use retroactive force (he initiated it) to destroy the house he has built illegally. This is the core principle of private property, that you are actually able to protect it (or not).

How will you practically restrict the action of others in regards to creative works? How will you prove that others have violated your IP? The example that Onar gives with music sampling is clear, digital copying of anything is much easier to prove as digital bits doesn’t change. How will you protect information that have entirely gone through the mind of any individual?

[MaikU]

restricting action even when it doesn’t affect anyone?

[Stranger]

How will you practically restrict the action of others in regards to creative works? How will you prove that others have violated your IP? The example that Onar gives with music sampling is clear, digital copying of anything is much easier to prove as digital bits doesn’t change. How will you protect information that have entirely gone through the mind of any individual?

The human mind cannot process enough information without using copyrighted media that this problem would come up.

Regardless the burden of proof is on you to prove that your creation is an original and not a copy. It is simple to show.

[Stranger]

restricting action even when it doesn’t affect anyone?

If it did not affect anyone, we would not have this argument.

[z1235]

@SondreB

A correct analogy in the physical world to the concept “homesteading of information space”, would be that you find a piece of land that contains a tree with fruits. Then at the same time, across the planet, I find another piece of land that also contains a tree with the very same kind of fruit.

Not an analogy at all, as it still only refers to the physical universe. A correct analogy would go like this:

"The tangible (physical) property universe comprises of 10^80 cubic meters of known universe, or 5x10^80 atoms in known physical universe. It would only take 266 bits to map (mark) every cubic meter of known universe with a different 266 bit number.

Each separate instance of information ever created (and is about to be created in the forseeable future) – all books, movies, songs, images, software, etc – can be represented by a 10 gigabyte binary sequence. (This size was chosen to accommodate the longest individual piece of information created, such as the movie Avatar, but could be any size without loss of generalization). The size of the informational universe blanketed by all possible 10 gigabyte sequences is 2^(8x10^9) separate instances which is vastly larger than the 2^266 cubic meters of the known tangible universe.

By creating a unique 10 gigabyte sequence of information an author/producer “homesteads” a particular portion of the whole (vast) informational universe (comprised of all possible 10 gigabyte sequences) much in the same way the first appropriator homesteads (has the strongest claim to ownership of) a particular portion of the whole tangible universe (comprised of all 2^266 cubic meters available). The “area” (in the informational universe) that is “homesteaded” (thus owned) by the creator/producer of any 10 gigabyte sequence is defined by all sufficiently similar 10 gigabyte sequences in the “vicinity” of the original sequence and all (signal processing and information theory-based) transformations thereof.

Thus the case for information as property is presented. Explorers and potential “homesteaders” have the vast informational universe at their disposal. Much of that universe is useless (any random 10 gigabyte sequence), just like most of the 2^266 cubic meters of known tangible universe are useless and yet to be claimed (or homesteaded). However, entrepreneurs, explorers, and potential “homesteaders” willing to commit capital and labor to find the valuable pieces of BOTH informational and tangible universe shall be rewarded by a claim of ownership of such discovered property – informational or tangible, regardless."

Z.

[SondreB]

@Stranger

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.

The question asked to me was why Linux and OpenOffice were less popular than MacOS X and Pages. The reason, if you understand economics and the division of labor, is obvious. The features of MacOS X were carefully chosen for the typical customers that Apple cultivates. The features of Linux were chosen for the programmers of Linux. Since Linux cannot be capitalized, it cannot be turned into a customer-driven product.

Whether or not open source is stigmergy is irrelevant, it is still not a division of labor relationship.

Linux is used on millions of machines, way more than there are actual developers coding Linux. The latest version of Ubuntu is so simple that most people should be able to install, configure and use it.

There is no limitation on capitalizing on open source, you can go out into the streets and sell copies of Ubuntu if you choose to do so. The only limitation you have, is that you have to include the (or make available) the source code to anyone who wants it.

Open source is a wide topic and there are many types of licenses and manners of developing software as open source. There are commercial software vendors who build open source software and sell it at a cost, often with a dual-licensing model. Some individuals like to think that open source is communism, which it clearly is not.

[SondreB]

@Stranger

Musicians must be estatic about the internet and such a cheap distribution medium where they can forgo traditional record labels and also weasel out of paying royalties while piggybacking on other peoples ideas who think up all this technology.

The role of record labels was to finance the production of studio-quality music out of their own capital, taking an entrepreneurial risk on an artist using the limited professional-grade recording studios available. This is why they were owed royalties or even owned the music produced. It was pure capitalism and it made possible a consumer music business.

It is not so much piracy that has changed the relationship between musicians and labels, since studio-quality music must still produced. What has changed is that the costs of setting up a studio have fallen significantly. Popular music can almost be produced by computer software alone. Once that happens a label investment is no longer needed.

Why MUST studio-quality music still be produced?

[MaikU]

@Stranger

Regardless the burden of proof is on you to prove that your creation is an original and not a copy. It is simple to show.

actually, the burden of proof is on the one who acusses (or claims), that I don’t have original “idea” or whatever I don’t have to prove that thoughts in my head are original. I don’t have to prove, that music I create is original, even though I was influenced by many musicians, movies and other things (like emotions etc.)

The burden of proof will always be on you.

[BiPolarMoment]

Regardless the burden of proof is on you to prove that your creation is an original and not a copy. It is simple to show.

Simple to show, impossible to prove. I guess we all need to have notaries following us around in case we have an idea.