If you’re appealing to IP existing as property because it exists physically in the brain, then you also have to realize that same IP can exist in someone (perhaps many) brains simultaneously. You can’t claim a part of someone else’s body falls outside the concept of self ownership. On the other hand, if you pluck an apple off a tree, there is only one of that apple. There are other apples on that tree and on other trees, but that apple cannot simultaneously exist elsewhere (excluding the possibility of hypothetical parallel universes and the like).
Say you write this old B language Hello World program and claim it as IP, as it is part of your brain:
main( ) {
extrn a, b, c;
putchar(a); putchar(b); putchar(c); putchar('!*n');
}
a 'hell';
b 'o, w';
c 'orld';
Now I read it, and suddenly, it is imprinted on my brain. It exists physically as part of my brain. Do you now own part of my brain? What if I come up with this independently? Do you own part of my brain by virtue of me thinking up an idea?
So you want a cookie? My claim wasn’t against your experience, it was against the quality of your argument.
Then why are you promoting a labor value fallacy (as most IP proponents do)?
And what is my position?
Can you demonstrate where I have failed each of these three?
Guts are in short supply in this thread.
Well then how can you blame [sic] piracy for starvation?
The difference is that a potato is property. If the thief takes it, the farmer no longer has a potato. If I take the idea of growing a potato, the farmer still has that idea. So what has been lost? You claim future value in exchange.
Back to the author, you’re claiming that the author is losing his idea in the book, not actual physical books. This is the entire debate. Ideas are not physical goods. When we manifest them as physical goods, we have a property right in that physical good. But we still don’t own the idea inside it because we can only control ideas with regard to how we choose to make them available to others. You cannot control what I think or know, you cannot claim a property right IN MY MIND.
The only way you can claim a loss when someone steals an idea, is to assign an objective value to that idea. But we know that values are subjective, not objective. So how do you claim a loss for the author, when you cannot prove what value was taken?
Your position is a labor value position. You’re equating real goods like potatoes with ideas to create a concept of intellectual property. To do so, you have to reject subjective value theory. Why do you reject subjective value theory?
The author can try to gain a profit from his book as well. No one is denying that. I gave an example of how the publishing industry has developed to allow authors to gain a profit. Or are you saying that authors are also entitled to a profit for trying, even if they try the wrong way (back to the labor theory)?
You adhere to the labor theory. Not the farmer. Your position requires a labor theory of value to work. It is incompatible with subjective value theory and marginalism.
CSJtheory wrote the following post at Fri, Oct 22 2010 11:35 PM:
Good points and research David.
As far as the 3rd party issue… Assuming the original work of authorship qualifies for property protections, similar to the way copyright is treated…
Morally: Once a 3rd party is made aware they acquired illegitimately derived property (however the means), they would be morally obligated to remove/return their copy. Future copies derived from their illegitimate copy would be immoral as well as subject to sanctioning.
Legally: In an anarcho-capitalist society, sanctioning could be handled by a private organization - through voluntary contracts people agreed to as part of other economic transactions (similar to private rights/insurance/enforcement organizations). In a minarchist society this might still be enforced by a limited government.
Of course, people in any society can go renegade and ignore all that, but the immorality and sanctioning will be a deterrent that will minimize aggressions.
Thanks for making the distinction between the moral and legal issues CSJtheory. My questions have more to do with the moral/ethical side and apply to the idea of honoring contracts. I also have questions concerning what falls within the realm of aggressive acts.
At first, I felt it was necessary to determine if a thought or idea can be recognized as property at all (I still don’t think it can) in order to determine if it deserves any protection. But going back to Rothbard’s reasoning, I now recognize that these moral questions about contracts and aggression can be answered apart from answering the question about whether a thought or idea is actually property.
I think there are some on this thread who insist that a thought or idea is by nature entitled to the same protection as tangible property. I think in isolation this leads to an inherent conflict with principals such as non-aggression, scarcity and subjective utility. OTOH, if you look at copyrights as a voluntary common-law contract as Rothbard has, it leads to different conclusions. Rothbard is not saying that a thought or an idea is property at all. I understand what he says to mean that a book, a CD or even a mousetrap can be exchanged voluntarily without passing the right to reproduce it. The free market is what should determine if this is a viable business. It also doesn’t need a government definition or some arbitrary length of time applied by decree.
To summarize my understanding:
Without any explicit copyright expression in the voluntary exchange, there can be no limit or restriction on what the buyer can later do with his own property. There is no implied or natural copyright.
When such an explicit expression of copyright is included in the voluntary exchange, it becomes the moral obligation of the buyer to honor those terms. They have agreed to a restriction of use.
When a third party acquires the book/music/mousetrap, they can never have a greater claim to it than what was originally given in the first sale. In ignorance they may not know there was any restriction and proceed to reproduce without any moral offense. If after notification they do not return the illegitimate copies and cease with the reproduction, they are aggressing against the original author/producer.
In some (many) cases, the market “discount” for this voluntary restriction will need to be so small that the author is unable to sell any copies, unless he offers it without restrictions. The gap between the price with unlimited use and the price with voluntary restrictions will be a reflection of the success, popularity or scarcity of the author’s talent.
None of this has to do anything with the state, nor does it need the state for enforcement or coercion.
A simple one, is the content of Project Gutenberg. If people are still willing to pay for hundred and thousand year old classics which are in the public domain, what pathetic author cannot sell his book of fresh, new and unique content, and who is to really blame for that?
Idk. I would say they do that because existing copies are rare, and you’re not allowed to plagarize it as far as I know.
That’s what the issue boils down to me. I don’t care one way or another, but in my view, we should not allow plagarizing. Recognition rights, at the least.
You can go to any bookstore and pick up dirt cheap paperback copies of all of these classics AND you can download and print them yourself. There are no IP claims to these works, and people STILL continue to spend money on them. According to the IP proponents, this paradigm cannot exist, because if a [sic] pirate takes a copy (for the price of zero) and distributes the content freely (as Project Gutenberg does) then the author must starve.
LvMI is a fantastic example of this. They give away the book for free in printable format. They publish it to the web without a claim beyond attribution. They even sometimes create audiobooks and give those away for free. And yet people flock to the bookstore to buy these books just the same. According to our IP friends, this cannot happen. So much [sic] piracy should have driven the LvMI bookstore out of business.
Not that I disagree even in the slightest, but do you know a reason (either via praxeology or some other means) as to why people choose to buy a freely available product? I’m fairly certain there’s a term for this (having to do with a natural tendency to support what’s perceived as beneficial to the species at what’s likewise perceived as an acceptable expense), but such is escaping me at the moment.
Not that I disagree even in the slightest, but do you know a reason (either via praxeology or some other means) as to why people choose to buy a freely available product?
I have a leather-bound copy of The Complete Works of Shakespeare. It looks much better on the shelf than my print-outs would.
I’m really not sure. I think it really comes down to perception of value, which is why the notion of lost value from ideas spreading isn’t quantifiable. This may be why Kinsella has gone on the offensive (and rightfully so) in asking IP proponents to quantify their claims. It’s impossible to quantify subjective loss.
JackCuyler wrote the following post at Sat, Oct 23 2010 1:29 PM:
No, that’s ok, because the farmer next door didn’t steal HIS potatoes. He PRODUCED his OWN and did so cheaper. The correct analogy in IP is that some other author produces his own novel which is so good that people prefer to buy this novel over the other author’s novel. THAT’s competition. Stealing your neighbor farmer’s potatoes is NOT competition. It’s theft.
No, that’s ok, because the farmer next door didn’t steal HIS potatoes. He PRODUCED his OWN and did so cheaper. The correct analogy in IP is that some other author produces his own novel which is so good that people prefer to buy this novel over the other author’s novel. THAT’s competition. Stealing your neighbor farmer’s potatoes is NOT competition. It’s theft.
We agree; stealing potatoes is theft. The owner of the potatoes can show clear damages – he no longer has his potatoes. What are the damages can the author show? He still has his novel. Not a single copy is missing.
Onar: “I’ve seen frighteningly few. Here’s an example: common sense dictates that an author who sells zero books because his books have been pirated and who starves to death because he didn’t make money from the book has been robbed of his livelihood and even his life due to piracy.”
To be “robbed of his livelihood” implies there some owned thing called a livelihood (it could not be robbed, or stolen, if it is not owned). Since this livelihood apparently means royalties from sales of books, the property right in the livelihood really means a property right in other people–in putative customers; or in their money. It means you have a right to have people patronize you, and/or do the money in their wallets. Wahtever this is, it’s not libertarianism. By similar reasoning we should give any business a monopoly–otherwise his competitors “steal” “his” customers. And I own my girlfriend–this prevents some other guy from stealing my gal!
