I disagree. You don’t homestead a land just by being there first, you have to mix your labor with it. Whether the labor is a physical one or a creative one doesn’t matter. You can only initialy acquire a property if you worked to improve it. Homesteading is a process of creation, just like the process of writing a musical piece or a software.
Regarding the statue, that’s a bad example. Its just like stealing a piece of metal to create a hammer. Obviously the hammer won’t be yours because you stole another property to create it.
Do you believe the music and movie industry utilize too many resources? I don’t think so. Just because a technology that enables better protection from piracy is not available yet and people act immorally and indecently by distributing movies, music and software which are the work of others, doesn’t mean resources are better used somewhere else. In fact the trillions of dollars that hollywood actors and producers receive today is the best proof that people actually prefer resources to be utilized there rather than in other industries. Unless of course you think movie producers are doing something immoral by trying to exclude others from selling their movies. I actually think they deserve to sell them exclusively, because without them these pieces of work wouldn’t even exist.
Yes I do. The music and movie industries receive artificial protection from the state, in the form of copyright laws. That distorts the market towards producing more crappy movies instead of more useful things like medicine. It’s like corn subsidies. Without copyright laws unimaginative 200 million Dollar movies would not be profitable and humanity would spend fewer resources on them.
So, it’s the state that forces the consumers to pay for what is clearly (objectively) discernable as crap? Is it also the state that artificially protects Ferrari and Patek Phillipe in the form of property laws? That also must distort the market towards producing more crappy, unimaginative $200k cars and watches instead of more useful things like medicine.
How can you steal something that someone doesn’t own? It was just metal before you came along. You’re the one who added “creativity”. You just said being there first doesn’t mean you own it. Just because someone else got to the metal first doesn’t mean it’s theirs, right?
Do you seriously not see the fallacy in this line of thinking? Again all of these arguments have been debunked for years. Please read the material that is available to you.
Regarding the statue, I think it should be obvious that you can’t take something that is not yours. Kinsella specifically said that the marble is not yours. On the other hand when you compose a musical piece you don’t take something that is not yours in order to do it.
Regarding utilization of resources in the movie industry. If we now abandoned all copyrights, would you feel that it is completely your right to distribute movies freely? I definitely would think this is at the least immoral. I imagine if all people were actually decent they wouldn’t distribute content that they did not create but in fact respected the rights of the authors. In fact since buying a dvd with a movie obligates you not to distribute it, and any kind of distribution is against the law (even without copyrights laws), then if people did not commit the crime of distributing this content, even in a society without copyrights protection such content will be kept private and payed for. Therefore to argue that resources are badly utilized really defines common sense.
Who the hell said anything about composing music? We were talking about homesteading. We were talking about your nonsense notion that “you can only initialy acquire a property if you worked to improve it”. We already established the guy who had the marble first didn’t improve it at all. So according to you, he never owned it. (Even though he had it first).
I can’t believe anyone could believe such nonsense. Next thing you’ll be telling me that the value of something is dependent upon the amount of labor that went into making it.
Eugene and some others here are missing an important point, confusing patterns with physical property. One can not create a matter, only to re-arrange it, however, I believe one can create a pretty original pattern (in music it is almost impossible nowadays, hehe). But we are not talking merely about creation, but about legitimate ownership of things, which must always include homesteading. One can homestead (and I think this concept was introduced in a first place because of that) only scarce resources, to avoid conflict with other people and so on. That’s why owning physical property that you homesteaded is possible and legitimate and it is useful. While owning a pattern, even if you are original creator (that is also hard to prove), is impossible, unless it is only in your head and no one knows about it.
Some could argue, that having IP “rights” is “useful” too (from pragmatical point of view), but please, prove it just once. No one did so far. Even if they did, it would still face the problem of impossibility of such a thing (in a sense, that there can’t be any real conflict between same two ideas in a heads of two people. My idea of 4 chord progression patterns do not prevent you from using the very same pattern in YOUR head.
One can not homestead an idea. If one could, then, how Kinsella pointed out countless times, people could “own” other peoples’ minds so to speak and it would insantly trump physical property rights and they would even become redundant.
The Lockean definition of homesteading is accepted by libertarians. It speaks about “mixing your labor” with the resource. You can’t simply declare that a land is yours, you have to work the land first. Therefore initial ownership is a result of labor, just as an intellectual property is a result of labor. You simply can’t say that property rights have nothing to do with work because homesteading is defined through work. So if we view work as an important ingredient in achieving ownership, why do you think it is so inconsistent to appreciate the work a person has done in creating a work of art or of engineering and give him property rights over his own creation?
Is it hard to prove? I don’t think so. It is extremely easy to prove that a piece of software or a movie was written by some person.
Now I agree that work alone is not sufficient to grant ownership. Homesteading requires both work and natural resource. Intellectual property requires both work and a very specific virtually unrepeatable pattern.
Regarding the consequentiolist approach to IP. I think I’ve shown a good example of how IP can seriously deter technological progress, in some not very distant future.
The Keynesian idea of government stimulus being necessary is accepted by almost everyone. In both situations I ask, so the hell what?
This is your problem. You think I can’t own something unless I “apply creativity” to it. That’s total nonsense. I ask you again: How could the marble be stolen if no one owned it? No labor was mixed with it, no “creativity” was applied to it until the other guy came along and made a sculpture out of it. So by your definition the marble, the sculpture…it belongs to the second guy. He didn’t steal anything. No one owned it because there was no “creativity” applied to it until he came along.
Total nonsense.
What??? It the pattern is “unrepeatable”, what the hell do you need IP for???
You’ve done no such thing. The only thing you’ve done since you created this thread is regurgitate the same tired arguments that have been debunked for years. Seriously…
I agree with this entirely. If its YOUR piece of marble I can’t just use creativity to make it mine. It is yours because you homesteaded it. Homesteading does not always mean that you should mix your labor with it, sometimes you can just pick the stuff up. Therefore just as Kinsella said creation is neither necessary not sufficient for ownership. However some creations such as “mixing your labor with an unonwed resource” or creation of intellectual work are sufficient for ownership. When I said “virtually unrepeatable pattern” I meant that it is unlikely that two people in the world came up with the same pattern, like a book or a movie. That’s why you can’t have an ownership of cars, or of fantasy books. You need a unique pattern like “Harry Potter and the order of the phoenix book”.
In a world where physical scarcity won’t exist everything of value will be intellectual. Without intellectual property we will have socialism, and socialism stagnates progress. I know I won’t let that happen. Besides I trully believe a person has a right to control his intellectual work, and make sure that if others use it, they use it on his own terms. Intellectual property provides this protection. In fact this protection wouldn’t be needed had people acted decently.
I’m beginning to think you’re just a troll. You literally just got through telling me that you can’t just claim something is yours, that you need to “mix your labor with it” or “apply creativity” for you to be able to own it. And now that you finally understand how idiotic that is after I’ve pointed it out multiple times, you’re changing your story and claiming you agree with the Kinsella.
If the resource is unowned, why does it matter if you “mix your labor” with it? You just got through telling me that wasn’t necessary. Seriously, are you on drugs?
And the second part of that sentence is a fallacy of begging the question. You’re assuming that “intellectual work” is something that can be owned in the first place. It isn’t. It is not property. That’s what everyone has been trying to tell you. You’re talking about a pattern. A pattern is not a scarce resource. If Jim learns Jack’s song it doesn’t stop Jack from playing it. Jim hasn’t stolen anything from Jack. Jack has exactly everything he had before. Ideas are not property. They are not scarce. They cannot be taken away from anyone. Property is only that which is scarce…and by that it is meant that property is only that which one person’s use limits another person’s use.
And in a world of sugarplum fairies and leprechauns my biggest problem would be making sure my teeth didn’t rot out from all the gumdrops and lucky charms marshmellows.
You have offered not even a hint of evidence for this rather large claim.
Do you wear a cape to work or something?
Then you should probably find out who was the first human to build a structure with walls and roof, and pay the living ancestors their proper royalties. Same goes for the first person to construct a device situated above the floor that allows you to place your ass down, taking weight off your feet, but at the same time keeping you elevated off the ground. Some people call this a “chair”. The guy who first thought that up has a “right to control his intellectual work”, right? I’ll bet you owe that guy’s family a bundle.
Would you like some more help figuring out who else you owe money to?
John, first of all calm down. Second of all I agreed with Kinsella the first time you showed me the paragraph. I still don’t understand the point about the statue, I don’t see how this invalidates anything I said. About your assumption that property must be scarce in order to be considered such, I simply disagree, so there is no point in bringing this up.
Regarding coherent IP theory. I think you will have only copyrights. The length of protection will be decided by the courts and will approximate the time assumed it would have taken other people to come up with the same pattern. For books, music and movies this will naturally lead to protection for life, for engineering inventions it might be extended for only several years. In any case, if another person proves that he came up with the same pattern independently he can of course receive the same protection.
Eugene, first of all follow some of the suggestions that have been made by multiple users and read some material on this topic as well as basic economics so that you don’t keep rehashing the same debunked notions over and over again.
Second, let me illustrate the nonsensical picture you have painted. This is you talking, in chronological order:
“You don’t homestead a land just by being there first, you have to mix your labor with it.”
“You can only initialy acquire a property if you worked to improve it.”
“Regarding the statue, that’s a bad example. Its just like stealing a piece of metal to create a hammer. Obviously the hammer won’t be yours because you stole another property to create it.”
So let’s recap. You can’t own land unless you “mix your labor with it”. The only way you can acquire property is if you “worked to improve it”. But at the same time, if someone else has some marble in their possession that they did not “work to improve” somehow they own it…even though you just said in the sentence directly before it that the only way you can acquire something is by “working to improve it”. Why do I say you’re all of a sudden claiming they own it? Because when I say that someone else comes along and actually does “mix their labor with it” and “work to improve it” you’re telling me that the marble doesn’t belong to that person because he “stole” it. (Even though he was the guy who did exactly what you said needed to be done to own something…and the guy who he supposedly “stole” it from didn’t do what you specifically said he needed to do to own something.) But let’s move on, because there’s more:
“…initial ownership is a result of labor…”
“You simply can’t say that property rights have nothing to do with work because homesteading is defined through work.”
“It is yours because you homesteaded it. Homesteading does not always mean that you should mix your labor with it, sometimes you can just pick the stuff up.”
So, here we have “ownership is a result of labor”…which literally means that you can’t own something unless you “labor”. And homesteading is defined through work…meaning you can’t own something by just being the first one to it, “you have to mix your labor with it.”…and then in the very next post you flip flop right over to saying homesteading is not defined through work…that “sometimes you can just pick stuff up”.
Do you get it now? You jump around more than a thin-skinned frog at Mammoth Hot Springs.
Fine, then let me be clear this time. It all depends on the type of property and the circumstances. In order to acquire land you need to work to improve it. In order to acquire property over a piece of marble you just need to pick it up first. In order to acquire property over a horse, you need to tame it, in order to acquire property of intellectual work you need to create a relatively unique pattern. There is not one single rule for homesteading.
So how deep under ground and how high into space must a property be? Did you actually touch/homestead/claim that square inch over there? What percentage of atoms in an object must you touch/handle/claim so it is considered “owned” or “yours”? Are the atoms coming out of the exhaust of your car yours? Are the dead skin cells coming off your body yours? What exactly are “you”, and who are the owners of the atoms comprising you now (considering that they are ALL different from the ones that comprised “you” only few years ago)?
Boundary questions/problems are a lot of fun, but they say little about the validity of a conflict resolution/minimization concept. Ultimately, if a concept resolves/minimizes more conflicts than it creates, it will be accepted by humans – boundary mental masturbations notwithstanding. IP is a concept that humans find useful, and I have a feeling it will only become stronger, with or without a state.