Hi friends,
The idea of having a “legal copyright” seems to be crusaded against pretty heavily in libertarian circles. Could someone please explain this to me?
It seems odd to me that I should just be able to copy someone else’s music or writings – and perhaps even profit by selling these things which I did not work to create!
Why is copying so often considered to be acceptable in libertarian circles. I mean, if I copy Kid Rock’s music, shouldn’t Kid Rock get paid??
It’s artificial scarcity. Anyway, you don’t need copyright to make money.
There is nothing bad about copying because you aren’t taking any of their property away from them. You might take someone’s profit away but only if you satisfy the consumer better than they do; which is precisely what the market is about.
The onus is on the person creating an easily copyable product. If they don’t like being copied, then they shouldn’t create something so easily copyable.
Does anyone know why ISPs don’t charge per megabyte?
Why does Kid Rock get to multiply his creation by an infinite amount and sell off each copy of the same work at full value?
Read this, it’s not too long and will give a thorough analysis of the issue from a Libertarian perspective.
Because he created it?
I understand why patents are BS, but I don’t get why this place doesn’t like reserved rights. That makes pretty much no sense.
That link doesn’t address reserved rights. It addresses contractual tricks, but that is separate from reserved rights. Think of it as renting. You can rent out your house to someone. You are selling them the right live in the house, but you still reserve the rights to paint the house or some such thing. It’s similar with selling books. I sell you a book, but I reserve the right to copy that book. If you use that book to copy it, you’ve violated my property right in that book, and I can pursue legal action against you. Furthermore the proper restitution for using my book to copy it is A) I own that new copy of the book or B) You destroy the book. Furthermore I own that book as soon as you used my book to copy it, and using that copy to copy it is fully again a violation of my right to use that book to copy it, and proper restitution for that infringement is A)I own the new copy of the book or B) You destroy the book.
This.
IP is utalitarian bullshit.
You can’t own infinitely repeatable concepts and patterns. This is similar to other forms of state-sponsored aggression in that we can tolerate it to a certain level, but followed to its logical end would ruin civilized life. You can reserve the right to not be coerced to share your ideas, or not sell a book. Otherwise, “reserving rights” is just a semantic trick.
I didn’t say I owned the pattern. I said I owned the book. If you use my book to copy it, I own the copy because you violated my property rights in the original book, not because the pattern on the book happens to be the same as the one on mine.
If you sell your book, it’s not your book anymore.
If you put your book on display for everyone to see then it’s also not your pattern anymore.
If you don’t like your pattern to be copied, then you shouldn’t tell anyone about it. Or you could create an agreement with someone to keep it a secret. But if there is no such agreement, then people are free to do with patterns people find.
I responded to that here:
how does this follow?
Wait, now I broke into your house and stole your private journal? I’m pretty sure we are talking about you releasing a book publicly and someone else owning the pieces of paper your ideas are printed on.
If you actually read much of Kinsella on IP, you would understand that your giving a really basic and, in my opinion, rather tired and long disproven argument. That it isn’t necessarily “common wisdom” isn’t a valid argument. A whole lot of people participate in file sharing, and a whole lot more (artists/etc.) attempt to use civil law to make more money. All we can say is that people tend to arbitrarily wield power to aggress on others, if they feel it serves themselves and their actions will be viewed as legitimate.
Our actual task though is determining what is legitimate. What you need to do is prove that your stance is compatible with other libertarian grundnorms, or state that you profess whatever other flavour of authoritarianism and we’ll call it a day. Here’s what I want you to show: a clear criteria for the determination of when a copy-“right” expires; why Sam’s Book of Poems is valid for copyright but another infinitely repeatable, non-scarce concept or pattern, like that of the letter ‘A’, is not; and again, how this is all compatible with libertarianism.
“Why is copying so often considered to be acceptable in libertarian circles?”
You’re kidding me right? Copying is widely accepted as perfectly legitimate by everyone! Probably every business has a copy machine.
“I mean, if I copy Kid Rock’s music, shouldn’t Kid Rock get paid??”
Who do you have to pay for copying the letter A?
How would one explain IP in a Crusoe economy? It’s nearly impossible to keep another person from copying your work (whatever it may be) without a third party to enforce the “contract” between them. If someone buy’s a cd, what’s to keep them from burning hundreds of copies for free, and even copying the inserts/booklet that come with it for a small fee? Who’s to say that one can’t “steal” someone’s idea, and make the same product? Who owns the thought of the creation and production of a product? I can’t see IP being enforced unless their is a third party to enforce and keep eye on the individuals involved to make sure they don’t use their own property which someone else made.
A price charged for that CD based on an estimate of how much money the buyer can make doing that.
shrug I think IP could be preserved on the market economy. Even if we don’t agree that its a natural right a merchant could simply attach a contract with every bit of IP it sold, so that buyers would voluntarily agree to IP constraints.
So this would give vendors a legitimate gripe with people who copied there music WHO ALSO have this contract. If I DL music from someone else I’m not breaking any contract I have with the IP people.
Anyway, its for the market to determine right? Regardless of natural property rights, the only ones that will be enforced are the ones that are cost-effective to. So I might have a legitimate claim to ownership of a piece of land, but if its too expensive for me to build a fence around it and hire watchmen, people will be violating my property rights.
Its not a big deal. It just ensures that society doesn’t waste scarce resources protecting unprofitable rights-claims. Wow I hope the liberals don’t quote me on that one…