Air, water, etc. is scarce. Clayton is technically wrong in terming them “super-abundant” as if to say they are not scarce, tangible things. Ideas are not scarce. Watch me create the letter ‘A’ aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa
I fail to see how I am strawmanning you. You seem to be having reading comprehension issues or are being disingenious.
The paper of your book is scarce, fine. You sell it to someone either (as is typical) to do what they please with it; or under the agreement they not copy it; or under the agreement they not copy it, hire an armed guard to protect the book, and are responsible if any third party does copy it (which certainly almost nobody would agree to).
As creator of the book, you have no contract with uninvolved parties, and no way of demanding remuneration from someone for merely possessing a copy. The act of creating the copy from actually scarce material was not done by you and you have no claim to it. Attempting to do so creates conflict between what is genuinely scarce and what you imagine to be scarce.
You’re right, IP creationists are about as hopeless as religious ones and I am not going to waste more time with your “arguments”.
"Air, water, etc. is scarce. Clayton is technically wrong in terming them “super-abundant” as if to say they are not scarce, tangible things. Ideas are not scarce. Watch me create the letter ‘A’ aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa
I fail to see how I am strawmanning you. You seem to be having reading comprehension issues or are being disingenious.
The paper of your book is scarce, fine. You sell it to someone either (as is typical) to do what they please with it; or under the agreement they not copy it; or under the agreement they not copy it, hire an armed guard to protect the book, and are responsible if any third party does copy it (which certainly almost nobody would agree to).
As creator of the book, you have no contract with uninvolved parties, and no way of demanding remuneration from someone for merely possessing a copy. The act of creating the copy from actually scarce material was not done by you and you have no claim to it. Attempting to do so creates conflict between what is genuinely scarce and what you imagine to be scarce.
You’re right, IP creationists are about as hopeless as religious ones and I am not going to waste more time with your “arguments”."
I’m not making an agreement. I’m selling them a right in the book, but not all of them, just the ones that allow them to read it without the intention of copying it. CONTRACTS MEAN NOTHING without a transfer of property rights. I can break ANY CONTRACT I WANT if I am not violating property rights. Otherwise it’s just a promise. I can break promises. You seem to have some giant fetish with contracts as if they are the only thing which anybody can be held accountable for.
See every time you say “you sell something to X” and you entirely glaze over my argument. You have yet to respond to the fact that I can sell partial rights to someone. If anybody goes beyond those rights in that thing, they have violated MY rights in that thing, whether they be a third party or not. That is the ENTIRE ARGUMENT.
I sell you the rights to live in my house. I haven’t sold you the rights to paint my house. If you hire somebody to paint my house, both of you have violated my rights. If you didn’t hire somebody to paint my house, and they painted it any way, they have violated my rights. No contract involved.
If I catch you with paint buckets outside and you have yet to paint it, I can still kick you out if I’ve sold you the right to live in the house without the intent to paint it.
If I were pro-IP, I would rather tried to concentrate on “improving” (can’t find the right word) or creating IP ethics than discussing how to enforce “rights” on not scarce product.
As a creator myself, I am all for IP ethics (it’s only non-violent solution, IMO), but I will always be against copyrights, patents and stuff like that.
"If I were pro-IP, I would rather tried to concentrate on “improving” (can’t find the right word) or creating IP ethics than discussing how to enforce “rights” on not scarce product.
As a creator myself, I am all for IP ethics (it’s only non-violent soultion, IMO), but I will always be against copyrights, patents and stuff like that."
I would have to believe that there would be some measure of enforcement of IP ethics in the market. True, many would buy the pirated content to save a few bucks, but content published by the creator may carry somewhat of a premium, as consumers would prefer supporting the creator rather than a pirate, other things being generally equal. As far as I know, musicians are still selling CDs even though most any song can be pirated online.
He has been doing a very nice job of arguing it. It really is that simple, if we begin with a society lacking a central government.
Scarce things that have goods-character are valuable.
If I offer to sell a new object with contract saying I do not sell the idea just its product for price A, but I also offer to sell the idea at a different price B; and a person does not independently obtain this idea, but obtains it from looking at my object or recipe while I am showing it to him to sell, then he violates my personal property.
I offered to sell it; he refused to buy but took it. Yet he only “copied it” when I showed it to him to sell to him. I lost something valuable that I offered to sell and someone obtained from me. Of course, if he did not obtain from me, and never met me or saw my offer, then there cannot be a property violation, neither through negligence nor intent. If he invented it also, entirely himself, he can also sell it. Or he can disclose it, in which case it is common and valueless from then on in.
Case 1:
A seller, e.g., Mises Institute, Inkscape, Paint.net, and so on, decided nicely to disclose literature or software or technological proportions, selling only physical copies. Thus, no one else can ever now prevent by contract other people from copying these things. Only one seller has to decide to do this, and its done.
Case 2:
What if someone breaks contract and copies the idea between the seller of idea and the buyer of idea despite no-copy clause? What if no seller has ever yet disclosed the ideas. Is the fraud of the second party preventing a contract from carrying over to third party?
It depends. However, only insofar as who is liable to seller.
The second party (buyer) had no right to break your agreement in the first place. He cannot transfer this non-right to any other person. Any third party copying from the second party violates the law. If the second party was unwilling, then the third party violates the law. If the second party was willing, then the second party violated the law. The contract is a claim that carries along with the object, if the object was sold with a contract.
As Bruno Leoni said, a claim is a choice. There can be choice without claims, but all claims of all people that have been established commercially cannot be violated else an anti-property rights precedent is established. (See Leoni’s 1962 essay Obligation and Claim). The idea is that law is spontaneous. If this is so, all contracts must be respected by everyone. If broken, someone is liable for damages. An idea does not become free through theft; someone is liable, as specified above.
Case 3:
Machlup responds, “But the assertion that the recognition of anybody’s exclusive rights in an invention, in its commercial use, ‘takes nothing the public’ is a fallacy which can be rebutted, and has been for centuries… In particular, those who independently develop the technological ideas already patented by someone else are barred from using the fruits of their own labor” (Machlup 1958:53).
Correct; which is why IP spontaneous law will allow anyone who also invents the idea can sell it. But he must have discovered it entirely in isolation, uninfluenced by the other sellers of the idea; else he was a third party violating a no copy contract. Indeed, many sellers of one idea, if they individually discovered it and sell it under no copy clause can at the same time sell their right. There will be a market price then.
(If one seller wants to make it free, however, then the idea becomes free regardless of all other sellers. It is however unlikely that this happens. But it could. In that case, the idea is free.)
Case 4:
Common knowledge is not valuable. No one ever has to choose between a scarce object and a known formula, said Mises. A formula that is not common knowledge, however, is valuable.
Suppose A owns land, on which A own factory B. Suppose private provision of security. A has a formula that is not common knowledge. Assume C physically trespasses into B.
Now, assume there was a formula in A’s factory B, that is not common knowledge. C trespasses into B, then leaves, and reveals the formula.
A has lost something valuable.
In other words, if we privately or publicly don’t treat knowledge as property, then corporate spying is punished just as trespassing, when it, in fact, is clearly something more. What if the trespassing was intentional to get the scarce knowledge? Can a private property order tolerate the violent extraction of information form unwilling people? Suppose that trespassing is not punished with a large fine, but a certain production process, if sold before it is disclosed is worth a greater amount.
If I am threatened with a knife to reveal my business knowledge, does the knife-wielder go unpunished if he doesn’t, pardon the language, stick me?
After all, remember what Gossen, and then Bohm-Bawerk wrote, all people do control orderings of physical forces when they are producing goods. Is not knowledge of how to produce a good?
As Gossen said, more or less, when he was presenting the ecfonomic calculation: If people already knew what to produce and who to produce it and when to make the excahnges, then they would just do it, and no calculation problem would arise. But no person or central authority can know this.
People produce what has highest price. But they get profit simply ecause of better knowledge. It is knowledge of who, what, when, how that makes a producer rich.
And what is a technology. It is not a physical thing. Merely an array of proportion coefficients [A,B,C,D,…,Z].
That is only an issue if you deny your intentions were to paint the house. It’s up to the court to figure out. Were you carrying it towards the inside of the house, did you have plastic on the floor to protect if from paint? There’s a whole list of evidence which could prove your intentions. But seriously now your just being obnoxious. Your rights in property can be specific down to conditions of whether or not there’s an earthquake in Somalia. “I hereby transfer the right to live in my house for as long as there are no earthquakes in Somalia”. Once that condition is met, and proven, then you no longer have that right, or rather you still have the right to live in the house between the time that the right was transfered to you and the time that the earthquake happened in Somalia. But that time is gone, and the conditions of your right are no longer in effect.
That is only an issue if you deny your intentions were to paint the house. It’s up to the court to figure out. Were you carrying it towards the inside of the house, did you have plastic on the floor to protect if from paint. There’s a whole list of evidence which could prove your intentions.
That’s fine. You just have a really hard time finding out who copied your book out of thousands sold. Unless, that is, you are back to claiming property rights for possessing a certain pattern or identity in the goods of anyone at all, contracted with you or not.
Intentions are important, you need to connect an actual obligation not to “paint the house” (copy) to a person.
None exists between you and an uninterested 3rd party.
So, stop trying to give an air of legitimacy to what you are up to.
Since you edited your post:
But seriously now your just being obnoxious. Your rights in property can be specific down to conditions of whether or not there’s an earthquake in Somalia. “I hereby transfer the right to live in my house for as long as there are no earthquakes in Somalia”. Once that condition is met, and proven, then you no longer have that right, or rather you still have the right to live in the house between the time that the right was transfered to you and the time that the earthquake happened in Somalia. But that time is gone, and the conditions of your right are no longer in effect.
So what? Really you are talking about 2 parties being able to agree to certain conditions as long as they are logically possible. These are rather pathological terms.
What aren’t you getting about this? I have no right to stop you from copying my book. I have the right to stop you from interacting with my book regardless of whether or not I have a contract with you. The fact is that you have to interact with my book in order to copy it. If you have an unauthorized copy of my book, that is hella good proof that you interacted with my book. Part of the cost of violating my rights like that is that I own the unauthorized copy of the book.
I have never claimed the right to own a pattern or idea. It’s getting really old.
If you have an unauthorized copy of my book, that is hella good proof that you interacted with my book.
Nope, you sold it to B, who dropped it in the trash, C picked it up and copied it, D gave copies to E .. Y. Me (Z) just bought a copy. It is no longer your book. I bought the copy Y printed.
Y put in the effort to create the physical object, so much so that he even gave it a Y’s press stamp. You continue to make a claim to the pattern. I never saw the same exact book you originally printed or agreed to anything with you.
A third party is bound not to intervene in the contract. If they intervene, the second party is liable or the third party is liable to the second party to reimburse the first party.
As Leoni said, claims in a free market are always in harmony and never ambiguous.
The issue is whether our contract has anything to do with other people. The original thing that you responded to was supposed to show that only contracts like you are explaining work. But what follows from that is that it is not possible to use contracts to make ‘IP’ anything like it is right now. How would your contract have anything to do with a third party who happens to find a lost copy of your book on the street? Unless you are telling me that they are not even allowed to pick it up, read it, and get rid of it, your argument does not work. For, in picking it up, reading it, and getting rid of it, the third party does not necessarily handle it in a different way than in copying it. So it does not make sense to say that, whether you have a contract with them or not, you still partially own the book in any way that implies that third parties should be able to read it but not copy it.
By the way, as I said to hayekianxyz, none of this disproves that we should install ‘IP’. But we just need to make it clear what the nature of this situation is to not talk nonsense. The fact is that you have to either claim that you ‘own’ the arrangement or pattern, which you are clearly rejecting, or you have to say that third parties are not even allowed to touch a lost copy of your book, to be able to have your position, that is, pro-copyrights, even coherent. For it does not make any sense to say that you own the matter itself partially in a way that makes it so third parties are able to read it but not copy it. So, again, your only possiblity, without acquiescing to advocating that people should be able to ‘own’ certain arrangements, is to claim that third parties are just not allowed to even touch your book. But do you really want to make that your position?
EDIT:
I almost forget to mention that the other solution, which does not concern the third party, is to put into the contract lines saying that the person who buys the book is liable to pay damages if he loses it and, by that, lets third parties find and copy it. But, as other people have said, I am pretty sure that most people will not want to deal with that unless the damages are really low, which would of course make it pretty worthless to the person selling the book.
OK but if you want to avoid the “property in patterns/ideas” issue, you have to actually show a causal chain of torts. If someone steals your Rolex, you can’t just go out and grab the first Rolex off someone’s wrist that happens to look like the one that was stolen from you. You have to show that it is the very Rolex that was yours. Similarly, you will have to show that a book you sold with “reserved rights” was, in fact, copied to produce the illegal copy and, in a chain, for each additional illegal copy. The evidence would have to be sufficient to stand in a court of law, just saying “It looks like my book” is not sufficient as it would not be for a Rolex.
Scarce things that have goods-character are valuable.
“Goods-character”? I’ll let you define that for me.
If I offer to sell a new object with contract saying I do not sell the idea just its product for price A, but I also offer to sell the idea at a different price B; and a person does not independently obtain this idea, but obtains it from looking at my object or recipe while I am showing it to him to sell, then he violates my personal property.
How am I not going to “get the idea” when I read your book? I go to Borders, grab the hot new Al Franken book, the clerk says, “Sir, you need to sign here that you agree not to copy this book”, I accidentally leave it at the coffee house and it is across the world as fast as the internet works. Are you saying I am responsible here, or you are going to ask for a tougher agreement? Good luck with that.
I offered to sell it; he refused to buy but took it.
Now you are talking about something completely different. I take it that you actually mean here not, “he ran off with my book”, but “I exposed my magic recipe which had a ‘goods-character-easily-rememberable’ in lieu of contract”.
Yet he only “copied it” when I showed it to him to sell to him. I lost something valuable that I offered to sell and someone obtained from me. Of course, if he did not obtain from me, and never met me or saw my offer, then there cannot be a property violation, neither through negligence nor intent.
You can sign a non-disclosure agreement. It really isn’t clear what circumstances and type of IP we are even talking about now. IF you want to make money from your ideas, you need some process of distribution/production to go along with it. If you really want to make Blade 3 for $100 million dollars and try to distribute it through a movie theater that shakes down its patrons for movie cameras, and tries to get people to work for you who agree to die if the movie gets leaked, good luck with that too.
Nobody has still offered a worthy response regarding arbitrary time limits. It’s just a side effect from the category error of assigning property rights to non-scarce concepts. What if you write AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAABAAAA and I write AAAABAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA after I bought your tune, but you made $5 and I made $5 million? Where is the criteria for similarity?
If he invented it also, entirely himself, he can also sell it. Or he can disclose it, in which case it is common and valueless from then on in.
Really? Your product, based on the idea, only has value after someone buys it.
Reciting e=mc2 is substantively the same as a tangible good. Considering how big of an economics fails this is, I don’t feel like reading the rest.
The only thing of all this that seemed sensible is claiming damages from a mere trespass. You still have no right to the goods of uninterested third parties, the patterns on the fruits of the idea-stealer’s goods.
Please read my post earlier above and then Leoni’s essay.
In a nongovernment spontaneous legal order, it is true that IP would be nothing like it is not; but it would be similar.
A book in the garbage still has a contract and a commercial claim attached to it. And everyone must respect it, else they establish a legal precedent to not respect any claims.
Edit: too late post; but, e =mc2 is already common knowledge. If it wasn’t it would be logically subject to contract laws unless someone else discovered it entirely by themselves.
“Really? Your product, based on the idea, only has value after someone buys it.”
Nope. It has price. Value is subjective. Read economics. Value comes from goods-character defined by Menger and scarcity (which makes its economic goods-character which makes it valuable.)
Edit: an example for good measure: ‘cheese is valuable to me, but I bought something else.’