Whether one realizes it or not, defense of patents and copyrights puts one on the side of the opponents of liberty.Kevin Carson writes:
One of the greatest services libertarians can render to the cause of freedom is to agitate for mass defection from international “intellectual property” agreements like WIPO and TRIPS, and at the same time to promote the development of technical means of circumventing enforcement of copyright law.I continue to be baffled by those who suggest that I should have no say in how a creation of mine can be distributed.
This what's mine is ours view of intellectual creation is nothing more than a call for socialist principles of law to be applied in the area of intellectual creations.
Robert, I'm quite certain that even you believe there are limitations to how you can control your intellectual creations.
ReplyDeleteSuppose you record a song and you let me listen to it for a fee. Would it be a violation of your rights if I had it stuck in my head for the rest of the day, effectively replaying it without any compensation to you?
What if I hum it aloud later in the day? And what if I sing the lyrics as well?
Would it be a violation of your rights if I took out my guitar and played the song you created? And would it make a difference if other people were around or not? If I recorded it?
Each of these actions is a progression of the same basic action. Each is a reproduction, in some way, of a piece of work that you created and presumably did not authorize me to recreate.
One one end of the progression I'm merely reproducing it in my own head. On the other end I am producing a cover of the song which could potentially sound just like yours, depending on my talent.
I'm not writing these examples as a means of showing you that you're wrong to think you should have control over the work you produce. I'm simply trying to show you that it's not nearly as clear as you make it seem as to how much control you ought to have. And there, of course, are many people who believe that any answer is arbitrary, and that you cannot properly own ideas in the first place.
@Stewart
ReplyDeleteI am really not getting your point. Why exactly can't I restrict in anyway by contract the manner in which I allow you to listen to a song I record?
I can put any restriction on it I choose.
Obviously you can attempt to create absurd restrictions that are difficult to price when you word things a certain way, "you can't play this in your head without further compensation to me" but this is more your failing to understand how the price system generally works and how even this attempt at an absurd problem can be solved quite rationally. For example, there is nothing to stop me from selling you the song whereby I would take into account how much enjoyment you would get from it, in the future, by playing it in your head, and price the product at the present value of the future enjoyment.
When a retailer sells a coat, he does not just sell it for that day's cold weather, he sells it with the knowledge that with that one purchase the coat will protect the buyer many times from the cold.
Of course, you can make the entire transaction sound absurd by saying, "Are you going to charge the person for every day he uses the coat to stay warm?" The pricing system, with the benefit of present value results in estimates of the future streams of value solved that problem at the start of exchange, and it would apply in the case of the song "stuck in my head."
Your other objections appear even easier to be able to put in contract form, although why you would want to do so with some of your restrictions, other than to strecth this argument, is beyond me.
Robert
ReplyDeleteI think a case can be made for a middle ground between the "No such thing as Intellectual Property" position of some libertarians and the "crypto-Protectionist" , vaguely neo-mercantilist position of the various government and state protected corporate types we see in the DMCA etc.
In particular the use of WIPO and various "free trade treaties" to enforce IP seems extreme. Property rights enforcement by UN and international agencies and / or strong arm treaties with the most powerful government on the planet, is not really ideal from a small government perspective. Presumably if there must be government, let it be local.
What would a "middle way" position look like?
My guess is that Lawrence Lessig has come close to it. And he sees his "copy-left" position as reviving the ideas from the framers of the US constitution. Maybe Lessig is the Ron Paul of Article 1, Section 1, Clause 1 of the constitution!!
Don't misunderstand me. If you create a contract with a person on the issue of your creations, then you can stipulate whatever restrictions you feel like. Certainly you could add a clause in contract which prevented me from humming the song, or even repeating it in my own head, although that would be impossible to enforce.
ReplyDeleteNo, what I'm objecting to is your implication that you have this control implicitly--without using a contract at all--by virtue of being the creator. As I've argued before, these are two entirely separate things.
Copyrights and patents are not based on contracts at all. Defending them by saying you are free to contract however you like is just a non sequitur. They are titles to control an idea based on moral (and legal, obviously) principles only.
As an illustration, note that I have not agreed to any contract with you regarding the contents of this blog. If I reproduce its contents elsewhere, you can't appeal to a contract between us as having been violated. You can only appeal to a sense of natural ownership over the idea. It's that sense of natural ownership, absent any contract, which I am referring to.
Wenzel,
ReplyDeleteAll languages, were at some point in time, the intellectual creation of various individuals. I am curious if language should be protected as well, and if not, why not?
Zippers are patented... why not the spoon?
Or am I misinterpreting things?
@Taylor
ReplyDeleteIf you have been following my writing on the subject here at EPJ, you will know that I advocate copyright protection to all independent creators of an intellectual property. Thus, if someone wants to call "snow" "zerrbedab" and charge $10,000 for use of the word,zerrbedab, I see no reason why they shouldn't be allowed to do so.
In the same manner, I am free to attempt to sell a used Chevy for $100 million dollars. But who the hell is going to buy it. or pay $10,000 to use the word zerrbedab?
In a free market what might happen is that a creator of words would not charge for the use of the individual words, but charge for the dictionary that defines the words.
However, given that we now have a slew of words in the public domain,I see no reason we shouldn't be allowed to use them, with the stipulation that if a person or corporation can prove rights to a "created word", well then, it his word to do with what he pleases. The word "Coca Cola" comes to mind as an example.
Again, I don't expect in such a world people will be running around paying for the use of words, standard dictionary users will give out words for free to entice people to buy their dictionaries.
As for the spoon, why of course, any independent creator of the spoon should have copyright protection. However, it would be pretty difficult to prove that another person who claimed he had an independent thought of the spoon didn't. Thus, I would think you would grant this patent protection to anyone who claimed they did--which could be very many. On the other hand, the inventor of a complex product, say Viagra, will probably be able to protect his patent against most who claim they independently came up with the idea of such a product and how to create it.There's more to my theory, but you will have to wait for my book on the subject.
Robert,
ReplyDeleteWhat about "second hand" usage? If person A is granted by contract certain rights to use a intellectual creation, say the right to play a song, but violates this contract by giving a copy to his friend, person B. Sure, person A has violated the contract and should be justly punished for it, but person B need not have entered a contract with anyone. Thus, there is no contract which can be broken should person B choose to redistribute the work.
@EarthThatWas
ReplyDeleteI find it intersting that while you are fast to throw out the government declartions on IP. You come right back with Lessing's declarations as an option.
I belive my view, where anyone who independently creates IP should have rights to it, is most in line with liberty and the natural order of things. No middle road is necessary.
@Stewart
ReplyDeleteAs an illustration, note that I have not agreed to any contract with you regarding the contents of this blog. If I reproduce its contents elsewhere, you can't appeal to a contract between us as having been violated. You can only appeal to a sense of natural ownership over the idea. It's that sense of natural ownership, absent any contract, which I am referring to.
I can put any types of retrictions on commenters that I want, here at EPJ.
I can ask them to agree to any number of things if I wanted to.
It's not "second hand" usage. It's receipt of stolen property.
ReplyDeleteAs in all cases of receipt of stolen property cases, it would come down to whether you should generally be aware there are copyright restrictions. If you download a movie and claim you were not aware the movie was copyrighted, no one in America would belive that you weren't aware.
I can put any types of retrictions on commenters that I want, here at EPJ. I can ask them to agree to any number of things if I wanted to.
ReplyDeleteYes, of course you can--but you haven't. Are we to understand that the work you publish here is therefore free for anyone else to republish under whatever terms they see fit? And would that also apply to anyone else's blog that didn't put some kind of "contract" in place?
If you believe that a contract is necessary to assert one's control over their creations, then you and I don't have any substantial disagreement that I can see. But if you think that you have an implicit, natural right of control over your creations, then it's bewildering why you keep bringing up contracts as a defense of your position.
@Stewart
ReplyDeleteLet me attempt to help you work your way out of your bewilderment. The same way I use governmemt streets and sidewalks, I use the government copyright laws that currently exist, which is that anything I create is mine.If you will note I do have each page copyrighted.
I would welcome a situation where government wasn't in charge of roads, sidewalks and copyrights, but we don't have that world.
Further, even under current copyright laws, I can alter how I choose to grant rights for use of my work, this is a contract.
A contract is always involved implicit or explicit when I allow anyone any use of one of my works in any fashion.
In a non-government world, it is simply theft to take what you haven't created or do not have some ownership title to or other permission to use.How the creation of a physical thing such as a butterfly net has property rights associated with it and the creation of written work does not, when they are both creations of an individual, or some specific group, is beyond me to understand in terms of liberty and the right of an individual to maintain control over what has been created by that individual.
If you assume that you have rights to written works you haven't created, or where rights haven't been granted to you, is simply socialist though,i.e. what's yours is mine.
"A contract is always involved implicit or explicit when I allow anyone any use of one of my works in any fashion."
ReplyDeleteThat strikes me as absurd. How can there be even an implicit contract between, say, you and I, if I don't know what the terms of that contract are?
"Further, even under current copyright laws, I can alter how I choose to grant rights for use of my work, this is a contract."
Yes, under current copyright law you can create a contract that specifies how another person can use your work. But the contract has nothing to do with the fact that you have a claim to that work in the first place. You have to presuppose the right of exclusive control in order to believe that the contract is necessary in the first place.
"If you assume that you have rights to written works you haven't created, or where rights haven't been granted to you, is simply socialist though,i.e. what's yours is mine."
Is it "socialist" to think that I could, say, describe one of your articles to a colleague of mine over lunch? What if I quote it precisely? Is there some kind of "fair use" clause in your estimation of a natural copyright system, or would doing this be an act of theft in your eyes?
Or suppose I am visiting a friend's house, and I see a painting that you created hanging on his wall. Am I under any moral restrictions as to what I can do with the intellectual contents of that painting? Could I attempt to paint my own interpretation of it? What if I'm just influenced by the general theme?
I think any distinction made here would strike me as sort of arbitrary. And while arbitrary rules are expected in legal systems, they're not really appropriate for the sort of natural, moral framework that you appear to be advocating for intellectual property.
Is it "socialist" to think that I could, say, describe one of your articles to a colleague of mine over lunch? What if I quote it precisely? Is there some kind of "fair use" clause in your estimation of a natural copyright system, or would doing this be an act of theft in your eyes?
ReplyDeleteYou are asking a socialist question here and don't even realize it. There would be no rules "from above" as to what could or couldn't be done under copyright. It would be up to each individual, on certain items he may prohibit you from telling anyone anything. This is known as "a secret". In my book, I discuss a seceret as the quintessential copyright.