Wednesday, April 3, 2013

Intellectual Communists

Strangeorousthoughts writes:

It has been a recent fashion by some libertarians to denounce the legitimacy of intellectual property rights on the free market. They believe and promote the idea that all information should be owned in common by all men, and that no man should exclusively profit from any information. This makes them, by any honest definition of the term, intellectual communists.

Most anti-IP arguments stem from confusion over the nature of information and its physical manifestation, which is why property in information gets bundled with property in ideas. Some libertarians, whose opposition to IP comes from a communistic sensibility to the production of information, when not actively promoting communistic models of information production, make liberal use of the confusion between information and ideas to promote the abolition of IP entirely and thus destroy their competition. This is particularly obscene due to the fact that the industrial wealth of the United States in the late 20th century has been grown precisely thanks to the capitalist industries that produce information, most notably the publishing, media, film and software industries, which have produced some of America’s most illustrious corporate champions and continue to be one of America’s most cherished exports all over the world, spreading goodwill for Americans where the export of bombs and wars have spread hatred.

100 comments:

  1. strawman alert. I do not believe that "They believe and promote the idea that all information should be owned in common by all men, and that no man should exclusively profit from any information."

    I simply believe that we no gang/or monopoly user of force should pretend to own or control the ideas in my head orthe books I own. Nor should they threaten the use of force to stop me from acting/whistling/talking/singing in some way becuase they claim I stole the idea.

    Nor should we taxpayers be forced to pay money so that a big company can set up prisons and eavesdrop on us to enforce their claims to my property or my labor.

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    1. >> I simply believe that we no gang/or monopoly user of force should pretend to own or control the ideas in my head...

      Just the opposite. IP means you DO own the ideas in your head. It's Kinsella who argues that you don't. Your thoughts are a form of IP. By arguing against IP, you argue against owning your mind. Should you have a monopoly on your mind? I think so and Kinsella doesn't.

      In a legal context, think of IP as the medium carrying your thoughts. IP is not the book - but all books that carry the same words. The book becomes the medium of the IP but the IP is the words... the thoughts recorded in the book.

      And with respect to monopoly, then to be consistent you must also argue against owning ALL property. You must be against owning a house, land, car, etc. because owning ANY property is defined as having a monopoly on that property. A monopoly the state should enforce.

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    2. " IP means you DO own the ideas in your head."

      not if you haven't paid your lawyer...and I don't even have a lawyer...IP is used by the politically connected to attempt to control the rest of us while taxing us for their own attack forces.

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    3. I disagree plenarchist. Todays promoters of IP are the ones who support taxing me to have Sony's government badged police monitor and confiscate my computers if they don't like what I am doing. Why should we be taxed to support Sony's violence forces?

      todays IP does nto protect those with original thoughts, it protects the lawyered up and those who can afford political payoffs.

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    4. IP is great in theory...I just don't want government involved in enforcement of it and I doubly don't want government/GE/Goldman Sach taxing me to enforce it.

      Are you in favor of the governemnt taxing me to enforce it? and then spending more tax money to keep kids in jail when government prosecutors claim some kids have violated IP?

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    5. Hey plenarchist, i bet you thought you were a real smartypants when you typed that up, but its all nonsense, you dont understand private property rights or monopoly and you contradict yourself.

      "Just the opposite. IP means you DO own the ideas in your head. It's Kinsella who argues that you don't."

      Anti IP means you do own the ideas in your head, IP means if i have an idea in my head that origionated from an idea i heard somewhere else, that that other person or 3rd party owns the idea in MY head and that i have no right to use it with my own property (my body, my brain, and whatever resources are neccesary to impliment the idea)

      " And with respect to monopoly, then to be consistent you must also argue against owning ALL property. You must be against owning a house, land, car, etc. because owning ANY property is defined as having a monopoly on that property. A monopoly the state should enforce."

      Again, you misunderstant private property, the whole point of libertarianism and private property rights is that he owner of property has the only rightful monopoly of that property, no one else. IP grants someone else a monopoly over your right to contruct things with your own private property. If someone gets an idea for a cool looking chair, and claims its his IP, it takes away my right to make a cool looking chair with my own property (my body, my wood, my nails, and my tools). So the IP claimer is taking away my private property rights wih his monopoly of his IP.

      IP is clearly anti-private property. not only do you not understand IP or private property, you dont understand libertarianism at all.

      Your post was stupid.

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    6. @gabe - "IP is used by the politically connected..."

      I agree. IP law along with the entire political system needs a major overhaul.

      "IP is great in theory...I just don't want government involved in enforcement of it..."

      I suppose. I'm against government so we can agree on that however you probably want someone enforcing your right to own land, car, etc. There's no difference.

      @Daniel - "... i bet you thought you were a real smartypants..."

      But that's just it, I don't. This stuff is simple yet you don't get it. I think people like Kinsella have so muddled the topic that people can't tell up from down.

      "Your post was stupid."

      Only the stupid post things like "Your post was stupid."

      "IP grants someone else a monopoly over your right to contruct things with your own private property."

      No, it doesn't. It prevents you from using someone's ideas to improve your property without first compensating them.

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    7. " No, it doesn't. It prevents you from using someone's ideas to improve your property without first compensating them."

      so i have to pay someone for the permission to use my own property (my body, capital, resources) on my own property (my land)?

      sounds very anti property rights to me, to tell me that i cant use my property unless i pay you for the permission.

      you cant claim that knowledge in my brain is your property, without claiming that my brain is partially your property (as Rothbard states in the ethics of liberty)

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    8. "... so i have to pay someone for the permission to use my own property (my body, capital, resources) on my own property (my land)?"

      I'll restate the point to make it clear for you. IP means you can't take my protected idea and profit from it by reselling it. Improving your property is likely of no consequence because IP should be litigated based on the financial harm caused.

      Unless you use the idea to turn a $100K property into a $1M property and sell it, then as the IP holder I likely have no incentive to sue you. But if you take the idea and erase my name, add your name, then sell it as your own expect to be spending quality time with your attorney. And rightfully so.

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  2. That...is a punishing rebuttal to Kinsella's arguments for anti-ip.

    Kudos to "Strangerous Thoughts"...and thanks to Wenzel for the link.

    His addressal of fallacies, specifically #15 & 17 are awesome.

    The example of fractional reserve banking and its comparison to copying in well done as well(#4).

    Just superb.

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    1. The article was full of the same old fallacies refuted umpteen times before.

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    2. The article is full of the same fallacies refuted umpteen times before.

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    3. At this point I honestly can't tell if you're a sock account of Wenzel's, or just a troll.

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  3. the industrial wealth of the United States in the late 20th century has been grown precisely thanks to the capitalist industries that produce information, most notably the publishing, media, film and software industries
    ________________________

    So, every time I cut and past a NY Times article or file share an album I need to pay money to the Grey Lady or to Hollywood? And if I dont, I am an intellectual communist?

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    1. Communists by definition do not observe ownership by the individual, only the collective.

      If you think there should be no IP (ideas are owned by everyone), then indeed you are an Intellectual Property Communist.

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    2. This is a willful misrepresentation of anti-IP camp, and a bit of circular reasoning, too.

      Anti-IP position is not that ideas are owned by everyone, but that ideas cannot be owned at all. In other words, there cannot be tragedy of commons with ideas (while it is very manifest with physical property). In fact, the real-world experience shows that commons of ideas (science, public domain software, modern electronic music, social networks, etc) are highly productive, while IP-controlled areas (pop music, drug discovery, literature, mainstream cinematography) are stagnant and nearly devoid of new ideas.

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    3. "If you think there should be no IP (ideas are owned by everyone), then indeed you are an Intellectual Property Communist."

      The anti-IP position is that ideas cannot be owned, not that they are owned by everyone, so they are not the communists. It must be those who think they own the ideas in other people's minds and can dictate who can build what and who can sell what to whom. Sounds like communism to me.

      Narby appears to be a Mickey Mouse thinker.

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    4. How you go from "ideas cannot be owned" to "all ideas are owned by everyone" baffles me.

      If ideas cannot be owned by any one person, then they cannot be owned by everyone either.

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    5. “If you think there should be no IP (ideas are owned by everyone), then indeed you are an Intellectual Property Communist.”

      Dave, what we anti-IP people are saying is that ideas cannot be owned. IP is not compatible with libertarian property rights theory. Here is Hans-Herman Hoppe:

      “For the concept of property to arise, there must be a scarcity of goods. Should there be no scarcity, and should all goods be so-called 'free goods' whose use by any one person for any one purpose would not in any way exclude (or interfere with or restrict) its use by any other person or for any other purpose, then there would be no need for property.” From his A Theory of Socialism and Capitalism

      If I somehow acquired a “Drudge Formula” from Robert (or someone he gave it to), how would my use of it exclude, interfere with or restrict Robert’s use of the formula? Saying that I would undermine his profits and therefore I cannot use the formula is not a valid argument under libertarian theory since competition is allowed. Robert would be able to use the formula at the same time I am. There would be no conflict over the formula.

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    6. "How you go from "ideas cannot be owned" to "all ideas are owned by everyone" baffles me."

      It is deduced. If something can't be owned by anyone then it can be said to be "owned" by everyone. What Kinsella and his ilk are arguing for is to turn IP into a tragedy of the commons.

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    7. The term "Intellectual Property" is a misnomer. Property is a tangible thing, ideas are not. Therefore, ideas, by their very nature, cannot be "property".

      Dave, we are not IP Communists. You are an IP Fascist.

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    8. @Scott -

      "Property is a tangible thing, ideas are not."

      I disagree. Open any book. The words are tangible. Watch any movie, play any video game, and so on. All are tangible properties. A patent is tangible. It describes in detail the idea in both form and function. That makes it tangible.

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    9. I love how the anti-IP crowd tries to buttress their argument with sheer volume of words.

      Fact of the matter is, the difference between something being owned by NOone, and something being owned by EVERYone, is nil.

      e.g. who owns "the commons"? Nobody, and everybody. It is understood it is common property.

      Also note that: "commons" is the root of "Communist".

      Sheesh...

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  4. Now all you need is to provide an actual construction of any IP regime which does not fundamentally rely on violence towards people who are not parties to any voluntary agreements.

    IP fails on the non-agression grounds, not on any abstract theoretical grounds.

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    1. I'm a 3rd party to your claim on your land, house, car... on all your property yet I suspect you'd use aggression against me if I tried to take any of it.

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    2. plenarchist...still doesn't understand the intellectual distinction between physical property and those who claim that thoughts in my head are Sony's physical property.

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    3. Yes, because if you tried to take someone elses property (land, house, car) that would be theft, youd be agressing against him first by stealing, dummy.

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    4. @gabe - OK, let's talk distinctions. Do you own land? If you do, how do I know you do? Prove to me that you do... You pull out the title and deed. Oh, so you own the land.

      I have an idea. I own that idea. How do know I own that idea? I pull out a patent that describes the idea. I have title to it.

      You have title to the land and I have title to the idea. In this sense, both are the same and the courts will back me up.

      @Daniel - How do you "own" property? The only proof you own anything is by the physical record showing you do. You can prove you own a car, a house, a parcel of land by the titles of that property. If you drop a $100 bill on the sidewalk, do you own it? If someone picks it up, can you prove it was yours?

      IP is a title to an idea and the title is what makes it property. This is not hard to grasp.

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    5. The reason for concept of property to exist in the first place is to eliminate conflict for the control of the property. In case of physical property this is necessary because it can only be in possession/control of one agent at a time.

      In case of information you don't have conflict for possession/control unless you artificially create it by forcing the IP rules by the edict. This completely defeats the very reason there's an artificial system of rules restricting what people can or cannot do, and introduces violence where there was none before.

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    6. The problem is with the actual scarcity. Physical property ownership is very easy to define and give title to. Unique ideas are extremely hard to define clearly and narrowly in order to discriminate them from other non-unique ideas.

      There is a real problem with having a public official in a patent office making a monopoly determination on a technical, narrow idea. Patent defense has the exact same problem.

      There would be free-market solutions to this stuff. The government obfuscates the underlying issues, just like it does when we have a Federal Reserve that has a monopoly on money.

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    7. @plenarchist

      This debate is about right and wrong, not legal or illegal. Law does not trump morality. The debate is not about how title is demonstrated. It is about the morality of granting title to an idea.

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    8. "This debate is about right and wrong, not legal or illegal."

      Yes it is which is why I support IP. And the law should align with morality but that's got nothing to do with IP.

      Like the other anti-IP people, you aren't grasping what property really is. I don't excuse Kinsella though because he should know better and likely does.

      Property is NOT REAL! What color is property? Where does property live? How much does property weigh? It's none of these things because property - like money - is an ABSTRACTION that does not exist in the wild.

      So if property is a function of a society, then that society will have defined property in LEGAL TERMS. Title (or equivalent) record is the only way we can define property unless you define it by possession only.

      If only by possession, if you step away from your car and I get in, I now own your car! Is that right? No. But how do we know you own your car? By the title! Proof of purchase as it were. Kinsella knows this.

      The same goes for a house, land, and all property of great value. And if I have discovered a way to levitate or teleport, those would be ideas of great value, right? So before making them public, I document them and obtain a title called a patent. Now I own the ideas as you own your car so that I can profit from them.

      This is not hard to grasp and it's embarrassing so many libertarians don't.

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    9. plenarchist - I'm wondering if you realize that all your argumentation is circular. You start from a premise that ideas/expressions are property and arrive to the conclusion that they have to be treated like property.

      Please explain WHY they should be treated like property, without the recourse to the nebulous will of the society. Society is an abstract concept and does not have a will, and thus cannot define anything. Sorry, category error fallacy does not cut it as a valid argument.

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    10. @averros -

      I'm perfectly consistent. An idea is property but not all property has equal value.

      If you have an idea on a better way to pick your nose, that idea probably has no economic value. Property with no economic value is of no consideration in the IP context. But the soon-to-be-published manuscript of a Harry Potter book, Game of Thrones episode, COD game DOES have economic value - great economic value. These are properties deserving protection but you nose-picking device idea isn't.

      If for instance, you were in a coffee shop and you look over and see JK Rowling toiling away on her almost finished 8th HP manuscript. She walks away from it to get more coffee, so you wonder over and snatch the manuscript, duck out and then print a million copies for your own unofficial publication.

      I think it should be criminal act to rob Ms. Rowling of all her hard work on a beloved IP product - and you don't. In my society, there are HP books, GoT episodes, COD video games and in your's there isn't. That pretty much sums up the difference between us.

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  5. This went off the rails immediately:

    "They believe and promote the idea that all information should be owned in common by all men..."

    This is not what anti-IP people are saying. They are saying that ideas are not *ownable* -- and to pretend as such makes as much sense as talking about dry rain. It is a logical absurdity.

    A key part of developing an argument is to at least understand the other side's position accurately, and then proceed with your case against. Beginning with dishonest question-begging right at the outset is not the sign of a good argument.

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    1. Ideas *are* ownable if the idea can be described and recorded such as with a patent. By your definition, land cannot be "owned" either. Without title and deed, how do you make your claim to own a parcel of land?

      Property is a legal device that divides our world in an equitable fashion to facilitate justice and a civil society. "Property" doesn't exist in nature as a thing - property is what we choose to make it.

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    2. This! Wenzel's argument here is a straw man. We are not arguing it on utilitarian grounds, but that IP is an oxymoron. We are not against privacy, trade secrets and contract. Bob's counter-examples are attempts to classify trade secrets as patents and copyrights, but they are different.

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    3. How is IP an oxymoron? The biggest frustration I have with the anti-IP people is that they always try to make an argument without the actual argument. An assertion is not an argument. And when challenged on the assertion, they change the subject. Debating IP with them is like trying to nail jello to the wall.

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    4. Imagine, for the sake of argument:

      The spectre of attempting to nail Jello to the wall employed to connote futility is a protected idea. Not only is your use a violation, but EPJ, and each person who views this page are in violation.

      What now?

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    5. "This is not what anti-IP people are saying. They are saying that ideas are not *ownable*"

      Is land ownable? Says who? Guess what: Land ownership is a "designed right"

      Same goes for IP.

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    6. Land ownership is there because land cannot be controlled by two people at once, resulting in conflict. Property regime is nothing more than a set of rules intended to facilitate peaceful resolution of this conflict (the alternative being the violent conflict).

      Because ideas and expressions can be shared indefinitely there's no conflict in the first place, and therefore imposition of any additional rules is just an aggression.

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    7. Say you invent a chair.

      Saw I look at the chair. The idea is now in MY head. My brain is my own. You do not have partial or veto ownership of my brain.

      Now say I go to MY house. Say I have MY wood, MY nails, my glue, my screws, whatever.

      You're going to tell me that you have some kind of claim on how I can you MY own property? you're going to say I can't use my own two hands and my property to construct a chair that's identical to yours?

      Why? What right do you have to point a gun at my head or extort money from me for simply using my own brain to do what I want with my own property?

      The concept of IP is ANTI-property rights.

      The founders new this. They never tried to justify copyright and patents as property rights. They just thought government should "encourage arts and sciences" (Read the constitution. That's what it says.) But to the libertarian, government shouldn't be encouraging or discouraging ANYTHING. It needs to leave the market alone.

      The idea that patents and copyright is some kind of private property is an incredibly NEW idea. Largely invented by Disney and Sony and IBM and other corporatists -- much like the Protectionists of the old Mercantile system argued for tariffs and central banking.


      TRacy

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    8. I guess that if you disagree fundamentally with the concept of natural rights, then there really is no argument left against IP ...

      But then, there really is no argument in favor of IP either. Unless you count the utilitarian argument but I'm sure you don't.

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  6. It seems to me that much of this stems from the idea that the United States Constitution or the Federal Government should not be involved in regulating ANY personal or commercial activities (if anything at all). And I can think of no more a personal activity than thinking. And commercial activity tends to be when a human being mixes their thinking with other resources (time, money, etc.) to produce some sort of product or service. To me, the idea we do not have any natural rights in our intellectual produce just defies my imagination.

    Yet I can certainly see the desire to keep The Sate out of such issues. So I'm wondering if the anti-IP argument would have turned out any different if they had just limited it to the idea that the The State should keep their nose out of such matters?

    In that case, intellectual property would be "regulated" NOT by a centralized, foreign entity (Washington DC, for example, being "foreign" in this sense), but by Common Law, the moral & ethical understandings human beings develop with each other over time to create & maintain a peaceful, productive & prosperous society.

    (Richard Maybury goes into that whole thing quite a lot in his **Whatever Happened to Justice** book. Although I don't think he mentioned IP per se, he did say many questions that SHOULD be answered by common law are not because its evolution was cut off -- killed actually -- by The State's assumption of a monopoly on "justice" long ago.)

    Maybe in their efforts to get rid of any justification for The State being involved with IP, they just took the issue way too far?

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    1. Patents and Copyrights didn't arise from Common law. They arose from protectionism and mercantilism.

      You might have an argument if you're referring to trademark however.

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    2. @ Skyorbit:

      There is a copyright concept in common law.

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  7. It seems like Wenzel and his pro-IP ilk are missing the point of property to begin with. Property is not about titles or ownership, per se, but about exclusion and violence. The natural law concept of property spells out the only legitimate use of violence through rational deduction upon studying human nature. The use of violence to defend property is legitimate because of man's right to his labor and the fruits of his labor. This right is based on exclusion so that the actor is not separated from his labor.

    When the analog of property is applied to knowledge, the fundamental basis for violence to enforce exclusion breaks down. If a person uses knowledge you developed (with or without your permission), you are not denied access to it. You still can use it to its full potential regardless who else has copied it. This is what we mean that ideas are not scarce and are not rivalrous. Since you cannot be separated from the fruits of your labor through another's use of your idea, you cannot legitimately use violence to prevent unofficial use or dissemination.

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    1. >> If a person uses knowledge you developed (with or without your permission), you are not denied access to it.

      That's ridiculous. Then don't be upset when the Fed inflates the dollar because doing so doesn't deny you access to the dollars in your pocket. IP uses induced scarcity to create value for the IP producer. If you don't think the IP (book, movie, program) isn't worth the price, no one should force you to buy it.

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    2. @plenarchist

      Do you mean that I am denied access to knowledge if some one else has access to it? That's obviously false.

      Your analogy also fails:
      The Fed's inflation is only a problem because of legal tender laws that prohibit by force any alternative to their counterfeiting as an exchange medium.

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    3. Yep. Debating the anti-IP folks is like nailing jello to the wall.

      Legal tender laws? Any currency can be inflated. Even gold and silver as has been throughout history by mixing base metals or clipping.

      But that's really not the point. The point is that anything that is multiplied loses value, right? And the value created by the people who produce IP is in the scarcity of it - an induced scarcity - so that they too can be compensated for their work and expenses.

      Again, you and the other anti-IP people would rob the producers of IP their just compensation. I call that immoral and I don't want to live in such a society. I also think (contrary to Kinsella) that if IP rights are taken away, a whole lot less cool stuff will be created in this world.

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    4. Value has nothing to do with property. Property is derived solely from ownership of labor and the illegitimacy of separating labor from the actor. Changes in market value of goods and services are completely irrelevant when discussing the legitimacy of violence.

      Also, your consequentialist speculation is irrelevant in a deontological debate about the nature of property rights.

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  8. Funny that the term 'Communist' is getting thrown around on a blog site where it should be understood. The problem with Communism isn't its fallacious economic doctrines, per se, but that it is always and everywhere enforced at the point of a gun...exactly the opposite of the anti-IP position, whether or not it is correct.

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    1. And yet if someone took your car from you, you'd likely try to recover it at the point of a gun.

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    2. "And yet if someone took your car from you, you'd likely try to recover it at the point of a gun."

      ...Or occupy your clear-title held land.

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    3. Whereas if someone "stole" an idea from you, the term "recover" becomes meaningless.

      "Recover" means that you had it at first, then at some point you lost it, and then you perform some sort of action which results in you having it again. How does that apply to an idea?

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    4. Both plenarchist and Dave Narby cannot seem to grasp that the debate is not about the sanctity of property, but about whether ideas are property.

      They, in effect, are saying: If you do not think ideas are property, then you really do think they are property and you want to steal them because you do not respect the idea of property.

      No we don't. We think they can not be stolen because they are not property. Their error is called the "Straw Man" argument. I note that they both keep repeating this silly argument with great relish and no doubt gain immense pleasure from calling the Anti-IP folks, "Communists".

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    5. If somebody uses your idea, he's not preventing you from using using it. There's nothing for you to recover.

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    6. @Tawke

      "... the debate is not about the sanctity of property, but about whether ideas are property."

      No. It's about whether an inventor, writer, programmer, film maker, etc. are to be justly compensated for the value they create.

      IP is not about protecting ideas already! So you think that a 10 million line code program is just a silly idea? Or a 1000 pg novel? Or a 10K manhour research project? Come on...

      You think that if a video game devloper spends million$ on developing and marketing a new game only to have some kid in his bedroom make a bazillion copies and distribute them on the Internet is OK? You don't see any injustice here?

      Either you haven't put much intellectual capital into this issue or your moral compass is broken.

      @Skyorbit

      "If somebody uses your idea, he's not preventing you from using using it. There's nothing for you to recover."

      And if the Fed prints a gazillion dollars, it's not preventing you from using the ones in your pocket, so I guess by your logic that's OK also.

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    7. The moral problem with central banking has nothing to do with that.

      The moral problem with central banking is that the government FORCES you with coercion to only use their money.

      If we had free market money, people would be able to choose freely the more stable currency.

      Yes, if the government inflates, it causes a whole host of problems in the economy. But that's not a moral statement arising from natural law.

      The immoral part about it is the aggression. People getting locked up for using alternative currencies, etc.

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    8. @Skyorbit - You missed the point. The AIPers make me think of Agents in the Matrix but dodging bullets of logic here.

      The point you deftly evaded is that if you possess something that someone else is able to inflate, it will lose value because of increased supply. It's true for money, right? No matter who's doing it? It's true for IP too.

      The issue is whether IP producers are going to receive fair compensation for the value they create. Do you think they should? Yes or no? It's a simple question.

      If no, then we can agree you support stealing. If yes, then tell how in a way that is better than treating IP as real property. If you have such a way, I'll be very open to it.

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  9. It's truly difficult for me to believe that human minds can formulate anti IP views while simultaneously claiming to represent any even remotely pro-individual position.
    Essentially what 'their' position distills to is a 'your thoughts are not your own'.
    Really what they project as a concept to be adopted is that unless a 'thing' is physical and it's possession is transferable then the value is zero as in fact (according to their argument) intellectual private property doesn't exist?
    WTF?
    Sounds like the Gnostics but in a modern context?
    What would happen under a system modeled to include the elimination of IP would be an adaptation of criminal gang/blackmarket dysfunction.
    We would essentially criminalize innovation and discourage the 'greed' element in creativity.
    No thanks.

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    1. "Essentially what 'their' position distills to is a 'your thoughts are not your own'."

      No, it's the exact opposite. PRO-IP advocates are claiming my thoughts are not my own. They are claiming that my ideas are not mine if someone else says they're not and they have the force of guns to stop me from using MY ideas and MY property to produce what I want.

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    2. If a thing is not physical, you cannot own it. This does not, as you claim, translate to 'your thoughts are not your own'. Your thoughts are patterns of activity in your brain and you do own that, obviously. But when those activities are in my brain, the cease to be your business.

      The 'concept' that the Anti-IP folks are trying to express is that property can only be that which cannot be used and controlled by two people at once. Ideas don't qualify.

      How does you minding your own business and leaving me to mind mine - both using the ideas in our own brains and the physical property that we own - "criminalize innovation and discourage the 'greed' element in creativity."

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    3. "We would essentially criminalize innovation and discourage the 'greed' element in creativity."

      The anti-IP argument somehow criminalizes innovation? Huh?

      As to the "greed" element in creativity...First off, greed-driven inventors still have first-to-market advantage, and if they're clever they can extend their exclusivity period via several other strategies. They also will be viewed as the original inventor and can capitalize on that and maintain a competitive advantage over others if they aren't too lazy or stupid. Secondly, "greed" isn't the only factor that drives creativity, and for some inventors it isn't even a factor at all.

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  10. I own the ideas a my head. Once I communicate an idea to another person, a copy has been given to them and immediately mixes with his own ideas and perceptions. I still own my idea - it is not gone from me in the way that true property would be had it been stolen.

    Would it be reasonable to say that if you look at my house or take a picture of my house, you have somehow stolen it? no.

    If you want your IP to be secret, then keep it secret, but you cannot sell it and keep it at the same time.

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    1. You're not correct. IP must be recorded and documented with the exception of copyright which uses a different convention.

      You don't have IP by simply having an idea. And by definition, IP must have economic value. A patent application is a huge effort. And the process under current law is a difficult one. It takes 2+ years to get a patent application approved. And it might have taken years to prepare the application.

      So IP is not just "having an idea." It's really the process of evaluating, documenting and recording the idea. The IP itself is defined by the documentation. For patents, the idea must be novel, unambiguous and perform a function. In the patent application, the applicant must demonstrate that the idea meets all three criteria.

      It burns my ass every time I see the "it's just an idea" meme because I hold a patent and it was anything but a trivial exercise. As Edison said, "Genius is one percent inspiration, ninety-nine percent perspiration." Kinsella would like to purge society of its geniuses by denying them compensation for the 99% perspiration.

      Eliminating IP rights would kill off the independent inventor, freelance writer, and possibly the entire software and film industries. Only major corporations would be able to invent because they would be the only ones with the resources to get the idea to the market fast. Without IP protection, the little guy wouldn't bother.

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    2. Correction. I meant "... for patents, the idea must be novel, non-obvious and perform a function."

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    3. "For patents, the idea must be novel, unambiguous and perform a function. In the patent application, the applicant must demonstrate that the idea meets all three criteria."

      While that may be the wording, the application doesn't follow. I've personally been involved in a patent dispute at my company. Eolas has US patent 5,838,906, titled "Distributed hypermedia method for automatically invoking external application providing interaction and display of embedded objects within a hypermedia document."

      It personifies what is wrong with IP today.

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    4. plenarchist has not grasped that this debate is about morality, not about law. It is about whether ideas should be considered to be property, not about whether they are under current law.

      In his last paragraph above, he makes the utilitarian (not moral) argument for IP, and note that his utilitarian argument is built entirely on dire predictions that are refuted by the current history of IP law. IP is destructive of innovation. It is a game of coercive monopolies built on metaphorical reasoning about ideas and the unprovable assertion that Mr inventor thought up something and has a right to pull a gun on anyone else who knows what he knows.

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    5. @Cory -

      "It personifies what is wrong with IP today."

      But that's a different argument than claiming IP is bad in principle. The anti-IP people don't seek reform, they want it ended.

      IP law could be greatly improved but not until the political system is rebuilt from the groud up to create free society. Then a more appropriate set of IP laws can be enacted.

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    6. @Pete - "Wrong top to bottom."

      Like I've said elsewhere here, assertion is not argument. If I'm wrong, make your case. But I know you won't because you don't have one.

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    7. "In his last paragraph above, he makes the utilitarian (not moral) argument for IP, and note that his utilitarian argument is built entirely on dire predictions that are refuted by the current history of IP law."

      He also confirms a theory of mine that the libertarians who clutch so tightly to trying to justify the current IP system have a personal dog in the fight. Plenarchist has a patent on something. Wenzel runs a blog where he's getting ad revenue and probably worries that someone might copy/paste his articles elsewhere and he'll lose out on some dollars.

      None of this is very different, IMO, than the "libertarians" who are so passionate about "illegal" aliens who are stealing "their" jobs.

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    8. @plenarchist 5:39 "I hold a patent and it was anything but a trivial exercise"

      Same here. 8,257,256. Now maybe, just maybe, I can make and sell this product without being sued for infringement of someone else's stupid patent.

      As an inventor, I'll be jumping for joy when USPTO shuts down (along with a few other Parasite City agencies). I'll be able to nimbly supply improved designs to meet my niche customers' wants and not cower in fear of Bigco legal team death squads.

      But it's not the utilitarian argument that should sway anyone. The big argument is that property rights are simply a tried-and-true conflict resolution trick for resources that can't be used by two people at the same time. Ideas don't make the grade.

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    9. @Scott - "... libertarians who clutch so tightly to trying to justify the current IP system have a personal dog in the fight."

      I don't support the current IP system. I think it's broken and corrupted by the political class. It needs to be reinvented which I'm working on.

      Don't use the bad IP system we have though as an argument against IP in principle. That's just more red herring.

      @Martin -

      I also would abolish the USPTO. The patenting system in the US is a tragedy. But I strongly support IP if you haven't noticed from this thread.

      I also develop software. The anti-IP people are fine with me spending years developing a product only to have a kid copy and distribute it all over the Internet. They are against IP because they want to rip off songs and movies but have no problem depriving me of several years of my life to produce a product.

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    10. Plenarchist: You and I are fellow inventors on either side of the "idea monopoly" debate (IM). Correct me if I'm wrong, but you would like men with clubs to beat children until they are bloodied and broken and there is no fight left in them -- if such children prefer to ignore threats to stop distributing your software and defiantly resist arrest? If you oppose such a degree of violence to protect your monopoly, please describe for us the degree you would prefer, regardless of whether it is carried out under libertarian law or current law. This question is not a joke.

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    11. Maybe you wouldn't have to spend (waste?) several years of your life reinventing the wheel when piggybacking existing code would be a far more elegant solution.

      Do you take the expression "don't reinvent the wheel" to mean "there are ready solutions to the problems you face," or do you take it to mean "using freely available knowledge to solve a problem is theft?"

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    12. @Martin - Do you think a flash mob of teens stealing from a Walmart should be punished? Or a teen who has stolen your credit cards, identity, and drained your checking account? I do. If a kid is old enough to know how to download torrent files, he's old enough to know not to download protected content.

      @JTG - I write my own code because I don't trust other people's. I want to be sure I know how it works inside out. I do reference other people's code that they make publicly available.

      Software is under copyright so as long as my code is my code, I don't violate anyone else's IP.

      There are patents for algorithms, but those I think are fairly rare and I suspect difficult to enforce. Only very specialized programs I think would this make sense but it's not my area.

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  11. DB: Let people enforce civil law personally (and until recently copyright infringement was usually treated as a civil matter)….Wouldn't that put an end to some of these theoretical arguments?

    BM: Agree. Private contracts, license agreements, joint ventures, etc.

    I wonder what could possibly be taken as an exception by either side of this argument to this possibility. For the pro-IP libertarian, he certainly cannot be advocating government as the enforcement mechanism. For the anti-IP libertarian, he cannot be advocating government force to disallow such private contracts.

    I cannot find one, but truly am curious as to what exception, if any, that might be taken by either side.



    So IP is great...just as long as we get government or any monopoly of force 100% out of it. IP enforcement should absolutely not be supported with taxes....any libertarian in favor of tax funded enforcement of IP is not a libertarian.

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    1. I agree generally with you. IP should be handled first as a civil matter. But there are exceptions that make the act of violating IP criminal.

      Anyone who deliberately copies and *distributes* IP or knowingly enables it I think has acted criminally. But still, the state shouldn't be proactively enforcing such laws just like we don't want the state proactively enforcing any laws. It should be the responsibility of the IP holder to make an accusation and then prove guilt in court.

      A civil violation should be where the violator accidentally copies or copies for personal use - not for distribution. And this means in practice, these people would never actually be sued or prosecuted.

      With respect to taxation, in a free society there should be no coerced taxation for anything. All taxes collected should be voluntary.

      The problem we experience today with IP is that the political class abuses it for other purposes and the laws are badly written. There are better ways to handle IP but IP is an important element of a civil and just society.

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    2. "Anyone who deliberately copies and *distributes* IP"

      You mean like every owner of every networking device and a computer connected to the Internet? All these devices make copies of the information they pass through, quite deliberately, and then distribute the copy to the next device. They won't work otherwise.

      You know there's something wrong with your idea of a law when everybody but patients in coma are de-jure criminals.

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    3. IP is based on *use* and data packets sent over the Internet is not someone *using* the IP. There's a difference between transmission and distribution.

      Do you have another reductio ad absurdum example?

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  12. This is really getting boring.

    Who is this "Strangeorousthoughts"?

    "They believe and promote the idea that all information should be owned in common by all men"

    No we dont!
    We (the anti-ip crowd) have never said anything of the sort. The fact you think that just shows how far off the mark you really are.

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    1. Yes, you do believe that. If IP isn't property then you believe that anyone can copy and distribute it without compensating the IP producer. How is that different from "information should be owned in common by all men"?

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    2. That what happens when people start believing the "property" part in the IP - they cannot even think of alternatives. Same as the people who insist that states are necessary (even if they are evil).

      The power of language to shape thoughts is often underestimated (esp. by the logical-thinking libertarian people). That's why leftists who recognized that power long time ago and use it unabashedly are running this world. I wonder how many pro-IP people would be in anti-IP camp if we called "IP" by what it is: "temporary transferrable monopoly grants".

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    3. The state (without government) is necessary if you want freedom but that's another topic.

      How many anti-IP pro-property people would be for property at all if we called it "state-granted monopoly on physical goods"? Same thing.

      The state has granted you a monopoly on your house, your car, your clothes, and your body. All these monopolies you enjoy are A-OK with you but not IP? Maybe because you don't produce any so you don't care if guy who does gets ripped off, right?

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  13. Strangeorousthoughts said: "This is particularly obscene due to the fact that the industrial wealth of the United States in the late 20th century has been grown precisely thanks to the capitalist industries that produce information, most notably the publishing, media, film and software industries..."

    ___________________________

    “If people had understood how patents would be granted when most of today's ideas were invented, and had taken out patents, the industry would be at a complete standstill today.” - Bill Gates

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    1. “If people had understood how patents... complete standstill today.” - Bill Gates

      Just because IP laws are deficient doesn't make for an argument against IP in principle. That's the nonsense liberals like to use to attack capitalism. Since crony-capitalism is evil, then laissez faire capitalism is evil. You're making the same argument here. Dismissed.

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  14. It seems Stephan should've been debating 'Strangeorousthoughts' rather than Wenzel.

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  15. "They believe and promote the idea that all information should be owned in common by all men"

    Yay straw man!

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  16. Strangerthoughts' post in a nutshell:

    It is my contention Communism that the anti-IP position Communism is flawed for the Communism following reasons Communism:

    Communism Anti-IP people want all Communism information to be Communism owned by everyone Communism in common. The data Communism suggests that if it weren't for IP, then Communism we would not have had the industrial Communism boom we have enjoyed. Communism

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  17. Please just publish that pamphlet and book and shut this down.

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    1. Bob has already struck a mortal blow to Kinsella's theory.

      Rest assured that Wenzel is going to shut it down.

      I've spent time around guys like Wenzel at different periods in my life. I can see them coming and understand them, and appreciate them-warts and all. Let me tell you, Wenzel is the honey badger of libertarianism.

      In a way I feel sorry for Kinsella. Wenzel isn't going to just finish "destroying" Kinsella's theories surrounding IP, like he said in the debate.

      He's going to systemically dissect Kinsella's anti-IP theories further. It is going to be slow, systemic, painful process on its way to death. When it's all over I'm sure Kinsella will have wished for a quick destruction. I'm sure there will be "hangers on"...but the battle will be lost for those that are intellectually honest.(or won even by them if they value truth)

      If I'm picking sides in any battle I'm going with the honey badger, not the milquetoast.

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    2. "I've spent time around guys like Wenzel at different periods in my life. I can see them coming and understand them, and appreciate them-warts and all. Let me tell you, Wenzel is the honey badger of libertarianism."

      Nick, you have this exactly right. He says what he is going to do, and he systematically does it. I get no sense of boastfulness or arrogance beyond someone who is thorough and good at his craft.

      I have watched many of the speeches and presentations from the recent AERC. Wenzel's presentation at the conference on the collapse of the Soviet Union was one of the two best (out of dozens) in terms of the thoroughness of the research – he could have done 80% less research and still delivered a good, but not great, lecture. I have seen nothing less in his approach to this topic.

      For whatever reason, Wenzel has decided to take on this subject. He will tear it to shreds by the time he is done. And the closer he gets to this objective, the louder and more personal will be the attacks – as there will remain nothing left for the faithful.

      “...but the battle will be lost for those that are intellectually honest.”

      Correct again.

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  18. So ... Hans-Hermann Hoppe is an "intellectual communist".

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  20. I am as anti-IP as any thinking libertarian, here, but I have a question I can't think of an answer to...

    Fiat money. Fiat money is infinitely reproduceable, to the point of making it non-scarce/rivalrous/whatever. My ability to change bits in a computer and give myself $1,000,000 may dilute the value of your money, but as a non-scarce/rivalrous "good," it is not theft by the anti-IP definition.

    Can someone explain to me why this is different? You are diluting the value of money, just as me infinitely reproducing a Britney Spears album is diminishing its value... ANYONE?

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    1. Hi Kev

      fiat money may be infinitely reproducible, but until there is infinitely enough money lying around (or at least, when the supply is far higher than the demand), it is still scarce.

      even for the man operating the printing machine who can print as much as he likes. each new note he prints - whilst there is still demand for it - is still scarce.

      as for music - you distributing britneys album doesnt take any 'value' away from that britney fan who loves her music. he can listen to her album again and again, it makes no difference what you're up to. if you mean monetary value. yes it would dilute it down until its real market value

      it takes a bit of a leap to get your head round how the music industry would work without ip;
      it would be completely different, it would be much more focused on live performances, concerts, real singing talent. CDs would be incredibly cheap. good songs but by bad singers would get covered by better artists. the music people liked would constantly be copied and improved on.
      huge music corporations wouldn’t exist.
      radio stations would play far less adverts and much more varied music.

      hope that helps

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    2. Kev, As a thinking libertarian you've likely read Walter Block's "Defending the Undefendable" and will be familiar with the fact that the fiat money counterfeiter is a hero. And no, I would not agree that infinitely reproducing a Britney Spears album diminishes its value. On the contrary, there are now a zillion value-seeking teeny boppers happily girating to "F U C Kamy" etc.

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