intellectual property is ethically opposed to property rights. - Page 4

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I understand your point, but the two issues are different.




They are and they aren't. One is where a conceived physical property right is in conflict with a conceived intellectual property right, the other is where a conceived property right is in conflict with itself (although in reality it's not, it's in conflict with yet another conceived right).

Apparently for you its ok if the latter happens but not the first, and without providing any rational. In logic a concept of "A is not A'" is normally rejected as false.


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Murray Rothbard summarized all rights as property rights. The right for me to live, or for me not to get hit over the head with a bat, is because of the right of ownership I have over my own body.




You can't apply your concept of physical property rights to life. If life can be homestead, then surely your (grand)parents could own you till any age they desire.|||@BC2:

I was thinking more along the lines of a person who publishes a work in the public domain and someone sees it, thinks that it is a money spinner and patients the idea. I know of two occasions this has happened. You can also speculatively copyright names and ideas in hope that will become valuable. This happened with domain names too. The whole idea of IP needs to be restructured. IIRC patents were originally intended for physical objects, if so they why are there patents on software? Surely it should be copyright as a book or piece of music is.

As for music, I think you misread what I said.|||Quote:




That's up to Congress, obviously. Go back and read the excerpt from the Constitution again. You know, the document also containing the thirteenth amendment: "Section 1. Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction."




First of all, you still haven't proved that labor is adequate or necessary for ownership. So whether the law should exist or not is still up in the air.

Second, if the moral motivation is to encourage the inventor, how much should the inventor be encouraged? Intellectual property is a restriction on everyone elses' property rights. That's just a given; I'm not able to use my computer to copy a file to give to a friend because someone else has the rights to copy or "copyright". If copyrights are valid, why do they expire after the length of the author's life + 75 years?

My point is, if your qualification for IP law is on moral grounds, what number is moral? Any number congress puts out?


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ONYD, I don't know what you do for a living or for hobby, but the only people of sound mind that believe IP is invalid are either people who have never created anything at all, or have never created anything of any value to anyone else (and believe, usually subconsciously, that they never will). You can argue that certain laws to adjudicate time frames for limited or exclusive use for IPs are messed up or unfair or whatever, and many are, but to say that IP is a completely invalid concept is naive at best.




You haven't answered any of my moral qualms against IP. How is labor sufficient or necessary for ownership?

And I'm not convinced by the argument that innovation will stop without copyrights. It certainly doesn't explain the human progress up until we had copyrights.

Here's an example of the opposite: http://www.doshdosh.com/radiohead-an...usic-industry/|||Quote:








First of all, you still haven't proved that labor is adequate or necessary for ownership. So whether the law should exist or not is still up in the air.

Second, if the moral motivation is to encourage the inventor, how much should the inventor be encouraged? Intellectual property is a restriction on everyone elses' property rights. That's just a given; I'm not able to use my computer to copy a file to give to a friend because someone else has the rights to copy or "copyright". If copyrights are valid, why do they expire after the length of the author's life + 75 years?

My point is, if your qualification for IP law is on moral grounds, what number is moral? Any number congress puts out?



You haven't answered any of my moral qualms against IP. How is labor sufficient or necessary for ownership?

And I'm not convinced by the argument that innovation will stop without copyrights. It certainly doesn't explain the human progress up until we had copyrights.

Here's an example of the opposite: http://www.doshdosh.com/radiohead-an...usic-industry/






edit: Also, without IP laws, you will still have innovation. If I'm the CEO of a microprocessing chip, I will still need to make innovations to the market in order to create a product. If I'm a publisher or someone who prints books, I'll still need novels to put in those books.

The sole reason for innovation is not copyright laws. We don't need artificial government monopoly in order to continue creating products.


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I find it funny how some aspects of economic libertarianism mirrors socialism/communism. By the standard of evidence used for political insults in this thread, should I start calling you guys 'comrades'? (I'm being sarcastic, the point is that politics makes strange bedfellows and just because you share a belief with some other group does not make you part of that group.) [/political life-lesson]




Well, my argument is that it was never capitalist to have IP laws in the first place. Copyright laws have their roots in censorship, and patents were king-granted monopolies for special interests. As Stephen Kinsella points out in the video, people like me oppose IP-laws because we don't view them as valid property laws. Leftists oppose IP laws because they do view them as valid property laws, and oppose them for that reason.|||Quote:








Austrian economics always crack me up. Kangaroo! Didjerido! Throw another economist on the barbie!




This was from the first page but I felt I should just point out that Austria is not Australia.|||Quote:








This was from the first page but I felt I should just point out that Austria is not Australia.




oh. that post makes a lot more sense, now.|||Quote:








First of all, you still haven't proved that labor is adequate or necessary for ownership. So whether the law should exist or not is still up in the air.

Second, if the moral motivation is to encourage the inventor, how much should the inventor be encouraged?




First of all, you haven't proven that labor is inadequate or uneccesary for ownership. You stated your opinion that it's not, as if it were a fact. Your opinion happens to be contrary to established law and centuries old tradition, and that is a fact. See the difference?

Second, as much as Congress determines is necessary to promote the progress of science and useful arts. Why do I get the feeling you haven't actually read the excerpt from the Constitution?|||Property (or ownership... let's not argue about the difference ) is the privilege of being in full command of something. It makes no sense to claim ownership on something which you fail to be in full command of.

Until 1850 or so, there was nothing like a copyright, so there was no way of claiming your right. For example, a composer could make a performance of his latest pieces of music and made a certain profit from it after deducting all costs, plus a bit for selling the notes, but he didn't get anything for all the performances made by others.

Today we have something like a copyright. It worked pretty well as long as physical things were needed to enforce claims on it and nobody had to complain too much about it. That time seems to be over. You can make any number of copies within a fraction of a second. Maybe there is something like a copyright, but if people are in no danger when violating it, it has no value.|||Quote:








First of all, you haven't proven that labor is inadequate or uneccesary for ownership. You stated your opinion that it's not, as if it were a fact. Your opinion happens to be contrary to established law and centuries old tradition, and that is a fact. See the difference?




I understand the difference, but you still haven't given me a counter-argument to believe otherwise. Your critique of the marble analogy missed the point, and failed to address the issue. Where exactly is the flaw in my definition of property rights, which excludes labor as sufficient or necessary?

Is labor necessary? Then what of workers I hire to work on my land? Is labor sufficient? Then what of workers I hire to work on my land?

So far, the only flaw you've given me is that it invalidates intellectual property, and that intellectual property is justified some other way.


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Second, as much as Congress determines is necessary to promote the progress of science and useful arts. Why do I get the feeling you haven't actually read the excerpt from the Constitution?




I am making an ethical case against it. My point is, if there is a limit, it's not a natural right.

Congress may have the right but I'm arguing that they shouldn't. How does this lead you to believe that I haven't read that excerpt from the Constitution? Is it so hard to believe I disagree with the founders?


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Property (or ownership... let's not argue about the difference ) is the privilege of being in full command of something. It makes no sense to claim ownership on something which you fail to be in full command of.




Right, but not only is it impossible to have control over an idea/design, but intellectual property actually restricts the use of other's physical property rights. That's what it is in its very nature.


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Today we have something like a copyright. It worked pretty well as long as physical things were needed to enforce claims on it and nobody had to complain too much about it. That time seems to be over. You can make any number of copies within a fraction of a second. Maybe there is something like a copyright, but if people are in no danger when violating it, it has no value.




I'm embarrassed to say I don't know what you mean. Do you think copyrights are impossible to enforce now, regardless of whether or not they should be?|||No, I meant that *if* claiming a right cannot work in practice *for some reason*, it makes no sense.

In which way do you want copyrights to be enforced? To which extent will these methods violate other rights of people or make life less pleasant in general? How do you want to prevent me to make e.g. MP3s out of my CDs and give them to my friends via USB stick?