I noted previously that my Against Intellectual Property and Boldrin & Levine’s Against Intellectual Monopoly are both selling just fine, even though both books are available for free online. Now it’s no surprise the Mises Institute publishes works in free, online versions whenever possible; it doesn’t hurt sales and anyway, their mission is to spread the freedom philosophy and sound economics.
But I was a bit surprised that Boldrin & Levine’s publisher, Cambridge University Press, would allow them to put a free version of the book online; my experience with Oxford University Press (1, 2, 3, 4) would have led me to suspect publishers would be reluctant to permit this.
But as explained in the commments here, although they were not able to prevent the work from being protected by traditional copyright, the authors were able to persuade Cambridge to permit a free online version. Heroic! (The carping of some that they were “hypocritical” because the book has a copyright is ridiculous.)When I inquired of Levine how they were able to manage this feat, he told me they simply bargained for it. The clause they got is as follows: Clause 3(a) grants to Cambridge “sole and exclusive right and license to produce and publish and itself further to license…” with some exceptions. Clause 3(b) reads: “(b) Notwithstanding clause 3(a) above, on first publication of the Work, the Author shall have the non-exclusive right to post the files of the published Work on his/her own and/or his/her institutional website subject to the inclusion of the copyright notice, full acknowledgement to Cambridge University Press and an appropriate hyperlink to the Cambridge catalogue.”
In response to my surprise they were able to negotiate this, Levine told me that “academic journals give that as a matter of course – maybe for an academic publisher it isn’t such a big deal? They didn’t fuss about it, and it didn’t sound like it was the first time they did it.”
Could it be that some publishers are starting to get it?
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In the case of Boldrin and Levine’s book, they also posted draft versions of the book online before it was published, in 2005 and 2007 (which are still up) — I don’t know whether or not this was before the legalities of the print version were worked out:
http://www.dklevine.com/general/intellectual/against.htm
http://www.dklevine.com/general/intellectual/againstnew.htm
As heroic as giving away free samples of tangible goods for promotion.
It is very hard to understand why would IP socialists suddenly forget the concept of “gifts” when it comes to IP:
Having property rights doesn’t mean the owner is obligated to sell his property. He can do what ever he wants with it.
He may sell it, he may give it away as a gift, charity, for promotion or he may give it away just for glory.
These actions doesn’t nullify his right on his property.
ktibuk, I’m confused at your use of the term “IP socialists.” In context, it seems you are referring to those opposed to IP, but that can’t be right. After all, it is the enforcement of IP, not its absense, that requires intrusive government. So if anyone could be likened to a socialist, it is the IP proponent. I must have misunderstood you.
“Absence,” that is.
They’re still hypocritical, since they don’t allow other publishers to sell the print version.
So this occurence proves …? Nothing? Or less than nothing?
Imagine you bake a pie and I own the “IP” to slices. You cannot cut your pie into quarters, eighths, or any fractions whatsoever, without my permission, including any absurd (or “reasonable” exception benevolence) remuneration demands. If you go ahead and cut your pie anyway, the State can confiscate and destroy your pie, and fine and imprison you, possibly confiscating all your wealth.
It is thus clear all IP claims are trespasses onto the real property of others, and no intellectual work, whether more of less complicated than slices, is actual real property. IP is just a false fake claim disguising an excuse to perform violence against the persons and property of others. IP is destruction of real property or prohibition of the reshaping of real property, in all cases causing society to be net artificially more scarce poorer than it otherwise would be, no matter how foolishly vain any naked Emperor may wish to believe his intellectual production is special or Aristocratic; such is the tyrannical delusion of those who profess belief in “IP”.
RWW,
A socialist is someone who opposes private property rights and claims “society” owns or should own all property.
An IP socialist is someone who opposes private property rights regarding intellectual property and claims “society” owns or should own all intellectual property.
I hope this helps in clearing up the confusion.
Oh and, and the claim that the state is necessary for IP enforcement is a blatant lie. Any contract, including copyright contracts, can be enforced in the free market.
Kitbook is off-base as usual. He is advocating socialism in advocating IP, which undercuts real property rights.
Person/Silas/John Sharp/Richard Harding writes: “They’re still hypocritical, since they don’t allow other publishers to sell the print version.”
Who is “they”? It is Cambridge that holds the copyright. Cambridge is not hypocritical since it is not arguing against IP. The authors are not hypocritical since they don’t own the copyright; in fact, they bargained with the publisher to permit a free, online version. And those who argue that it is hypocritical to allow a normal publisher to publish one’s book are similar to what Rothbard called “space cadets“.
Well, I guess calling someone a space cadet invalidates their argument, for some reason.
The authors delegated the use of force against anyone other than the publisher who prints a copy. So the authors are doing it by proxy. How is that different from anyone delegating any other kind of aggression?
“Oh, I didn’t aggress against you. I just sold my legal right to burn down your house to someone *else*. That makes me 100% in the clear.”
Contracts aren’t property claims. Contracts don’t grant ownership of the actions or persons of others. Contracts aren’t one-sided one party claims, especially if those claims trespass onto the property of others. Thus, IP is not property because contracts are not property. Only property is property, and any contract claims of actions as property are wholly null and void, as absurd as a claim to own the Sun.
Contracts also aren’t transferable, and are therefore not property. If you can’t transfer something which contains IP without being required to simultaneously transfer a contract on use of that property, it is not property.
And such contracts are not enforceable in a free market. I can contract with somebody to lease the use of slices for products, and that doesn’t prevent anybody else from slicing their pies, pizzas, bread, and other products. There is no general circumscribed property which emanates from any contract regarding an intellectual concept, process, method, or work.
It is epistemologically impossible to not copy others. Those who make claims of copyright by definition have no respect for not copying others precisely because they are exactly copying the legal intellectual contract work of others. How can they expect others to respect their claims of copyright when those IP claimants don’t respect not copying the idea of copyright? It’s as childish as “finders keepers”, pretending stealing the real property of others is respected, protected, and enforced by making claims of property on stolen goods. In a nutshell, IP proponent methodology is as sophisticated and boils down to, “If I touch it, it’s mine!”
If you can copy claims of copyright, you can copy any intellectual production whatsoever, thus making copyright wholly ineffectual, unenforceable, and an absurdity in itself. Since nobody alive today has solely or exclusively invented copyright, they have no rightful claim to copy the claim of copyright. It’s immaterial whether their books are blank pages, complete gibberish, or high quality unique productions like Human Action; they would be and are all copying the ideas of others at various levels.
So how can you not laugh at fools who believe such a claim as “you cannot copy the contents of this book, in part or in whole”? They are making claims on the concept of a book form, claims on the use of bound pages, with or without content, claims on alphabet letters, and claims on words. This is precisely how all claims of IP by definition trespass on the real property of others. They just magically pretend some “common sense understanding” does not prohibit those they “contract” with from, for instance, using the word “the” in everyday speech or in any other form whatsoever, including copying the word “the” into books or upon other real physical property. If their copyright claim includes the word “the” then they must by definition own the word “the” as property. IP proponents really are delusional tyrants.
I cant recall what it is called but I am sure assuming the conclusion of your argument is a fallacy.
rtr “It is thus clear all IP claims are trespasses onto the real property of others,”
chinchilla (yeah it is kinda fun to intentionally misspell names), “…in advocating IP, which undercuts real property rights”
Yeah, yeah. “real property rights”.
You claim, IP is not real property because it is not real property.
Brilliant argument.
Couple of things you need to learn already.
1. Scarcity is not a prerequisite of homesteading property, and artificial scarcity involving tangible or intangible goods are not immoral or criminal.
Scenario A: I build a theatre of 1000 seats in a town of 500 people. There is no scarcity regarding the number of seats and no possible disputes when it comes to using them.
Scenario B: There is already an abandoned (or god/nature given) theatre of 1000 seats from time immemorial in the same town and people discover it one day. There is no scarcity regarding the number of seats and no possible disputes when it comes to using them.
If scarcity is a prerequisite of property, then no one can own the theatre seats in both scenarios. But certainly that can not be the case since both scenarios, although the same regarding scarcity, not exactly the same.
In the first scenario I built the damn theatre and I damn own it whether there is scarcity or abundance of seats.
2. Property rights are natural humans rights that exist whether people recognize it or not, and not some positivist social construction tool to make people live in a peaceful society.
3. Third party enforcement is a practical enforcement issue not an ethical issue as property rights are.
4. Idiotic state invention called patent laws don’t represent all IP and using them as a scape goat or straw man is not intellectually honest.
5. Not every property is exchanged with some other property and sometimes property, all property, are given away for psychological gains.
Bill gates donates tangible property and feels good.
A scientist may discover a cure for a disease and he may give it away for free, for glory.
Thus implying IP can not be given away for free and drawing weird conclusions is not an argument at all.
The ability to give away your property for seemingly nothing, doesn’t make your property right disappear.
Silas, what are you implying? That only pro-IP people can publish books; that anti-IP people have no right to publish books carrying their arguments, or relegate them to marginal self-publishing? Nice way of burying our argument. Funny how those of you who are in favor of socialist IP rights get offended when an anti-IP author who didn’t ask for or want the copyright that your state grants him, assigns it to someone else.
Stephan, if the government assigns you a legal right to do something you believe to be unjustifiable for everyone, the correct response is not to transfer it to someone else (I again implore you to imagine doing this for any other phony “right” the government could assign), but rather to renounce it entirely.
There are any number of publishing arrangements you could make. For example, you could sell it like any other book and simply pay a big-name publisher to put their name on it (i.e. grant it credibility), while allowing others the right to copy.
However, I would think that you should interpret the refusal of publishers to publish a book without IP rights in it, as a failure of your own beliefs. In the absence of IP rights, publishers wouldn’t engage in projects like these, and we’d miss out on numerous Pareto improvements, in exactly the same way that we would by not having physical property rights.
Here’s a candidate renunciation:
“I will not accept the enslavement of my fellow man, nor any imposition upon his liberty, as reward for the publication of my artâ€
Person: “In the absence of IP rights, publishers wouldn’t engage in projects like these…”
So a publisher would leave money on the table because they can’t be assured of monopoly-rate profits? That doesn’t make sense.
There is still scarcity in the sense being used in this debate. Each individual seat is scarce (admittedly, rivalrous would be a better term) because only one person can sit in it at a time. The total number of seats is irrelevant. And in fact, disputes are possible in this scenario. Front row seats will be more highly valued than others; a couple may attach sentimental value to the pair of seats where they had their first date; etc. It’s up to the theater owner to manage competing claims.
Scenario B is just scenario A again with the seats initially unowned, but that has no bearing on whether each seat is scarce.
“Here’s a candidate renunciation:
“I will not accept the enslavement of my fellow man, nor any imposition upon his liberty, as reward for the publication of my art—
You are not enslaving anybody with a copyright contract, nor trying to control his actions in general.
You are just putting a condition that relates to certain property.
Just like you can not to anything you want with a rented apartment, car , etc, you can not do anything you want with a copyrighted book. It is given to you on certain conditions.
Having a landlord setting conditions on your rented apartment doesnt enslave you. Neither does a copyright, or an end user license agreement.
Ron: Of course some works would still be worth publishing (mainly those with low-grade or old content). Just like some trees would still be cut down for wood even if you set a price cap on timber of $0.
The point is that *some* intellectual works would not be worth publishing because they couldn’t recover costs. That “some” would include the ones that people would pay a lot to access and are expensive to produce. In other words, very valuable, although of course many of you are going to define away the value people place on them.
A theater of seats example has no bearing to “IP”. It would only have bearing to “IP” if nobody else in the world would be allowed to build their own theater of seats by threats of violent confiscation.
IP proponents would claim all theaters of seats would be owned by the first builder of a theater of seats. This is nothing less than a real property trespass on the building materials, the concrete, the steel, the floor tiles, and on and on, owned by others, restricting those materials from being constructed in a theater of seats. Such an IP claim would be tyrannical theft, would be theft of some possible valuable shaping of the materials owned by others, without voluntary compensation, such as constructing a theater of seats.
IP is theft, plain and simple. You don’t even need to the concept of “scarcity” to demonstrate this. The concept of scarcity just shows that IP claims result in artificial scarcity, in artificial poverty.
So when you celebrate the opening week of the NFL season (Go my fantasy team!
), those who believe in IP should take note that the games are not all played in one single stadium, and that all the different stadiums are owned by different owners, even though those stadiums copy each other on many different levels. And if it was possible to instantaneously duplicate a stadium, prohibiting that action from occurring would result in artificial net poverty, as all the materials and labor that could be saved from reducing scarcity would be violently prohibited.
You cannot make a claim of IP without by definition circumscribing elements and at least partially confiscating the property of others. It is epistemologically impossible to not violate the property of others with claims of IP. IP is not divisible as such. And even if IP could be divisible as such, prohibiting its copying would be causing artificial scarcity. If one could duplicate land, it would be absurd to think prohibiting such duplication would not be causing poverty.
IP is nothing but violent pillaging and destruction of persons and property. Is there any more blatant evidence of the absurdity of IP than a government confiscation and burning destruction of “pirate” dvds or “counterfeit” designer knockoff clothing products? Talk about a stained glass broken window fallacy!
Person: “That “some” would include the ones that people would pay a lot to access and are expensive to produce. In other words, very valuable, although of course many of you are going to define away the value people place on them.”
So, you’re saying that even though people would place value on these “some” and would pay a lot to access them, publishers would nevertheless refuse to produce them without the protection of IP?
Dunno…if I ran a publishing house (or any business for that matter), and I knew of a product for which people would pay a lot of money…methinks I would figure out a way to produce it. Call me crazy. I think I would choose making some money over making no money. Again…call me crazy.
Ron: Did you actually read my post? Yes, I agree that some books would still be worth publishing. Others would not, despite the fact that their existence would be a pareto-improvement if there were IP rights.
The fact that people *would* pay a lot for the work doesn’t mean they *will* when they can get it cheap, and from someone else.
Why is this so hard for you to grasp?
-Yes, some works will still be produced.
-No, most of the valuable ones won’t because they’re too easy for someone to copy and sell if there’s no IP.
How many times must I explain this?
“The fact that people *would* pay a lot for the work doesn’t mean they *will* when they can get it cheap, and from someone else.”
Nor should they. This is the nature of exchange. I grasp it perfectly well, thank you. I would be willing to pay more than, say, $20 for a pair of shoes, but I won’t if I can get them for $10 somewhere else. Imposing artificial scarcity in shoes in order to bring the price up to $20 would therefore make me poorer, even though I’m willing to pay that much for them.
How many times must all the rest of us explain this?
Okay Ron, let’s see if we can keep more than one logical step in our heads at once:
1) I claim that many valuable works will not be produced if there’s no IP.
2) You claim yes they will, because that’s a situation in which people will pay a lot for access to the work, meaning there’s an opportunity to make a profit.
3) I claim that the willingness to pay a lot, does not mean they actually will if there’s no IP, and thus, the entrepreneur can’t capture that high value, meaning the valuable work won’t be produced.
4) You say that … yep, that’s how markets work.
5) I fall out of my chair.
No copyright is granted before any work is created. All works are granted copyright after they are created. Therefore, copyright does absolutely nothing for the creation of copyrighted works. Copyright can epistemologically never do anything for the creation of copyrighted works. The only difference between people copying the work and people thinking the work is a worthless piece of garbage is pure jealousy.
What?! But what if some poor artist sap spends a year of his life producing some art product? So what. And what if some businessman spends millions investing in the production of a product for a year of his life and nobody wants that product? What if some farmer spends six months planting and growing corn, and then other farmers crop up copying him planting and selling corn?!
There is no shortage of work demanded.
The production of intellectual works is paid for by the division of labor surplus which affords the luxury of leisure time to produce intellectual works. If you can’t compete with the free market Aristocracy, go back to digging ditches, or get paid for intellectual creation services (like all support staff non copyright holders of Hollywood movies), or take up some other line of work people are willing to pay for.
Don’t go mowing people’s lawns or shoveling snow off people’s driveways without permission, and then demanding compensation afterwards whilst claiming their lawns and driveways as property hostages until your IP ransom demands are met. IP claimants are graffiti “artists”, spray painting the walls of others. These people need some ditch digger “artists” to make bomb shell artwork of their lawns, they need some construction demolition “artists” to make creative interpretations of the walls and furnishings of their homes. For that is what all IP claimants do to the property of others with their IP claims. Get your spray bottle and wiper away from my car windshield you homeless thieving IP claiming artist beggar bums. Try jesting for some leftover table scraps.
There is no compensation problem whatsoever for the creation of intellectual works in the absence of IP. Therefore, there is no production problem for the creation of intellectual works in the absence of IP. In fact, IP only hinders remixes and further innovations. If you want to get paid for intellectual production, then get people to voluntarily compensate you for that intellectual production. If you can’t do that, produce something that is being by definition signaled by free market prices as more marginally valuable.
And please get off the streets and check yourselves into a mental institution. This raving about suing plant life because they won’t compensate you for your carbon dioxide production is a textbook mental disorder.
No copyright is granted before any work is created. All works are granted copyright after they are created. Therefore, copyright does absolutely nothing for the creation of copyrighted works.
…I’m speechless.
LOL…you’re killin’ me.
Step 3 is where you go off the deep end. Yes, we agree that consumers will not willingly pay more for something than they have to. So, if an author offers his book for sale at $10, and a copycat offers the same book for sale at $8, it’s pretty obvious that consumers will buy more of the $8 copies. Rather than suggesting, however, that the author’s been wronged (leaving aside the property rights issue for the moment), I take this fact to mean that the author had priced the work too high in the first place.
Your contention takes this further, and suggests that if it is possible to reproduce something for free it would never be produced in the first place. This begs the question, however, of what benefit is received by the copier from copying and redistributing an intellectual work in exchange for nothing.
Here I think the Napster case can be instructive. In this case, there was an exchange for other music. Many artists loved it, since it meant their music was being heard by a larger audience. Also, CD sales increased during the Napster era, as many people used the exchange as a method of sampling music they were considering purchasing and discovering new music they would otherwise not have heard.
Bottom line is that I think the assertion that nothing will be produced when it can easily be copied is unfounded. Artists, writers, and musicians produce intellectual works every day for little or no financial remuneration. Even if the number of intellectual works was reduced by a lack of IP would that be such a bad thing? It would ensure that only the best works survive the market, meaning fewer corporate boy bands and less printed drivel.
Bottom line is that I think the assertion that nothing will be produced
…and here we go again. If you’re not even going to *act* like you’re pretending to approximate the behavior of someone who’s imitating maintaining a pretense of attempting to one day try to read what my position actually is, even after I’ve explained it to you several times, then I can’t justify holding your hand any longer.
Have fun in your fantasy world.
rtr is a lot more fun to read when he’s making sense
here’s a couple of questions for you ip experts, can i claim my new mathematical formula is ip?
seems to me a bit like language, i’m using existing numbers and subscripts, and mixing them around.
@ktibuk , please read the postings of rtr again. And this time try to understand their contents.
“Intellectual property” does not exist. Only granted monopoly privileges exist.
Contracts are not the same thing as property. Try to understand that.
Information itself cannot be owned.
You have to prove that IP does exist, if you want others to accept that. Therefore try to explain how one can own information itself. Try to explain how one could have the “right” to take away the rights of rightful owners to use their property in certain ways, becausethat does conflict with information that someone else claims to “own” (as you falsly insist).
Well, newson, since “IP” only exists at the whim of the state, you’ll have to ask them.
To RTR, and other interested parties.
Here is something else to consider. We should have what I call Public Intellectual Property. As a minarchist, I think that government power should end where private property begins. On my property, I should be able to make as many copies of a thing as I want, assuming I have the material to fulfil my wants. However, Public IP would mean that, outside my property, which I don’t own, only someone who had Public IP (PIP) could sell on public property, or advertise on media that go through public spaces. The owners of the road outside my property should be the local County, with my neighbours as citizens, democratically regulating ‘the commons’. Unlike some commentors, I think the roads will always have some owners, and the owners will have the right to set the terms of use of their properties, so this would be my solution- P.I.P.
The “hypocrites” allegation is the classic argument from corruption. Because everything and everyone is tainted, nobody can complain about it or say it is wrong. Another example is when libertarians get critisised for driving on public roads.
rtr, “A theater of seats example has no bearing to “IP”. It would only have bearing to “IP” if nobody else in the world would be allowed to build their own theater of seats by threats of violent confiscation.
IP proponents would claim all theaters of seats would be owned by the first builder of a theater of seats. ”
No they wouldn’t. Stop with the straw man already. I haven’t seen any libertarian defending patent laws and what they represent. Is it that hard to respond to the arguments itself.
Argument from “scarcity” must answer the question about the theatre scenarios. And similar examples can be given about any tangible thing that can be produced so abundant that they wouldn’t be economically scarce anymore.
If the 100 wealthiest people in the world wanted they could produce cars so abundant that there wouldn’t be a scarcity of cars, cars would be just like air. But this doesn’t mean if they do, they lose their property rights on those goods. Value of a property and a right on property are two different things.
rtr, “Contracts aren’t property claims. Contracts don’t grant ownership of the actions or persons of others. Contracts aren’t one-sided one party claims, especially if those claims trespass onto the property of others. Thus, IP is not property because contracts are not property. Only property is property, and any contract claims of actions as property are wholly null and void, as absurd as a claim to own the Sun.
Contracts also aren’t transferable, and are therefore not property. If you can’t transfer something which contains IP without being required to simultaneously transfer a contract on use of that property, it is not property.”
After all this nonsense if you want intellectual consistency you should oppose all renting and all contracts. But I don’t think you will go that far.
What is the difference between renting an apartment with a contract on certain conditions, and buying (or is this term is confusing renting) with a copyright contract on certain conditions.
Somebody please explain to me the difference regarding “contracts”.
None of the above two contracts are general claims on general action, or slavery contracts. But they are both limited conditions on certain property that is alienable.
When you buy the Harry Potter novel, contract doesn’t say you can not write a novel yourself or copy some other scripture. It just says you can only read that certain Harry Potter novel and not copy it. It could easily say, you can not use the book as a door stop or burn it in a fire place. And that would be ok too because those terms are still about the certain property. And if you don’t like the terms you don’t have to get into contract about the damn novel.
If the 100 wealthiest people in the world wanted they could produce cars so abundant that there wouldn’t be a scarcity of cars…
Yes there would. You still don’t understand the economic term “scarcity.”
When you buy the Harry Potter novel, contract… says you can only read that certain Harry Potter novel and not copy it.
There is no such contract. Perhaps there is a law that says this, but I never consented to it. If someone contracts to such a thing and violates the contract, then of course I would be in favor of whatever punishment is stipulated in the contract.
ktibuk, you can’t make a contract for property you do not own. I can’t contract a house lease for my house along with every other house owned by different owners on the block. I can’t include into a contract the use of my neighbor’s pool.
Harry Potter copyright notices are merely pretending to make contracts on letters and words that are not owned by the author. Harry Potter is making property claims on things which are not property. And those claims on things which are not property are violating the property rights of other persons and property. Harry Potter doesn’t own the word “the”, and has no property right whatsoever to prevent others from using the word “the” or any other combination of words, random or not, for any and all purposes.
The only property owned by the author of Harry Potter are actual physical books, paper and binding, owned by the author of Harry Potter, no matter what the intellectual content included upon those pages is or is not. Only the paper, ink, and binding is owned. None of the words are owned. None of the words are exclusive property. None of the words are property at all. Those words were copied by the author without permission from anyone. And her words can subsequently be copied, in part or in whole, by anyone else with no property trespass or infringement whatsoever. And any non voluntary attempt on her part to prevent the copying of her words by others is a violation of the persons and property of others. Any mere claim of IP, to be or not to be contracted leased, is exactly such a violation.
ktibuk: “Value of a property and a right on property are two different things.”
We agree 100%. Scarcity has nothing to do with property. You can own sand. You can own a beach. You just can’t own the right to prevent others from owning sand and owning beaches, to do with that property whatever it is they wish to do with that property. You can’t prevent someone from opening up a competing beach resort hotel right next to your beach resort hotel. Scarcity has nothing to do with my argument that IP is theft. Is it or is it not theft if I sell a contract to use my neighbor’s pool without my neighbor’s permission?
Only physical things can be owned as property. You can only own the physical things upon which intellectual creation may be imprinted, such as ink and paper. You cannot own the intangible non circumscribed amorphous intellectual ideas. Claiming such ownership of IP is theft of the uses of physical property of others, is a trespassing infringement onto the physical property of others violently imposing restrictions on how the physical property of other may or may not be shaped.
It’s no different than a claim that I own the color white, and therefore you may not paint your picket fence the color white without my permission and compensation wholly to my whimsical discretion, including the complete prohibition of the color white, and any other artificial derivative versions of the color white as claimed by me.
Copying is independent free market competing production. And it is the method by which free market prices themselves are signaled. A contract against copying is no different than a contract against breathing. That is completely anti free market, and wholly undermining of free market production as signaled by changing prices. Copying is a result of a market demand for more of something. This is completely natural, necessary, and beneficial to the net wealth of mankind.
Now hold on, rtr. There’s nothing wrong with requiring the signing of a contract in order to sell a book to someone. And there’s nothing wrong with that contract stating that the buyer may not plagiarize/copy from the book in question (along with a specific definition of plagiarism/copying, of course). And I suppose there’s nothing wrong with that contract limiting the conditions under which the book can be resold, such as requiring the new owner to sign the contract.
Do you disagree?
How about a contract that states a coal miner may not quit his job working in the mines without requiring a replacement miner be furnished by a coal miner who wishes to quit? How about a contract that states you may never quit your job without returning all prior received wages? How about a contract that says you may only spend your wages at the Company Store?
Contracts can be canceled. Contracts can be bogus. And it is epistemologically impossible to “return” the use of letters and words, either generally or particularly. The original book seller will have to settle for the security deposit he successfully negotiated in case of contractual lease default, which is exactly the price of the book previously paid.
Plenty of “contractual terms” are nothing more than delusional wishful thinking. There is indeed plenty wrong with contracts, plenty wrong with libertarian conceptions of contract theory, and plenty wrong with Austrian economic analysis of contracts. But that’s a Big tangent.
RWW, either the book is mine or it is the vendors.
If the book is mine, then I can do what the heck I want with it and no contract can stop me.
If the book remains the vendor’s then a contract still can’t prevent me making any use of the information within it (unless the book was sealed) including copying it or publishing it.
No contract can alienate my freedom of speech.
Only copyright pretends to have this power, and it is thus only the existence of copyright that gives people the idea they can produce contracts that alienate people from their freedom of speech or other liberty.
rtr,
All you do is, making assertions. You have no argument. It doesn’t matter how many times you repeat an assertion, unless you can make a logical argument you are not saying much.
At least Kinsella is trying to argue about his assertions. He is wrong, but he is using the right methodology.
Crosbie Fitch, there is no “freedom of speech”. There are just property rights. A contract can be made regarding ones actions about a specific property. If your landlord rents you the apartment on conditions that you can not use it as a brothel you can not do so. See, you don’t have a “freedom of operating a brothel” either.
Also RTR’s “coal miner” examples are not analogous to copyrights at all here. Those are labor contracts, and since labor is inalienable they are not legitimate. But a book is alienable and action regarding that book can be exchanged on certain terms and conditions.
One can do anything which is not logically impossible. A contract, or a claim of rights, does not actually prevent one from doing anything. Only the justifiable response to one’s actions are relevant. In other words, if you claim a right to something, and I ignore/violate that claim, what can you rationally and objectively justify as a proportional response to my action?
The logical framework of property rights establishes what are essentially “equivalence classes”, which allow one to say that a given response — a proposed violation of the other’s property claims — is proportional to what they did to you first, and thus justified by the other’s own actions. Contracts indicate voluntary agreement in advance to accept certain consequences, conditionally or unconditionally, again providing justification for a response.
The defense of traditional (non-contract) copyrights and patents depends on confusing such claims with the existing property-rights system, and thus establishing an equivalence between a copyright or patent violation and the violation of a traditional property right. The thing is, copyrights and patents are significantly different from traditional property rights, and no such equivalence exists. It would be perfectly reasonable to respond in kind to a violation of a copyright or patent claim, but not to demand a fine or “damages” in the form of traditional property, because the latter would be well out of proportion to the supposed offense.
I’m making demonstrations primarily, ktibuk, argument secondarily. I did think about putting in a parentheses that it was really not an “argument” but a demonstration, but at that moment I wasn’t in the mood to come off as a first tier braggart beyond the level of making school arguments.
You’ve haven’t addressed that IP claims infringe the property of others, confiscate away particular uses of that property, without permission, and without compensation. All IP claims state that the property of others cannot be shaped in a manner that copies the property of others. This is, of course, a ridiculous notion. You cannot build your house on top of another person’s house or cross the property boundary line onto another person’s property. That IP inescapably does this has been shown repeatedly through differing examples. Imaginary Property is no different than a monopoly privilege grant that allows only favored individuals to operate in particular guild crafts, and violently prevents the unfavored from competing.
It’s real simple, and you’ve avoided addressing it. You haven’t even as so much claimed that it is not a violation of the property of others. You’ve just attempted to build examples that don’t bear any relation to this fundamental point.
A claim of IP on a book violates the property rights of others who own their own paper, their own ink, and their own binding materials. IP says that paper, ink, and binding materials of others cannot be used to copy the letters and words shapes from which the IP claimant has used paper, ink, and binding materials upon which that claim of copyright is made. “Meaning” is immaterial, intangible, and amorphous (in plenty of cases). Do you claim “meaning” can be owned as property? Do you claim “information” can be owned as property?
The scarcity and contractual examinations are secondary to the primary point that IP is a property violation, a theft.
ktibuk: “Also RTR’s “coal miner” examples are not analogous to copyrights at all here. Those are labor contracts, and since labor is inalienable they are not legitimate. But a book is alienable and action regarding that book can be exchanged on certain terms and conditions.”
Wrong. Copywrong (in the sense you are advocating) is a labor contract too. It is a contract for actions. It is a contract to not copy, to labor in the form of not copying the creations of others. It is a good (attempted to be traded with a non enforceable pretend contract) traded for the action of not copying. As such, you could call copywrong a “Non Compete Clause”.
“A [DOLLAR] is alienable and action regarding that [DOLLAR] can be exchanged on certain terms and conditions.” There is the IP equivocation fallacy you failed to see with the coal miner example. It’s perfectly analogous. A book is exchanged with terms, a dollar is exchanged with terms. They are both trades for labor action (or the labor of bought non action), to do something for someone, and to not do something for someone else.
Labor is Action. There’s no epistemological difference between paying someone to do something, and paying someone to not do something. They are by definition being paid to do something particular, and simultaneously not something else. They can quit that contract at any time just like they can quit a job at any time.
RTR, you seem to have such deep-seated problems with contract that I don’t think we have enough common ground to stand on for a discussion of this or nearly any other topic. Nor would I do business with someone who believes he can sign a contract and then ignore it without repercussion. But yes, that is a large tangent.
If the book is mine, then I can do what the heck I want with it and no contract can stop me.
I’m not sure what you mean. Are you saying it’s illegitimate to sign a contract limiting your actions with your property? I would strongly disagree with this. Or are you saying that even if you sign such a contract, you could ignore it and risk the consequences? This is very true.
No contract can alienate my freedom of speech.
This is nonsense. You don’t believe in nondisclosure agreements?
Also RTR’s “coal miner” examples are not analogous to copyrights at all here. Those are labor contracts, and since labor is inalienable they are not legitimate.
Even if the coal miner examples are analogous, the simple answer is that the miner didn’t have to sign the contract.
But a book is alienable and action regarding that book can be exchanged on certain terms and conditions.
If your idea of copyright is purely through legitimite contract (not “By buying this book, you agree to not ____”), then I’m with you 100%, though I don’t think it’s viable.
It would be perfectly reasonable to respond in kind to a violation of a copyright or patent claim, but not to demand a fine or “damages” in the form of traditional property, because the latter would be well out of proportion to the supposed offense.
Unless there is a contract stipulating the fine.
RWW: “Unless there is a contract stipulating the fine.”
Obviously, but I was explicitly referring to traditional, non-contract copyrights and patents. Patents go well beyond anything you could achieve with contracts to begin with (due to the independent discovery aspect), and I’m far from convinced that anything like the current copyrights system could be achieved with just NDAs (“copyright contracts”). Still, if one agreed, explicitly and in advance, to a transfer of title to property (a fine) in the event of a “copyright violation”, and then refused to pay, then that would be a theft of property in the traditional sense (the fine, not the “IP”) and thus the use of a proportional degree of force in response would be justified.
You don’t need contracts to “do business”. No business, no trade occurs, unless that which is received in trade is valued more than that which is given away in trade exchange.
Contracts are designed to take advantage of someone else’s ignorance or misfortune, locking them into debt slavery prison. You RWW readily admit to endorsing indentured servitude slavery, as per the coal miner contract example.
This is why *all* contracts are unenforceable, are merely disguising violence. Trade has no such problems whatsoever. It’s an immediate win-win mutual profit benefit for both sides. If you want to stop renting to someone, or stop employing someone, all you can do is kick them out of your house or out of your shop. And the laborer owns the house of his body and the shop of his hands, and can kick the so-called “employer” out exactly similarly so. The laborer is as much an employer of the businessman as the businessman is an employer of the laborer! A relationship exists only and solely with continuing present tense mutual trade consent, never past nor future promises.
A person is their own property, and persons can never be owned by others, merely leased. Any argument otherwise is as absurd as a claim that the laborer owns the factory by contract consent of the employer, and could do whatever he pleases with his (laborer owned) factory “property” by the fact that the employer signed him as a rightful employee.
RWW: “You don’t believe in nondisclosure agreements?”
Of course not! No such agreement would regularly occur in a free market without State enforcement interference in the free market. What party to a nondisclosure agreement is going to deposit the potential penalty in advance, for the term of the agreement (possibly life long)? That would be akin to paying to carry a secret burden, when a normal exchange of value would require continuing payment to continue keeping the secret! It’s Reverse Blackmail.
Such a “contract” is a threat of violence, a threat to confiscate or damage by intimidation. It is the opposite of peaceful trade, which is conclusive business transactions that leaves both parties better off, both parties free, to continue trading with each other in the future, or stop trading with each other in the future.
rtr: A contract is an agreement to transfer ownership of property, nothing more or less. Without contracts you have no trade, and thus no business. You might as well argue against property itself.
An NDA is just a form of property transfer, e.g. “I hereby transfer title to XYZ (hereafter ‘the Penalty’) when and if I reveal this information to a third party.” It’s not just a promise, and it doesn’t violate the principle of self-ownership. You’re obviously still free to reveal the information — there’s nothing inherently wrong about doing so — but in that case you’ve already given away the ownership of the property, and the new owner can justly demand that you turn over physical possession of their property to them at any time.
rtr: A contract is an agreement to transfer ownership of property, nothing more or less. Without contracts you have no trade, and thus no business. You might as well argue against property itself.
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@RWW
But what about a person, which finds a book and then publishes that book?
There is no contract that forbids that for that person.
Only informational monopoly enforced by an aggressor (for example the state) stands against the right to use apropiated things in every way the owner wants to (without being an aggressor himself).
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