Is it okay if I bring up the hostile relationship between many workers and their bosses, or were you guys not interested in hearing anything that might force you to think about your opinion?

And Jeffrey_Tucker, didn’t you call it “clever” when I refuted your point about the contracts being “state-manufactured and written”?

Silas,

I think that was other commenters giving you accolades, not Jeff. I’ll join in. Good comment.

to silas barta:
inflexible, standardized industrial relations law makes for augmented worker/boss hostility.

one-size-fits-all for i.p. is similarly wrong-headed, presumes bureaucratic omniscience, and throws out unhappy examples like d.c.f.c. more often than necessary.

absent the state, artists/innovators could choose from a multitude of distribution models, with differing grades of security. some agents might attract creators through their superior technology in secrecy protection, others may have a successful track record in enforcing contractual terms. or some may decide they don’t want any protection at all, just to have their creation out there as quickly as possible.

look at the arguments over kudos, forget about money for the moment. think of the incessant discussion over who invented radio, long after all royalty issues are settled.

a sizeable minority may just want recognition and admiration, not direct financial benefit. the official ip regimes impedes these objectives. one-size-fits-all runs roughshod over these people.

Some practical questions/examples which neither Kinsella nor Boldrin/Levine answer:

1. Assuming a world without IP, imagine I am a novelist. I submit my manuscript to a publisher. Couldn’t he sent me a rejection notice, remove my name from the manuscript, substitute his and publish my (now his) novel retaining all the profits for himself? In fact, couldn’t the same scenario be played out by anyone to whom I submit my manuscript, be he agent, editor or the secretary who opens the publisher’s mail? Though unethical, perhaps, wouldn’t these behaviors be perfectly legal in a no-IP world?

2. Assuming a world without IP, and in order to avoid the behaviors above, imagine I decide to self-edit and self-publish my novel. Couldn’t the very first person who buys my self-published book do exactly what the publisher did in my example above? In order to prevent such behavior, wouldn’t I have to flood the market with the first printing of my book in order to maximize my profits, which would entail a huge capital investment? [Obviously, the current practice of self-publishing a small number of books in hopes of attracting the interest of a major publisher would be a fool's errand in a world without IP.]

3. Is there a clear distinction between trademark and copyright? (Boldrin/Levine are vague on the subject.) For instance, imagine I formed a trademarked company the whole purpose of which was to sell my novel. Then, imagine this trademarked company published my novel under its trademark. In a no-IP world, would my trademarked company protect my rights to my novel as tangible property?

4. Speaking of trademarks and tangible property, assume a no-IP world and imagine a restaurant opens. This trademarked restaurant has a unique concept and is extremely profitable. Obviously, as in our current IP world, imitators opening under different names and trademarks would soon abound in a no-IP world. However, in a no-IP world could imitators open an exact duplicate of this restaurant with exactly the same name and trademark? If so, why? And if not, how is the trademark protection for this restaurant different from copyright protection on a novel?

5. Boldrin/Levine and Tucker seem to rely on the utilitarian principle of the greater good for the greater number when advocating the demise of IP. In a no-IP world, certain creative individuals would have to be satisfied earning a little less off of their creations in order that society at large may enjoy a faster pace of technological progress and cheaper access to a greater variety of art and entertainment. However, couldn’t this same argument be turned against the concept of private tangible property?

Imagine a time when oil is in severely short supply. Imagine a rich landholder who owns thousands of square miles of land under which lie undeveloped oil resources. For his own reasons, be they environmental or merely crazy, this landowner refuses to develop these oil resources to their full potential. Isn’t society at large the worse off for protecting this landowner’s unlimited tangible property rights? Shouldn’t society be able to limit this individual’s tangible property ownership rights to some reasonable acreage so as to benefit the greater number?

Certainly this landowner has profited greatly from the oil resources he has developed already. Like Bill Gates, he’s rich enough. Certainly he wouldn’t miss the extra income he would lose by society nationalizing a portion of his property and developing its undeveloped resources? Certainly society, as a result, would enjoy more rapid and more expanded technological progress.

What say you Kinsella and Tucker?

to silas barta:
ip, enshrined in law as it must be, discriminates against those who do not want anything in return for creative works. they are covered by the law, whether they desire coverage or not.

statute-created ip doesn’t prevent novel distribution methods (the existing ip regime’s visible failure already guarantees this). however, were there no ip law, protection methods would be as varied as all other market products (and like other markets, the most effective would be rewarded).
distribution modes would partially offset the loss of monopoly rents entitled under current ip law.

those who desire no protection cannot be accommodated under existing ip law. there’s no opting out.

to bob shaeffer:
1) you’re imaging that your behaviour stays constant, absent ip. this is unrealistic. your understandable doubts would be shared by other artists, likewise averse to getting ripped off. so naturally a market in publisher-reliability would develop. dodgy publishers with snoopy secretaries would be avoided.

2) i thought this was adequately explained in b & l. yes, first-to-market wins, and no, the costs are not necessarily vast, and even if they were, you would again search out a reliable agent, as per 1)

your points 3),4) are addressed in kinsella’s book. he also deals with both the natural rights and the utilitarian defense of ip, which you raise in 5).

Bob Schaefer,

1. No, you sign a Non-Disclosure Agreement prior to sharing the manuscript. This is done all the time when companies share proprietary information.
2. Your first run would be on the market before anybody could effectively copy it. It would, however, prevent you from charging exorbitant prices since that would make the copying more attractive. Low prices are not a bad thing for society. If you wanted to have a second printing you would have to produce a truly second edition. Again, a good thing in that it is motivating authors to create more material rather than milk the same old cash cow.
3. A trademark is different from a copyright. When someone uses your trademark, he is in effect impersonating you, and consequently perpetrating a fraud.
4. The trademark is not the same as the restaraunt. As long as the trademark is something unique it cannot be copied.
5. No such trade-off is being implied. The reason that IP laws are invalid is because ideas are not property or more precisely they are not economic goods. Ideas are not subject to scarcity, to copy an idea does not prevent the inventor or anyone else from using it. That is the point. So the reasoning goes something like this: Ideas are not scarce, so they are not economic goods, so they cannot be property. This reasoning has nothing to do with any sort of utilitarian trade-off between society and inventors.

“Ideas belong to everyone. No one has a right to fence off an idea just because they were the first one to think of it and claim it as their own.”

“Land belongs to everyone. No one has a right to fence off a piece of land just because they were the first to settle it and claim it as their own.”

Sounds like socialism to me. Or how about this:

Land owner: “As owner of this land, I am willing to let you cross if you pay me a fee. Otherwise, you take the long away around.”

Traveller: “The only reasonable route is across your land. It’s outrageous that we have to pay a fee just because you built the only viable road first. You are impeding progress and stunting the economy. We are entitled to cross your land for free!”

Inventor: “As owner of this process, I am willing to let you use it to make products if you pay me a fee. Otherwise, you must think of another way to make products.”

Industrialist: “Your process is the only reasonable way to make products. It is outrageous that we have to pay a fee just because you developed the only viable method first. You are impeding progress and stunting the economy. We are entitled to use your process for free!”

Sounds like eminent domain to me.

Some people who claim to be libertarians are anxious to defend land rights against expropriation by eminent domain in spite of the obvious advantages of stealing land for self-benefit. But those same people are vociferous about attacking the concept of intellectual property even though the same analogies apply at every level.

Want to talk about the evils of steam engine patents or the virtue of Matsushita putting radio patents in the public domain? Holding a patent may be bad for the individual, the economy, or society. The same could be said for the little old lady who won’t sell her home so that a highway or shopping center can be built.

I personally don’t decide what rights people have by my convenience. Either we defend the concepts uniformly, or I see hypocrisy. If I accept that the first person to improve a piece of land is the owner, then I accept that the first person to put pen to paper owns the novel written, the first person to pluck the melody owns the song, the first person to perfect the process owns the patent, and the first person to flesh out any idea owns the franchise.

Calling patent and copyright owners a pack of benighted rent-seekers does not address the question. Apartment dwellers may not like their rent-seeking landlords either, but you pay rent to whoever has property rights if you want use of the property.

I see no difference in conferring property rights to land by laboring to improve it and conferring property rights to ideas by laboring to bring them to light. I believe that the arguments advanced against the existence of intellectual property equally undermine all forms of property rights. Conversely, I feel that the arguments in favor of land rights extend equally well to the province of intellectual property.

A free market depends upon the right to own and control property, contract of our own free will, and respect property and contracts. A free market does not mean you get things for free. The evils of rent seeking are to try to get the product of other people’s labor without compensating them. It doesn’t matter whether you want to take their land, their goods, or their ideas. If someone works to produce something, whether it is hard goods or ethereal ideas, they create property and have title and you must compensate them.

To newson and GVP:

1. I’m trying to imagine what my behavior – and the behavior of publishers – would be absent IP. The point is that absent IP an editor or secretary copying and publishing my manuscript would not necessarily be viewed as my “getting ripped off.” And even if signing a Non-Disclosure Agreement were practical, given the fact that agents and large publishing houses receive thousands of manuscript queries per day, the problem of the economics of no-IP publishing still remains. The no-IP publisher’s first run would have to be massive and cheaply priced – a hell of a gamble which the publisher might take on a best selling author but not on a new and unpublished author.
2. The same economic problems hold for self-publishing in a no-IP environment. Few neophyte self-publishing authors could afford a huge first run priced cheaply. In a no-IP environment the days of the new and unpublished author scoring big with an instant best seller would be all but over.

Padding a “truly second edition” and “low prices” might not be “a bad thing for society.” Austrian economists don’t usually put themselves in the position of judging whether or not prices are too high or too low for society. It seems to me the question is whether or not IP causes truly monopolistic pricing. I’m not convinced.

3. A person who copies my novel and publishes it under his name instead of mine is not impersonating me? I fail to see how doing such a thing is not fraud.
4. I also fail to understand how a trademarked name which is unique cannot be copied, but a novel which is unique can be copied. If a novel is to be considered an “idea,” certainly a name or a logo must be considered an idea as well.
5. I understand Kinsella’s argument that ideas are not economic goods because they are not scarce, etc. etc. I simply disagree with his argument and if I wanted to take the time I think I could disprove his argument. Briefly, the notion that a novel, e.g., “Atlas Shrugged,” is simply and categorically an “idea” is bizarre on its face. If “Atlas Shrugged” is simply an idea, it is certainly one hell of a complex idea, one that is obviously scarce and obviously an economic good else other economic actors in society would not scramble to pirate it. There aren’t too many economic actors out there scrambling to pirate copies of Joe Blow’s new one-page three-word idea/novel: “Grass Is Green.”

Moreover, if this notion of eliminating IP truly “has nothing to do with any sort of utilitarian trade-off between society and inventors,” then I wish the proponents of the notion would refrain from making the utilitarian argument on its behalf.

To Bob Schaefer,

First, on something we agree. You are correct that “Austrian economists don’t usually put themselves in the position of judging whether or not prices are too high or too low for society.” On the other hand, Austrian economists don’t worry much about monopolistic prices either.

Second, to your point about what the world would look like for authors in a world without IP. Your concern here gets to the heart of a very important insight although I am not sure you realize it. People accustomed to being oppressed usually cannot conceive of an existence without the tyrant. There was a time when elites thought that it was impossible for people to manage their own political affairs without a strong man to control them. And yet today there are democracies all over the world and no one would consider going back to one-man rule.
In another economic context, most people today actually believe that health care cannot be delivered by the marketplace. Having only experienced government controlled heatlh care they cannot conceive of how a private health care industry would work. When these folks are challenged on their beliefs they typically respond much as you have: “Show me how it would work” they demand. Of course, I can’t . I am no more a health care entrepreneur than I am a publishing entrepreneur. Consequently, I can only offer at best a guess as to what a free market health-care or publishing industry would look like. That is the beauty of free markets- they are unpredictable- and real innovators-that is, entrepreneurs, determine what they will look like. However, being incapable of producing an outline of a particular industry’s structure does not in any way undermine the case for free markets. When I am confronted with the challenge to describe what a free market health care industry would look like, I typically return the challenge by asking my intelocutors to descibe what the supermarket business would look like if it operated according to the same rules as the health care business. The debate typically ends there.
So, I suspect we will have a vibrant and creative publishing industry, but you are right it may be totally different to the one we have become accustomed to.

Third, this one is silly. No one is talking about taking credit for your work. There are publishing houses that are printing Aristotle’s work without claiming it as their own. As far as I know, Aristotle’s heirs are not collecting royalties. The point of IP is ownership not authorship.

Fourth, uniqueness here is a test of identity not of property. No one can claim to be me anymore than they can claim to be McDonalds. However, the burger franchise does not own the words “McDonalds” for if I started a bar franchise called “McDonalds” I would be perfectly within my rights to do so. In fact it is because we do not allow anyone to own words or ideas that the rule for trademarks is that they have to be very specific to the product or company identified.

Fifth, again the substantive differences between a novel and a categorical statement are intellectually interesting but economically immaterial.

Finally, to say the case for no IP is not based on a utilitarian trade-off between inventors and society is not to say that there is no utilitarian argument at all.
However, in this case the argument is an a priori one. Consequently, it is neither based on, nor can it be refuted by utilitarian considerations.