This is what “intellectual property” has come down to: the right to stop all forms of innovation. Consider Kindle 2, which has a text to voice feature. The “Authors Guild” (yes, guild, as in the middle ages) says no no, the voice is a derivative right under copyright law. Such sounds must not be heard. Next target: babysitters who read “Goodnight Moon.”
Source link: http://blog.mises.org/9418/if-you-innovate-expect-litigation/
If you innovate, expect litigation
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Of course, there are inventors who relied on the patent system in good faith, only to find themselves crippled by litigation. But such people don’t exist in Jeffrey’s mind. Indeed, there aren’t any inventors at all — only emulators who magically produce innovation through repeated copying!
Here’s an interesting work of fiction on the potential future of copyright:
http://www.spiderrobinson.com/melancholyelephants.html
Inventors shouldn’t be able to use the government to dictate what other people can do with their property. This simply comes down to the question: “Which right is more fundamental to society?: The right to do whatever you want with your property (without violating the same right of another) -OR- The right to tell people what they can’t do with their property because you thought of it first. If someone argues for the protection of IP, they are necessarily messing with the right to tangible property. Not only are they messing with those rights, they are threatening those rights with violence from the government.
S.M. Oliva, haven’t you made the same failure of the patent system argument as Jeffrey?
Also, how can innovation ever be anything but a derivative process? There is always a starting point that depends upon the ideas of others who preceded the current batch of innovators.
I think Aaron makes a powerful point. We agree, I believe, that any definition of property must be self-consistent: one aspect of property cannot conflict with another aspect of property. Clearly, the idea of “intellectual property” conflicts with our classical definition of property rights, one aspect of which is that one may do with their property as they please. “Intellectual property” conflicts with this because it does not allow me to form my piece of paper and my ink as I please and then give it away or trade it.
Thanks, Aaron, this insight has finally congealed a solid argument for me.
Rye_Terrell and Aaron: That argument only works by assuming the classical definition of property is justified when it includes the right to instantiate all patterns with (what is otherwise one’s own) physical property, which was the very thesis in dispute. Certainly, you can have a consistent set of property rights that includes IP and excludes physical property rights that would violated it, just like you can have a consistent set of property rights where physical property rights do not imply the right to blast arbitrary radio frequencies.
Oh! That happens to be what libertarians already believe!
By the way, where are ktibuk and Andras? Did you ban them?
I also agree with Rye that Aaron has made one of the greatest arguments against IP in one brief post.
I would also like to argue that IP protection from the government actually increases the stealing of ideas.
Case 1 – IP protection
Bob spends a year developing a new technology. At some point he tell his friend Jim about this new idea he is developing. Jim decides that the profit motive for the new technology is more important than his friendship with Bob. Jim steals Bobs documents. Because Jim did not develop this technology on his own, he has no understanding of the research or how to actually implement it into production. He must seek protection from Bob before Bob can beat him to the market. Jim realizes he can legally do this by filing for patent protection with the federal government. Meanwhile Bob is nearly ready to implement his new technology when Jim files a lawsuit against Bob for patent infringement. The case goes to court and is tied up in litigation for a decade.
Case 2 – No IP protection
Bob spends a year developing a new technology. At some point he tell his friend Jim about this new idea he is developing. Jim decides that the profit motive for the new technology is more important than his friendship with Bob. Jim steals Bobs documents. Because Jim did not develop this technology on his own, he has no understanding of the research or how to actually implement it into production. He must seek protection from Bob before Bob can beat him to the market. Because there is no legal way to do so through the government, the only way Jim can do this is by the use of physical force on Bob. If Jim chooses such force then there is clearly a role for government action to punish him.
I believe these simple cases demonstrate how government IP protection unintentionally punishes the victim whereas absent IP protection the government would be protecting the victim. In Case 1 the government is actually protecting and encouraging wealth destruction.
In a point similar to willabus’ example, consider what IP protection might consist of in an anarchic society (no government for IP laws). Without government to maintain an IP monopoly, what possible system could do the same thing noncoercively?
Admittedly, you don’t have to be an anarchist to be against IP, but sometimes a different angle helps to make things clearer.
No argument about intellectual property should depend upon State coercion. No argument about any property rights should depend upon State coercion. If we couch our arguments about property rights in terms of protecting them through State coercion, we are implicitly accepting the need for a coercive government, which should not enter into libertarian logic in any form.
In an anarchy, how are property rights enforced? First, such a society depends upon informed respect for the rights of others. A successful anarchy presupposes peaceable adherents to libertarianism working in harmony to have a superior society to what others get through rule by force. If free markets and property rights and liberty are as great as we claim, then the state of affairs will be optimized only by a group of people who cooperate by their own free will.
Consequently, how would any rights be secure in such a society? Only by the members cooperating to respect each other and to defend themselves by outsiders’ attempts at encroachment. This could be done by electing a sheriff, contracting with private security, organizing a militia, etc. according to the personal beliefs of the group. Given that all libertarian societies have unlimited rights of secession, they are free to organize as they see fit and anyone can join or leave as may be appropriate.
Any libertarian society could recognize any kind of property rights they deem valid. We generally agree that ownership of self, land rights, and the fruits of one’s labor and commerce would be included in that set of rights. Taking physical property against the will of the owner or forcing a person to labor against his will (i.e. taxation and slavery) are generally assumed to be excluded as methods of coercion.
Could a libertarian society charge dues or require service as a condition of membership? Certainly, so long as individuals are free to leave. Could a libertarian society recognize intellectual property rights? Certainly, but they could not enforce them on other societies that do not recognize those rights. An libertarian anarchy would be a set of people who agree on what rights they have, and enforcement is not the fundamental question. The axiomatic issue is what freely associating people agree is their limits of liberty and what they respect as property.
So we are not debating whether intellectual property should exist or should be categorically eliminated. Any libertarian society could legitimately recognize (and enforce) intellectual property to whatever extent they choose. What we are debating is the kind of society we would like to live in. We are lobbying for which direction our less-than-perfect society should move.
I can understand that a lot of people like the idea of eliminating intellectual property if it means free music. I can see the advantages of eliminating patent rights so we can manufacture anything we want. I can also see the virtue of a society that recognizes that the labor of writing poetry, plays, and music is comparable with manufacturing cars, computers and refrigerators.
Think about this: if we had competing societies that offered varying levels of protection for intellectual and physical property, what would happen? This would be a free market for ideas, innovations, and theories of property rights.
Would industrial entrepeneurs migrate to the societies that respected their factory ownership rather than the socialist societies that seized their assets on a whim? I would bet that the societies with strong property rights would enjoy a much greater prosperity of physical goods.
Would great artists, thinkers, and inventors migrate to the societies that gave them ownership of their brilliant thoughts, thus enriching them and encouraging them to spend more time being intellectually productive? Or would they rather live in societies that had no respect for their innovations and art and appropriated it for free as public domain? If you seriously believe genius would flourish everywhere, the best I can say is good luck with your social theory.
Furthermore, which societies would likely produce more genius? The Brain Drain is a clear indication that talented people will come from all over the world to a place that gives them more opportunity to capitalize on their ideas. Talented people are not content to simply live in repressive societies and contribute their best for the sake of the good of humanity. If there is any kind of a competing market for ideas, thinking people migrate to the market that makes their ideas the most valuable. Intellectual property is simply the incarnation of placing a market value on ideas.
Any society that obliterates the concept of intellectual property will destroy their market for ideas. All products go to the market where they are valued most. A society that places tangible rights and value on ideas and intellectual labor will enjoy an abundance of those products compared to a society that does not recognize them. To say otherwise is to argue against all the principles of market economics.
But maybe I am wrong. Maybe backward tribal societies, authoritarian regimes, and socialist nations who have moribund economies and lack of aesthetic arts are merely suffering from unimaginable bad luck and simply don’t have an abundance of great thinkers. Of course, I would think that since these markets desperately need great artists, inventors, and thinkers, there would be a rush of second tier intellectuals to make a name for themselves in these under-served markets. But the reality is that the reverse is true–given the opportunity, talented people migrate to where their talents have the most value.
We can architect our ideal society any way we want subject to persuading other people to join in our ambitions. If we have the unlimited right of secession, any social organization would be acceptable in my book. I can see a wide variety of organizations possible. The question is, if they are allowed unfettered competition, which societies would flourish and which would stagnate and ultimately vanish?
I personally would prefer to live in a society that respected some set of intellectual property. To me it is a small price to pay money for arts and inventions in exchange for having my choices grow by leaps and bounds. You get what you pay for. Good luck if you want to get what you don’t pay for.
Any libertarian society could recognize any kind of property rights they deem valid.
Such as property rights in your slaves? No.
“Inventors shouldn’t be able to use the government to dictate what other people can do with their property.”
Wow! Imagine a statement like: private property owners shouldn’t be able to use the government to enforce their property rights. Oops! Most here are anarchists anyway!
“Consequently, how would any rights be secure in such a society?”
That’d, of course, be up to the individual landowners. They instead may prefer to ‘go it alone’ than risk having any sort of centralisation that’d start up something akin to a government. Having some sort of ‘sheriff’ would be rely on landowners giving up their sovereignty and give someone a ‘monopoly of force’ not dependent on owenrship therefore would kickstart a new ‘state’.
Gil,
Wow! Imagine a statement like: private property owners shouldn’t be able to use the government to enforce their property rights. Oops! Most here are anarchists anyway!
This is not what was said. Here’s the argument again:
“Inventors shouldn’t be able to use the government to dictate what other people can do with their [i.e. the other people's] property.”
You are basically arguing a different argument – that property owners should not use one recourse available to enforce their own property. IP does not protect the inventors’ property but rather dictates what other people cannot do with their own property, like modifying and molding it to look or appear like something that was invented previously. It is like when Ugh invents the first wheel using his limestone; suddenly, Agh uses his OWN limestone and carves another wheel (obviously influenced by Ugh’s ingenuity); Ugh goes to chief Argh and asks him to issue Agh a Cease and Desist order (or conks him in the head, whatever…), even though Ugh still has HIS limestone wheel in his possession and certainly did NOT own Agh’s limestone. So how can Ugh suddenly have possession of Agh’s limestone in such a way that he can LIMIT how Agh’s can rearrange it carve it? And would now Ugh have the same power over Ogh’s, Mugh’s and Hargh’s limestone as well? Does that make sense?
@David_Spellman: THANK YOU! Very, very, very good comment. I hereby award you the Silas Barta Gold Star for Excellence in Bringing Sense to a Debate on Intellectual Property.
Michael_A._Clem: Listen to David_Spellman.
@Francisco_Torres: Sorry, but you should have seen it coming:
EM spectrum rights do not protect the broadcasters’ property but rather dictates what other people cannot do with their own property, like modifying and molding it to transmit like a frequency that was transmitted previously. It is like when Heywood broadcasts the first signal using his transmitter; suddenly, Milton uses his OWN wiring and configures another transmitter (obviously influenced by Heywood’s ingenuity); Heywood goes to Justice Holmes and asks him to issue Milton a Cease and Desist order (or conks him in the head, whatever…), even though Heywood still has HIS transmitter in his possession and certainly did NOT own Milton’s wiring. So how can Heywood suddenly have possession of Milton’s wiring in such a way that he can LIMIT how Milton can configure it? And would now Milton have the same power over Eugene, Francis, and Franklin’s wiring as well? Does that make sense?
Silas,
That argument only works by assuming the classical definition of property is justified when it includes the right to instantiate all patterns with (what is otherwise one’s own) physical property, which was the very thesis in dispute.
Why would such a thing be in dispute? Either you own your property, or you don’t. If you do, then you can instantiate anything with your own property.
Certainly, you can have a consistent set of property rights that includes IP and excludes physical property rights that would violated it
Silas, the problem is that IP is already inconsistent with property rights. People can enforce their own property right, at the most basic level, with their fists. You cannot do the same with ideas, since these quickly spawn in people’s minds by distribution. The only way IP can be “enforced” is by trampling on other people’s rights to how they use their OWN property. See my example above of the cavemen and the limestone wheels.
just like you can have a consistent set of property rights where physical property rights do not imply the right to blast arbitrary radio frequencies.
I have shown you already that the EM spectrum has the features of a scarce good and that it cannot be compared in any sense to ideas or inventions. Your use of this example is a clear-cut case of a false analogy, a logical fallacy.
Slias, I see that you keep pursuing the same false analogy.
EM spectrum rights do not protect the broadcasters’ property but rather dictates what other people cannot do with their own property,
No, this is false, Silas – any other broadcaster can still transmit using ANOTHER frequency if such is available. If one broadcaster finds that his transmissions are being intervened by someone else, he can boost his signal and drive him off the air (like a rancher drives cattle rustlers off his land), or he can take the other broadcaster to court if he can show he was transmitting in that frequency (i.e. homesteaded it) first.
like modifying and molding it to transmit like a frequency that was transmitted previously.
This sentence makes no sense to me. Maybe you do not know how radio works and you’re just making this up, or you are trying to shoe-horn this.
The rest of your exposition is just a repetition of what I have said. For some reason I cannot understand, you pretend that it applies in the same way to how transmissions are broadcast. This may be due to your ignorance of how radio works, or your unrelenting drive to shoehorn your favorite analogy to win an argument in favor of IP. I would suggest you look elsewhere for a better analogy.
David,
No argument about intellectual property should depend upon State coercion.
That’s not the issue – the problem is that IP IS a right [i.e. positive, or an entitlement] by government fiat. That’s a fact, and that is what is being debated.
Any libertarian society could recognize any kind of property rights they deem valid.
It would be difficult for a libertarian society to recognize right that cannot be enforced by one’s efforts (like the right to protect our life, our property, our freedom to act). IP is necessarily a positive right, i.e. an entitlement, and as such, cannot be enforced or protected in a free society, because it would require trampling over other people’s property rights. For example, if Ben created a horseless carriage by adding a steam engine to a buggy, and Henry does one better and adds a gas engine to HIS buggy, by what virtue would Ben have the right to go to Henry’s house and stop him from using or selling his version of the horseless carriage? IP advocates would say that Ben created a horseless carriage FIRST, but that does not give him an ENTITLEMENT to Henry’s buggy or engine nor to the pairing of the two.
So we are not debating whether intellectual property should exist or should be categorically eliminated. Any libertarian society could legitimately recognize (and enforce) intellectual property to whatever extent they choose.
As I have shown above, a libertarian society would not be able to enforce Intellectual Property as if it were true property, without that society trampling over the property rights of others.
I can understand that a lot of people like the idea of eliminating intellectual property if it means free music.
Would you also understand if it did NOT mean free music? Or free anything? Would you still understand it as a matter of principle and ethics? Would you understand it if the elimination of IP stems from logical reasoning?
I can see the advantages of eliminating patent rights so we can manufacture anything we want. I can also see the virtue of a society that recognizes that the labor of writing poetry, plays, and music is comparable with manufacturing cars, computers and refrigerators.
IP law does not make a society more virtuous nor does the lack of IP make the society less appreciative of works of art. There were no IP laws in Renaissance Italy, yet people appreciated and commissioned great works of art.
Think about this: if we had competing societies that offered varying levels of protection for intellectual and physical property, what would happen?[...] Would industrial entrepreneurs migrate to the societies that respected their factory ownership rather than the socialist societies that seized their assets on a whim?
David, you cannot lump together IP as if it were just as valid to protect as physical property. The question you are asking is thus hopelessly loaded, and I would be surprised someone would answer it as it is phrased.
Would great artists, thinkers, and inventors migrate to the societies that gave them ownership of their brilliant thoughts, thus enriching them and encouraging them to spend more time being intellectually productive?
David, you’re begging the question here. You cannot know that IP actually enriches artists and thinkers. I would suggest that IP actually enriches their publicists and distributors but not the artists themselves.
Any society that obliterates the concept of intellectual property will destroy their market for ideas.
You’re begging the question. IP is not way of adding value to ideas, it is a form of control over other people’s private property.
All products go to the market where they are valued most. A society that places tangible rights and value on ideas and intellectual labor will enjoy an abundance of those products compared to a society that does not recognize them.
The book mentioned in the article shows unequivocally that this is not true. Besides this, IP law is not a way to add value to ideas; by looking at how it is enforced, it is clearly a form of control over other people’s property. Only people can value something, not laws.
To say otherwise is to argue against all the principles of market economics.
You clearly do not trust market economics, so how can you say that to argue against an entitlement is akin to argue against the market?
Litigation copying is not your usual task of copying a text that you usually come across in your day to day life. It in fact, goes far beyond the normal copying processes since litigation entrusts an unprecedented amount of responsibility on the litigation copying service provider.
Francisco_Torres: No, this is false, Silas – any other broadcaster can still transmit using ANOTHER frequency if such is available.
Uh huh. And other people can still mold their property using ANOTHER pattern if such is available.
Why should they have to use a different pattern?
Why should they have to different frequency?
Sorry, but I’m not the one clueless here.
By the way, about the other post of mine you responded to: you can’t assume your conclusion in order to prove it. Just trust me on this one.
Silas,
Uh huh. And other people can still mold their property using ANOTHER pattern if such is available.[...]Why should they have to use a different pattern?[...]Why should they have to different frequency?
Are you obtuse? What does a pattern have to do with some frequency in the electromagnetic spectrum so as to think they can be comparable or the same thing? Do you even understand what a frequency is, the actual physical phenomenon?
A wave *is* a pattern. In radio waves, the frequency defines the pattern.
Do _you_ understand?
By the way, where are ktibuk and Andras? Did you ban them?
Silas, is it possible they’ve simply had enough of repeating the same argument ad nauseum?
A wave *is* a pattern. In radio waves, the frequency defines the pattern.
Yes, you’re right, a wave is a pattern. What does a pattern devised by a human (i.e. an idea) have to do with a natural pattern (i.e. a radio wave), that is what I was asking, but I fell in your trap by not being specific. My bad.
No argument about intellectual property should depend upon State coercion.
I agree. Yet IP wouldn’t exist except for state coercion. Would Beethoven have produced more symphonies if copyright protection had existed in his time? Would Shakespeare have written more plays?
In an anarchic or libertarian society, respect for rights is important, including the right to not be dictated to by others about how one’s own justly acquired property is used. And yet, this is just where IP laws cross the line, saying you cannot do such and such with your own property, because it coincides with someone else’s “pattern” or design.
Also, as a practical matter, the economics of law enforcement come into play. The reason I think that reasonable laws would come about in anarchism is because it becomes increasingly prohibitive to enforce unjust laws. Current enforcement of IP seems rather costly to me, indicating it could not be enforced without the coercive power of a government monopoly.
Now, this is not to say that rampant copying and theft is acceptable, merely that more reasonable, more just laws should be enough to prevent it without some comprehensive, intrusive IP protection scheme. We want to protect rights, not privileges.
“Silas, is it possible they’ve simply had enough of repeating the same argument ad nauseum?”
You’ve confused Silas here.
The construct of “Intellectual Property” is against the homesteading principle.
Imagine someone (A) living in an uninhabited part of the world. This person built a house there, maintains a farm, harvests lumber (some trees grow on his property) and produces his own paper.
Another person (B), living somewhere else, is “inventing” some sort of plow made out of wood.
What right does B have to tell A not to use As lumber to make a plow? Patents?
What if B is a writer too and A gets to know a story (maybe about the inventor of a plow!), that B claims to be the author of? What right does B have to tell A not to write down this story on his own pieces of paper? Copy”right”?
The arguments surrounding IP are much like the religious craziness that takes the form of either stating that (i) all beings who never knew X religious figure’s teachings are saved; or (ii) are damned. They are flawed from the very beginning!
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