Claremontista defenders of infinite copyright
I know some people think the Galambosian described and ridiculed in Jerome Tuccille's It Usually Begins with Ayn Rand [recounted here; see also discussion here, here, and here] is fictional; likewise incredible are the more extreme advocates of intellectual property (discussed here), among them Spooner, Galambos, Ayn Rand, and Neil Schulman. As I noted in my longer IP article, most IP advocates favor finite terms for patent and copyright, but this reveals an arbitrariness and a tension in their advocacy of this as a property right. To avoid this arbitrariness the IP advocate ought to be in favor of perpetual (infinite) copyright and patent terms. Most don't, however, for practical reasons.
Enter Claremontista Mark Helprin, who argues for infinite copyright terms in A Great Idea Lives Forever. Shouldn’t Its Copyright?. So Claremontistas are not only terrible on Lincoln, they're bad on intellectual property too. (See this wiki criticism of Helprin's nutty idea.)
This was called to my attention by a correspondent who wrote:
If you thought that Huffington blog entry on restricting home-schooling was bad [note: this post one of the most evil, utterly monstrous pieces of filth I have ever read; it's why I utterly despise the left. --SK], wait 'til you get a load of [Helprin's piece]: He wants to extend copyright to . . . well, infinity and beyond!Helprin, incidentally, is a senior fellow at the Claremont Institute, a super-hawk think tank... and occasional Mises Institute nemesis.
Comments (56)
JIMB
Geez. And I thought libertarians were *more* likely to live at peace and here we have an all-out attack on a significant portion of decent libertarians - as if "eating your own" is going to do any good whatsoever.
There's a lot of disagreement about IP but the facts are very clear. Ideas can be sold, they are scarce (positive price for them), they are the property of the person having them (unarguable) who can part with them any way he or she sees fit (clearly) ... CEOs do it, scientists do it, authors do it, even repackaging public-domain ideas is a big market (look at research, etc).
Protection from unjustified theft and distribution of a person's ideas (such as copyright) is just an extension of the protections afforded a person for their own property and happiness.
The only defendable principal is that IP rights cannot violate another person's right to develop and publish their *own* ideas. That's it. And that's all.
Published: May 22, 2007 2:57 PM
colino
The critical issue in respect of so-called intellectual property is whether or not ideas can be defined somehow as "property" so as to be capable of ownership.
In several very real ways, ideas differ from other types of property. For example, the owner of an idea is, by asserting a property right over it, is not attempting to prevent other people from possession of that idea, but only from using it. In fact, countless people can be in possession of the idea at the same time, however, only the "owner" of the idea would be entitled to make use of it in theory. In fact some ideas are such that neither the creator nor others can prevent the non-creators from possession of it. A very unusual feature of this type of property.
In addition, knowledge can be obtained by different people independantly of one another. However, the person asserting ownership is the one who obtains that knowledge, or simply registers that knowledge, first. In fact, it is conceivable that a person can have an idea and then be precluded from using that idea by a later discoverer who is quicker to register that idea. The rational for this escapes my understanding.
To suggest at all that something that is intangible can be "possessed" as property to the exclusion of others is something quite unique in our understanding and makes very little sense to me.
The effect of enforceing intellectual property laws, often is to preclude many people from using their own knowledge in an effort to protect one individual. Whereas the intent of that type of protection may arise from an undrstandable desire to protect persons with great ideas from those who are unscrupulous, the fiction that is created by suggesting that ideas can be property is unworkable.
Published: May 22, 2007 3:49 PM
jjr
Information, like man, wants to be free. I have long believed this true. I would be curious if there is any body of knowledge at the Mises Institute or elsewhere regarding the libertarian exploration of intellectual property. I am a content provider, and it so obviously apparent to me that creativity is an act of building upon the work of your forebears. Stifling creativity is a no-win proposition. "Intellectual property" is a slippery slope, as government is. We do a lot more damage to humanity with it than without. This is ultimately how I must weigh my opinion, no?
Published: May 22, 2007 4:46 PM
jjr
Information, like man, wants to be free. I have long believed this true. I would be curious if there is any body of knowledge at the Mises Institute or elsewhere regarding the libertarian exploration of intellectual property. I am a content provider, and it so obviously apparent to me that creativity is an act of building upon the work of your forebears. Stifling creativity is a no-win proposition. "Intellectual property" is a slippery slope, as government is. We do a lot more damage to humanity with it than without. This is ultimately how I must weigh my opinion, no?
Published: May 22, 2007 4:47 PM
JIMB
colino - Your argument is that the essential element of property is the exclusion of other people from taking action with the thing owned, which of course would render "self-ownership" impossible, as other people's actions are routinely included as effects on one's own body.
It's completely self-contradictory. Every part of it.
Published: May 22, 2007 4:58 PM
Oyie Parks
If you support intellectual property rights and believe in deontology, an act being right/wrong in itself (i.e. not utilitarianism)... then by logical extension you must support perpetual intellectual property rights (i.e. infinite copyright/patents).
btw, people knock corporations and copyright as government 'invention/fiction'... but both of these can survive in some form or another by contract alone.
As for anarchism... it looks like anarchism is currently deciding against copyright/patents.
But ultimately intellectual property rights are no less arbitrary than physical property rights... basically the 'law' of the jungle still prevails - it's 'yours' if you can keep it (i.e. you have enough teeth backing you up that 'says' it's yours). Although a greater 'law' then says what becomes of you and your backers based on what you choose to claim/disclaim as your own (i.e. the 'law of the jungle' says it's 'yours', but 'the law of economics' says you live in perpetual starvation for not allowing people what's 'theirs').
Published: May 22, 2007 10:22 PM
JSH
JIMB: have a better definition? What is your definition of property? You're engaging in false dilemma when you imply something must be completely controlled, or completely not controlled.
Published: May 22, 2007 10:26 PM
David C
JIMB,
"Ideas can be sold, they are scarce (positive price for them), they are the property of the person having them (unarguable) who can part with them any way he or she sees fit (clearly) ... CEOs do it, scientists do it, authors do it, even repackaging public-domain ideas is a big market (look at research, etc)."
Yes. Any government granted monopoly can create a scarcity that can be monetized. Thank you, but that has nothing to do with being a property right. In the case of copyright, those personal monopolies force the market to center around information controls instead of information services. Hey Wait! Inventors and creators are good at creating things, governments and lawyers are good at controlling things. Who do these "properties" really benefit overall?
Property is a right to limit the choices of others based off of rational and just criteria. With physical property and self, it is rational because when your choices conflict with others - any other solution would amount to "might makes right". With ideals, inventions, copies of information and so on, no one using an idea or piece of information coercively or fraudulently prevents another from using their copy of it.
Published: May 22, 2007 11:12 PM
Francisco Torres
Ideas can be sold . . .
If someone is willing to pay for them, then yes, they can be sold.
[...] they are scarce (positive price for them)
They are NOT. Scarcity implies limited resources. Ideas, however, can be spawned ad infinitum in people's minds.
[...] they are the property of the person having them (unarguable)
Unarguably? Actually, you beg the question - you assume that ideas are scarce in order to confer them the attribute of property. An idea cannot be homesteaded, nor can you place a fence around it. It only makes sense inside a person's mind, nowhere else, which means a person cannot possess the idea spawned in another person's mind.
Property consist of anything that cannot be held by two people at the same time - i.e. rivalrous goods. Ideas are NON rivalrous. Also, it is only through frank chickanery that one person can "prove" that an idea that he or she had is exactly the same as another person holds in his or her mind.
Published: May 22, 2007 11:59 PM
scott
jr states...."Information, like man, wants to be free." well...i dont think information in itself 'wants' anything.
thats somewhat confusing to me.
man wants freedom until 'freedom' is 'un-freeing' someone else.
i assume man would like or prefer for infromation to be free because free info can benefit him/her.
now i can walk around and gather information via my senses about my surroundings, like.."wendy's is open late"....and that doesnt cost anything
until i buy a wendys burger.
but i guess with the specialization of labor where some peoples actual labor 'is' developing 'highly organized information or items' ...like the trackball mouse that i am using..inventions, gadgets, art? etc. -- how does one then develop a livelyhood when 'scarce time' put into a developing a product can then easily be mimicked by others with access to similar materials without having to engage in the time and capital spent for development?
or is that just a chance you take?
Published: May 23, 2007 12:43 AM
colino
"how does one then develop a livelyhood when 'scarce time' put into a developing a product can then easily be mimicked by others with access to similar materials without having to engage in the time and capital spent for development?"
The fact that your sense of justice requires that ideas, and those that have them, should be protected somehow, does not convert something into property if it was not property already. That is putting the cart before the horse. Just because we want something to be property does not mean that it is.
However the answer is to only reveal your knowledge to others pursuant to a contract requiring them to keep the knowledge to themselves as well. That way, only those who have paid for the knowledge and those who also create that knowledge themselves will be able to use it.
What those who are trying to assert property rights over knowledge are in effect doing, is not to prevent the creator of using his own knowledge, but rather trying to prevent others from using the knowledge that they have themselves. This is a unique feature of knowledge as "property".
Should one be able to assert property rights over hopes? or dreams? or wants? such that the first to register a claim to those products of the intellect cannot be used by anyone else? Why not?
To restrict others' use of knowledge is a very bad idea. To couch the restriction in a fabrication that ideas are somehow property, creates mischief.
Published: May 23, 2007 6:08 AM
TLWP Sam
Colino argument reminds of the question Robert Kiyosaki put forward in 'Rich Dad Poor Dad': can you make a better burger than McDonald's? If you reply 'yes' then why is McDonalds the one making billions? Then he further pointed out in 'Rich Dad's Guide To Investing' that 'great ideas are a dime in a dozen but great businesses are as rare as hen's teeth'. His answer to this dilemma is that the few successful folk understand that the main part of a business is its delivery capacity, in other words it's ability to supply the demand. Hence, it could be said that be said that I.P. is ultimately unnecessary as few people can bring an idea to market anyway. Futhermore does not the argument therefore really mean people who are capable of business delivery (supply) are the real gems of society (and hence make the big bucks)?
Published: May 23, 2007 7:15 AM
colino
My argument is that ideas are not "property" and that IP is a fiction created by those who wish to restrict the thoughts and actions of others through the use of the only entity which can accomplish that feat - the state. How that relates to your example, I do not know.
Published: May 23, 2007 7:23 AM
DC
There's a lot of disagreement about IP but the facts are very clear.
A bold statement, let's take a look at what you come up with. . .
Ideas can be sold,
Correct. Well, depending on what you mean by that, of course.
they are scarce (positive price for them),
There are scarce things with a price of 0 (as long as nobody wants them, that is their price) and non-scarce things with a positive price. Price may correlate with scarcity, and it most often does, but it does not determine a good's scarcity in principle. Post hoc ergo propter hoc.
Judging whether something is rivalrous -- in essence, physical extension -- seems a better criterion for scarcity. Can you demonstrate that ideas are rivalrous in nature -- that is, that you can only have one person dwelling on one idea at a given time, much like the scarcity of standing space or hamburgers?
(It can also be argued that you don't pay for an idea, but rather the service of someone communicating it to you. That might be the route that Mr. Kinsella would take in critiquing your position -- I'm not 100% sure. I'm not interested in going in circles over this with you, but whatever the case, this point of yours does not seem to be very "clear.")
they are the property of the person having them (unarguable)
What's the "they" in that sentence? Are we presuming that "ideas" have some ontological status, like tables or cheese? One thing is clear, if ideas are anything more than chemical configurations in a brain, then it follows that an idea cannot be physical. If it's not physical, then it's not rivalrous, and if it's not rivalrous, then it cannot be scarce.
What's the meaning of 'private property' in an idea, if that idea cannot be taken away from you whenever you may want to ponder it?
It seems to me that you will have a hard time establishing that this point is "unarguable."
The only defendable principal is that IP rights cannot violate another person's right to develop and publish their *own* ideas. That's it. And that's all.
OK, so it looks like you're in agreement with Kinsella here. If I find an idea in a book, there's nothing I can do with the idea such that it would take it away from anyone else. We can all think, develop, and even publish that idea in whatever way we choose. Now you're starting to make more sense. . . ;)
Published: May 23, 2007 7:27 AM
Jordan
Okay, new rule:
If you can't pee on it, you can't own it.
Published: May 23, 2007 8:00 AM
Brad
What's amazing is that there is a simple and strong argument against perpetual intellectual "property."
Imagine if we granted everybody who created a product a perpetual patent on their product. For example, the creator of the first TV would have a patent. The creator of the first VCR would have a patent. The creator of the first V-Chip would have a patent. The creator of the first Remote Control would have a patent and so on.
Isn't it the same thing as monopoly to grant a perpetual patent for television to the person lucky enough to create the first TV? Could you imagine if you only had 1 brand of TV to choose from when you go to the store to buy one?
Granting perpetual intellectual "property" would be a disaster worse than Socialism.
Published: May 23, 2007 8:17 AM
chanceH
So you tell about a better way to build a mousetrap. I now have the idea. I own in. It's "unarguable". Sounds like we all agree. I own all my brain cells.
Published: May 23, 2007 8:24 AM
Nick Bradley
The CounterWiki came up with a very good point:
Tangible property is a zero-sum game, while Intellectual Property is not.
As Kinsella has pointed out, property rights only apply to scarce goods. If we could wish goods into existence, there would be no need for property rights at all. I can copy an MP3 a million times without taking anything away from the original owner.
Published: May 23, 2007 9:37 AM
rtr
Correct, it's only the original owner that can take the use of another's person or property away by using violence to prevent the other from copying or creating things which do not diminish or take away the original's property. There's a gigantic list of examples defenders of IP have run away from or are hiding behind the bushes from answering. How can anyone and everyone build houses with doors and windows? It's absurdity to think anyone can exclusively own ideas, methods, sounds, or images. Those claims are necessarily violent attacks on the minds, ears, and eyes of others.
Published: May 23, 2007 10:24 AM
JIMB
Nick - I hear this all the time and it is factually, unalterably, demonstrably false.
re: Ideas aren't scarce.
Please explain how a non-scarce good can command a positive price!
The entire *theory* is junk. It is simply factless assertions. By whatever accident it should prove true, it has no relationship to the arguments presented.
It's like saying "see what happens when you jump off that cliff ... I told you a gallon was four quarts ...". The endless blizzard of this crusade on Mises.org is 95% nonsense.
It doesn't compute. It doesn't equate.
Published: May 23, 2007 1:09 PM
JIMB
rtr - Name one person that has made the argument that the idea of windows and doors are intellectual property.
Published: May 23, 2007 1:11 PM
JIMB
ChanceH - That would be offering you an idea without a contract and for free - outside the domain of the discussion.
re: So you tell about a better way to build a mousetrap.
Published: May 23, 2007 1:14 PM
JIMB
DC- Bravo! A contradiction in the same sentence!
re: There are scarce things with a price of 0 (as long as nobody wants them, that is their price)
"Nobody wants them" and "scarce goods" just don't match, do they?
Published: May 23, 2007 1:16 PM
Nick Bradley
OK JIMB,
If you say that all that is needed to classify something as property is a positive price, let's give a patent to the heirs of the first person to build a hut. He will reap monopoly patent rights on every building in existence.
As far as your "positive price theory" goes, that does not determine whether it is property, or vice versa. You can have worthless land in the middle of the desert with a price of zero, but it's still property.
Furthermore, a property right does not guarantee the right to profit. Monopoly grants do that, but not property rights.
You are trying to make the argument that me copying an MP3 file takes money out of the artist's pocket by increasing the supply, yes? Well, why don't you extend the argument to producers of non-patented consumer goods. Isn't that what a competitor does when he enters the market -- reduce the price by increasing the supply?
There is no right to profit...
Published: May 23, 2007 1:57 PM
DC
JIMB, if that's your response, then you seem to have missed the point that I was making.
Published: May 23, 2007 1:59 PM
greg
Oyie Park> [P]eople knock corporations and copyright as government 'invention/fiction'... but both of these can survive in some form or another by contract alone.
True. For demonstration of very little argument on mises.org that particular detail, read the millions of words in Sasha Radata related IP threads. The question there always boiled down to third party application.
Oyie Park> As for anarchism... it looks like anarchism is currently deciding against copyright/patents.
Perhaps the key feature of anarchy is that "it" does not "decide" anything, as anarchy is actually a null condition. So "it" only "decides against" in the sense that with no state, there can be no state sanctions (by definition). So language like "it deciding" carries with it the POV bias of statists.
In an anarchy condition, there would be nothing to prevent private contracts from describing constraints for the distribution of ideas.
Jordan> Okay, new rule: If you can't pee on it, you can't own it.
I like it. It satisfies the best of my "qualities to look for" list: simple, easy to remember.
jimb> It doesn't compute. It doesn't equate.
That pretty much sums up your problem.
Published: May 23, 2007 2:33 PM
Stephan Kinsella
JimB:
Jim, I think you are mistaken, and I think your error comes from a confused view of property, ownership, and contract. As I pointed out in my IP piece, it is confusing and incorrect to say we "own" thinks like our labor; or to say that "creating" something is a way of coming to own it. Actually, homesteading a previously-unowned scarce resource, or receiving it by gift of sale from a previous owner in a voluntary transfer, are the only ways to gain ownership of something. "Creation" is not a separate category, as Randians maintain. If you think you can create things, then yes, who else has a better connection to the thing, but the creator, and thus should be the owner. But we do not create things. We find them, or get them from a previous owner, or transform these things.
But creation is neither necessary nor sufficient for ownership. If I own steel and shape it into a sword, I don't own the sword b/c I created it--I own it because I already owned the steel that I used to make the sword. So, creation is not necessary for ownership. If I shape your steel into a sword, I do NOT own the sword--so creation is not sufficient. In fact focus on creation, like the labor theory of value (and the confused idea that we "own" our labor) lies behind a lot of mistakes.
One of these is the promise-based view of contract, which in a sense is based on the misleading metaphor that we "own" our "labor" and "thus" can "sell it." The proper view of contract, by contrast, as I've laid out in my contract paper, is that it is just a network of conditional and related exchanges of title to property.
If you and I engage in a sale--I pay you a dollar for a basket of apples, then the contract defines the transfers of title: apple title transfers to the buyer; dollar title transfers to the seller.
But a bilateral exchange of title to property is not the only way to trasnfer title. I might give you a dollar as a gift--this is just a one-way transfer. I might also condition this transfer: I give you the dollar IF you make straight A's next semester. If the condition is fulfilled, the dollar's title is transferred. Is that a "sale" of your "making straight A's"? I dont know; you can call it that, in analogy to a normal sale, but it's just an analogy, or metaphor, or way of looking at it. Whatever you call it, the "making straight A's" is just an occurrence, or a series of actions; "making straight A's" is not property; it is not a scarce resource; it is not owned; it is not really transferred. Nonetheless it is an object of the contract.
The point is you can pay money for something you value, but the thing you value need not be a *scarce resource*. It could be a happening; an event; an outcome; the satisfaction of a condition.
In a normal employment or service contract, the employer pays the worker to do something. Again, as above, you can *view this* as a "sale" of "labor", but it's not really, since "labor" is not a scarce resource--it's not an owned thing that can be "transferred"; labor, like action, is just a description of *what you do*--it's a description of the motions of your body over a period of time. So while it might be convenient to use metaphors like "I bought his labor" this is not strictly speaking what happened, according to the title transfer theory of contract. What really happened is the "buyer" conditionally transferred title to money--it is conditioned upon the recipient doing or engaging in specified actions. It is a misleading metaphor to literally state that the "actions" that are the trigger of the condition, the object of the employer, are "sold". You can use this term if you want, but you must keep in mind that it is metaphorical and loose language only.
And then you would realize why you have no basis to say that it's nonsense to "pay" a "positive price" for a "non-scarce good". If you know things I do not know, and I wish to know them--a recipe, a formula, a pattern--I can agree to transfer title to money to you upon your performing an action--namely, revealing-the-information-to-me. It is utterly irrelevant and beside the point that the "information" you "gave" me is not a scarce (rivalrous) resource; just as it's irrelevant in the "straight A's" case above that "making straight A's" is not a scarce resource. In both cases, the owner of money is not paying "for a scarce resource"--he is not receiving title in exchange for his title transfer. Instead, he is trasnferring title based on a condition occurring.
In other words, as an owner of money who wants something (e.g., I want to have apples; or I want to have someone make straight A's; or I want someone to paint my fence), I can agree to pay people some of my money based on the conditino that they take the steps needed to give me what I want. In the case of apples, what I want is title to apples. Therefore, I make my money-payment conditional on getting title to apples. This is a standard bilateral exchange. In this case, yes, the thing I want is a scarce resource, since it's title to it that I want.
But in the other cases, I don't want title to a thing. I want, instead, something to happen--for my nephew to make straight A's; or for some guy to paint my fence. So in this case I make my payment conditional upon them *doing specified things*. In these cases, it is utterly irrelevant that the action performed is not a scarce resource. This is why it's possible to "pay" someone for a non-scarce resource--just as it's possible to *give* money away as a gift, it's possible to give it away to induce someone to perform some action I desire.
Published: May 23, 2007 3:03 PM
JIMB
Nick - A positive price means a good is scarce. Think about it...
Published: May 23, 2007 3:54 PM
JIMB
DC - By all means, enlighten me.
Published: May 23, 2007 4:00 PM
JIMB
Stephan - You are exchanging one set of affairs (more money) for another (less money but another good which has some positive value to you for it's service). It is the service of the good which interests you, not the good itself.
Services (the arrangement of affairs into the configuration you wish) apparently are highly scarce as they are configurations of material - and material can take only one configuration at a time. Hence the "configuration" is scarce (and rivalrous to other configurations and other people in their desire of different configurations).
Now if that is true and ideas provide services (configurations!), I submit to you that ideas are scarce as well!
Now you can play the 'rivalrous' game all you want because ideas are easily duplicated, but it is not in their duplication that the value lies: good excellent high powered ideas are not "in everyone's minds" because if they were, they wouldn't be bought for high prices and then CEOs and consultants would get paid near nothing. In other words, factual human action (and the market) repeatedly denies your claim.
Further, if you define ownership as "the right or the power to exclude" how can you own "yourself"? Obviously lots of things occur that influence your life because of the actions of other people (even if we had an anarcho-libertarian society). So ownership in the "excluding others" sense isn't even possible in society; so ownership is a substantially more complex issue than just "the right or the power to exclude".
A better definition ownership is the power to put something to the service that *you* see fit. It's a right of action. Now if that is correct, not only are ideas scarce, but the entire theory of "material is the boundary of ownership" is in jeopardy. Because of course, rights of action *are not material*, but instead are distinct from it.
Published: May 23, 2007 4:38 PM
rtr
JIMB: "Name one person that has made the argument that the idea of windows and doors are intellectual property."
Better yet, why don't you explain *why* the idea of windows and doors are not intellectual property. Are you saying ideas of doors and ideas of windows don't exist? Are you saying ideas of doors and ideas of windows are not property? Why? If any idea can be property than why can't similarly the idea of doors and the idea of windows be property?
How about a "gold rush"? Some guy discovers gold and other people hear about and rush to try to get a piece of the action for themselves with their own property? Is that not blatant *copying* of the person who first discovered gold? You see, you are not talking at all about property, you are merely talking about using violence to restrict non-violent *actions* of others.
Published: May 23, 2007 4:42 PM
DC
JIMB, you asked me to enlighten you.
Sure thing. You wrote:
they are scarce (positive price for them),
and I replied: There are scarce things with a price of 0 (as long as nobody wants them, that is their price) and non-scarce things with a positive price. Price may correlate with scarcity, and it most often does, but it does not determine a good's scarcity in principle. Post hoc ergo propter hoc*.
* the logical fallacy of confusing correlation with causation.
Published: May 23, 2007 4:48 PM
scott
kinsella states...."you can *view this* as a "sale" of "labor", but it's not really, since "labor" is not a scarce resource--it's not an owned thing that can be "transferred"; labor, like action, is just a description of *what you do*--"
i dunno...blinking my eyes, or breathing may be just something i do. labor to me, seems to be a rather 'specific' type of action.
if i labor as a soccer player for a team...i can transfer that labor to another team via contract, right?
and when i am not playing soccer i could be doing beer commercials.
soccer palyer on the weekends and beer seller on other occasions. it seems impossible to do both at the same time.
labor i thought was a an 'exchange of specific action for some specifiic good'?
but eating and sleeping, again, things that one just does, arent 'labor' are they?
Published: May 23, 2007 4:53 PM
JIMB
rtr - The idea of windows and doors are not property for the same reason that air is not property. Honestly, you've got to be serious about the discussion for it to be fun at all. The claim has never been - easily understood by the context - that *all* ideas are scarce ... but that ideas *can be* scarce.
Published: May 23, 2007 4:58 PM
Stephan Kinsella
JimB:
Well, if we want to be precise, where "exchange" usually refers to an exchange of TITLES to property, then no, you are using the term too loosely.
I agree that the reason you want (title to) a given good is for its serviceability. But that does not mean you don't want title to it. You DO want title to it. In this case, you transfer title to money conditional upon receiving title to the other thing that you want title to.
But for other "services" or things you want to happen, you don't need any transfer of title. You just need the action to happen. So what you so is agree to transfer payment if the person performs a given action. You are not buying anything, or exchanging anyting, strictly speaking.
Services are *actions*--things people do with their bodies and property. They are phenomenon; happenings; doings. Actions are *not scarce objects*; they are not "rivalrous resources". My "walking to town" is NOT a "scarce resource"--it is *what I did with my body*. My sword is a scarce resource. My "lopping off your head with it" is not. It's a USE OF a scarce resource. It's an action employing a scarce resource.
No. This is simply confused.
Here you are making the fallacious argument that if a scarce resource, like an apple, provides service to the buyer, then an idea is also a scarce resource, if it also provides a service. Nonsense. It is not "providing as service" that makes the apple scarce--it is its physical nature of being unable to be consumed or used simultaneously by multiple people. That is what makes it rivalrous/scarce. That it provides a service as estimated subjectively by a buyer is due to its *particular* scarce nature, not its scarcity-as-such.
Therefore, the fact that an idea is valuable to me does not mean that it is scarce. This is what you have been presupposing all along. That is why I exposed your hidden presumption to the light of day, since it's so obviously absurd.
Value does not "lie anywhere". I have no idea what this overly-metaphorical assertion means. You have yet to show why the subjective appraisal of values by an actor relates to the rivalrousness of the thing in question. I may value an apple, which is a scarce object. I may also value "having world peace", which is not a scarce resource.
You don't own yourself. You own your body. Your body is a scarce object. The question arises, in case of a dispute, who has the right to decide what to do with it? If the answer is "the person whose body it is," that may be described as "self-ownership".
Published: May 23, 2007 4:59 PM
JIMB
DC - Any trade is done in the hopes of obtaining a scarce item, or you have no psychological reason for doing it. You are giving something up to gain something else, remember. That's what "a positive price" means ...
Published: May 23, 2007 5:05 PM
rtr
rtr: "The idea of windows and doors are not property for the same reason that air is not property. Honestly, you've got to be serious about the discussion for it to be fun at all. The claim has never been - easily understood by the context - that *all* ideas are scarce ... but that ideas *can be* scarce."
Ideas are only "scarce" if you don't share an idea that nobody else knows. If you share an idea, if you sell an idea, if you trade an idea, if someone observes your idea in action, the idea is no longer scarce, and can never be scarce again when more than one person knows the idea, no matter the means by which they know the idea. Correct?
But patent/copyright claims rip off the ideas of others in every single case. The person who writes words in a book is ripping off the first person to make a book, is ripping off the first person to write, is ripping off the first person to think, etc. etc. If you're trying to sell a book you're ripping off the first person*S* to trade. Thus, an idea can remain "scarce" only if a person remains silent. Correct? If that person chooses not to remain silent they are a hypocrite invalidating all claims to unique scarce ideas. Correct? Even if a person remains silent they are ripping off monks who lived in silence. And if they make a noise, written or verbal, they are hypocrites copying others.
Thus, you *concede* COPYING is a legimate non-violent action. Even those that make claims of copyright/patent are COPYING those who made claims of copyright/patent previously. Oh the absurdity! Oh the irony! If COPYING is legitimate in *any* case, it is legitimate in *every* case.
Published: May 23, 2007 5:14 PM
Stephan Kinsella
Scott:
i dunno...blinking my eyes, or breathing may be just something i do. labor to me, seems to be a rather 'specific' type of action.
Sure. So? It's a type of action.
Not literally, no. This is just overuse of metaphor. It shows the danger of sloppy and imprecise terms and thinking.
The team agrees to transfer title to money to you based on a certain condition occuring, [x]. It does not really matter what X is--X can be "playing soccer for us" or "two new comments are discovered by July 10". The person paying money if these conditions are triggered are no more buying "playing soccer" than they are "the discovery of comets".
Sure. Because our bodies are scarce resources.
To be precise--always frowned upon in these contexts, I know--labor is "performing actions that trigger an obligation to pay money".
I don't know, I could pay you to do them.
Published: May 23, 2007 5:29 PM
JIMB
rtr - You've yet to produce anyone that can be considered remotely reasonable that says things like "The person who writes words in a book is ripping off the first person to make a book, is ripping off the first person to write..." and declares that all books should be patentable to the first book idea creator.
Ideas are still scarce even if an idea is widely known. You will pay for important information even if half the town knows, but you don't. Come on rtr ...
Published: May 23, 2007 5:42 PM
rtr
JIMB: "You've yet to produce anyone that can be considered remotely reasonable that says things like "The person who writes words in a book is ripping off the first person to make a book, is ripping off the first person to write..." and declares that all books should be patentable to the first book idea creator."
The point is in order to be *consistent*, prpopnents of intellectual "property" *should* also advocate that those ideas should be copyrightable/patentable. That they can't defend them as such is only an example that they can't defend any ideas as "property" at all.
JIMB: "Ideas are still scarce even if an idea is widely known. You will pay for important information even if half the town knows, but you don't. Come on rtr"
No disagreement. People buy newspapers every day. Nobody is omniscient. Information is not equally known. But that has nothing to do with ideas as "property".
And don't forget to answer the good stuff:
rtr: "Thus, you *concede* COPYING is a legitimate non-violent action. Even those that make claims of copyright/patent are COPYING those who made claims of copyright/patent previously. Oh the absurdity! Oh the irony! If COPYING is legitimate in *any* case, it is legitimate in *every* case."
Those who seek restraint of others COPYING them are guilty of COPYING others. Thus, they have no valid claim to prohibiting COPYING. Copyright/Patent claimants are necessarily arguing against their claims, in absolutely every single case of claim. Case closed. Q.E.D.
Published: May 23, 2007 6:56 PM
JIMB
Stephan - The crux of the issue is the definition of scarcity - and whether the definition you've provided is congruent to human psychology, human action and economics.
A scarce good is one for which a person will trade something of value that he possesses for the thing that is considered more scarce. It is a desire for the services from that thing which one does not have in sufficient abundance.
In any market, an economically scarce good is one for which there is a positive price. The farmer may have plenty of potatoes which he sells for goods which are "more scarce" to himself than the goods he receives in exchange. As always, scarcity is driven by the axiomatic foundation of subjective valuation, the desire for the services of one thing in relationship to another.
Immediately it is perceived that scarcity is far larger than the "rivalrous material objects only" restriction - because many things are traded that do not fit that description and they are *indeed* economically scarce.
The "rivalrous material objects only" alternative is simply a concocted definition which contains hidden within it (when added to the concept of ownership being the right to exclude) all the ingredients of the thing you (desperately) wish to be proved: that IP does not exist, irrespective of the positive price accorded it on the market to CEOs, scientists, etc.
Clearly the seller in a transaction exerts some "control" over the idea (whether because of time constraints or distribution limits, or whatever), because the buyer wishes the information and will part with scarce goods for it thus showing that the ideas and information is indeed scarce.
The issue is further confused by the definition of scarcity as "rivalrous material objects only" because it is ultimately not matter that is scarce (there appears to be plenty of it), and not energy that is scarce (there appears to be plenty of that), but our ability to convert either to the services which we desire - and that is why services are scarce. There would be no economic scarcity (except those things that altered the lifespan because of the limits of time) if we could convert either immediately to the services we desire. So it is indeed the "arrangement" of matter, for as long as we survive (however fully or partly) relying on material existence, that is therefore also "scarce".
It is our state of technology that prevents the possibility of conversion of things more easily to the services we desire, or said another way, our *IDEAS* and knowledge which appears to be the most scarce resource! In fact, this argument provides a far more solid foundation to argue that IP laws (most especially those involving any process from nature such as drugs or computer code or other technology) should not be patentable, as they are open to discovery by every man and are given to us by nature or by our Creator. No man owns nature, it is given to every person.
Now whether a book is patentable, having near zero chance of ever being duplicated by discovery, and thus is the unique creation of a person and theirs alone, is not given to all men, and can be sold only under the conditions amenable to the author, I think answers itself.
Copyrights do indeed protect property which is not "given to every man" but in which some men can dictate the terms of sale and have those distribution rights enforced. That some authors or moviemakers will attempt to overstep their bounds I've no doubt - but that does not invalidate the argument.
Published: May 23, 2007 10:56 PM
Kevin Carson
JIMB,
Huh? Ideas are scarce and can fetch a price *because* of "intellectual property" [sic]. The whole point of patents and copyrights is to "solve" the "problem" of the cheap reproducibility of information. And the reason the RIAA and MPAA and the horrid Gates-thing have been going batshit with jackboot legislation this past decade has been the virtually zero marginal cost of reproducing digital information.
Published: May 23, 2007 11:22 PM
JIMB
Kevin - Ideas are scarce in and of themselves which is why they command a positive price - even for scientific ideas which are not patentable. Read the prior post more carefully.
As far as the "whole idea of patents and copyrights" restricting the copying of someone's work, unless it has been independently developed, then it would be a violation of the copyright agreement under which the creation is distributed by the author. The creator of a work does indeed have the right to sell use of the created work without selling the right to distribute the work and have it enforced. The bootlegged copies of Spiderman 3 are simply thefts - clearly and obviously. That is a sufficiently unique work never to have arisen by chance.
Those elements of law (patents and copyrights) where here long before the RIAA and MPAA. Unfortunately you stand factually and logically wrong on nearly every count.
Published: May 23, 2007 11:44 PM
rtr
You're talking contradictory absurdity JIMB.
JIMB: "The bootlegged copies of Spiderman 3 are simply thefts - clearly and obviously. That is a sufficiently unique work never to have arisen by chance."
*Where* is the theft if the original physical property and the original idea is still possessed by the original owner? You can hum a tune in your head or replay a scene from a movie in your head. It's absurd to claim that is "theft".
Nothing which is done by action exists by chance, by definition of action!
Thus you make the absurd claim that the second person to build a house with windows and doors steals windows and doors from the first person when all the second person did was COPY with his own labor and his own property (even though you are too cowardly to address this and many other simple examples). There's no theft whatsoever of ideas. When something is stolen, it can be returned. Ideas can *never* be returned if somebody continues to think those ideas, no matter the means by which they came upon those ideas. Even though you wish there was some magical difference between the idea of Spiderman 3 and the ideas of doors and windows, they are still all just ideas. If you can't prohibit others copying doors and windows you can't prohibit others copying Spiderman 3. How simple or complex or obvious or innovative is immaterial to the fact that an idea is an idea, no matter what color, what form, what pattern.
Published: May 24, 2007 12:40 AM
Jordan
JIMB--
Your argument that ideas are (or can be) property because they command (or can command) a positive price is fallacious.
Prices cannot determine what is property and what is not property. This notion is absurd. How can prices determine property when you *need* property in order to determine prices?
You have put the cart before the horse. You're stuck in a loop.
If you're going to make a sound argument for ideas as property, you need a sound definition of property which applies equally to ideas and physical objects, without assuming anything you're proving.
The purpose of property is conflict avoidance, thus only things which can come into conflict can qualify as property--in other words, rivalrous objects. Ideas do not meet this criterion, so they must be rejected as property.
Once you've come to that understanding, you'll see that the enforcement of intellectual "property" amounts to a violation of property rights and thus must be condemned as such.
Published: May 24, 2007 12:49 AM
Jesse
JIMB: "Please explain how a non-scarce good can command a positive price! ... re: There are scarce things with a price of 0 (as long as nobody wants them, that is their price)"
Copyrighted media commands a positive price (beyond the cost of physical storage and distribution) for the same reason that a business license, or any other kind of government license, commands a positive price. In the absence of aggression there would be no demand for business licenses; neither would copyright licences command a positive price without aggressive enforcement of the copyright monopolies.
The price these items now command is the result of aggression, and thus artificial scarcity. Property is limited to items which are naturally scarce; acts of aggression cannot make non-property into property any more than an act of theft can confer ownership.
Published: May 24, 2007 9:35 AM
DC
Jesse, Jordan, et. al.
And so the logical loop continues.
"That idea is my property! How do we know that it's property? Well, it's a scarce good that I control! How do we know that it's scarce? Why, it has a positive price! Why does it have a positive price? Because, it's under copyright protection by the government, no repeating that idea for free! Why is that idea under such protection? Well, of course it's under protection -- that idea is my property!"
Published: May 24, 2007 1:10 PM
Jesse
DC, the point was that a positive price may indicate only artificial scarcity in the presence of aggression, and is thus not sufficient evidence that something is property. As you rightly point out, this does not prove that the item is not property, either. A separate criteria is necessary, which Jordan provided:
Jordan: "The purpose of property is conflict avoidance, thus only things which can come into conflict can qualify as property--in other words, rivalrous objects. Ideas do not meet this criterion, so they must be rejected as property."
Scarcity (whether natural or artificial) is implied, as JIMB claimed, by the presence of a positive price. However, mere scarcity is not enough to make something property; the potential for rivalry is also necessary. Natural scarcity implies rivalry, and could thus be used to support the conclusion that an item is property; however, artificial scarcity does not support such a conclusion.
Rivalry is the inability to use the item to simultaneously fulfill an unlimited number of distinct ends. Rivalry implies the need for an ultimate decision-maker to choose which of these ends the item will serve. Property rights exist to answer the problem of rivalry by appointing an ultimate decision-maker; in the absence of rivalry there is no need for them.
Published: May 24, 2007 2:11 PM
JIMB
DC - Nonsense - every person owns their ideas and information in their head (seems silly to have to defend it). That fact is not due to scarcity, rather scarcity is the natural result of our limited intelligence and creativity.
Published: May 24, 2007 4:18 PM
JIMB
rtr - The right to view Spiderman 3 was sold, not the right to duplicate it. Surely you can figure this out on your own. That is no different than renting a house - you've haven't got full ownership rights.
Apparently you believe renters should be "owners".
Published: May 24, 2007 4:20 PM
JIMB
Jesse - Many legal documents have language expressely forbidding distribution of the information to be discussed or in the contract itself: that *is* a copyright. Spiderman 3 would not be distributed to theaters which are known to allow the unathorized duplication or distribution of the movie, because it was sold *under that agreement*.
It's a private enterprise and they've the expressed right to sell their movies, books, etc. on the terms they see fit.
Published: May 24, 2007 4:30 PM
JIMB
Jordan - Never said this: Your argument that ideas are (or can be) property because they command (or can command) a positive price is fallacious." But in fact I think that it does present an interesting spin on the conversation...
After all, if we assume it's a willing trade, *something* is transferred, and if it is not "property" (i.e. controlled by the seller to some degree), what is it that the buyer is getting? So you'd be asserting a counterfactual: the buyer is buying something non-scarce (a psychological impossibility) which the seller does not own / control (a transactional impossibility).
But anyway: I said ideas are scarce because they command a positive price, contrary to the claims of non-scarcity. That's an observable fact - and you can see it for ideas (those from CEOs, consultants, etc) which do not qualify for IP protection.
And "The purpose of property is conflict avoidance, thus only things which can come into conflict can qualify as property--in other words, rivalrous objects. Ideas do not meet this criterion, so they must be rejected as property."
This is nonsense and doing exactly what you claim is done by me: "... you need a sound definition of property which applies equally to ideas and physical objects, without assuming anything you're proving."
Clearly you've started with a brand new definition of "scarcity" (contrary to psychological axiomatic truths) to come to the conclusion that ideas are not owned, which is completely divorced from human action and factual behavior. Read the post in reply to Stephan (May 23, 2007 10:56 PM).
BTW, enforcement of *some* IP is unjustified, but not *all*.
Published: May 24, 2007 4:53 PM
rtr
JIMB: "The right to view Spiderman 3 was sold, not the right to duplicate it. Surely you can figure this out on your own. That is no different than renting a house - you've haven't got full ownership rights.
Apparently you believe renters should be "owners"."
You can't sell the right to duplicate something when the person already a priori owns the right to duplicate. You can kick renters out of a home. You can't kick a person's mind out of an idea. It'd be as silly as trying to sell someone the right to read, the right to look. They already have that rightful capacity by having minds, eyes, and ears.
Ideas cannot be "rented" because ideas are impossible to rent. A person cannot arbitrarily be forced to not think what they automatically think or choose to think. If you share an idea, you COPY an idea. You don't stop inhabiting that idea while only some "renter" inhabits that idea. The idea is DUPLICATED. Thus, it's praxelogically impossible to "rent" an idea.
I could type "A" once. I could type "A" twice: "A" "A".
You could type "B" once. I could type "B" twice: "B" "B". All ideas can be duplicated ad infinitum.
And there's absolutely nothing you can do to prevent that except to engage in violence.
Apparently you believe you can own another's mind and actions.
Published: May 24, 2007 5:50 PM
JIMB
rtr - The point - which you are determined to miss - is that a transaction can confer some ownership rights without conferring all ownership rights. Confidentiality agreements are the same as "copyrights" and they already exist on the market.
Really, a definition needs to start with human action if it is going to be called "economics". That's why the redefining of scarcity is such nonsense, as well as the other theories.
And the refusal to distinguish between what is and isn't in the public domain of ideas is a real problem in this board as well. As if any pro-IP person "is trying to copyright the letter A". I've gotta let you have the last word. It can't be fun if it's just stupid.
Published: May 25, 2007 6:01 PM
rtr
An "agreement" is not property either. An "agreement" is also "scarce" in the manner you use the term "scarce". By definition "agreements" have positive subjective value, a "price", by definition of action and by definition of trade. At every moment in time there are less agreements than there otherwise could be. Nobody exclusively owns the idea or the action of trade. Likewise nobody own the active use of any idea whatsoever.
Are you disagreeing that an idea known by more than one person is not in the "public domain"? Are you disagreeing that the letter "A" is an idea, an idea inhabitable by all who simultaneously think and use it? The letter "A" is not even universally known or universally simultaneously used. If the letter "A" were universally simultaneously used that would be the only idea ever expressed. But each use of the letter "A" does not in the slightest diminish the idea of the letter "A". You have failed to even acknowledge this plain simple truth. Do you deny this? The letter "A" is no less an "idea" than "Spiderman 3". You fail to comprehend that what logically applies to "Spiderman 3" must also apply to all ideas whatsoever on the basis of them being ideas.
Just because something is in the public domain does not mean it is not scarce either. Oceans are scarce. Non-onwed traveled roads and paths are in the public domain. Public gathering marketplaces are in the public domain. There is not an atmosphere of air beyond where the atmosphere end and does not extend to. Thus scarcity or positive price does not qualify something as property, let alone qualify it as scarce.
It's no surprise that you want to run away now after all of your points have been just absolutely crushed. It's quite understandable that your ego has that not so fresh feeling. But you lack the decency, intellectual honesty, and courtesy to have acknowledged (what more than 30 examples?) the points others (not just me) have made regarding your claims. Like a child you close your eyes and pretend what you don't see isn't there. See ya later coward.
Published: May 26, 2007 5:39 AM
scott
JIMB states...."Any trade is done in the hopes of obtaining a scarce item, or you have no psychological reason for doing it. You are giving something up to gain something else, remember. That's what "a positive price" means ..."
i guess this relates to people paying for knowledge, ideas unknown to me in other words.
which would be like paying tutition or something???
does paying for 'ideas' mean they are scarce or is it ones time that is really whats scarce and paying for information (ideas) can allow you to aquire it faster?
i mean, if i pay for information it means that my own 'mental scarcity' (lack of knowledge, skill, ideas etc.) will take a 'long time' to figure out how to say...genetically modify a banana.
but i could pay a nearby botanist for 'banana genetics modification informartion' and do it (modify bananas) in a much shorter time (hopefully).
so am i paying for scarce time, scarce information or both?
Published: June 10, 2007 8:06 PM