Copyright and the Intellectuals
While IP may not stimulate true innovation and creativity, Hayek suggests that copyright might stimulate something more pernicious: the intellectual class. In "The Intellectuals and Socialism," he writes:
In the sense in which we are using the term, the intellectuals are in fact a fairly new phenomenon of history. Though nobody will regret that education has ceased to be a privilege of the propertied classes, the fact that the propertied classes are no longer the best educated and the fact that the large number of people who owe their position solely to the their general education do not possess that experience of the working of the economic system which the administration of property gives, are important for understanding the role of the intellectual. Professor Schumpeter, who has devoted an illuminating chapter of his Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy to some aspects of our problem, has not unfairly stressed that it is the absence of direct responsibility for practical affairs and the consequent absence of first hand knowledge of them which distinguishes the typical intellectual from other people who also wield the power of the spoken and written word. It would lead too far, however, to examine here further the development of this class and the curious claim which has recently been advanced by one of its theorists that it was the only one whose views were not decidedly influenced by its own economic interests. One of the important points that would have to be examined in such a discussion would be how far the growth of this class has been artificially stimulated by the law of copyright.
Yet another strike against copyright! (Thanks to BK Marcus)
Comments (16)
When you remove IP laws you sever the link between research and development of an idea, product, process, good, song, movie, book, drug, medical procedure, vehicle...(the list is endles) from the revenue received from it's sale.
So go and tell the oil producers, gold miners and professional services firms that they will also no longer be able to get any return for investments in new products and processes. Tell them that just like firms that rely on intellectual property you see no connection between any research and development they do to bring new products to market and the subsequent profits that are made from them.
Then watch innovation and investment in those industries die because there is no longer any reward for their risks.
Congratulations!
"[Intellectuals were] the only [class] whose views were not decidedly influenced by [their] own economic interests."
So...farmers were not the ones who lobbied for farming subsidies? Poorer people not interested in handouts? Business owners not anti-regulation and property owners not against environmental standards?
Pull the other one!! haha
Also considering that copyright is not artificial but represents a claim to the ownership of ones unique identifiable mental productions, then the last sentence in the quote you gave is wrong.
Published: May 18, 2008 5:45 AM
How is not artificial if did not exist like 500 years ago?
Published: May 18, 2008 12:07 PM
How are those investments risks if IP laws are another guarantee by the government?
There is no loss of revenue when someone downloads a song. You are just like the socialists who believe someone's gain is another person's loss.
Who determines what patent is obvious and what copyright is unique? You seem to believe no one else could have come up with a similar idea.
The fact is companies spend more money on court settlements than on research and development.
Published: May 18, 2008 12:56 PM
scineram.
What is the "like" for?
Mass publishing was invented in 1492.
For a historical point of view about copyright, read the account made by Diderot in 1763. Then state clearly what you mean, if you want to be taken seriously.
"http://goliath.ecnext.com/coms2/gi_0199-1555167/Property-privilege-in-the-republic.html#abstract"
Published: May 18, 2008 2:58 PM
IP is a form of property because it is a definable product of a persons effort.
Property has existed since man has.
Yankee: The innovation and development of a product or service is often not completed by the same people who are experts in selling such. Or even where these two functions can be combined in the same entity there are usually many competitors who are experts at copying and distributing knockoffs.
Once you eliminate the monopoly one has overthe work of his own hands, you eliminate ahuge percentage of his incentive to undertake that work in the first place.
Think of it like taxation of your earnings. You would prefer to get 100% of the output of your labour no? Or would you prefer someone who has not exerted anything being able to take 50% of your earnings?
Watch peoples motivation to workd or innovate when a portion of their returns for doing so are stripped from them.
If you agree that IP should not be protected then neither do you have a right to not be taxed. Because if you deny another person 100% of the returns from what they produce then you cannot in the same breath demand 100% of the wages from your own labor. It is both or neither.
Published: May 18, 2008 4:12 PM
IP is a form of property because it is a definable product of a persons effort[...] Property has existed since man has.
Owen, in another part of the blog, you stated that property is whatever the state wishes it to be ("Sorry guys but your 'property' is a legal right conferred and protected by the state.") which means that IP is a right insofar the State allows it...
... making it (and any other rights) irrelevant. If Property has existed since man exists, then 'Property' is a concept that transcends the State, and should be a natural right. So which one is: something graciously given by the State, or something that exists as far as man exists (a natural right)? Please, do try to be consistent: they cannot be both, since both concepts are contradictory.
Published: May 18, 2008 5:23 PM
In practical terms, property is whatever we can exclude others from using, unless and until they persuade us without force to cede some or all of the use of it to them (as in sell or lease).
Some of us are sometimes able to enlist some help from the state in retaining or even acquiring property powers (powers, not rights).
Austro-libertarians generally approve of the peaceful creation (production) and acquisition (purchase, homesteading) of property and its disposition to others through peaceful processes. We also regard the defense of recognized property powers as the only justification for violence (which is what the state helps with), and probably the only justification for the state.
But IP powers probably wouldn't exist without the state, whereas other property powers have existed and do exist without the state. That's not the whole case against IP, or even most of it, but it is a circumstance that attracts the attention of people who are suspicious of state power.
Published: May 18, 2008 7:53 PM
I am not an anarcho-libertarian, or an Austrian Economist, though I am interested in their ideas. I have recently thought of the title- "Ultra-Liberality"- to describe my views- all states should decentralise by liberally giving back all claimed powers from individuals. "Share All Power" could be the slogan. I still see some good in some public conveniences, such as roads, So I would opt for a voluntary citizenship, with local counties owning roads on behalf of the citizen-shareholders. Copyright would then mean simply that the public authorities only buy from the copyright holder, or only allow advertising across public lands in conformity with public rights and laws. Public laws would stop at private lands.
The only other example of patentlessness are the Communist countries, where it was part of the 'Everyone owns Everything' attitude. No thanks!
Published: May 18, 2008 10:01 PM
I don't think Hayek was against IP, he just pointed out that intellectuals are some kind of new elite without something to back this claim. IP is a form of property.
Published: May 19, 2008 6:26 AM
When you remove IP laws you sever the link between research and development of an idea, product, process, good, song, movie, book, drug, medical procedure, vehicle...(the list is endles[s]) from the revenue received from it's [sic] sale.
Owen, it is not like people will stop inventing if they cannot patent an idea. Most of the time, it takes more effort and resources to fight patents than it is to simply obtain the most profit from a new market, before competition sets in.
Then watch innovation and investment in those industries die because there is no longer any reward for their risks.
This prediction makes little sense, Owen - only a fool would stop inventing if it got him or her at least first dibs on a new market, before competition and imitation sets in. People will not stop inventing sans IP laws. Otherwise, people would still be sitting inside caves, shivering at the prospect of inventing something that could be copied by anybody.
Published: May 19, 2008 11:21 AM
Property is always material. For example, the computer on which I am writing this is a material object.
However, the *right* to property is purely immaterial or "intellectual". It is not something one can hold in one's hands.
Therefore, my next big project in life will be to gather together all of Stephen Kinsella's writings and publish them in my own name.
Anything wrong with my reasoning?
Published: May 22, 2008 4:25 PM
Here is the flaw in your logic-
Stephen Kinsella now knows your name, and can find out where you live, and might take up these issues with you personally.
Another flaw is you might tell people you wrote the essays yourself, and this will make you a liar- how will you live with yourself?
Published: May 22, 2008 8:27 PM
Thanks, Nick, for your enlightening answer. Kinsella has already mailed me. He called me a moron.
Somehow, it seems that irony is wasted.
Published: May 23, 2008 11:51 AM
Also, if I have no moral qualms about violating copyrights, why should I have moral qualms about lying?
So the real question is: how can anyone live with himself who advocates violation of copyright?
Published: May 27, 2008 2:16 PM
I can only agree with Mr. Samuelsson. Yes, it would be moronic to publish someone else's work in ones own name. But that was the point. Actually, "moronic" is not the right word for it. Such blatant negation of someone's property rights is quite frankly evil.
Individual rights are "immaterial", i. e., abstract. If we have no rights to "immaterial" things, then we do not have rights at all. There cannot be any rights, if no one has the right to them. (This is as forwardly as I am able to put it.) Our thought are immaterial. Our values are immaterial. Our ideas are immaterial. If we don't have a right to the product of our work because it's immaterial, then we don't have a right to work at all. All work has to rely on the mind of the worker, and if we don't have a right to anything immaterial, we don't have a right to our own minds.
If you don't have the right to your own mind, then you don't have the right to your work which sustains that mind. The very core of the issue is not about copyrights or patents. It's about the right to one's own life, which can't be sustained or fulfilled without immaterial rights - i. e., the right to one's own ideas and values and knowledge etc.
Hopefully, I've put this as painfully clear as can be.
Published: May 30, 2008 12:11 PM
Mr. Sundholm is my favorite student at present! (Joking.)
But seriously, I think that if one attacks patents and copyrights, one might as well go the whole hog and attack property rights as such.
Published: May 31, 2008 3:19 AM