Posted by
ryuzaki0
on from the stuff-to-read dept.
Somnus writes "This
essay is as well-composed an argument I have seen opposing today's conception of copyrights and patents. "
Its long, but it looks good.
An interesting essay. It makes a statement that Intellectual Property rights are a 'monopoly priviledge granted by the government.' (Assuming for the sake of argument that monopolies are inherently bad things, and that governments can actually grant priviledges -- more accurately, the government restricts others.) If one believes that IP exists wholly as a government illusion, very well.
I am not sure I rather agree with the argument that information is universal. If everyone knew everything, we would not be in this situation, would we? Even if we make the assumption as given in the previous essay mentioned "Anarchism Triumphant", that all information can be reduced to some indefinitely long bitstream (i.e. just a number) there are far more uninteresting numbers than there are interesting ones. If creation is merely a process of discovering bitstreams/numbers, there is still an element of effort in that process -- if everyone could create (not the same as duplicate) any piece of IP trivially, then this would also not be an issue, but not everyone can. As far as the statement of "You cannot own information without owning other people." goes, that is rather stretching things. If I were to own a piece of IP, say, a piece of music, does this automatically give me total control over everyone who hears it? Ridiculous. Depending on the IP right stance taken, though, it might credit to me control over what they do with the IP they have received from me -- which is not the same thing as owning them completely.
I would argue that IP rights exist ultimately as an agreement between parties. As long as I have a right to NOT produce or communicate the ideas I have come up with, as long as I have some right to privacy, then I can choose when and to whom I speak to -- if I speak my mind to one person, that does not require me to speak to all! If I offer to a second party, "I will tell you of the IP I have thought of, if and only if you give your word you will not repeat or reproduce it to any one else without my explicit permission," that is the creation of IP rights in essence. The second party may choose to refuse to accept the conditions of the transaction, but should the second part accept, then they are bound ethically to respect the my IP rights as I have claimed them. If the second party breaks their word, then that is reprehensible -- if transaction was made as a legal contract, enforceable.
If a person pays money for a piece of music, writing, video, etc. that is marked "copyrighted" than that should be regarded as an implicit agreement, an implicit contract, to abide by the copyright laws. If one does not believe in IP rights, then one should, ethically, not purchase or use any copyrighted material! One may try to pursuade others to not use or make copyrighted material, or argue against the concept. It may very well be that IP rights are not 'rights' (i.e. inherent and/or universal,) but even if so, they are trivially fashioned out of mutual agreement between consenting parties, existing as a social construct, perhaps as a legal contract construct -- the only way to not have IP is to prevent people from making agreements between each other! The tyrrany that would prevent individuals or groups from doing such would be a sight to see indeed.
One may claim that if I have thought of a piece of IP, then I should not restrict distribution of it, as it is a universal (sic) thing. Fine -- you think of it for yourself then, if it universal -- you do not need someone else to tell you what you already know.
(Note the above does not touch on patents, just copyright. Patents are not justified by the above as there is no implied contract between two simultaneous independent creators, or independent duplication.)
I've never really flamed before... and admittedly, the subject for this message is a bit harsh... but still.
The arguments he made... especially in the "ethical" section were poorly formulated, and lacked a basic understading of the bases of intellectual property.
The author opined that if he purchased a book, then he should have rights to reproduce and trade that work, because flow of information and knowledge cannot ethically be stopped. He missed the point that copyright does not affect free flow of knowledge, but of a specific adaptation of that knowledge. (e.g., If you buy a book full of telephone numbers and addresses, you cannot simply copy and sell that book, because it would be a violation of copyright. Not because the telephone numbers and addresses are copyrightable, but that specific organization of those phone numbers and addreses are. Thus you are allowed to sell lists of that information, just not in the same format or using the same method of organization.)
Again, the author opined that if he memorized a poem, and reproduced it from his memory with his own pen and paper, he should be able to publish and sell it. This is also absurd, where did he memorize the poem from? How would he have created it had the original poem not been published.. this is, of course, not his work.
Then moving on to patents. How can you own a law of nature. Similar to copyright, it is not the law of nature that is patented, but a specific adaptation of that law of nature. Of course, noone can patent the law of gravity, or the law of inertia, but you can patent a specific method of utilizing these laws to create a self-winding watch. This is analogous to not being able to copyright information or facts, but you are able to copyright a certain adaption of those facts.
Again, with his preposterous sabre tooth tiger argument, patent law does not prevent an individual from building a patented device for his own personal use (like to levitate him out of the pit to save his life), it does however prevent a corporation from taking an years of research from someone who came up with a patented device, mass producing it, and using for its own profitable enterprise without a penny of gratutde to the researcher.
As for the examples given of Bach and shakespeare, there is the fair use doctrine. Shakespeare did not callously steal the story of romeo and juliet verbatim from the original author, he did however make fair use of the a general plot line and wrote his own prose to tell this story. This goes back to the idea of it's not the information that is copyrightable, but the adaptation of the information.
I've ranted long enough, I personally am against a lot of ip, I think software patents are stupid (for reasons I will not go into) and I think many corporations have taken patent law and copyright law a bit too far... but this article left me feeling like I wasted my time reading it, and although I spent more time than I should replying to it, maybe I'll save other peoples precious time by telling them not to bother with it.
-- "BadTimes will make you fall in love with a penguin" - Laika
May Be Stronger Libertarian Case FOR IP
by
werdna
·
· Score: 4
As the author acknowledges at the outset of his article (although the point seemed lost on some respondants in other threads), many mainstream libertarians, including Rand, Spencer and Spoon, are strong -- indeed Rand was rabid -- supporters of Intellectual Property Rights. The assertion that Jefferson was ambivalent on the issue is belied by his correspondence with Madison on the importance of having a Patent Clause in the Constitution.
I agree, however, that a pure libertarian theory of property may not dictate the necessity of IP. Rand's arguments are compelling to me, but I have found arguments of others to the contrary equally interesting.
However, it must be understood that while the underlying asset (the work of authorship or invention) is ephemeral, the underlying RIGHTS in or to that asset are no more or less tangible than any underlying RIGHTS in real property. All that a property RIGHT is, essentially, is the right to exclude others from doing certain things. The rights in a piece of land are not the land itself -- the land exists before and after any government has vested rights into the land. (Indeed, there are many self-established governments, such as the Republic of Texas and similar groups, who have their own courts, deeds and other institutions. Of course, I prefer to have a deed from the State as a matter of practice, but you have no idea what a royal pain in the but it is to get a "constitutional lien" that was recorded with the county clerk removed from the public records.)
Without the state, neither my real estate interests nor my personal property interests nor my intellectual property interests have any meaning or effect. Accordingly, Mr. Long's "indictment" of intellectual property RIGHTS does not distinguish real property RIGHTS, which has no firmer or less firm grounding in tangible reality -- both depend upon the existence of the state for their existence and meaning.
I concur with other criticisms of the piece in that it does seem to set up a straw man for its principal complaints against IP. IP does not permit protection of a law of nature, and idea, the physical manifestation of a work that is stored in one's head, or any of the other extreme examples. Indeed, these specific issues are excluded by express intellectual property doctrine and the statutes themselves.
This does not mean that all of his arguments, however, are overstated. The paper is reasonably well-written and well-considered, although it is based upon certain false assumptions. It is also limited to providing a libertarian argument, based upon a libertarian view of property; which is to say that other philosophical views justifying property are unaffected by the argument.
The IP argument regarding LOTR, however, is worth spending some time with. (Regrettably more than I have at this time.) The fact of the matter is that the estate drafted some awful contracts, and dealt with some commercial mediocrities, so that LOTR never got done "right." [Actually, my kids like all of it, and to my great joy, love the books best of all.]
This often happens with all forms of property, by the way. The theory is not that meaningful and intelligent economic forces will always yield the best allocation of resources in EVERY case, but that overall, giving individuals property interests in an asset will lead to the conveyance of property where it is most wanted and best appreciated. Pareto-optimality is not the same as optimal allocation case-by-case.
Give me $10.00 and give someone else $10.00. One of us will use it to get more than that amount worth of utils, and one of us will squander it and get less than we actually want. As a society, however, most of us will do what is best (for us), and societally, there is a benefit of an efficient allocation of resources -- even though some individual cases will be sub-optimal.
Yes, LOTR was poorly handled (on the other hand, who is to say for sure that anyone else could make a bigger buck with it, who would actually have done "the right thing")? Many other assets were not. This is not an abberation of IP or IP policy, but an indictment of the business sensibilities of the Tolkein estate, the trustee for the bankruptcy estate of Zoetrope Studios (or whatever they called the shell that made LOTR) and everyone else who blew the deal).
Indeed, maybe the did all do the best they could with the asset, which means that we are all wrong in our valuation of the asset -- who is to say? Of this much, I am fairly certain -- no aggregation of capital large enough would gather to make a film, even of the caliber of LOTR, if the next studio could just as easily copy every print and sell it as their own.
Perhaps the time will come when less than $100M is necessary to make a Star Wars I. That isn't this world, where gaffers need to get paid, and the payment will not come from the hands of those who want to later collect consulting fees. In Mr. Long's world, no films would get made.
The article was a fun piece. But if this is the most cogent argument to be made against IP, the anti-IP forces need to get a better argument.
Slashdot Mirror
An interesting essay. It makes a statement that Intellectual Property rights are a 'monopoly priviledge granted by the government.' (Assuming for the sake of argument that monopolies are inherently bad things, and that governments can actually grant priviledges -- more accurately, the government restricts others.) If one believes that IP exists wholly as a government illusion, very well.
I am not sure I rather agree with the argument that information is universal. If everyone knew everything, we would not be in this situation, would we? Even if we make the assumption as given in the previous essay mentioned "Anarchism Triumphant", that all information can be reduced to some indefinitely long bitstream (i.e. just a number) there are far more uninteresting numbers than there are interesting ones. If creation is merely a process of discovering bitstreams/numbers, there is still an element of effort in that process -- if everyone could create (not the same as duplicate) any piece of IP trivially, then this would also not be an issue, but not everyone can. As far as the statement of "You cannot own information without owning other people." goes, that is rather stretching things. If I were to own a piece of IP, say, a piece of music, does this automatically give me total control over everyone who hears it? Ridiculous. Depending on the IP right stance taken, though, it might credit to me control over what they do with the IP they have received from me -- which is not the same thing as owning them completely.
I would argue that IP rights exist ultimately as an agreement between parties. As long as I have a right to NOT produce or communicate the ideas I have come up with, as long as I have some right to privacy, then I can choose when and to whom I speak to -- if I speak my mind to one person, that does not require me to speak to all! If I offer to a second party, "I will tell you of the IP I have thought of, if and only if you give your word you will not repeat or reproduce it to any one else without my explicit permission," that is the creation of IP rights in essence. The second party may choose to refuse to accept the conditions of the transaction, but should the second part accept, then they are bound ethically to respect the my IP rights as I have claimed them. If the second party breaks their word, then that is reprehensible -- if transaction was made as a legal contract, enforceable.
If a person pays money for a piece of music, writing, video, etc. that is marked "copyrighted" than that should be regarded as an implicit agreement, an implicit contract, to abide by the copyright laws. If one does not believe in IP rights, then one should, ethically, not purchase or use any copyrighted material! One may try to pursuade others to not use or make copyrighted material, or argue against the concept. It may very well be that IP rights are not 'rights' (i.e. inherent and/or universal,) but even if so, they are trivially fashioned out of mutual agreement between consenting parties, existing as a social construct, perhaps as a legal contract construct -- the only way to not have IP is to prevent people from making agreements between each other! The tyrrany that would prevent individuals or groups from doing such would be a sight to see indeed.
One may claim that if I have thought of a piece of IP, then I should not restrict distribution of it, as it is a universal (sic) thing. Fine -- you think of it for yourself then, if it universal -- you do not need someone else to tell you what you already know.
(Note the above does not touch on patents, just copyright. Patents are not justified by the above as there is no implied contract between two simultaneous independent creators, or independent duplication.)
I've never really flamed before... and admittedly, the subject for this message is a bit harsh... but still.
- --
The arguments he made... especially in the "ethical" section were poorly formulated, and lacked a basic understading of the bases of intellectual property.
The author opined that if he purchased a book, then he should have rights to reproduce and trade that work, because flow of information and knowledge cannot ethically be stopped. He missed the point that copyright does not affect free flow of knowledge, but of a specific adaptation of that knowledge. (e.g., If you buy a book full of telephone numbers and addresses, you cannot simply copy and sell that book, because it would be a violation of copyright. Not because the telephone numbers and addresses are copyrightable, but that specific organization of those phone numbers and addreses are. Thus you are allowed to sell lists of that information, just not in the same format or using the same method of organization.)
Again, the author opined that if he memorized a poem, and reproduced it from his memory with his own pen and paper, he should be able to publish and sell it. This is also absurd, where did he memorize the poem from? How would he have created it had the original poem not been published.. this is, of course, not his work.
Then moving on to patents. How can you own a law of nature. Similar to copyright, it is not the law of nature that is patented, but a specific adaptation of that law of nature. Of course, noone can patent the law of gravity, or the law of inertia, but you can patent a specific method of utilizing these laws to create a self-winding watch. This is analogous to not being able to copyright information or facts, but you are able to copyright a certain adaption of those facts.
Again, with his preposterous sabre tooth tiger argument, patent law does not prevent an individual from building a patented device for his own personal use (like to levitate him out of the pit to save his life), it does however prevent a corporation from taking an years of research from someone who came up with a patented device, mass producing it, and using for its own profitable enterprise without a penny of gratutde to the researcher.
As for the examples given of Bach and shakespeare, there is the fair use doctrine. Shakespeare did not callously steal the story of romeo and juliet verbatim from the original author, he did however make fair use of the a general plot line and wrote his own prose to tell this story. This goes back to the idea of it's not the information that is copyrightable, but the adaptation of the information.
I've ranted long enough, I personally am against a lot of ip, I think software patents are stupid (for reasons I will not go into) and I think many corporations have taken patent law and copyright law a bit too far... but this article left me feeling like I wasted my time reading it, and although I spent more time than I should replying to it, maybe I'll save other peoples precious time by telling them not to bother with it.
-----------------------------------------------
"BadTimes will make you fall in love with a penguin" - Laika
As the author acknowledges at the outset of his article (although the point seemed lost on some respondants in other threads), many mainstream libertarians, including Rand, Spencer and Spoon, are strong -- indeed Rand was rabid -- supporters of Intellectual Property Rights. The assertion that Jefferson was ambivalent on the issue is belied by his correspondence with Madison on the importance of having a Patent Clause in the Constitution.
I agree, however, that a pure libertarian theory of property may not dictate the necessity of IP. Rand's arguments are compelling to me, but I have found arguments of others to the contrary equally interesting.
However, it must be understood that while the underlying asset (the work of authorship or invention) is ephemeral, the underlying RIGHTS in or to that asset are no more or less tangible than any underlying RIGHTS in real property. All that a property RIGHT is, essentially, is the right to exclude others from doing certain things. The rights in a piece of land are not the land itself -- the land exists before and after any government has vested rights into the land. (Indeed, there are many self-established governments, such as the Republic of Texas and similar groups, who have their own courts, deeds and other institutions. Of course, I prefer to have a deed from the State as a matter of practice, but you have no idea what a royal pain in the but it is to get a "constitutional lien" that was recorded with the county clerk removed from the public records.)
Without the state, neither my real estate interests nor my personal property interests nor my intellectual property interests have any meaning or effect. Accordingly, Mr. Long's "indictment" of intellectual property RIGHTS does not distinguish real property RIGHTS, which has no firmer or less firm grounding in tangible reality -- both depend upon the existence of the state for their existence and meaning.
I concur with other criticisms of the piece in that it does seem to set up a straw man for its principal complaints against IP. IP does not permit protection of a law of nature, and idea, the physical manifestation of a work that is stored in one's head, or any of the other extreme examples. Indeed, these specific issues are excluded by express intellectual property doctrine and the statutes themselves.
This does not mean that all of his arguments, however, are overstated. The paper is reasonably well-written and well-considered, although it is based upon certain false assumptions. It is also limited to providing a libertarian argument, based upon a libertarian view of property; which is to say that other philosophical views justifying property are unaffected by the argument.
The IP argument regarding LOTR, however, is worth spending some time with. (Regrettably more than I have at this time.) The fact of the matter is that the estate drafted some awful contracts, and dealt with some commercial mediocrities, so that LOTR never got done "right." [Actually, my kids like all of it, and to my great joy, love the books best of all.]
This often happens with all forms of property, by the way. The theory is not that meaningful and intelligent economic forces will always yield the best allocation of resources in EVERY case, but that overall, giving individuals property interests in an asset will lead to the conveyance of property where it is most wanted and best appreciated. Pareto-optimality is not the same as optimal allocation case-by-case.
Give me $10.00 and give someone else $10.00. One of us will use it to get more than that amount worth of utils, and one of us will squander it and get less than we actually want. As a society, however, most of us will do what is best (for us), and societally, there is a benefit of an efficient allocation of resources -- even though some individual cases will be sub-optimal.
Yes, LOTR was poorly handled (on the other hand, who is to say for sure that anyone else could make a bigger buck with it, who would actually have done "the right thing")? Many other assets were not. This is not an abberation of IP or IP policy, but an indictment of the business sensibilities of the Tolkein estate, the trustee for the bankruptcy estate of Zoetrope Studios (or whatever they called the shell that made LOTR) and everyone else who blew the deal).
Indeed, maybe the did all do the best they could with the asset, which means that we are all wrong in our valuation of the asset -- who is to say? Of this much, I am fairly certain -- no aggregation of capital large enough would gather to make a film, even of the caliber of LOTR, if the next studio could just as easily copy every print and sell it as their own.
Perhaps the time will come when less than $100M is necessary to make a Star Wars I. That isn't this world, where gaffers need to get paid, and the payment will not come from the hands of those who want to later collect consulting fees. In Mr. Long's world, no films would get made.
The article was a fun piece. But if this is the most cogent argument to be made against IP, the anti-IP forces need to get a better argument.