When I was in grad school in upstate NY for engineering in the 1990s, I took a class in which the professor found out how much the campus bookstore was charging per copy for the textbook he wrote, and compared it to what he was getting in royalties. It was on the order of $90 retail for the book, and he was getting roughly $5 per copy sold. He promptly loaned his own copy to each student sequentially so that we could xerox it, which ended up costing about $20 each.
Not really - that's still the same with IP and real property. If we're talking holding property through anarchistic use of force, I can shoot you for trespassing, or I can shoot you for patent infringement. Unlike personal property that can be physically possessed, such force is the only way to protect either IP or real property... or the government can protect the rights of the owner.
Shooting me for trespassing is easy, since we're both right there at your property. How do you propose anarchistic use of force if I'm stealing your idea (not patent infringement - there is no such thing as a patent in an anarchic state) half a continent away? If you get a bunch of your buddies to roam the countryside shooting people for "stealing" your idea, you've created a de facto government, and are using it to enforce your own definition of a patent. And my guess is that you'd very soon have people shooting back at you and them for being psychotic patent trolls.
From the description, I thought it would be a nice solid article on the science of aging, but I stopped reading because it started with "Ray Kurzweil predicts..."
Maybe I'll head back and read it later, if I'm in the mood for wild speculation and ego-stroking.
Ah, but if you trespass on my land, I still have it, even if I'm not strong enough to kick you off.
Do you? By whose rules?
Reality. I'm in my house, living up a storm, while you're doing a jig on my lawn against my wishes. I still have my house and land.
The only way to determine who "owns" land in that situation is who has the strength to occupy it, and to eject others from it. If I'm on your lawn, we're both occupying the land, and neither has thrown the other off. Reality says it's ours, not yours. And since you're not strong enough to defend against me, now I'm in your house living up a storm too. Our house. Not yours. (Thankfully this is just a thought experiment, because I'm starting to creep myself out.)
In the situation I presented, I claim that my trespass gives me at least partial possession of your land. Until one of us is strong enough to get rid of the other, it's in a disputed state of "our" land. If you're not strong enough to get rid of me, your claim to the land being yours is effectively meaningless.
And how is that different than intellectual property? As you said originally:
If I take land from you - say you weren't strong enough to defend it - then you don't have it any more. If I take your idea, you still have it, and might not even be aware that I took it.
But here, as you note, we both have possession of a portion of the land. In fact, if I don't look out my window, I may not even be aware that you've begun to adversely possess a portion. Same as with the idea.
Yes, a portion of. You might not know I'm there. What if I have a hundred friends with me, all squatting on your acre plot? Or now five hundred? Sooner or later, we'll diminish your perceived "ownership." But if we all stole your idea, you'd be none the worse for it without patent laws and a government to enforce them.
There are "degrees" of ownership. Some of them are government-granted fictions, such as intellectual property. Some of them are reality-based, like holding an object in your hand. And some, like land, are a bit of both. The anarchy experiment makes it a little clearer which is which. Because without a government and laws to back it up, a patent is useless. Which was my original point at the start of all this.
Ah, but if you trespass on my land, I still have it, even if I'm not strong enough to kick you off.
Do you? By whose rules? In the situation I presented, I claim that my trespass gives me at least partial possession of your land. Until one of us is strong enough to get rid of the other, it's in a disputed state of "our" land. If you're not strong enough to get rid of me, your claim to the land being yours is effectively meaningless.
My original point was that intellectual property is a government construct, whereas physical property does not necessarily rely on the existence of a government. The anarchy thing was to demonstrate the difference. I'm not supporting anarchy nor the elimination of intellectual property.
I understand that. I'm not advocating the elimination of patents or other intellectual property laws, just their overhaul. For instance, I don't think they should be transferable. Able to be licensed / rented / loaned, sure. But sold? Inherited? I think those are causing us more harm than good - well, except for the lawyers, that is.
So as a thought experiment, let's postulate that there's no government - a state of theoretical anarchy. Can you own anything? If you pick up a stick, isn't it yours, to the extent that you can keep anyone from taking it from you? By your argument, even if it's in your possession and no one is trying to take it from you, you still can't "own" it because there's no government to grant you permission.
But try owning a patent in this theoretical anarchic state. What good is it then? See the difference?
I've certainly thought it through, and agree with property being a government fiction. But land and objects are physical things, not ideas. If I take land from you - say you weren't strong enough to defend it - then you don't have it any more. If I take your idea, you still have it, and might not even be aware that I took it. This is the root of what's broken with intellectual "property" models as currently defined by law.
Maybe not hotel rooms, but I could certainly see them deploying these in airport terminals and coffee shops to eke a few extra bucks out of people desperate to recharge their gadgets.
Well, thanks for the random pedantry, but I specifically spelled it that way to refer to the running joke of Christopher Lloyd's mispronunciation in the movie.
Slashdot Mirror
When I was in grad school in upstate NY for engineering in the 1990s, I took a class in which the professor found out how much the campus bookstore was charging per copy for the textbook he wrote, and compared it to what he was getting in royalties. It was on the order of $90 retail for the book, and he was getting roughly $5 per copy sold. He promptly loaned his own copy to each student sequentially so that we could xerox it, which ended up costing about $20 each.
Not really - that's still the same with IP and real property. If we're talking holding property through anarchistic use of force, I can shoot you for trespassing, or I can shoot you for patent infringement. Unlike personal property that can be physically possessed, such force is the only way to protect either IP or real property... or the government can protect the rights of the owner.
Shooting me for trespassing is easy, since we're both right there at your property. How do you propose anarchistic use of force if I'm stealing your idea (not patent infringement - there is no such thing as a patent in an anarchic state) half a continent away? If you get a bunch of your buddies to roam the countryside shooting people for "stealing" your idea, you've created a de facto government, and are using it to enforce your own definition of a patent. And my guess is that you'd very soon have people shooting back at you and them for being psychotic patent trolls.
Update: Remainder of the article was mercifully Kurzweil-free, although Aubrey deGrey was brought in. Minimal ego-stroking.
From the description, I thought it would be a nice solid article on the science of aging, but I stopped reading because it started with "Ray Kurzweil predicts..."
Maybe I'll head back and read it later, if I'm in the mood for wild speculation and ego-stroking.
You are the muppet known as Don Music, and I claim my fifty quatloos.
Ah, but if you trespass on my land, I still have it, even if I'm not strong enough to kick you off.
Do you? By whose rules?
Reality. I'm in my house, living up a storm, while you're doing a jig on my lawn against my wishes. I still have my house and land.
The only way to determine who "owns" land in that situation is who has the strength to occupy it, and to eject others from it. If I'm on your lawn, we're both occupying the land, and neither has thrown the other off. Reality says it's ours, not yours. And since you're not strong enough to defend against me, now I'm in your house living up a storm too. Our house. Not yours. (Thankfully this is just a thought experiment, because I'm starting to creep myself out.)
In the situation I presented, I claim that my trespass gives me at least partial possession of your land. Until one of us is strong enough to get rid of the other, it's in a disputed state of "our" land. If you're not strong enough to get rid of me, your claim to the land being yours is effectively meaningless.
And how is that different than intellectual property? As you said originally:
If I take land from you - say you weren't strong enough to defend it - then you don't have it any more. If I take your idea, you still have it, and might not even be aware that I took it.
But here, as you note, we both have possession of a portion of the land. In fact, if I don't look out my window, I may not even be aware that you've begun to adversely possess a portion. Same as with the idea.
Yes, a portion of. You might not know I'm there. What if I have a hundred friends with me, all squatting on your acre plot? Or now five hundred? Sooner or later, we'll diminish your perceived "ownership." But if we all stole your idea, you'd be none the worse for it without patent laws and a government to enforce them.
There are "degrees" of ownership. Some of them are government-granted fictions, such as intellectual property. Some of them are reality-based, like holding an object in your hand. And some, like land, are a bit of both. The anarchy experiment makes it a little clearer which is which. Because without a government and laws to back it up, a patent is useless. Which was my original point at the start of all this.
I find myself in agreement with everything in your post, for what it's worth.
Ah, but if you trespass on my land, I still have it, even if I'm not strong enough to kick you off.
Do you? By whose rules? In the situation I presented, I claim that my trespass gives me at least partial possession of your land. Until one of us is strong enough to get rid of the other, it's in a disputed state of "our" land. If you're not strong enough to get rid of me, your claim to the land being yours is effectively meaningless.
My original point was that intellectual property is a government construct, whereas physical property does not necessarily rely on the existence of a government. The anarchy thing was to demonstrate the difference. I'm not supporting anarchy nor the elimination of intellectual property.
I understand that. I'm not advocating the elimination of patents or other intellectual property laws, just their overhaul. For instance, I don't think they should be transferable. Able to be licensed / rented / loaned, sure. But sold? Inherited? I think those are causing us more harm than good - well, except for the lawyers, that is.
So as a thought experiment, let's postulate that there's no government - a state of theoretical anarchy. Can you own anything? If you pick up a stick, isn't it yours, to the extent that you can keep anyone from taking it from you? By your argument, even if it's in your possession and no one is trying to take it from you, you still can't "own" it because there's no government to grant you permission.
But try owning a patent in this theoretical anarchic state. What good is it then? See the difference?
Diluted value has no bearing on whether or not intellectual property is a government fiction.
I've certainly thought it through, and agree with property being a government fiction. But land and objects are physical things, not ideas. If I take land from you - say you weren't strong enough to defend it - then you don't have it any more. If I take your idea, you still have it, and might not even be aware that I took it. This is the root of what's broken with intellectual "property" models as currently defined by law.
Patents are no more property than an idea is property. They are government-granted privileges, like a drivers license.
Maybe not hotel rooms, but I could certainly see them deploying these in airport terminals and coffee shops to eke a few extra bucks out of people desperate to recharge their gadgets.
fnord.
I think they tried that on Lost.
Just like VCRs and DVRs were supposed to have killed 'free' television programming...
Just as AdBlock was supposed to have already killed 'free' internet...
Next up: the shills shouting how using such tools "breaks the implied social contract" of viewing free content.
GIS for "antique guy fawks mask". There were two of them on the first two pages. Uglier and less elegant than the V for Vendetta version.
If that's the case, it's going to be a very Duggar future...
Well, thanks for the random pedantry, but I specifically spelled it that way to refer to the running joke of Christopher Lloyd's mispronunciation in the movie.
...or almost two electric DeLoreans.
/1.21 jiggawatts!
Good thing Obi-Wan didn't set his saber down under the bar, otherwise the trilogy would have been over pretty quick.
Worse yet, my hovercraft was full of eels!
If I recall, it already did. There was fine print on a lot of CDs regarding rights, redistribution, etc.