Should Intellectual Property Exist?

The nub of the post above I think is the question about the purpose of buying a book.

Consider: I buy a book (as I do frequently) I do so for the book's contents. I am paying for the information in the book. I compensate the author(s), publishers, printers, etc for their efforts to get this information to me. If I sell the book once I am done with it, then the next buyer is getting that information without compensating those involved in getting her that information.

The distinction I am drawing is between the physical book (storage medium) and it's content (information). There is no REAL difference between the book/text and CD/music or software. It's the content we pay for.

I think the real point of this discussion is not invention vs compensation but the system in place to manage and control it.

Now at first glance I agree with your last paragraph, but having thought about it I'm not so sure. Does the act of creation/invention bring a right of compensation? It sounds too close to Marx's concept of the value of work for my comfort. I will probably be pondering this all weekend.

Laurie

Most books I buy stay on my shelf forever. I might lend them out, in which case I can't refer to them (use them) while they're gone.

Some books I just borrow from the library. Some I give away to the library or friends.

Similarly, software normally stays in my machine until it's useless. Then I uninstall it.

Well, you could examine all the offers out there.
a. some of them allowing you to transfer the property at will if you destroy your copy,
b. some tell you it's yours and cannot be transferred later
c. some promote passing along a copy with limited functionality
And, each offer could be at a different price.

So, the answer depends on the offer and your acceptance of that offer.

Hi,
You're right, it was MS suing Lindows, my mistake. Still the point is that the case wasn't for copyright infringement but trademark infringement.

No I don't disagree with the coke example, I'm just trying to point out that other products that compete with Coke have been produced, despite the trade secret.
I have no idea about what goes into either, or how similar they are.
The only thing I know about Coke is that it used to be a very good paint remover and flux for soldering aluminium.

Intellectual property rights are based on two assumptions: one that the idea of the property is original; two that the product has cost the owner materials and labor. In absolute terms, both assumptions are faulty. Whatever is generated within a society is with the use of existing resources, which belong to the society. Wealth as accumulated profit is generated in the market, which again belongs to the society. Claiming exclusive rghts over them is appropriation of a common property, and is immoral. Greed and cleverness, the two virtues acclaimed most by vulgar capitalism, legitimise this exploitation!
And the most successful among the clever and the greedy get knighted!
It is not anyone's case that the Bill Gateses of the world over should not be rewarded for their achievements, but the question is how much. If one can become the richest man in the world in just ten years, it only speaks of the virulence of the greed and cleverness, and the exploitation! Enslave the public to a utility first, kill competition by hook or by crook, and screw the addicts at will.... This was what the British did to the Chinese in the 19th century with opium.
The idealmost would be free access to all softwares. Only those who want to work free for humanity alone need enter the field. Progress does not have any predetermined schedule. We can afford a world without a Windows!
Suzarin

That example would surely come under the banner of fraud.

If however the contracting company were to sell it on then no problem I guess.

I'm guessing that there is a high representation from the USofA. here.
A quote from the United States Constitution
Section. 8...
...Clause 8: To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries;...
...now if this clause was as passionately defended as the "right to bear arms" in the The Bill of Rights...
Does the appearance of the above clause in The United States Constitution mean "end of story"?

LiamE has pointed out an applicable fact: the person deriving profits from his ill-gotten gains is doing so by means of fraud if he's offering the data as his own product. If he's not doing so, and is telling his clients where he got it, they're engaging in conspiracy after the fact by financially rewarding illicit behavior, namely the invasion of privacy (trespassing).

If all of that is bypassed in some way, you're right: I wouldn't see the actual transfer of the data as a violation of rights. It is surrounded by violations of rights, but in and of itself it is not an unethical act. At least, I don't at this time see any reason to regard it as a violation of rights. I suppose I might be overlooking something.

And it's my fault if you murder your family and take your own life tomorrow in a fit of apoplexy over the fact that I dare to question intellectual property law, too. Right? Better yet, you can blame a hurricane thirty years from now that wipes out the livelihoods of seven hundred people on the fact that I belched just now rather than being polite and holding it it, due to increasingly entropic effects on weather patterns caused by the release of warm gasses into the atmosphere.

You might as well blame the closing of the record store on the flap of a butterfly's wings, and try to outlaw flying insects as a result.

It's not the expectation of payment that makes it wrong to steal a bag of chips: it's the fact that you're forcibly depriving someone of property. Thus, it's "theft" (the misappropriation of others' property, natch). You're right: the price is irrelevant. So too is the "expectation" of payment. The fact that I expect you to act in an ethical manner (or not) has no bearing on whether or not your actions are ethical.

The fact that sailors left their bought and paid-for rope lying on the pier essentially means they abandoned the rope. Someone else laid claim to discards and made a profit by selling it. The fact that the people who sold it the first time are the same people who claimed and resold it later is immaterial. I don't see how you expect to make a point with that.

You're going to have to explain to me how the claim that no money should be paid for something after it has been sold a certain number of times is in any way "following" my logic. The point at which you should cease making money at it is when you can no longer honestly get anyone to pay for it. That's a basic principle of free market capitalism and suits popularized economic laws like that of supply and demand. I'm not placing a cap on anyone's earnings, and if I like someone's writing enough I'll pay money for what he writes, both because I value the hardcopy version and because I want to help support his ongoing efforts.

The attempt to "control" market forces is in the attempt to regulate the disposition of property from on high. It is intellectual property law that interferes in the natural workings of the market, exerting external controls over supply and demand. When the market is saturated by copies of a work, people are less willing to pay for copies, and perceived demand drops accordingly, bringing the viable price down. Having the courts enforcing price-fixing on books and artificial control over the production of the physical property is where socialist or fascist principles come into play in meddling with market forces.

There are other means of guaranteeing payment, aside from advances. For instance, writing samples and contractual assurances that the rest of the story already exists, or in-person presentations of work, are entirely within the realm of acceptability. So too is a contractual loan of the submitted written materials, where something is provided with the explicit legal agreement that it will not be used to publish against the wishes of the author.

If buying a book involved signing a contract guaranteeing I wouldn't make copies and sell it, I certainly wouldn't have any problem with enforcing it. That's not the case, though. I'm not given the opportunity to opt out of that aspect of the transaction under copyright law. There is no explicit agreement beyond the exchange of capital for property. Everything else, under current law, is (wrongfully) assumed to be implicit.

Stop looking for reasons to expect the End Of The World for authors without copyright law, and realize there will still be ways to make money as a writer.

It's true that Microsoft's EULAs do a nice end-run around most of the issue of intellectual property law. I don't fault them for that at all.

I do, however, fault them for other things, and for extortionary use of intellectual property law in other ways, and completely aside from that I don't generally consider Microsoft's software to be worth the money in any case. That is, of course, beside the point.

Ultimately, it's moot, because I use Debian GNU/Linux as my preferred OS.

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Hey all you thieves out there who claim to justify your thievery by concocting some sort of quasi-principled argument that only you or an idiot would believe. Put your mouth where your "principle" is (or lack thereof), steal your software, and then do it in the face of the BSA by telling them you?re doing it. Yea, there ya? go -- a little public display of civil disobedience to prove your point and to really take a principled stand. In the absence of that, not only are you THIEVES, but you're COWARDLY THIEVES.

1. (Trivia) Section VIII of the United States Constitution was spearheaded by noted inventor, author, publisher, and womanizer, Benjamin Franklin.

2. (My father was an Electro-Optical Engineer for Hughes Aerospace and an assortment of others over time) When an engineer invents something for humongo corporation, it is humongo corporation that is, and has been, taking the financial risk the entire time, not the engineer. Why wouldn't they (and why shouldn't they)"... just sit on it, not allowing anyone to benefit" and "... determine what price, what market and when."?

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...how a thief will justify his thievery.

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You said, "Maxwell, you need to expand your mind. Narrow mindedness like yours will be the eventual downfall of this great country we live in."

Maybe I'll "expand my mind" and write some software so other people can steal my ideas.

The downfall of this great country is when too many people start believing that they are entitled to take what someone else has created or what someone else has earned.

The many examples we've cited involve many priciples, both explicity expressed and assumed. I think we need to get down to the actual priciples.

1. Nobody has the right to tell me what I can or cannot do with my property or knowledge.

2. I do not have the right to use my property or knowledge if it causes harm to others.

Copywrites and patents serve two purposes then.
1. They protect the 'owner' from unethical people.
2. They identify the owners intention to benifit from the product or idea.

"IT Consultant - unemployed... same thing."

Sounds like you're jealous. You should probably get off that soapbox before someone body slams you.

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On one hand, based on your "theft" comments in the "What Gives You the Right..." discussion, you do not believe that a person has the right to take what someone else has earned. In this discussion, however, you espouse the blatant taking of what someone else has created.

I suppose you don't consider that a person has to "create" before he can "earn".

Hypocrisy clearly illustrated.

You probably wouldn't thank him for giving you it LOL.

The scenario you describe though depends on what's been bought and sold. If I sell him the distribution rights or waive them, then no theft has occurred.

In software the line between intellect and property is much harder to define than that in music etc.

If you commisioned me to write a piece of software you would own, and then someone else did for the same application and I used the same techniques etc, have I stolen from you ?

Do you own a realization of my intellect or the intellect that produced it ?

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I illustrated with a very simple scenario why I considered it theft -- legalities aside.

https://www.techrepublic.com.com/5208-6230-0.html?forumID=9&threadID=169191&messageID=1727663

Would you care to comment on that before you, too, ignore the premise and take it to a far-off tangent?

"If nature has made any one thing less susceptible than all others of exclusive property, it is the action of the thinking power called an idea, which an individual may exclusively possess as long as he keeps it to himself; but the moment it is divulged, it forces itself into the possession of everyone, and the receiver cannot dispossess himself of it. Its peculiar character, too, is that no one possesses the less, because every other possesses the whole of it. He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me. That ideas should freely spread from one to another over the globe, for the moral and mutual instruction of man, and improvement of his condition, seems to have been peculiarly and benevolently designed by nature, when she made them, like fire, expansible over all space, without lessening their density at any point, and like the air in which we breathe, move, and have our physical being, incapable of confinement or exclusive appropriation. Inventions then cannot, in nature, be a subject of property."
[b]- Thomas Jefferson[/b]

It's quite difficult to answer a trick question. I don't bother. Until you give me valid questions, I don't guarantee to answer them.

Now to address your statements:

You said "I've explained in previous messages how a person might toil for years and years to get to the point where he can sell a million CDs, and if someone starts giving them away, it deprives him of his just rewards for his efforts." That equates to "but I want money!" which I indicated earlier isn't a valid argument that it's theft. You seem unwilling or unable to recognize the invalidity of that approach to justifying your position.

You then said "Moreover, there's a LAW AGAINST IT. If you want to pick and choose which laws you will abide by, that puts you into the criminal class." That one, in case you didn't notice, qualifies as the other logically invalid justification that I clearly stated wouldn't convince me; it equates to "it's theft because the gubmint sez so".

Unless and until you can [b]logically justify[/b] your statement that violation of copyright law is [b]ethically[/b] a form of theft (not legally, [b]ethically[/b]), you've got no logically valid case for the support of intellectual property law (you can't justify something's existence merely by saying it exists, after all).

Finally, you said "(Now is when you refuse to address the real issue because I'm 'name calling'.)" The answer is No, I won't. I will, however, try (once again, tirelessly) to actually get [b]you[/b] to address the real issue, the [b]ethicality[/b] of intellectual property (or lack thereof), and stop trying to substitute "You're wrong because you're evil!" for valid arguments.

If being wrong is what makes me evil, and being evil is what makes me wrong, you've just created a circular argument with no basis in reality. Try again. Try harder.

Link 1: That has nothing to do with the ethicality of intellectual property law (or lack thereof). Straw man.

Link 2: I don't even know why you brought that up. It has nothing to do with anything in this discussion, and can't even be misrepresented as such, as far as I can tell. Perhaps you could enlighten me. How does a reference to the relative charity of US citizens have anything to do with the discussion at hand?

Link 3: I can almost see an attempt to tie that into this current discussion, but it falls flat. The fact that you think I'm some kind of evil commie because I don't support monopolistic legalities doesn't in any way invalidate the linked-to statement, and the linked-to statement doesn't in any way make your belief that I'm some kind of evil commie any more accurate.

There's no hypocrisy. You simply seem to have a compulsive desire to label everything with which you disagree that has an economic element "evil" without bothering to understand its logical and/or philosophical roots.

That doesn't even make sense. Earning something from another requires producing and offering something for which the other is willing to pay. It has nothing to do with enforcing artificial controls over what is in another's possession.

I'm not espousing the taking of anything from another. If you buy or acquire by way of gift something that someone else has created, you own it. Do what you like with it. That's all. In fact, even while acquiring it, the person from whom you require it can still keep it at the same time, which means that the person in question isn't even selling anything away other than the physical medium by which ideas are conveyed.

There's no hypocrisy in that. It's fully self-consistent. All you have to do is commit to understanding what I'm saying before you start jumping to conclusions. You've made your decisions before you even read what I post here, though, and no amount of argument will ever fix that. The only thing that can fix that problem is your desire to understand and make informed decisions.

This post of yours isn't even worth addressing, but this is a convenient place to ask a question:

Why the heck are you spamming this discussion with multiple responses to one single post? Can't you construct a single post out of all that? It's a little late now, but maybe you should think about that in the future when you make posts. This shotgun-effect approach is just making this thread more difficult to follow by creating unnecessary branchings.

Hi,

Your comment "If buying a book involved signing a contract guaranteeing I wouldn't make copies and sell it, I certainly wouldn't have any problem with enforcing it. That's not the case, though. I'm not given the opportunity to opt out of that aspect of the transaction under copyright law." is wrong.
Of course you are entitled to opt out of the agreement - don't buy the book!!!! If however, you do buy the book you have agreed to the conditions imposed by the publish, as printed on the fly leaf of the book.
The same applies to software, try reading the EULA sometime - if you don't like it don't buy it.

There's a fundamental flaw in your logic. You say that "we all agree that an artist/creator should be entitled to benefit from their work". I don't agree with that statement. Benefit from work is not an [b]entitlement[/b]. One is entitled to the [b]opportunity[/b] to benefit from work, but not to the actual benefit itself. If you [b]fail to benefit[/b] due to poor planning, a decision to derive no benefit, or the alignment of the planets, you're SOL. Nobody has the right to tell you that you [b]can't[/b] benefit, though: only that you [b]won't[/b] benefit from his or her wallet because he or she isn't willing to pay for the results of your labor.

Your example of the loaned book brings up an interesting problem that you should probably more closely examine: Either you own the book, and thus have the right to sell it, give it away, or loan it out, or you don't own it and don't have that right. If you can go to the store and "buy" a book, but then have no right to treat it as your own property by distributing it to others (whether as a copy or only in the original format), then there is no application of property rights there. In other words, either the theorized intellectual property rights do not apply/exist, or they negate the physical property rights, which would indicate that either all property rights or simply all tangible property rights are null and void.

The topic of the thread is:
Should Intellectual Property Exist?

Many of us have been trying to point out why they shouldn't exist. And to that, you can only reply that anything otherwise is theft. If the law shouldn't exist, it is no longer theft.

Now for your example. With a little find and replace with all famous chair example, and Voila.
For example, consider this "face to face" scenario with three people. Tony made a Chair after dedicating years of hard work developing his skills, and he finally sold a Chair to Apotheon -- his first sale. Tony then turns to Maxwell and offers to sell him a Chair as well. But wait, Apotheon might say to Maxwell. Don't buy a Chair from Tony; I'll make a copy of mine and GIVE you one instead.
Not only does that scenario, as described, illustrate something pefectly legal, but it smacks of kindness and generosity. Sorry Maxwell, lost another sale. Better get to work on that marketing dept.

The fact that the next sentence contradicts in spirit the preceding words should be a fairly clear indicator of why I left it out. I quote him not because he's an authority in the matter, but because he said very eloquently something I myself have been trying to say. Whether he said anything to contradict it, even in the same letter, is immaterial to the validity of the quoted statement.

He made a very good set of points in regards to the principle of the disposition of ideas and knowledge. He then followed it up with a wholly consequentialist statement about social pressures and attempted manipulations of the motivations of others without any logically valid supporting statements. Considering that my arguments and points have pertained to ethical principle, and that I believe practice should derive from principle rather than from convenient efficacy with mere lip service to principle, it should come as no surprise that the additional sentence to which you make reference doesn't pass muster for me.

Benjamin Frankline made some very good points about liberty and individual rights in a number of statements he made, but he also made some statements with which I do not agree. Because his statements with which I do agree were well-phrased and convey the points I wish to convey quite effectively, I am known to quote Franklin, but I don't typically quote those statements with which I disagree. The same concepts are at work in determining how I go about deciding what to quote. In any case, as I've already indicated, I don't quote others for purposes of making an argument from authority, but because some people have made points eloquently: I don't attribute statements to people like Jefferson, Madison, Payne, Franklin, Washington, and Coxe because their names are well known, but because they deserve credit through attribution for their words (which, by the way, is not even close to the same thing as deserving remuneration, so don't pull a maxwell and start calling me a hypocrite for opposing fraud and copyright at the same time).

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If Tony made a music CD, after dedicating years of hard work developing his skills, and he finally sold a single CD to Apotheon -- his first sale -- and then Tony made a CD available for Maxwell to buy as well, but Apotheon interrupted and offered to make a copy of his CD to give to Maxwell -- free of charge -- would that be tantamount to Apotheon stealing from Tony?

Yes or No?

Your first point I would agree with. It is exactly my issue with respect to patents - the right to an opportunity to benefit is exactly what is denied by patent to the independent originator of a patented idea. In patent law, the right of the state to benefit from the ideas of its citizens/subjects is paramount. I don't see that it applies to copyright.

Your second point - copyright applies to the book only because it contains intellectual property. Were it possible to wipe all the writing from a book I would be allowed to reproduce it as much as I liked. On the other hand, I have no right to hand-transcribe the contents of a book, although by doing so I have in no sense reproduced the physical book. That is, the rights I have in the physical medium are absolute but separate from the rights I have in the content, which are limited. They don't, and can't, negate each other.

And scarily, patent laws predate the abolition of slavery, or the extension of the franchise to women. Perhaps all the same arguments apply, and your contract with your company assigning all rights in your work to them will come to be seen for the intellectual slavery it is.

Think about it - slavery meant that someone else owned the output of your physical work, and could say what you did with your body. Your company owns the output of your intellectual work, and says what you can do with your mind (non-competes and NDA's).

Not really, I just throw out my opinion. You choose to do with it what you will...

Just as I do with your opinion.

Nobody has to listen to anything I say, or even consider it for that matter. I just look at it like this. A idea is posed, and input is requested. Input is what was given... Now you can choose to do with it as you will...

I really don't believe in the same type of world as most people do. I think that the world we currently live in is quite selfish and disturbing. We are all the same, no one is better than anyone else... If we could truly learn how to harness that and use it wisely, there would be no need for money and there would be no classes. All would be happy and all would get along.

Maybe that's la la land, but I see it as a hopeful thought, and that's what gets me through the days in this jacked up place called Earth. Because honestly, people freakin suck, they're rude selfish and just out to make a buck... MOST of the time, there are exceptions, but they're exceptions...

You know maxwell, reading that, really actually kind of makes me sad.

I thought that you were better than that...

You can mince words about a shopowner not having an expectation, but the shopowner puts the goods on the shelf in the expectation that people will buy them, not steal them.

Just because you didn't have to sign something doesn't mean you're not obligated to follow the law. Unfortunately, we do not live in the Libertarian uptopia. Even in Cherry 2000 certain things were the law, despite the ever-constant lawyers and contracts about everything.

I don't advocate government control of markets (obviously), since they don't get it. But property rights are fundamental. I do believe intellectual product is property. Some of it is derivative. Most of it is offered free of charge for consumption by whoever wants it and however they want to treat it. IP is original thought, novel and non-obvious.

Authors won't stop publishing just because they are cheated out of their IP, any more than acetylsalicylic acid stop being produced when the Aspirin patent expired in the 1900s. Interestingly, Aspirin was invented in 1853 but not patented until 1899. The German Bayer company had to relinquish the name as part of losing WWI.

Getting back to intentions, you're not one of those people who pick up tips from coffee house tables, are you? Clearly, it's patently obvious that the tip was intended for the server, not for some other patron who happened to sit at the same table. The shopowner's intentions are just as valid as the patron's intention in leaving money on the table. It's not for you to steal.

If you owned a picture of Ben Franklin there is an obvious reason for not allowing you to copy it as much as you want and distribute the copies. Copying $100 dollar bills is illegal.

But, do you know why?

Copying the original denigrates the value of the original.

The same is true of intellectual property of all types, especially when the copies give no credit to the author.

In general I have to agree that copyrighting software is most appropriate. But there are rare cases that a patent might be warranted.

A long time ago one of the programmers built a table that was inline to the code and consisted of no-op codes all catenated. Each NOP used a single machine cycle. His program calculated a necessary offset to synchronize processes by jumping execution into the NOP field at a particular point and then falling through the table a precise number of cycles. It was clever. I think it deserved a patent.

But examples of patentable code are rare, I believe, compared to the vast amount of software out there.

How exactly do you believe you will profit when you don't have a copyright to enforce and prevent others from taking your work?

It might have taken months for you to write the software and the first guy you sell it to for $30 posts it on his website for free download.

Oh, maybe you'll be like the hotel owner in Las Vegas who rents rooms for $1M a night -- he needs only 1 customer.

Reality is that software developers create things with the intention (damn that word) of selling it to multiple buyers. It's like the sharing Apotheon talked about before. The developer may have worked late every night for 6 months. Doesn't he deserve to sell his efforts at the price he wants. If he says each copy is $50 or $50M, that's his call. In the user documentation it says not to sell it or copy for others. Stealing it for free or providing free copies to others is just wrong.

Sir Isaac Newton --
Had a title when he died at the turn of the 1700s, but was he born with a silver spoon in his mouth and that's how he had the time to use his brilliance instead of toiling in the fields?

His father, owned property and animals, which in 1643 made his family somewhat wealthy. At age 2 his widowed mother re-married a church minister, making her family quite wealthy. Apparently, for the times it was money that allowed Newton to attend university and permitted him the time and idleness to pursue thought and eventual brilliance. His position at Cambridge provided substantial time for him to read and contemplate mathematics, which he suddenly found interesting. Would that we all had the time to ponder and be paid a stipend to do so.

Those of us without wealth depend upon fairness over the value of our thoughts to provide us just recompense.

Galileo's father, Vincenzo Galilei, belonged to a noble family of straitened fortune. Should I say more?

At least one of the writers here thinks that people with money must have extorted it from someone.

I don't, even though Nobel had a guilty conscience over his invention and resulting wealth.

Doing what others will pay for will lead to wealth and success. If a creator is passionate about something, others might also be and they might pay for his creations. Work represents money. When we want someone to do a task for us, we pay them money, like mowing the lawn, and so on. Money also represents work. When we have money, we must have done something or sold something of value to get it. WORK = MONEY = WORK...

Accumulated money (wealth) means accumulated work. Work is accumulated by worker harder or smarter or both. Slaving over a grill longer is harder but not smarter. Figuring out what other people will pay good money for is smarter. The idea that working smarter should not be rewarded is very Marxist. "You Can't Own Your Thoughts and Charge for Them - They're Free" is a Marxist concept.

Obviously not.

If the deal is:
This CD and its content are copyright
and you copy them anyway, then

I obviously can't trust you with a whispered secret, because you are unethical. By ignoring the EULA you are violating the terms of passing the information to you, just like blab a secret.

It's wrong because you agreed to abide by the terms before you took the information.

Further down this thread the claim is made that by obfuscation and non-disclosure agreements a creator's work is protected. But, copying MP3s or software is unprotected. But I don't get it either. How can the NDA work and the EULA for the software not work?

Don't they both depend on the government to recover damages from the violator.

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...to get in on that one.

If the law doesn't grant a proprietary interest in someone's idea, then you have to rely on altruism to place the idea in the public domain. That sometimes works, but historically, the inventor of the idea kept it secret for personal gain and that secret died when the inventor died.

The Framers of our Constitution recognized that problem and so made both patent and copyright constitutionally protected. It's worked well for over 200 years and added to public knowledge at an unprecedented rate.

Yes, shoplifting has an effect on the store closing. Yes, shoplifting is wrong. No, there isn't any shoplifting (or even ethically equivalent activity) going on if someone downloads music. That's my point.

Holy crap, folks, let's try to understand points made rather than looking for creative ways to misunderstand so that our own arguments don't look appropriately stupid.

I've been talking about the ethicality of intellectual property law, and addressing the principles and premises of the matter, all along. Nobody has offered a counterargument to the most fundamental issues of this discussion. I'm still waiting.

Let's start at the beginning: Would you say that "initiation of force is wrong" is a good initial premise of a system of ethics? Is there anything else you'd like to include as well as, or instead of, that statement as an initial premise?

I'm trying to get people to either justify intellectual property law using arguments besides "want money" and "it's illegal" or give up on justifying it entirely. Simply stating that intellectual property law should exist doesn't make it so. There has to be a logically supportable reason for it, or your "argument" is mere vaporware.

Repeating the phrase "it's stealing" [b]doesn't make it so[/b]! If you can't logically justify the position that disregarding intellectual property law is stealing, there's no reason for me to regard it as stealing! If simply stating that it was stealing made it so, simply stating that selling pebbles is murder would also make the statement true. Don't you get it? [b]If you don't have an argument to back up your claims, your claims aren't valid.[/b] It's that simple.

Criminy, man, get a grip here.

Nobody's rights get violated when I make copies of something I own, even if it does devalue my original. What possible justification could you have for claiming otherwise? That's absurd.

Try again. Try harder. Try something that doesn't amount to "because I said so" or "because the law says so" (or, worse yet, "because several people say so").

You're clearly way out in left field, t.e.sumner. For one thing, I'm talking about copyright, not EULAs. If I agree to an End User License Agreement, I abide by that decision. If I have the entire weight of copyright law [b]forced on me[/b], I don't feel obligated to abide by that non-agreement. If I agree to keep something secret, I'll do so. If some stranger on the street walks up to me and says "George Bush is going to be in town tomorrow, but you can't tell anyone because I say so," I feel no ethical obligation to keep the secret he gave me without knowing me and without any prior agreements.

Yes, you can tell me a secret and expect it to be kept, as long as you have some kind of agreement with me that it'll be kept, even if that agreement consists of nothing more than "I want to tell you something. Will you keep it a secret for me?" with "yes" as a response. See how that works? That's an [b]agreement[/b], not an [b]unjustified expectation[/b].

Copying an MP3 doesn't violate any EULAs. What the heck are you talking about?

EDIT: Ack. I fixed a typo.

Two things:

1. That's not exactly a statement of premise, but it's close enough, I suppose. A statement of premise would be more like "The creator of something has a right to deny others the ability to sell copies of his work to his own potential customers."

2. My answer is "No, that's not stealing." My answer to my premise-statement rephrasing in 1. is also "no", specifically "No, the creator does not have the right to deny others the ability to sell copies of his work." I could then go on to explain why, but that's not a direct answer to the question, and I don't want to overcomplicate this any more than I already have since all you asked for was an answer of yes or no. So, again: No, I don't consider that stealing.

Maxwell so where's mine ?

In case you forgot,
You commission me to write you a software application, buying the product and source. Someone else commissions me for a very similar piece of software, if I create it am I stealing from you ?

Our Constitution recognizes both that:
1) Innovation will be stifled if others can immediately profit from the endeavors of the innovator; and,
2) It is equally unsatifactory for the general good that the ecomonic benefits of such innovation should forever accure solely to the innovator.

It therefore sets forth a compromise such that the innovator controls the fruits of his labor for a limited time only.

We could, for example, eliminate patents, but only with the result that such knowledge would then be sequestered as trade secrets in perpetuity.

Eliminate copyrights, and very little new music would be published; and that, only by those who either possess sufficient wealth or have a wealthy patron (who would, of course, determine what music was produced.)

Those who advocate the elimination of the protections accorded by patents & copyrights seem to be blind to the Law of Unintended Consequences.

The two types of "property" only "have to be" separate to support arguments in favor of intellectual property law. The fact that they are not, in practice, divisible from each other should say something to you about how ludicrous "intellectual property" laws are, in practice.

Your example of copying data to a fresh, formerly blank book assumes the validity of "intellectual property rights". You say that "intellectual property rights" have been attached to the physical property, which first off assumes as axiomatic the idea that "intellectual property rights" exist, and secondly points out the obvious, that this fiction of "intellectual property" is [b]fixed to[/b] the physical property, thus making it indivisible, creating a conflict between the tangible property rights and the "intellectual property rights".

You make my head hurt. LOL

Apotheon, I'm curious as to why you would not consider that stealing?

I'm on the fence.

**You may have already articulated your position but I've only read the last couple of exchanges between you & Max.....

.
So you would have to gather even more "raw materials" and write your own songs.

Why is it that so many people think they are entitled to take those things that other people create or other people earn?

What makes tangible property rights so special?

After all, if I steal your book, I haven't hurt you, or taken away anything you can't replace. Are you arguing that there is no such thing as intellectual property, or that there should be no rights attached to it?

If you are arguing that there should be no rights attached to intellectual property, because they conflict with tangible property rights, where is your case for the special stature of tangible property rights? Their 'tangibility'? Surely you're not.

True, I was assuming that intellectual property rights exist. But then, they do - admittedly only as a legal fiction, but all rights are a legal fiction. There's little point in arguing about the existence of a fiction once it's been written into the law books - it exists. Question is, surely, is it right, or useful, and if so, to whom?

It's undeniably useful to me that I don't have to worry about my clients selling on my code (I'm a freelance developer). In particular, they make it possible for me to allow others to see/use/modify my source without worrying that they'll be selling it to someone else the next day. Not all code is written by corporate hacks or Open Source jocks, some of it's written by jobbing freelancers like myself.

If I couldn't let anyone else see my source code I would find it very restrictive.

If I had to hire a lawyer to write a fresh protective agreement with every new client or colleague I'd find it very expensive.

It is always impossible to work with those who don't see anything wrong with reusing your work for their own gain.

These are simple practical side-effects of a lack of copyright. They're not theoretical at all.

Intellectual property doesn't exist because it doesn't have the characteristics that justify (tangible) property rights. Property rights are derived from the fact that you can claim ownership of something and, in doing so, create a situation whereby nobody else can take it from you against your will without an initiation of force (whether in the form of violence, threat of violence, or fraud). In other words, property rights are not actually natural rights in and of themselves: they are an extention of the right to be free from initiations of force.

Another way of explaining the ethical basis in individual rights is this: A person can claim proprietary rights to a physical object. That object cannot (simplistically speaking) then be removed from his possession without interfering with his right of self-determination. The reason "intellectual property" is without justification, within the context of this means of explaining property rights, is that it assumes "rights" that can be "violated" without any interference with the right of self-determination, and thus the justification for property rights doesn't apply.

I just finished another attempt at an explanation of that elsewhere in this discussion. You can find it here:

http://tinyurl.com/6fa2a

I've actually addressed the issue four or five times at least, to varying degrees and in a number of different ways, but the only responses I get are the equivalent of "But what about my money!" and "But it's illegal!" and my favorite "You're just a bad person trying to excuse bad behavior!"