Should Intellectual Property Exist?

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When you said, "I was referring to Maxwell's use of intent to sell as justification for proprietary rights. He didn't specifically tie creation into the discussion in a way that made it clear that it was an integral part of his justification."

Then you proved that you're an idiot.

Because what I said was, "Yes, there is indeed shoplifting going on if someone downloads music without paying for it - IF - IF - IF - IF - the person/company/creator who made that music available FROM THE VERY BEGINNING - The one who CREATED IT - Intended to sell it and not give it away." And I also asked, "If I write a piece of music and record it, and I want it to go to people who only pay me for it, who in the hell are you to trump my desires?"

And I YELLED about creating it with the intent to sell it.

So which is it, are you a total idiot, or are you really just playing games wasting everyone's time? It has to be one of the two.

Isn't it strange that so many of us have things backward, except "apotheon"?

Isn't it unfortunate that so many of us have an inaccurate understanding of government, business, law, ethics, and so on, except "apotheon"?

This discussion would be so much more productive if only we were all as enlightened as "apotheon". It's very gracious of him/her to share his/her wisdom with us.

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I'll make a deal with you, apotheon.

Oz and I aren't exactly bosom buddies, and we even disagree on this particular issue (and have "agreed to disagree"), so he certainly doesn't have a bias that leans my way at all.

If he says that I was not clear with the intent of my message, then I'll not post another message in this discussion. In fact, if he says that I was not clear, I'll refrein from posting anything in any discussion for the next 30 days AND I'll punish myself by listening to Air America for at least four hours a day for the next 30 days. (Ouch!)

If he says that I was clear, you answer this simple question:

Which is it, are you a total idiot, or are you really just playing games wasting everyone's time? It has to be one of the two.

Okay, that's not fair.

If he says that I was clear, simply retract your stupid assertion that I was not.

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...in your own stupid rebuttal....

https://www.techrepublic.com.com/5208-6230-0.html?forumID=9&threadID=169191&messageID=1730419

...and then claimed that I "didn't specifically tie creation into the discussion".

https://www.techrepublic.com.com/5208-6230-0.html?forumID=9&threadID=169191&messageID=1731042

Yep, either an idiot or playing games, no question about it.

Man, oh, man. Are you for real?

You said "person/company/creator who made that music available", too. Considering that a company can't creat anything, but only collect the creations of individuals, you're directly contradicting yourself. I figured your reference to "CREATED it" was actually a misnaming of the person to whom you referred, and that you only meant the copyright holder.

I'm not an idiot, but you're welcome to think I am. Maybe if you didn't contradict yourself at every turn, these misunderstandings could be more easily avoided. In the case of this contradiction, it seems that you're "a total idiot" who conflates copyright with creation, "a total idiot" who doesn't understand that business organization doesn't actually create anything, or simply completely dishonest in your attempts to slip untrue statements past our eyes to make spurious claims and specious arguments.

1. You weren't clear. I don't change my opinion just because someone else disagrees with it.

2. Before he makes such a determination, he should see my take on why it wasn't clear, anyway. My take is above, in response to your post titled "When You Said - Then You Proved". Simply making decisions based on the interpretations of events provided by one side is hardly an informed decision.

3. When he has already posted to the effect that I'm wrong, I hardly think your little challenge is based on an "unbiased" opinion.

4. He has actually stated support for copyright law, and simply recognizes that the RIAA's approach is horsepucky. That's not exactly unbiased, either.

It's a good thing you're not a judge.

I already addressed this. Posting more times doesn't make you more right.

In Apotheon's book example, he was against a writer being paid for a book he produced, suggesting instead that they get prepaid to write a book, which is of course unworkable, for same reason we don't pay employees for a pay period in the future.

My take on libertarianism is that two individuals are free to make any economic agreement they want, and that is 'right' as long as they agree to it. Therefore throw out any of your arguments on making companies do prepayment for books for example, only if they want to. And this means there can be not slightest thing wrong with employment agreements about inventions, etc being property of the company. You're free to work there, you're free to quit, you're free to ask them to exclude something, you're free to accept their support to help it get invented and of course you may not get every cent out of it since as Edison (T. not M.) said, 99(?)% of invention is hard work, [in implementing it], not thinking it up.

Also libertarians tend to respect the rights of individuals to keep what they produced. As I mentioned in an earlier post, much IP is not restricted in copying the IDEA but simply the 'instantiation' (using DB terms) of it. I.E. you are free to read a book and use the idea but not free to copy the book (subject to fair use limitations).

Apotheon you're no Ted Kennedy (woops, I mean Libertarian, Ted was definitely not).

Also as a libertarian, any amount of money you make on something as a company, is OK. You don't like it, start a competitor or don't use the product or use alternative.

apotheon: unlike maxwell I realise this is a debate, not a war or personal attack. While I don't agree with you're point that you can do whatever with something you buy, you've stirred some thinking in these people, which is good. However your counter arguments tend to be pretty lame, things like 'missed the mark' etc don't mean much, and seem to be a pretty frequent answer.

"Would it be ethically wrong to walk into a music store and swipe a few CDs off the shelf? What's the difference?"

Someone has already put the songs on the CD, so you don't have to do it yourself :)

apotheon, you got caught in a cynical trap. you wanted to believe this fellow was complementing you.

while I don't agree at all with you, and I think this is funny, it was unwarranted. This is a debate, not a war.

Whether or not you agree with apotheon, he has stimulated a good debate and that is the basis of thinking people and free society to debate ethics and morals.

Whether or not you think apotheons come backs are lame or not, at times he says things other than 'missed the mark' tho he says that alot too, rather than a rational argument.

And even if you don't agree with him, you have to agree he has thought this out more than the other fellow's 17 year old son. (at that age you just do stuff without thinking too hard).

It would be neat to have a poll on these discussions, where each username could vote once on whether you agree or disagree with premise of article.

they transplanted much of brain of young stud clone (= old geezer minus 30 years) into old geezer. The socialite reporter gal who had secretly made it with young stud clone didn't want him to die.

Even tho he was cut open, they didn't transplant enuf of old geezer's brain to him for him to be old geezer, rather, effectively it was still young stud clone.

He just go enuf memory and tissue from old guy (original) to be officially old geezer inside and remembered a few passwords, etc. He ended up taking over empire, so in the end the clone made out OK. Doctor was kind of forced into brain transplant by rich old guy so was also happy and didn't say anything when it turned out they mostly left him behind in old body.

You're missing the whole point of a book, which is to allow you extract info and copy in your head the idea, the reason people buy the books. what the law is trying to protect is the author putting down in words that idea.

In fact it stimulates creation of new ideas by protecting the original. Unless you have something to expand on the idea, you are plagiarizing if you try to reprint without permission and resell.

If you wanted to think about it and rewrite the idea as another book that would not be a problem, unless you were too derivative and plagiaristic. If you wanted to copy straight text to large degree that is the problem.

In fact society has already made room in copyright laws for ideas to be distributed, just not the exact 'instance' of them represented by the art or book. You can spread the idea, tell all your friends. but not reprint the book.

I see nothing unreasonable about this. Since no idea exists as 'pure energy', they are all instances of it in different forms. Simpler ideas such as math or natural laws are closer to being able to be copied with no change or interpretation and not subject to copyright.

Music is closer to 'art' than ideas so you really don't need it to create productive opportunities (such as taking industrial secrets or published non-patented ideas) other than that of reproducing the actual music for sale, which would be 'derivative' (and subject to laughter in college writing classes).

As I've said earlier, I am defending the Concept of Patents; not the present day implementation.

I do concur that software "patents" both fail to conform to the intent of the Constitution, and, as much economic research is beginning to show, do NOT foster further R&D, but are more likely to be used for either blocking purposes or to attain a stronger negotiating position.

I'm not sure what gave you the notion that I have any problem with trade secrets; I was merely observing that such can be used as an alternative to patents. In many cases, securing a patent is not possible, leaving the trafe secret as the only choice.

In your prior post, you stated the following:

"If you enter into a contract with me (absent coersion), I'll abide by the terms of that contract and consider that the only ethical course of action, but if you just "sell" me something I feel no ethical obligation to sit on it and pretend I don't own it just because someone declared that ideas are property more than a couple hundred years ago."

You've missed the point that ALL SALES ARE CONTRACTS. As such, they cannot be dismissed as a mere transfer of physical property based on the buyer's ethical viewpoint.

As for the remark re. "strawmen," I would have thought that by now you should have recognized that I am exceedingly logical, and not given to oratorical theatrics. I shall give you the benefit of the doubt, and allow for the possiblility that you simply missed the above stated referenced.

Under US Patent Law, only the 1st to invent is entitled to the patent.

Prove that you were 1st, regardless of whether or not you secured a patent, and you prevail.

Unfortunately, many countries follow the "1st to patent" model.

" Imagine for a moment that I did create the Brookly Bridge, then sold it. Now, I want to sell it again, even though I supposedly sold it already. That's something of a problem."

How can you derive THAT conclusion from this discussion about intellectual property. It has NO relation to this discussion AT ALL. We are not discussing someone building a public thoroughfare and then selling it. Here's the ONLY relation between YOUR example and what happens when you buy software or a CD.

You BUY software or a CD, you can sell it to a friend if you are done with it, used CD's, books etc. We've all seen it. But you cannot make up 20 copies of Bruce Springsteens Born to Run and sell them to a used CD store. The medium is NEVER changed from the original.

So in the case of the Brooklyn Bridge, for it to relate to this discussion, you would create a bridge and sell it, then the person you sold it to would make a bunch of CLONE bridges (not quite as sturdy and not using the same materials) and resell them to a bunch of other cities as his own Brooklyn Bridge design/creation, which would therefore be illegal, unless you don't think the designer and architect have any rights to the design and architectural plans they created and drewin the first place. They sold a product not the plans and licence to duplicate it.

I saw the point you misse din Maxwell's comments wihtout too much effort, somehow you got a different impression but this doesn't mean that was the intended impression either.

You're right in that the grammar I used to desribe PREMISE was a littl off and misleading, but th every next sentence, which you failed to include even though in th esame pargraph was;

"That would be a FALSE premise but not a conclusive logic."

Showing a clear understanding that a premise leads to a conclusion. Yet I did not see YOUR premise as resulting in a logical conlusion, a FALSE premise resulting in a false conclusion but not one of sane logic.

But as ALWAYS, I have been in these cirular never enmding "discussions" with you to many times to be interested again, I have seen many other comments that same way toward your use of 'logic' in your assertions. Now I read through THIS thread and you are it it with dafe2, Maxwell and anyone else who hasn't run up and hugged you while thinking you for your input.

Just look through the threads once in a while and you will realize, OTHER people don't create these issues, YOU do, over and over again. But as people tire of your nonsense, these 'discussions' will become fewer and fewer as people grow less and less interested in even offering a counter statement to your own, understanding that it leads in bizarre circles of illogical nonsense.

I'd guess a Hybrid; An idiot, just playing games AND trying to waste everyone's time.

The scary part is he probably even believes himself.

HOw is THIS a self contradiction?!?!?

"person/company/creator who made that music available"

A company CAN make music available, and OWN the rights to it. When in the US, the labels generally DO own the music outright, BECAUSE THEY ARE GIVEN THAT RIGHT BY CONTRACT OF THE PERSON WHO WROTE IT.
Ever heard the term 'SELLING OUT'? Why do you think I always BASH the NOrth American musci industry, YOU don't own your work, THEY do.

Max NEVER said a company can CREATE anything at all, that was your rash, poorly thought out conclusion based on the fact that you simply did NOT understand the most clear and basic of comments.

He said Person/Company?creator, which actually means 'a person, OR a company, OR a creator'

Not that a 'company's person created' or 'company created a person' or 'personal companies create' or anything else, / = OR.

How can you dangle a carrot for me like that?

OH it would be SO easy at this point...lol!

But I simply cannot reduce myself to a lie just to see you go away for a while, in fact I wouldn't really enjoy that at all, believe it or not I actually DO see sense in your comments, now that I took some time better understand your angles on certain issues. Besides, it just wouldn't be the same.

So I will not keep you waiting any longer (like you were anyway).

I have said in a couple of comments now that I DID see that comment quite clearly in your post. In fact I defended it long before reading your preceding post.

CRYSTAL, Max, now if only apotheon would offer the same challenge.

The "all sales are contracts" bit is an interesting, and possibly even valid, theory of property rights. I'll go with it for now.

If all sales are contracts, the only explicit contract when someone sells you something, absent other discussion, is "If you give me money (including all rights thereto), I'll give you this object (including all rights thereto)." Anything not included in the discussion of the sale is not explicitly part of the contract, and based on that you should refer back to the issue of no enforceable contract terms existing (generally speaking) where they are not explicit.

Based on my experience here, I would characterize you as "usually logical", but not necessarily "exceedingly logical". That remains to be seen, I suppose.

It's in print, not heresay.

NO matter how many times Max reports his point, he is correct, He DID say it very clearly and you didn't see it.

I'm sure we could start a TR peer poll to settle it, but it would hardly make any difference, if 10 people agreed with Max, you'd stil make 50 argumentative posts to try and instill your point.

You should just get some construction paper and make a hat to fit your point.

1) No contract need explicity contain all pertinent terms; to whit:
a) Such can be explicitly incorporated by reference; and,
b) Many are implicitly incorporated, without reference, via Statutory Law.

2) Patent & Copyright Law does not confer "ownership of ideas." Rather, it confers a temporary right to control the use or particular expression of the idea. The two represent quite different species of propery rights. It is a distinction which you must remain cognizent of.

If that's all you meant, then we don't disagree. Trade secrets can, indeed, replace patents for purposes of fostering technological advancement and innovation.

Yes, a publishing house can (and in many cases does) pay for a book up front. Yes, two individuals can enter into an agreement freely, and that's part of what makes it likely that a publishing house may pay up front for a book. That doesn't mandate throwing out any of my arguments. I don't know where you're getting this nonsense. Of course the publisher only pays for it if he "wants to". That's necessary to the concept of an agreement.

Your nattering on about an instance of an idea just undermines your own argument. Yes, a book is an instance of an idea's implementation. That instance can be sold. Once sold it is no longer yours. Period. Absent any additional terms of the sale by way of explicit agreement, that's all she wrote. It's (ethically) out of your hands. Go home and enjoy the money. If you want more than that, you have to have [b]an actual agreement[/b] with the purchasing party.

I don't think you've missed the mark in this case, but I do think you're not thinking your arguments through very well. You'll use contracts and agreements to support your opinion, but you won't consider that the lack of an agreement voids any additional, artificial restrictions.

Don't be intentionally dense. On one hand, you and max are suggesting that you're only talking about creators, and on the other you're now saying that he meant a company OR a person OR a creator. If you want to use the "creator only" idea to argue against me, you need to give up on the non-creator reference.

That was a great argument you made. In fact, it's so good I bet you'll be able to sell it. I'm not buying, though, unless it comes in fuchsia, with little checkered tassels.

You're going in the same "I usually won't respond to you!" bin as max, now. I can't believe you're this intentionally dense.

Making baseless claims that I don't use valid logic is very easy. Try actually offering logical refutation of what I say.

I don't know if I'm more logically capable than everyone here because most of you are avoiding logical arguments entirely, apparently. Wild claims, attacks on my character without evidence, and similarly fallacious arguments seem to be the order of the day.

In point of fact, there have been a couple of people that have settled into logical discussion with me, but you probably haven't realized it because you've been too busy dithering on about how I can't possibly be making a logically supported argument since I disagree with you.

This crap about ethics vs. morals is just that: crap. You declare me immoral (or is that amoral?) because I disagree with your initial presumption, then proceed to declar my ethical arguments baseless because I'm immoral. Basically, you're trying to defend premises on the basis of your conclusions, which is complete horseradish.

I have a very strong sense of right and wrong. I've been trying to explain it. Because my conclusions don't agree with your prejudices, though, you can't see that. You refuse to. Well, have fun with that. It seems to be working for you.

Keep trying to make arguments based on wild suppositions about the motives of others. It's not logically valid, but it sure does work for riling the hoi polloi.

1. The conclusion cannot be used to justify itself in a valid argument. Using the law to justify itself is circular, at best.

2. It's based in proprietary rights and is, therefore, still subject to arguments against proprietary rights to intangibles.

My god, are you a complete freak of nature or what?

I don't think I have EVER met someone as blatantly UNAWARE of what they have said before, and I've met some pretty sadly brain damaged people.

YOUR QUOTE: This is DIRECTLY from the post I responded to, so there is nothing out of context, nothing said 8 posts ago, just wht YOU said that I commented on, okay, stay with me here.

"You said "person/company/creator who made that music available", too. Considering that a company can't creat anything, but only collect the creations of individuals, you're directly contradicting yourself."

YOU SAID THIS, word for word and in that exact same context, this is the entire paragraph as copied from YOUR post. I again QUOTE from your post,

[b]"You said "person/company/creator who made that music available"[/b]

SHOW ME IN ONE POST, not 17 BS posts ONE straight up post, EXACTLY where this statement is contradictory.

"person/company/creator who made that music available"

You can't. It isn't.

YOU were responding to Maxwell's saying, and again I quote for your ease;

"IF - the person/company/creator who made that music available FROM THE VERY BEGINNING - The one who CREATED IT - Intended to sell it and not give it away."

He hasn't made ANY contradictory statements here AT ALL, not one, your poor mislead human being.

IF the person who created it, the company that made it available or those that intended to sell it....

Now if you wish to get technically nitpicky,

A record company CAN and usually is (In America) considered to be the 'creator', we are discussing LAW here, (Title was 'Should Intellectual Property Exist?' Intellectual property is a LAW of licence conracts) not language. When an artist signs over CREATIVE rights to a label, THYE become in essence THE CREATOR for contractual purposes, if not the artist could start suing the label for everywhere THE CREATOR is listed in a contract the artist would then have full rights to all the money. The label assumes that role when THEIR contract is signed, that way THEY have creative control and repayment under contract, they then issue the ARTIST his share based on their own contract. Why do you think all teh big artists end up suing their labels fro creative rights? SO they can write music THEY like? That's why they have more than one band, or do solo bits on the side. The 'creator' is a license that is SOLD like a whore.

Get it yet? I HIGHLY doubt it, you have not shown that skill thus far have you, just read the rest of this discussion!

Anyway, just like everyone else that has tried to make ANY sense, I will also give up trying to get through to you. You misunderstand and misconstrue everything people say here, you've done it for months that I have seen now. Find a new game or something.

Try typos.

IN fact one derived from reading your hoards of BS that you spew at ANYONE who posts here, ANYONE.

Not JUST here, in other threads too, more and more lately than before. I know, it's just MY opinion, but it's based on more than enough posts from you and those who's time and patience you insist on testing while they TRY and explain and reiterate their every word as your focus of argument changes with each post the respond to.

I just figured WHY waste all those keystroke on someone who wouldn't have a clue if it smacked him square in the face anyway?

I am alive.
Just like a child, like a flower, like a tree I want to grow.
But I don't want to expand too fast, and get thinner and thinner than air.
My body has stopped growing, not my mind, getting old and tired though.

You wanna grow.
You can grow with me, you can suppress me, you can abandon me.

I AM my mind.
You can never see my mind, you can never BE my mind.

My ideas ARE my mind.
I give them to you, and my name.

You can take them to you or throw them away.
You can make them part of YOUR mind.

You can let my name follow my ideas, or just drop it.

My ideas are ME. If I give them to YOU, and to YOU, and to YOU , they might live on when I am gone. My name might and might not go with them.

Do I own them? Depends. I started out as one unique cell with no brains, no thoughts, no nothing, but genes and life. Do I OWN them?

With money, power and legal rights, it seems to be the other way round.

There may never be an acceptible answer to this question.
Just like politics people may hold firm to their beliefs, even though they may see logical arguments against their position. It is easy enough to build a straw man and rip it to shreds to support ones position.
Could there be a link between political persuasion and support for IP?
I am certainly not 100% convinced that the answer that I may give is more correct that the opposite view.
Anyway, I went in search of documents written on this subject and came across this interesting essay on free software philosophy by Brett Watson.
There are even opposing views within the free software community.
http://www.ram.org/ramblings/philosophy/fmp/free-software-philosophy.html

Define ETHICS

Define PROPRIETARY

Define MUTUAL STANDARDS

Define SOCIETY

Define COMMUNITY

Define JUSTIFY

Define THEFT

Sam Antic

Apparently some people would say that if you bring CD mastering equipment into the store and just copy the bits off the CD, then that's not theft.

Libertarians normally recognize that contracts require both parties to agree. An offer and acceptance of the terms with a proper exchange of value constitutes a contract. Selling or giving MP3 away that were originally offered with the terms they could not be copied constitute a breach of that contract.

The CDs on the shopowner's shelf are offered for sale, not for copying. A good libertarian would understand this. Intellectual property is offered, just like tangible goods, under terms of the owner (creator) of the IP -- no, you can't just violate the contract you made with the owner and steal the bits. Neither can you ignore the offer and decide what your own terms will be. Sorry, you have to negotiate.

Paying attention would mean I got something in return. Most contracts are that way -- an exchange of valuable items. An offer of some service or goods at a price is made and an acceptance and payment causes the contract to be completed.

First, I don't accept your concept that intellectual property has no value.

You misquote Jefferson badly. You misunderstood the meaning of FREE press - NO, it does not mean the price is zero. It means they are free to print anything without geting the sheriff's approval. Ask the Detroit Free Press if you have to pay for their newspaper. That's what Jefferson was talking about...that ideas grew and fluorished when they were free (free to move from person to person without government interference, not gratis).

Secondly, you insult the millions of engineers who have worked, mostly selflessly, to create a better world by saying their intellectual property has no value. Do the 25 patents I have add nothing to the body of knowledge of humanity? The whole stinking purpose of patents is to increase the knowledge. You apparently would prefer to publish the Coca-Cola formula no matter the cost to us all in the long run.

Thirdly, as far as paying attention - your flaming anyone who disagrees with your point of view is not worthy of being paid for. So, no, I am not paying attention.

I tried that once...didn't like the result.

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When I posted that message, I knew that I was giving you a golden opportunity to either get rid of me for a month or put me in a position of having to weasel out of something -- or, of course, post some sort of "apotheon" type message that attempted to explain the inexplicable, prove the unprovable, or support the unsupportable. But I would never want to look as foolish as he does with his rambling and nonsensical messages, nor would I want to look like a liar -- so it would have been, "hasta-lavista, baby", for this guy. (But I also knew that you wouldn't come out with such an obvious and blatant misstatement yourself, at least I didn't think you would. This one was just TOO obvious.)

3 : to take or make use of without authority or right

Instead of requiring you to sign a contract not to reproduce the book, CD or software you bought, the publisher includes a notice in the book, inside the CD package, or via a EULA clickthrough that informs you of their offer of a contract. By clicking through you have accepted those terms. By not returning the book and instead opening it and reading it, you have accepted the contract. The contract does not have to be written. (or do you renege on your word?)

The nice thing about depending on the law, rather than individual contracts for everything, is that it is uniform and subject to review.

A click=through contract might require annual payments of 10% of your salary. Does anyone really read those things? Understand them? The law is fixed for all transactions. If you don't agree with the law, you can go to court with the chance of convincing a jury of your peers that the law is wrong.

Copyright law is about the best way to handle the issues of uniformity and fairness in relation to enforcement. Just because you didn't sign anything doesn't mean it doesn't apply and neither does it mean that it's wrong. Your opinion notwithstanding.

My grip may not be as firm as yours is, but arguing that just because you didn't sign anything does not mean you have no obligations. Even the anarchist in you must recognize that to enforce the contractual assurances you speak of, you will need a mechanism to police them.
--How can you police them without force?
--What 'rules' would the police have to follow in enforcing them?
--Would you have us all sign a contract with the police? How about the courts?
--What happens when we are judged wrong and must comply with an order?

Is it fair to say you don't have a grip on the complexity of instituting a system that has no teeth in it?

Is it only the rich who will be able to hire an army to enforce their contracts?
In your world the MS police would swoop down on families or businesses with an unlicensed copy of windows.

This is why we have laws and a jury system to keep the process uniform and reachable by the ordinary, not so rich people.

Patents, trademarks and copyrights are laws designed to encourage innovation, prevent fraud, and promote public expression. Patents and copyrights grant a limited monopoly to promote and encourage public expression of ideas and publication of useful inventions and discoveries so that society benefits in general. Eventually the monopoly expires and the expression, discovery or invention is in the free public domain. Trademarks grant use of an identifying mark to prevent confusion over the source of a product or service. This is to help consumers make choices based on reputation.

You know very well I've played a similar game before but with tongue in cheek.

The scary part is I actually believe that Apotheon BUYS all this stuff he spews. Actually MEANS it and thinks it is logical and not just.....scary!

We've lost a lot of good people here over the last year or so, no need for you to disappear now too.

It is illegal because:
it de-values the original property.

That is why it is illegal for you to copy $100 bills and distribute them. The placing of the copies into circulation denigrates (lowers - it takes more of them to buy something) the value of the original bill you copied from.

If you owned any real, tangible property and someone did something to de-value that property, you would have a cause of action. Their interference in the value of your property is wrong and actionable.

In parallel, if someone copies an intangible property, that has some value and distributes them into the marketplace, those copies denigrate the value of the original. When everybody has "I Want You Back," its value will be at a minimum, since it can be sold only to someone who loses his copy. At that time with so many copies out there, someone may actually give it to a loser for zero. Hence, copying devalues, period. Reducing the value of your property is an interference in your rights.

For some reason, no matter how many times people explain to you that original thought and creative expression are intangible properties, you just can't seem to see it. So, according to you own pronoucements, you don't have a right to your opinion. Once you have expressed it, it no longer belongs to you, right?

You misquoted Jefferson badly attributing to him Gratis Press instead of Free Press, and won't even admit it. Face it. Jefferson said your opinion would be built upon by others but it's still your opinion. He was concerned about intellectual property and how the crown had abused the granting of letters patent for power and money. That's why he had reservations about reserving rights for authors and inventors, but he nevertheless believed in the power for good of granting rights to original thought.

What I object to is not the rights but the law concerning who the rights belong to. Automatic assignment was not provided in the Constitution. Large corporations more powerful and richer than many nations were not envisioned as part of the inventive process. They have grown in hegemony to the point they can dictate IP terms. Only a law can stop this by preventing indentured intellectual servitude.

By contrast, German Patent Law provides that the inventor owns the patent. The employee must notify the company of his invention and the company could take the patent rights but must offer fair compensation for it. No, an employment contract cannot override this. Per Section 22 "The provisions of this Law may not be modified by contract to the detriment of the employee. "

Yes, the compensation must be reasonable.
Section 9 of the law says, "(1) The employee shall have a right to reasonable compensation as against his employer, as soon as the employer has made an unlimited claim to a service invention. "

Consideration must be given to the value of the patent (or copyright), the use of company resources and so on "(2) In assessing compensation, due consideration shall in particular be given to the commercial applicability of the service invention, the duties and position of the employee in the enterprise, and the enterprise?s contribution to the invention. "

American law does not encourage invention and promote the inventor to his rightful place in the process, but rather puts management in control of inventions and management to decide what is just compensation.

Do the guys whose names appear on IBM patents and Microsoft patents and so on drive around in BMWs? Why not? Their CEO does.

On the other hand, the duration of copyright is so long by comparison to a patent (life + 75 years) and most often controlled by corporations, rather than the author, that the law seems to be overly in favor of copyright, rather than patents. Notably, the FBI 'investigates copying of ...' but does absolutely nothing with respect to infringed inventions.

These aspects of American law are wrong. Copyright should be only for the life of the author, maximum (although a case for 20 years certain can be made), and patents should be afforded the protection of the FBI if copyrights are. Moreover, just compensation for employees for inventing and authoring should be mandatory. The amount should depend on the value of the patent or work, not the job title of the inventor. Free and clear license might be mandatory under work for hire, and title (ownership) may be questioned if no company resources were involved, though.

So, yes, there should be IP, but the laws surrounding who it belongs to, how protection is enforced and what is reasonable compensation need to be addressed.

I don't know how many times I'm going to have to say this, but I'll say it again, and use slightly different phrasing yet again. This particular argument is getting a lot of mileage in this discussion.

[i]A contract isn't ethically enforceable if agreement isn't explicit and verifiable prior to contractual terms being carried out.[/i] It is likewise not ethically enforceable if agreement is not given of the free will of all parties involved.

When one reads half a book, tells other people about it, loans it out, gets it back, [b]then notices the fine print[/b], there's no agreement on which to renege. When you don't get explicit agreement in advance, you have no guarantee or proof that any agreement has been reached or accepted. The nice thing about individual contracts is that they're [b]ethically enforceable[/b], and you don't suffer the same chances of abuse of the terms to produce unintended effects on a wide scale with authoritarian justification to defuse attempts to attain relief in a court of law.

"policing": Force is only justified if it is reciprocal and defensive in nature. When a person employs violence, threat of violence, or fraud without justification as a reciprocal, defensive measure, that constitutes an initiation of force. When one's rights are violated by an initiation of force, reciprocal force is justified in one's defense. That reciprocal force can be applied by proxy if need be, thus justifying a policing/security element in government and justifying jurisprudence.

regarding contracts with the police and courts: Do you really want to drag this so far off-topic that we rewrite the Constitution and body of laws of the United States of America in a discussion forum? Isn't that a bit outside the range of the current discussion? No, I wouldn't "have us all" sign such contracts, necessarily. That's beside the point, anyway.

If you want to discuss such matters as the ethical justification for jurisprudence, the ethical limitations thereon, the proper format for governmental authority, and other issues that are (at best) barely tangential, I recommend you start a new discussion thread. I'd rather not deal with any more straw man arguments in the current discussion than I already must.

You're making unfounded suppositions about what my position is, making crap up as you go along and assigning it to me, building straw men so tall their heads are catching fire from the sun's heat, and somehow attempting to use all this to define me as out of touch with the discussion at hand. Somewhere in the middle of your post, you left this discussion far, far behind. Come back to us, now, and talk about what topic is at hand. If you really want the answers to those questions, start a new thread wherein you ask them in a non-pejorative manner, point me at it, and enjoy the ensuing debate. Don't devolve wholly into the spurious in some half-baked attempt to mischaracterize my arguments as whatever seems easiest to argue against.

Finally: The original intended purpose of copyright and patent law (which is only mostly in line with what you said) has little bearing on the actual effects of it, to say nothing of the fact that the intended purpose and ethicality having almost nothing to do with one another. The road to hell, as they say, is paved with good intentions. Your "limited time" argument (a popular argument, and I'm surprised I haven't seen more of it here) is ultimately pointless as well, both for ethical reasons and practical reasons: violation of rights "for a limited time" is no less a violation of rights, and that "limited time" is currently (for copyright) roughly equal to the life expectancy of the average American male [b]in addition to[/b] the remaining term of the "creator's" life (which, in the case of a corporation, might actually be longer than the remaining term of the nation's "life").

Not only has the concept of "intellectual property rights" faced a number of affirmative defenses against it, but the truth of the matter is that claiming it is valid in the first place is an affirmative statement, and all that is needed to circumvent that is to present a negative defense (which I have also been doing). That negative defense, in this case, simply consists of the simple pointing out of the flaws in all the half-baked justifications that have been offered for it in this discussion. If you can't justify it all the way back to a reasonable initial premise that is self-evident or with which I agree, you haven't got a case. I can do that for a system of ethics based on the statement that initiation of force is wrong (and in fact have done so a couple of times in this discussion). Can you do it for an ethical system that actually supports intellectual property, or justify intellectual property rights within an ethical system that fits the characteristics I've laid out for the one I justified logically?

You're not even addressing the issues. Once again, people respond to me with nonsequiturs and straw men. Good job.

"First, I don't accept your concept that intellectual property has no value."

Well, that's clear. That's wher we started, though. When are you going to start trying to justify it with logically valid supporting statements?

"You misunderstood the meaning of FREE press"

No, I don't. I never said anyone had to give away newspapers for free. That's completely unrelated to the discussion at hand, and in fact I encourage people to make money at tasks they enjoy and in which they have skill. If that's acting as a reporter, publisher, et cetera, more power to 'em. We need more purveyors of literacy.

"free to move from person to person without government interference"

No kidding. Maybe you should think about that for a bit. That's what I've been saying all along.

"you insult the millions of engineers who have worked, mostly selflessly, to create a better world by saying their intellectual property has no value."

Nonsense. If someone takes offense where none is intended, that's that person's problem. Their contributions have great value, primarily to themselves I'm sure. There's no prohibition against making money by such contributions to the general store of knowledge in my mind. I just don't think such profits should be made at the end of a gun.

"Do the 25 patents I have add nothing to the body of knowledge of humanity?"

Actually, yes, they add nothing to the body of knowledge of humanity. The patents mean nothing to the general pool of knowledge: it is the ideas to which these patents are applied that have value. Don't conflate the two, even by accident. It's such confusions of terms that lead to ridiculous "justifications" of "intellectual property" as are floating around this discussion.

"You apparently would prefer to publish the Coca-Cola formula"

Whoops. I think you screwed up LOTS with that one. Last I checked, their formula isn't patented. It's a trade secret. Has that changed in the last few years? In case you're not aware, a patented process cannot be a trade secret because it becomes a matter of public record.

"your flaming anyone who disagrees with your point of view"

I think you have me confused with maxwell.

It's not illegal to make copies of $100 bills because it devalues them: it's illegal because passing off fakes as originals is fraud. That's why things that look kinda like $100 bills can be used for satirical or marketing purposes, but not as legal tender.

If someone damages my property, I have ethical cause for legal action. If someone simply makes a duplicate, I don't. Your arguments are patently (love the pun) absurd. You can't legislate the laws of supply and demand (without a hefty dose of Denial). If there's more of something, it's worth less on the open market. C'est la vie. What do you think inflation, gold prices, and retail price of new technology are about? Does AMD get sued for devaluing the Itanium processor by making equivalent devices and selling them? Heck no, and it's a good thing, too. Go back to school and learn something about economics before you start trying to concoct such absurd theories about the justifications for your pet laws.

I have a right to have an opinion of my choosing. I don't have a right to prevent you from repeating it to others, as long as you don't do so in a fraudulent fashion.

I've already addressed your mischaracterization of my own use of Jefferson's statements elsewhere, in response to another post of yours. Have fun with that. I don't feel obligated to repeat myself endlessly just because you've begun obsessing on your latest clever straw man.

More restricted intellectual property law is certainly an improvement, and I won't argue against that for obvious reasons, but the fact that Germany's laws on the matter are in some ways more restrictive provide no additional justification for the ethicality of the premises on which such laws are built.

You're still including the company in the example, I see. The company is not the creator, period. The fact that US law "considers" the company to be the creator at times doesn't make it substantively so. Since my response to maxwell was based in part on his inclusion of a non-creator in the lineup of individuals with rights, your objections to my response don't hold weight unless you can justify (outside of "the law sez so") the notion that the company can be the creator [b]in a substantive sense[/b]. Since you've already conceded in an earlier post that the company isn't the creator, I suspect any attempts in that direction should be amusing.

So it looks like you think that no matter how much hard work someone puts into creating a work, whether 'art' (music, art), probably defined as not having extractable principles behind the, or something like a book that has extractable ideas, you have no respect for that person's (or group of persons) hard work in creating this work and are willing (in my opinion) to steal profit / use of it by replicating it.

Sadly, the most useful works (books, other records of ideas, other than 'art') ALREADY are published with the expectation that people will distribute this idea into the form of thinking and enhance it, yet you still feel you should not be punished for replicating the instance of the idea (book, etc). This is quite limited and doesn't prevent you from talking about the idea(s) or writing summaries, etc.

Because of this, replication should not be needed as it impinges on the hard work of the originator. Instead you even appear to want to be the judge of how much people should be limited to in their profit from their creation and distribution of an instance of an idea (book, art, music..).

I won't go into the theory of capitalism , that whatever the market will bear is OK, as you purport to adhere to market / libertarian principles. It appears you wish to be an arbiter of how much people can make from instantiating an idea to a media (publishing).

Too bad you can't respect the work of others and are willing to engage in what this society regards as theft (expropriation of other's work). That is why society is willing to use force to protect us from the likes of you, as theft is force which you are using against us if you go thru with your ideas, and I know you don't agree it is theft.

It seems no amount of words will convince you that someone has a right to keep others from copying their work despite my pointing out the allowances for extracting the ideas. It appears the majority of respondents in this forum also agree it is theft.

Good luck with your ideas. I respect you for at least having them and thinking them thru. My one horror will be the society of the future where everyone does as they are told, are all identical and give in to whatever the government decides. (i.e. alien siege where gov't decides to give 8 million humans to..)

viva individuality!!

Viva la revolution!! (as long as it doesn't tromp on the individuals)

Viva 'the rebel faction'!!

choice, but I agree with what you mean. If you are going to get your stuff to be the standard, then you should make money off the 'follow ons' not cripple the rest of the industry by holding it to ransom.
The other proviso is that the standard should benefit the customer in more ways than now 'they'll be able to buy our really brill software".
I wonder if Sir Bill's been in on this discussion.

I know it's not me, and it's definitely not Apotheon....

The fella might be struggling to communicate his idea to you. I'm not in total agreement with his reasoning but to me the motive makes sense.
Me and him violently (in a literary sense) disagree on certain subjects.
Never once has he tried to justify theft.
He states he has a working business model where he has no intellectual property rights.
He does not break agreements made with other parties, he has shown no desire whatsoever to actually plagiarise or fraudulently claim ownership of anyones property, even when he doesn't agree that it is property.
So to simply describe him as immoral simply becuase you don't agree with him is as stupid as the person who described him as a 'socialist' (meaning commie).
A statement that knocked me off my chair, given some of the discussions he's had with me on socialist topics.

Course he used a lot of circular immoral reasoning in them. LOL

There you go again, substituting some kind of judgement of motivation for an actual argument. Stop trying to plant motivations in my head and try addressing the argument itself instead. I do respect such accomplishments. I also respect individual rights to self determination and freedom from initiations of force. Respecting an accomplishment doesn't require employing threats of violence to enforce limited distribution of their benefits.

As for what "society" has "decided" is "theft", you should have noticed by now that I don't blindly follow society's bland decrees just because there's a majority consensus of the willfully ignorant.

One thing, at least, it seems we can agree on: People thinking for themselves is definitely a good thing.

Your example of 'copying' an intel processor is not correct. AMD did NOT copy an intel processor, they created an equivalent that is different internally. That is the whole crux of this, exact copying is deemed bad by society but extraction of the ideas is OK.

as you've said yourself, if you walk in to buy music or book you don't read eula, etc. so having laws makes it easier. you learn once that copying other peoples works to sell or give away is illegal. then you don't have to worry about a contract with each book or work which would be riduculously complicated. the copyright notice serves to tell you that you purchase the item under that legally binding agreement, and it can't be modified in some odd way by the seller.

ask anyone who creates an invention or work of art or book, pretty obvious they DO take alot of work. Of course they build on society's accumulated ideas.

If there was not something original or new in them, people would not buy them and that is what they are paying for. Do you live in a cave or are you just spouting nonsense without thinking?

And wealth does not belong to society, that is socialist cr*p. people in free societies get wealthy by selling a product people are willing to wave money at them to buy. It is only in govt run societies that virulence and greed prevail.

There is no comparison off companies selling products to people who want to buy freely and a british gov't using force on the chinese people.

YOu either didn't take basic economics or come from a country where they still do this kind of stuff, in either case I feel sorry for you for being either ignorant or oppressed.

And, I should add, oft times it is not intended as a compliment!

As regards the terms of a contract, please revisit my post re. the fact that such can be IMPLICIT.

It must also be noted that, in a succession of contracts where, for example, an item is subsequently resold, the fact that the buyer of 1st instance failed to explicitly state all of the terms of the original sale does not result in the buyer of 2nd instance being accorded any rights over & above those accorded to the buyer of 1st instance.

"From each according to his abilities; unto each according to his WANTS & DESIRES."

This is the 60's dream re-visited.

Been there, done that; does'nt work!

No problem..............have a good weekend.

It is called a process of sampling.

70% of the people you have shown your lack of interaction skills to is a good indicator of how you communicate with others in your day to day life.

Kind like the 7 out of 10 people think. Or 4 out of 6 doctors recommend.

It is called averaging, can you say that A V E R A G I N G, I knew you could.

Or does this mean that ANY stat you post from here on in is to be discounted unless a complete survey of the world's population?

70% of the people you talk to suggest you are insane, make no sense, don't understand what they are saying and twist the logic in to some nonsensical rant. THAT's something that definitely ISN'T MY problem, but one YOU should be somewhat aware or considerate of when you spout your endless nonsense.

Don't try and pin it on me, as you always do with eth grade 4 equivalent of "I know you are but what am I? HA,HA !"

I am ot the one who is misunderstood everytime I post a comment, I have learned over tme how to get my point across for the most part. Something you completely ignore, pretendisn't an issue and blame everyone else for.

Very clever, if YOU believe it to be anyway.

Who among us would want "logic" or "ethics" like (yours) in a lawyer, banker, accountant, business partner?

I do...............most of em are crooks. LOL
At least (Apotheon) seems honest.

Not once has (Apotheon) suggested, implied or encouraged unethical or criminal intent.

Although I believe he is speaking of a 'bigger picture', the simpler version shows many people are throwing the word 'theft' out there .......... where it doesn't belong.

Q:

What's truly specious?

A:

Not one line in your post.

THIS discussion is about legality and a SPECIFIC law, protecting personal materials.

In the case of MUSIC, CRETION does not apply just to the person or band who wrote it. Therefore, in the sense of THIS discussion being focused on LEGAL issues surrounding ownership of rights to a material, then this is 100% applicable, whether you think that Itellectual Property refers to a lw or not, fact is, an intellectual property right IS a law. Thus this discussion and all comments pertaining to thetitle, as does Maxwell's, are also directly referring to LAW. How csan you dismissit as non applicable? What form of intellectual Property rights are YOU referring to? Everyone else is discussing a law here, in case you haven't realized it.

It's not a matter of SOME or a FEW companies owning intellectuial property rights and therefore being deemed the CREATOR, that is how theLAW in the industry works.

It is no different that any law surrounding a company that refers to "The Company" instead of the actual name of the company.

The CREATOR is the person OR COMPANY with ownership of the creative licence and therefore the intellectual property they are providing. THis is the case with the MAJORITY of US music, not a few exceptions as you seem to feel.

MAX weas referring to this exactly, as is everyone else in this discussion, or do we need to spell it out for apotheon everytime we have a topic being addressed?

Diffused my ass. Confused on your part most definitely, read the discussion again instead of posting irrelevant garbage in some hopes of reinfocing a point you simply have failed to make.

Why do you do this in EVERY discussion? If ONE person agrees with you, you get all excited and add them as a contact as if they agree with all your views or something really weak. Need friends? Learn how to have a converstaion wihtout trying to instill youroutrageous views upon those who are speaking from facts of the matter.

Either that or take some time away from your computer and get a life, you will find the air outside does not choke you to death as you have been told all these years. The sun won't burn holes in you.

The people actually speak and live their lives too, it might be a little scary at first, but once you get used to it, you'll quickly develop some social skills and realize that real life is actually much different that you have imagined all these years in your own little world within the dark protection of your basement.

In a nutshell, wake up and smell the bacon. Learn how to comprehend what you read instead of just reiterating your same warped conclusion endlessly.

YOU are THE most tiring person on TR. You insist the most nonsensical ramblings from some warped imagination are factual and you just repeat your incorrect analogies over and over again. All the while you insist others do not understand you, don't answer your questions, while you fail to address many others asked of yourself, logically anyway.

You then start acusing OTHER people of all these problems that everyone else sees from you as if you are devoid of error and everyone else is just stupid and wrong.

Like I said, if everyone see you as being wrong, don't you think it's time for a little look at yourself?

I think you are too busy confusing yourself with wapred and inaccurate analogies, that you find you spend most of your time tryign to make some sense out of what you have said. IN turn you usually end up talking in circles until people call you an idiot or stop replying altogether. I suppose in YOUR little mind this means you have achieved something, whereas in other people's mind, you are just too tiring and dense to speak to.

So while you are going to drag others into your arguments, I'll drag MUSELF in and tell you what I think of your little games, like it or not.

So the threads all yours now, have at 'er. Make yourself look even more ridiculous while flaming anyone else who disagrees.

You should start by claiming I am not addressing your non existant question, or that I misunderstand your point. Perhaps you could call me, out of my mind, I am talking about something completely different etc. Get your thesaurus out and link a whole bunch of the biggest words you can find together in a row and pretend they are a logical thought or sentence, that seems to be your favorite as if it adds some sense of intellectual thought process to your ramblimgs.

Don't you have any little kids in the neighbourhood you can go and convince that you are clever, instead of trying to convince those old enough to know better?

Just so you iunderstand a little clearer.

This discussion is 100% directly related to LAW.

IN the case of IP, there ae 4 MAIN areas of IP, copyright being the issue discussed in this thread, as it pertains specifically to software and music properties.

What IS copyright (IP): http://www.intellectual-property.gov.uk/std/faq/copyright/what.htm

[i]In the case of a sound recording the author and first owner of copyright is the record producer; in the case of a broadcast, the broadcaster; and in the case of a published edition, the publisher."[/i]

Now LEGALLY, which is what we are discussing;
You do not have the right to copy and reproduce or profit from someone else's intellectual property, you simply buy a right to hear it in it's provided format. Anything beyond that is a blatant disregard for copyright (IP) and is puinshable by law.

It also outlines VERY clearly how the person who WRITES the music isn't the OWNER of the copyright OR the (IP), same thing.

Who OWNS copyright (IP):
http://www.intellectual-property.gov.uk/std/faq/copyright/who_owns.htm

Here is a guide to further describe the laws applicable to copyrights, thus Intellectual Property.
http://tinyurl.com/6w7n7

Now I would suggest that IF you disagree, you also feel that you can legally drive where you want and at whatever speed you want, drunk, stoned or straight. Laws are irrelvant it seems unless you are reminded every time you get into your car.

You should be able to copy anyone's, material that you buy licence to and use it for your own profit and claim it as your own.

I suppose Santa wears a blue suit and the sea is bright yellow, pigs fly and cows ride tricycles in your little world.

So law states you can't but YOU feel you can because the law isn't recited to you when you purchase a CD and you aren't sworn in on a Bible at the cash register. Therefore no law applies unless there is a clesar label stating the laws and every detail and application of them, ignorance of the law is not an excuse in a courtroom, just in the playground.

EDIT: and here's why you don't assume tranfer of a copyright when you PURCHASE someone's copyright protected material.

Re copyright transfer:

"A contractual agreement transferring ownership of copyright from one person to another is known as an assignment and is not effective unless in writing signed by or on behalf of the transferor"

Did you sign a two way agreement when you bought that last CD? NO, you therefor edo not own it no do you own the right to reproduce it. This isn't a case of ethics it is one of law.

ANOTHER person who grasps at straws when talking to you, what's wrong with tis world????

Actually Ithink th reson people NEED to grasp at straws is because if they don't you keep making little men out of them and expecting them to stand up and march. LOL!!

Grasping at straws, what...AGAIN? Another ONE? HE didn't understand you EITHER!? :D

I tell you most of the people on TR need their heads checked, according to you anyway !

I'm not sure there's much of a difference in practical outcome, but it's true that the fundamental premises are glaringly different. As far as I can determine, apotheon's premise is that there is no such thing per se as intellectual property 'rights', or indeed 'rights' over intangibles. At the same time, I'm fairly certain (apotheon: you're welcome to contradict me), apotheon doesn't have a problem with me setting limits on what you can do with something you purchase from me, as long as I'm explicit as to what they are.

Personally, I would justify non-explicit terms by reference to an accepted standard body of law - that is not to say that the law is correct, only that we can both agree that 'copyright' means a certain body of limits as commonly accepted. The basis is irrelevant - such a body of limits can come about whether you think there are intellectual property rights or not, because of the convenience of standardising such limits.

Mind you, I occasionally find the whole notion of 'rights' kind of circular. Myself, I'm with Thrasymachus.

I'd have brought a bag of marshmallows.

As far as I can see here, nobody has roasted anyone's children and is serving them for dinner. Though...if they were, I'd be inclined to dress for dinner and bring a bottle of wine.

Me statements re. Contract Law were made from within the framework of long established common law, not law as either you or I might wish it to be.

As such, they are GIVEN premises, not conclusions.

That you or I may not like the consequences is irrelevant to the validity of any conclusions logically derived from such.

. . . says the pot to the kettle.

You've been using the "you can't ever be right when you point out someone didn't address what you said" tactic for so long it's starting to become inextricably linked with your name in my mind, like "radioactive decay" with "plutonium" and "special olympics" with "arguing online" ('cause even if you win, you're still retarded).

Your recent references to "everyone" disagreeing with me are particularly amusing, especially considering the occasional agreement with me and the occasional expression of respect for the reasonability and thought-provoking nature of my arguments even by people who disagree with me. I encourage you to continue to make such patently false statements about how lack of popular appeal of my opinions means I'm wrong, however, because the entertainment value seems inexhaustible, and you're hurting nobody's reputation with such asinine nonsense but your own.

As for dragging yourself into an argument, perhaps you should remember this the next time you start ranting incomprehensibly at me because I dared to respond to something you said to someone else [b]in a public forum[/b]. Once again, your inability to maintain the appearance of reasonability evaporates when someone dares to disagree with you in a logically competent manner. You're not as disturbingly touchy about it as maxwell has been in this discussion, but you do come off as somewhat unstable nonetheless.

Go ahead. Take your ball and go home. I'm okay with that.

Since this discussion is about whether or not intellect is property, a justification of your view on the matter that is based entirely on the idea that intellect is property is nothing if not circular. Your entire post is predicated upon a logical fallacy, and not worth my time to address in detail.

"ANOTHER person who grasps at straws when talking to you, what's wrong with tis world????"

If you keep marvelling at the presence of yet another person when you keep addressing discussions with the same person, some of us might begin to think you aren't paying attention to who's a part of the discussion. Six different conversation branches involving the same person do not constitute six different people disagreeing with me about something. How many times are you going to hold up t.e.sumner as "another" example of "everyone" disagreeing with me?

Your personal attacks against me may not be as offensive as maxwell's, but they're no less absurd. You haven't actually addressed the topic of the discussion, as far as I've noticed, in at least a dozen posts. You certainly haven't done so in quite some time when responding to me. Instead, you keep trying to convince me that I'm an idiot. Have fun with that.

ibis: Actually, I'd say that the statement that the lack of proprietary rights as regards intangibles is my conclusion for purposes of this discussion, and not my premise. The premise from which I tend to begin is that initiation of force is wrong. When someone disagrees with that, I ask for an alternative premise to see if there's some point of agreement from which we can begn, or I justify my premise by starting over at [i]cogito ergo sum[/i] and try to get someone to tell me where I'm wrong or to agree with me. All of this, for purposes of this discussion, is to support my conclusion as regards "intellectual property".

You are basically correct, however, in identifying that as a salient assertion of mine, and perhaps [b]the[/b] central assertion. Since that's a point of disagreement, I'm looking for discussion of underlying arguments and support, and for the premises on which such arguments are built. Most people tend to accept conclusions as axiomatic and end up trying to use them to justify themselves, but in online debate I try to grant the benefit of the doubt and look for logical support first. You're one of the few here that has been willing and able to pursue such reasoned discussion of the topic, and for that I'm grateful. It's nice to get to discuss things reasonably from time to time.

My problem with a "common body of law" creating an assumed state of agreement is primarily a two-fold issue:

1. There's the fact that on an individual case by case basis one cannot unerringly assume that everyone is cognizant of the full terms of such an "agreement" and, as such, there's no proof of actual agreement. To attempt to enforce an agreement under those circumstances is unethical, as one can (almost) never be certain of guilt.

2. There's also the fact that enshrining a certain set of terms of agreement in law creates a situation in which often both the innovator himself and the potential beneficiary are laboring under a coercive state of prior restraint and the economics of the situation unreasonably favor monopoly.

Aside from that, I also believe that a system devoid of such commonality of agreement terms would be more efficient and effective for society as a whole, as well as for the individual members thereof. I realize this is something that's not particularly provable at present, but it is no more disprovable than provable.

Furthermore, I rather dislike the fact that copyright and patent law actually preclude certain types of ethically justifiable contractual agreements that might otherwise be possible, thus further limiting the freedoms of people on both sides of a given transaction.

In closing, I never favor convenience over avoiding the likelihood of violation of individual rights.

---------------------------

deepsand: No, I didn't mistake premise for conclusion. The point of the argument here is whether or not intellectual property laws should exist. Thus, one's opinion on that matter is the conclusion one wishes to make. Common law and the laws on the books are both "law", and tradition does not ethically justify anything in and of itself in any case. Besides, if a premise is rejected on a valid logical basis, and is not metaphysically self-evident, it's useless.

You're correct in that how someone feels about the conclusions derived from a given set of premises doesn't alter the validity of the arguments that lead from the premises to the conclusions, but I've never argued otherwise. My problem is with the half-baked premises offered, and I've made logical objections to them all day, with the most common being a reference to the logical lack of validity of a conclusion and a premise that are effectively identical.

You too: enjoy the time off.

It would be easier to solve the problem of peace in the middle east to carpet-bomb the entire region with low-yield nuclear devices, too, but we don't do it because it would be wrong. The "easier" argument holds no water with me when it conflicts with other, more important, concerns.

If it's implicit, it's (typically) not ethically enforceable, because inherent in the implicit nature of it is the fact that you can't be certain the other party understood the terms the same way you did. As such, laws based on implicit understanding are unethical in nature. The law should be reserved for the explicit.

I hope you'll forgive me for not taking your friends' collective word for it. I'll judge your logical abilities based on my own experience, thanks.

Typos are one thing, but substituting completely different words is another problem entirely. Are you sure you're paying any attention to what I'm saying beyond skimming for buzzwords you can use to disagree? Don't bother to answer: I'll form my own conclusions.

If, after all this time, you're still stuck on trying to use the law to justify itself, you're welcome to do so without my help. I don't care.

First: 85% of statistics are made up on the spot.

Second: 70% of the total population of the world doesn't constitute "the rest of the world" as contrasted with one person, so my point stands.

Third: No matter how many times you try to declare otherwise, popularity doesn't equate to accuracy.

Fourth: If we're to use your overly vitriolic statement that "people you talk to suggest you are insane, make no sense, don't understand what they are saying and twist the logic in to some nonsensical rant," I think a more accurate number would be less than 50%. In fact, I think that in this discussion that's maybe four or five people at most. Considering that there are at least three people who have expressed a specific understanding of and respect for my opinions, and with me included there's at least four people that don't think that right there, and there have been a number of people that haven't expressed any opinion on the matter at all, your declarations of majorities are probably somewhere outside the orbit of Pluto in their nearness to facts here on Earth.

"If your employer were to know your answer (since many of your inspirations are paid for by your employer), whould your answer remain the same?"

This question was in the original post. At least three of those who seem to believe IP is an unethical concept appear to be in the IT industry. They probably deal with copyrighted software (and perhaps other IP matters) on a daily basis. I wonder if their employers, clients, and customers know about their IP beliefs?

. . . and, in any case, you're still trying to attack the person rather than the idea.

If you pay attention, I said 'The Rest Of the World' indicating anyone who hasn't agreed with you.

This doesn't specifically mean everyone else in the world as you should know by about age 10, but in the course of THIS discussion it refers to everyone who hasn't agreed with you, which seems to be the majority of people you attempt to enter any form of half-assed "discussion" with.

As for the horribly inaccurate accusations of percentages that were provided, they were taken from YOUR post:
https://www.techrepublic.com.com/5208-6230-0.html?forumID=9&threadID=169191&messageID=1732109

Where you quite happily quoted,[i] "Since when is about 70% of the people in one discussion at one website equivalent to "the rest of the world"?[/i]

Are you now suggesting your OWN percentage was an absurd exaggeration and should be 50% now? Maybe just ONE person has now not seen your point? Maybe NOBODY at all has disagreed with you or commented on the futility of TRYING to discuss ANYTHING with you?

MAYBE, this is why you can't see it for yourself, in your mind it simply doesn't exist, denial and all that. Maybe everyone sees your point except the incapable and it seems that in every discussion you enter you find a few more who are incapable of understanding you.

But when YOU quote a number and then discount that same figure in your next post, it seems to me that it's an excercise in futility to even TRY to make any sense to someone who doesn't even make sense to himself.

Talk about Pluto, you're just WAAAAY out there and you don't even agree with yourself! Do you argue in the mirror every morning too?

"You need to cut your hair!"
"No you don't why would you cut your hair?"
"Like I said the first time, I don't need to cut my hair!"
"I told you you needed a haircut!"
"Oh well, time for work."
"No it isn't!"

You sound like a one man Monty Python Sketch! LOL

You are allowed to have CHILDREN????

Sounds like a safe sex poster to me.

Same thing in sales, it is said that a consultant is an umemployed salesman. Which in MOST cases is true.

You do that alone, nobody NEEDS to point it out to anyone else but YOU, but either way YOU do not seem to recognize it.

As for the same person, do you REALLY want me to post links to ALL the people who claim you speak in cirecles and make no sense?

I know TR can hold a 2000 word post, but even THAT's a stretch when it comes to making things clear for you. Try using the PRINT button so you can preview the whole thread andread it as a whole. When you're done,I can post a link to another thread where you did the same, then another then another.

It seems EVERY thread you have posted in for the last few months, is full of people who you say don't understand your point, missed your point, don't get it. etc.

Pretty arrogant if you ask me, ever thought about reading and COMPREHENDING what others say?

You certainly haven't shown as much here.

jdmerha - your reply:
[b]straw man[/b]
That doesn't even begin to address my point.

zczc2311 - Your reply:
[b]What? [/b]
[u]I'm not sure what you're saying.[/u] I don't use illegal copies of software, and I don't use filesharing networks to get music, if that's what you're talking about.

redgranite - Your reply:
[b]actually . . . [/b]

I'm employed by a local IT consultancy and by a nonprofit organization that manages one of the 300 most popular websites on the Web as a datacenter technician. [u]Not only are you wrong, but your comments are entirely irrelevant to the discussion at hand.[/u] My employment situation has zero to do with the logic of my statements. How long patent law has been around isn't really relevant, either: slavery in north america predated the founding of the United States, so by your argument we should still be buying and selling human cotton-pickers.

[u]Do you actually have anything relevant to say?[/u]

mamarcus - Your reply:

[b]false dilemma [/b]
You've created a false dilemma (which is common among defenders of patent and copyright law): you are basing your arguments on the assumption that the only options are
1. intellectual property law
2. no compensation for innovators

That's not true.

Tony Hopkinson - Your reply:
[b] actually . . .[/b]
Claiming owership of ideas you got from someone else isn't theft: it's fraud.

Stress Junkie - Your reply:
[b]support your statements[/b]
How is copying something "theft"? Everybody keeps saying it, but nobody has any logical support for that statement.

Ozi Eagle - Your reply:
[b]not really[/b]
Copyright isn't a prior "agreement" because an agreement presumes the opportunity to disagree. Copyright is a condition of US law. Without copyright, other forms of agreement can be made to protect the interests of an author.

If copyright were the only way for an author to protect his interests, [u]you still wouldn't have a valid point about ethics,[/u] but at least your argument wouldn't look completely like smoke. The fact that there are other means, about as easy as copyright, that don't involve a huge system of restriction on the intellectual activities of others, [u]eliminates what meager scraps of the appearance of a point you might have had going for you.[/u]

ibis - Your reply:
[b] rights[/b]

Really? Nobody has a right to be free from initiations of force "in
toto"? Give me an example of an instance in which a person doesn't have such a right, then logically justify that exception.

enrich1010 - Your reply:
[b]not really[/b]
"Intellectual property" isn't an "asset", no matter how many times you say it. Repeating yourself doesn't make what you say any more true.

Ravens04 - Your reply:
[b]So what?[/b]

BatmanG8 - Your reply:
[b]word games[/b]
Nice job with the word games.

wmead - Your reply:
[b]not necessarily[/b]
There doesn't seem to be any part of your argument that can't be effectively covered by contract or other legally binding agreement between parties.

Drdij - Your reply:
[b]So what?[/b]

pbradie - Your reply:
[b]not so[/b]
No, you don't have to rely on altruism. I release my creations under a free distribution license, and I do so for reasons entirely unconnected with altruism. Either logically justify your statement about altruism or simply accept that it's full of crap.

Deepsand - Your reply:
[b]nonsense[/b]
"...As for the "law of unintended consequences", I recommend you take a long, hard look at the (hopefully unintended) consequences of patent and copyright law in the United States and abroad."

[b]Badly misguided, Ridiculous, Poppycock, Har de har har, Your post is marginal troll bait, You're not making much sense[/b]...and so on and so on, endlessly.

Now I know this doesn't constitute all posts here, I didn't include my own or Max's, and it is from ONE discussion topic.

But I would say that judging by the number of replies and the number that you have agreed with, very excitedly at one point when you found common ground with a single comment made towards someone else, that the number is probably MUCH closer to that 70% figure that [b]YOU first quoted.[/b]

Plus this is just ONE comment taken from ONE post and not your ongoing ramblings with each individual you address.

Now we can compare this to what YOU consider far more accurate statistics, and find that you have grossly misinterpreted your findings.

[i]"If we're to use your overly vitriolic statement that "people you talk to suggest you are insane, make no sense, don't understand what they are saying and twist the logic in to some nonsensical rant," I think a more accurate number would be less than 50%. In fact, I think that in this discussion that's maybe four or five people at most. "[/i]

Four or five people, in THIS discussion. Well that's been proven wrong prety quickly, shall we go to another discussion and see the same again?

My point is, you bait your replies to get answers you can object to. You are so set on instilling YOUR views that you lose sight of your own objections. You then twist and turn every reply that proves the insanity of you comments into appearing as if they have misunderstood you. Even when they clearly show what has been 'misunderstood' and elaborate further, you then start turning it into THEIR problem with not making sense and staying on track.

You are simply LOST here, you are not consistent and do not retain any logic or consistency to your constant disagreement. When you lose sight or a way to wriggle out, you then start in about straw men, not addressing the topic, Pluto, and all the other things you can muster to replace your absence of logic with some flame to segue the discussion.

I know you will probably say all these quotes are out of context, the original post isn't included etc. That is irrlevant, the issue is numbers here and how YOU insist on everyone's agreement or you start to flame them. It begins in your title, intended to draw attantion to your own comments and make it seem as if you are going to TEACH someone something and defame their own ridiculous comments, but then you resort to a reply of little logic, and at worst you will simply start calling them names.

It's kinda hard for you to object to at this point because in this forum it's not a 'he said she said 'issue, it's in print for everyone to see quite clearly, not that anyone doesn't already know what to expect from you.

Your turn to post another quote to add to the list now.

. . . it's no wonder you've been arguing in generalizations where specifics are relevant through most of this discussion.