This is almost too ridiculous to read, but … see below. Just confirmation of my view that there are no good arguments for IP.
Author, Sheldon Richman, by his own admission is a Thief
So likewise is any other author who takes money from a publisher while in the same breath arguing against intellectual property.
They’re like the flimflam man selling worthless snakeoil, or the usurer. They exchange nothing for something.
If intellectual property does not exist, then to take money by selling intellectual property is to take money selling that which does not exist. Which is to sell nothing in exchange for some thing which actually does have value.
The publisher is the one who owns the paper, pays for distribution and all other hard costs. The author produces the ordering of the words on the paper, an ordering which is by nature an ‘idea’. And Sheldon Richman writes ideas don’t properly exist as property. And thus Sheldon Richman is taking money from his publisher while giving the publisher nothing he owns in exchange.
Of course, Sheldon Richman is not actually a thief, because intellectual property does exist, but like the man who mistakes a virtuous act for a sinful act and does that act regardless. He is culpable of the act of being a thief.The error Sheldon Richman makes is that he sees the world in black and white. It’s either this or that. But like most of life, truth is found in the mean between the extremes.
Like the issue of torture, justice is not black and white but relative to prudence.
What is known in principle is that a man is due compensation for his labor. And thus in turn an author or a pharmaceutical company is due compensation for the labor they invest in production of their product. No different than I owe a doctor for a consultation where I pay him for his knowledge.
After the doctor has told me what my ailment is, I can’t simply turn around tell him I’m not paying him because I too now possess the same information has he did. As an architect, I don’t sell paper and ink, I sell the information contained on that paper. No one in his right mind pays for random spots of ink on paper; which in turn is why some authors sell well, and others do not sell well, because what people are buying are the ideas conveyed by the paper and ink.
This is also why those who pay big money for modern art do exhibit signs of insanity, because they, for all practical purposes, are paying for nothing more than random ink splotches.
Property is not an absolute ownership, but an ownership relative to the good of society as a whole. Men are not islands, we are by nature social living is society, and it’s society which determines the nature of ownership of property, that is, ownership is subject to prudential judgement of what is just compensation in exchange for invested labor and other incurred expenses.
more to come. This post is currently being written, read at your own risk.
Posted by love the girls at 4:58 AM
4 comments:
Your premise is wrong. I did not get paid for providing intellectual property. I got paid (as you also note) for my labor services, that is, writing. I own my labor because I own my person, so I am free to trade it for money. Intellectual property has nothing to do with it. You seem to think that others should have to pay me (and my estate for 70 years after my demise) repeatedly for work already done. That makes no sense.
You should now say what Rick Perry has become famous for saying: “Oops.”
PS: You beg the question. Through my writing I indeed provide intellectual content, but since you assume this content should be treated like physical property, you assume precisely what is in dispute.
Thank you for your reply.
You are not paid for writing any more than I as architect am paid for drawing. I’m paid for specifically drawing this house to be built on this land.
My clients come to me with a problem, I solve it and and paid for the solution. The paper is the means of the solution. Not the end.
Likewise a writer is paid to solve a problem. The end of his product is not the writing but the information contained within that writing. If he were to write nonsense, he would be writing, but he would not be producing a product which has value which he could ask compensation for.
If I were hired to pick grapes and I picked them and dropped them on the ground as opposed to putting them in a basket, the owner would be within his right not to pay me because my labor did not produce the required end.
_______________________And no I did not write that you or your estate should be paid 70 years. What I wrote is that compensation is subject to prudence and that a man should be compensated for his labor, i.e. productive labor.
For instance, if a writer invests 2500 hours writing a book, then let him be at minimum compensated a living wage equal to those 2500 and after he has earned a reasonable return, the book could be available for distribution without further compensation to the author.
What you have done, which is commonly done is divide the argument into either this or that where the solution is in the mean.
Mr. Sheldon writes : “you assume precisely what is in dispute.”
More precisely, what I do is point out the error of those who argue that intellectual property does not exist, if they in turn accept compensation for the product of their labor.
Here’s my comment under the post:
So, love the girls, are you saying that a writer is paid for “intellectual property” even if the writing isn’t copyrighted and is freely available for public use, reproduction, and sale? If so, you’re stretching the definition of “intellectual property” to the point of meaninglessness.
I am also paid for my writing at Center for a Stateless Society. And everything I write is published under a Creative Commons license — free for distribution (including for sale) without restriction. So if C4SS has “property” in what I write, it is simply the non-rivalrous first possession of what I write because its actual first iteration appeared on their website. Their “property” consists entirely of ones and zeros on a web-server, and pixels on a screen — and does not impair the infinite replication of that same pattern of ones and zeros wherever anyone else sees fit to do so.
“Intellectual property” is not, as you define it, the simple ownership of one iteration of a pattern. In that case, everyone who burns a CD of an mp3 file downloaded from a torrent site would have “intellectual property” in that copy of the song. If that was as far as “intellectual property” extended, none of us copyright abolitionists would have a bit of trouble with it. But if that was as far as “intellectual property” extended, Chris Dodd would die of apoplexy on the spot.
“Intellectual property,” as the term is used by copyright defenders, means specifically the right to control the replication of a pattern and prevent others from non-rivalrously copying it. If I build a new kind of house and my neighbor sees it and builds one like it on his on land with his own materials, he’s violating my “intellectual property.” That’s exactly what the Intellectual Property Nazis mean by the term, and no verbal slight of hand or conceptual sloppiness on your part will evade that fact.
As a copyright abolitionist I’d just like to note that I do recognise intellectual property along the lines you define, as the fixation of a pattern/intellectual work in a physical medium. And thus authors have a natural right to exclude others from their writings, their private intellectual property.
What copyright supporters would have is, as you indicate, the legal property of a transferable monopoly in the copying/communication of that work. And this is an unethical privilege to be granted by such as the crown 1709 or corrupt Congressmen 1790.
Even without copyright, an author is thus able to exchange their writing in a free market for whatever the market will bear. The writing is their property until they sell it or give it away, but once released they have no right to prohibit the recipient (or their recipients, etc) making or distributing further copies.
This position that recognises intellectual work as property, but a reproduction monopoly as an unethical privilege, is distinct from the position that recognises only material work as able to constitute property.
Mr. Carson writes : “a writer is paid for “intellectual property” even if the writing isn’t copyrighted and is freely available for public use, reproduction, and sale?”
No. I’m saying that a man is due a reasonable return on the fruits of his labor. And one of the fruits of labor is intellectual. So that as fruit he has right of compensation from those who in turn want to use what he first brought to fruition.
Further, a society can determine right of use of a given idea just as it can determine right of use of this land or this monopoly. We are not islands but by nature are social living in society were society exists for our natural good and society can order itself to best accomplish that good. Which is not an argument for our current society which I consider unnatural and grounded on conspicuous consumption.
“a man is due a reasonable return on the fruits of his labor” Lovethegirls, please clarify: from whom is the man entitled to extract the reasonable return after he gave up the fruits for free (or for a tiny sum)?
“a society can determine right of use” – surely you can think of examples of societies “determining rights” which later turned up to be violations of rights instead
Oudeicrat Annachrista writes : “surely you can think of examples of societies “determining rights” which later turned up to be violations of rights instead”
No doubt a fair number could can be listed. But that doesn’t disprove the nature of society anymore than a man sinning disproves the natural law.
” a society can determine right of use of a given idea just as it can determine right of use of this land or this monopoly.” You say “society,” but that’s not what does the determining. That is done by a ruling elite. Societies don’t act.
Societies in certain regards act through rulers, just as the family acts through the father.
A properly ordered society is ordered according to subsidiarity where authority to rule is relegated to the less perfect except as required otherwise.
I was offered a sum of money for the IP article. I accepted the offer and delivered the article. Just competition. End of story. Where’s IP come in?
Sheldon, let us say you handed over a CD upon which your article was fixed, and the recipient copied it, but said “On second thoughts, no, please have your CD back – we don’t want your article after all”.
Will you say “Ok, I’ll find another buyer” or will you say “Hang on, you’ve just stolen my IP you blighters!” (“What IP?” they say)
You may not need a monopoly, but you at least need to recognise your intellectual work is your property. It’s no good simply recognising the material property of your CD.
Crosbie Fitch, I disagree that the intellectual work (that is, the pattern of words) is Sheldon’s property. It is his idea, but not his “property.” The concept of “property” is indeed limited to material things that are scare. You could call his idea “intellectual property,” but it seems to me that that would just be confusing it with actual property. And note that I don’t think this is just a semantic point. Rather, by calling his idea his “property” (intellectual property) you are implying that it has the characteristics of property. Property owners have the right to exclude others from their property. If you call Sheldon’s idea (the pattern of words in the article he writes) his property, then you false imply that you believe that he has the right to prevent others from using their property (their paper and ink or virtual equivalents) to reproduce the pattern of words that was Sheldon’s idea.
Bill, it seems that just as it is difficult for copyright supporters to understand that their monopoly is not a natural right, so it is difficult for those who have deleted the concept of intellectual work from their minds to understand that there can be such a thing as natural intellectual property.
The product we call intellectual work has precisely the same characteristics as material work save that intellectual work is far more easily decomposed into information (more easily reproduced and communicated). If, unlike copyright supporters, you don’t get too upset by the facility we have for copying intellectual work, then I don’t see why you should get at all upset at recognising intellectual work as property.
The thing I have difficulty understanding is why you can’t then resist inferring that I believe people have a right to prevent others producing anything similar to their own productions. Such a right, if it was imbued in us, would require supernatural power.
I have got a poem written on a piece of paper in my pocket and I can naturally, physically exclude you from it. You cannot read it or copy it without my permission. Now where you get mystical on me is to say that this means I believe I have the supernatural power to prevent you composing a poem that is similar or indistinguishable from the one I have in my pocket. Of course I don’t. I have no natural power to prevent, or right to prohibit you from doing so.
Of course, once I’ve exchanged the property of my poem with you for an agreed payment you can then produce as many copies as you like – I have no natural power to prevent, or right to prohibit you from doing so.
Although authors may be enlightened to recognise the Statute of Anne as an abomination, I think it’s understandable if they sensibly refuse to recognise their writing as solely the material of the ink and paper its comprised of.
Crosbie Fitch, your use of the term “intellectual property” confuses me. Do you consider a physical hammer “intellectual property”?
You wrote, “The product we call intellectual work has precisely the same characteristics as material work save that intellectual work is far more easily decomposed into information (more easily reproduced and communicated).” By “intellectual work” I assume you are referring to such things as Sheldon’s CD with his article stored in the CD’s memory or a piece of paper with some writing on it. I think it is fine to call such property “intellectual works,” however I would like to make it clear that such property is not “intellectual property.” If you disagree, then I believe you are using the term “intellectual property” in a way I have not seen before. Usually when people use the term “intellectual property” they refer to ideas–ideas about possible patterns and arrangements of actual physical property. In other word’s the pattern of words that makes up Sheldon’s article is the so-called “intellectual property,” not the CD, or the piece of paper with ink on it, itself. The physical CD or paper with writing on it is simply “property.” You may also refer to it as an “intellectual work,” but calling it “intellectual property” is not even consistent with the notion of “intellectual property” that IP advocates support, because such CDs and pieces of paper are physical property, not ideas (ideas=the traditional meaning of “intellectual property”).
“The thing I have difficulty understanding is why you can’t then resist inferring that I believe people have a right to prevent others producing anything similar to their own productions.” I do not believe that you believe that people have a right to prevent others from producing anything similar to their own productions. I believe that you made it clear that that is NOT your position.
I wrote, “If you call Sheldon’s idea (the pattern of words in the article he writes) his property, then you false[ly] imply that you believe that he has the right to prevent others from using their property (their paper and ink or virtual equivalents) to reproduce the pattern of words that was Sheldon’s idea.” Note that I said “false[ly imply” meaning that by calling the idea “property” you imply that you think the idea has the characteristics of property (meaning that the “owner” of that idea has the right to exclude others from it) even though you actually do NOT think that the idea has the characteristics of property. I was thus saying that you should not refer to Sheldon’s piece of paper with his article written on it as “intellectual property” nor should you refer to the intellectual pattern of words–the idea–as intellectual “property” because it is not property. Note again that it is not property because it does not have the characteristics of property–namely, it (the idea) cannot be owned. And if you say that Sheldon does own the idea of his article, then you imply (by saying that it is his property) that you believe he has the right to prevent others from reproducing that idea on their paper with their ink (which of course you do not believe).
Have I clarified myself? Do you see why I think calling Sheldon’s idea “property” (or “intellectual property”) is problematic since it is not actually “property”?
So Crosbie Fitch, I think our disagreement is completely a semantic one, but an important semantic one, nonetheless.
Bill,
Every object has both material and intellectual aspects, i.e. the wood, steel, and construction of the hammer is its material aspect, and the design its intellectual aspect.
So, yes, the hammer is the intellectual property of its possessor as it is their material property. The intellectual property may not be particularly valuable if the design is well known (and thus ignored as if non-existent), but if it was the prototype for a specialist hammer (perhaps as may be used in zero gravity) then the IP may well be valuable.
In this particular case I use intellectual property in the natural sense of “intellectual work as property” as opposed to “the transferable privilege of a state granted reproduction monopoly concerning an intellectual work”. The former sense may well be quite unfamiliar to you, but then this is because the cartel are corrupting the meaning of ‘property’ in order to lend a veneer of legitimacy to their privileges. This then prevents anyone thinking about intellectual work as property in the natural sense – they can only think in terms of a reproduction monopoly.
Of course, in general discourse IP is considered to refer to state granted monopolies, but between those who understand what property means, I suggest it remains critical to recognise intellectual work as able to constitute property – rather than avoid such a concept for fear of causing confusion with the cartel’s use of IP.
It is because you insist that ‘property’ means ‘power to prevent others making reproductions of particular patterns’ when this is a crazy meaning to ascribe to ‘property’, a meaning that only power crazed monopolists prefer, that you have difficulty understanding my use of the natural meaning of property.
I think we should use monopoly and property in accord with their natural meanings, and reject the monopolists’ corruption of ‘property’.
But, no, we do not only have a semantic disagreement. Your rejection of the cartel’s corruption of ‘property’ as being applicable to intellectual work, because you rightly reject monopolies, has obscured from you the possibility of recognising intellectual work as property using the uncorrupted, natural meaning of property.
If you remove the cartel’s corrupt definition of ‘property’ from your dictionary, but leave intact the natural meaning, and apply that meaning to intellectual work, then maybe you can see why an author’s poem is their property that they may exchange or give away, and thus that a court may recognise the words involved, not just the ink and paper.
Crosbie Fitch, I think I finally understand what you mean by “intellectual property” (you’re indeed talking about abstract concepts, such as the idea of a hammer, not a physical hammer itself), but I still don’t see how it fits into the traditional definition of “property.” What characteristics of your idea make it your “property” rather than just your idea?
For example, I could wonder, “Hmm, if I have two rocks in my hand and I drop one on the ground, how many do I have left in my hand?” If I am unable to determine the answer, I might ask you if you know the answer. You might say, “Sure, I know the answer. I’ll tell you if you give me a dollar.” I could then give you the dollar in exchange for you telling me the answer to my question. Would I be buying some intellectual “property” from you? No, I would simply be learning and paying you for the service of educating me. The knowledge that I gain is not property and I am not now the “owner” of said non-property, nor were you ever the “owner” of the idea either. Would you say otherwise? I imagine you would, given what you have said about what you mean by “intellectual property,” but I don’t see why. I still doesn’t make any sense to me whatsoever to refer to such ideas as property. seeing as these ideas don’t have the same characteristics as the physical things that people normally refer to when talking about “property.” How many people in the world own the idea that 1+1=2? Nearly everyone? How many own the idea that 732*16=11712? Perhaps only a smaller percentage of people presently, but if people were to think about the arithmetic problem and come up with the answer then you could say they “own” it? The idea of saying that people own ideas if they have knowledge of them still seems like complete nonsense to me.
Crosbie Fitch: “Your rejection of the cartel’s corruption of ‘property’ as being applicable to intellectual work, because you rightly reject monopolies, has obscured from you the possibility of recognizing intellectual work as property using the uncorrupted, natural meaning of property.”
And I still don’t know what you mean by the “natural meaning of property.” For the way I normally define property, property owners have the right to exclude others from that property. If I own an apple or a CD, I can prevent you from having them or using them if I want to. If we were to say that I own an idea, such as the idea of a hammer, article, or the mathematical fact that 3^3=27, then similarly we would be saying (by definition of what “property” is) that I as the owner of the idea that 3^3=27 would have the right to exclude others from my property–to prevent them from using that idea that we say I “own.” But, because I don’t “own” my ideas because ideas aren’t property, then I don’t actually have the right to exclude others from them, as traditional IP advocates claim. So your idea that I “own” my ideas, but that “owning” them does not mean that I have normal property rights to exclude others from my property in them, still seems quite silly to me. Anyways, hopefully you can clear this up for me in one more post. I still hold the position that the so-called intellectual property you have been referring to is not property and I haven’t really learned anything from our discussion, but I appreciate your efforts in trying to get me to understand how the labeling of ideas as “property” is not a misnomer anyway. Many people often just ignore any criticisms of their views that I give, but I thank you for the taking the time to try to sort this out.
Bill,
No, I’m not talking about ideas. Ideas are obviously not property. Our minds are within our bodies and both brain and patterns within are inalienable. We are at liberty to disclose our ideas and, if we can wangle it, perhaps we can persuade someone to pay us money to disclose our ideas, but that disclosure cannot be coerced (whatever the US says in Guantanamo).
The hammer is a physical object. Both its material and intellectual aspects are physically realised – and thus equally the property of whoever possesses the hammer. This similarly applies to a poem written on paper. It was once an idea within someone’s mind, but having been fixed in a physical medium it becomes the physical product of intellectual work (and a tad of material work in the case of adding ink to paper). ‘Intellectual work’ is also used as the term for the product as well as the labour.
So, yes, I can agree with you that ideas are not property, but then I’ve not been arguing that. I’ve been arguing that intellectual works (fixed in a physical medium) are property – intellectual property per the natural meaning of the term.
And yes, if I have a hammer, or a poem or mathematical formula on a piece of paper in my pocket I can exclude you from it.
Do bear in mind that per natural law, abstract concepts do not exist (they cannot be physically apprehended), and therefore one cannot claim ownership over abstract concepts (certainly not treat them as property). However, writings and designs, when fixed in a physical medium, do exist, and can be treated as property (and please don’t be confused by the cartel’s corruption of ‘property’ and think I’m claiming the property of a poem on a piece of paper has the supernatural power to exclude anyone else from coincidentally arriving at an indistinguishably similar poem).
Property concerns a single object. A monopoly is the power to control the supply/manufacture of copies/similar objects by others who are otherwise at liberty and possess the means to do so. A poem on a piece of paper is a single object. The abstract pattern of the poem does not exist in the physical world (it is a pure idea), although the written poem may be said to be a physical instantiation of such an abstract pattern – or perhaps it’s better to say that given the poem, we can conceive of the abstract pattern it is an instantiation of. However, the poem on paper remains a physical instance of a poem. For property, we are only concerned with the physical world, not the imaginary/abstract plane. A poem on a piece of paper is intellectual property as well as material property.
Crosbie Fitch, so do we have any disagreements other than the name we give to things? It seems then that if I hand you a hammer you would say that I am handing you “intellectual property,” whereas I would just say that I was handing you “property.” This definitely seems like just a semantic disagreement, despite how you said it wasn’t. If I finally understand you correctly, then I believe I am correct in saying that what you call “intellectual property” is simply a subset of what you call “property.” And what you call property is exactly what I call “property.” So for example, we would both agree that a rock could be property, but then if someone chiseled the rock into a tool, you might refer to it as “intellectual property” whereas I would refrain from sticking the word intellectual in front of the word property, despite how someone designed the tool that they made with the rock. Lastly, why do you call hammers and some other pieces of property “intellectual property”? Because someone designed it? That would seem unnecessary, and evidently it also is likely to confuse many people who have only ever heard the term intellectual property applied to ideas and arrangements of property.
Bill, it’s critical to recognise intellectual property as I suggested right at the start. It’s the difference between me handing you a piece of paper with ink on it, and a piece of paper with the ink upon it arranged into a poem. If you recognise only the material then you do not recognise the natural right to exclude others from the intellectual work that is the poem, nor the natural right to exchange the intellectual work of the poem. Yet the latter two natural rights are self-evident, and thus should be recognised and secured by law.
If you don’t recognise intellectual property then Sheldon cannot exchange his intellectual work within a manuscript because the manuscript can be returned (a copy of the intellectual work having been made) without anything in exchange and with both parties remaining in equity (if intellectual property is ‘imaginary’).
Matter and information physically exist in this universe (abstract concepts do not physically exist) and thus there is both material and intellectual work, and when this is physically manifested in objects outside the body it is thus able to constitute property.
We only have to abolish the anachronistic privileges of copyright and patent – state granted monopolies. We do not have to abandon recognition of intellectual work (fixed in a physical medium) as able to constitute property.
Property is not just matter/material work, it is also information/intellectual work.
Crosbie Fitch, well I still don’t know what you’re talking about, but I think we’ve gone back and forth saying pretty much the same thing over and over again long enough. I think it’s best we leave it at this. Peace.
There’s no natural right to be compensated for one’s labour, only to be at liberty to seek whatever a free market will offer for it in exchange (the labour likely being a condition in the case of a service vs product).
If we are not careful the cartel will compensate themselves for their loss of monopoly via taxation, which is ‘frying pan into fire’.
Oudeicrat Annachrista writes : “please clarify: from whom is the man entitled to extract the reasonable return after he gave up the fruits for free (or for a tiny sum)?”
They are not given away. A man is compensated for his labor including risk and sundry other costs, and beyond that the production of his labor becomes available without further compensation because the demand of justice has been met.
Cosby Fitch writes : “There’s no natural right to be compensated for one’s labour ”
Depending on what you mean by the corresponding duty, I would agree. Just because some man sows potatoes doesn’t mean I have a duty to buy them. But if I do eat them then he in turn does have a right to compensation.
Cosby Fitch writes : ” only to be at liberty to seek whatever a free market will offer for it in exchange ”
No. A man is due a living wage if the work he is performing is of such a nature to produce a living wage.
Some jobs such as school teachers are not living wage jobs, they don’t pay a living wage and should not be expected to pay a living wage. Whereas other jobs are capable of paying a living wage and a man is due that wage if the owner of the company makes sufficient profit to pay it. The owner is not a ‘liberty’ to contract any wage. We are our brother’s keeper.
Let me add. Not all intellectual property is due a living wage. For instance writers often work in a field which cannot support a living wage. Where as attorneys are often paid far beyond what they deserve for compensation.
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