From Mises blog; archived comments below.
See also “Leveraging IP“.
Epson, Ink, Patents
Epson wins preliminary ruling against aftermarket cartridge manufacturers reports that:
Epson is one step closer to closing the books on a case against third-party ink cartridge manufacturers that make and sell products to work with Epson printers. The company has won a preliminary ruling saying that 24 aftermarket print cartridge manufacturers do indeed infringe on Epson’s patents, and they face orders that would bar them from selling the infringing products in the US.
See, here’s what happens. If you design an innovative laser printer, you can patent its design. But that would not stop some competitor from making ink cartridges to work with it. Just like if you buy a rifle, you can buy bullets from anyone.
But printer manufacturers like HP and Epson make their money on the ink, not the printers. I don’t think they even deny this. So they hate it when you buy a bargain basement generic ink cartridge or pay someone to refill yours. They want you to buy their cartridges only. So what these companies do is this. They intentionally complicate the design of the cartridge and file patents on it. They make their base printer such that it will only work with a cartridge that has the patented devices in it. Voila—they can now stop people from competing with them on ink. Beautiful example of the free market, is it not?
Comments (182)
Francisco Torres
Voila–they can now stop people from competing with them on ink.
That is exactly what IP laws amount to: nothing more than Letters of Marque granted by the government to stop the competition, even if the latter offer better pricing.
IP Law is nothing more than protectionism with a false veneer of “property rights” protection.
Published: April 9, 2007 3:28 PM
Brent
IP = Illicit Property
Published: April 9, 2007 3:32 PM
happylee
Letters of Marque? I love it.
Published: April 9, 2007 3:46 PM
Michael A. Clem
An excellent reason to not buy Epson printers. Woo-hoo!
Published: April 9, 2007 3:52 PM
Sasha Radeta
Francisco,
We went over this: there is a perfectly fine anarcho-capitalist way of protecting your copyrights and trademarks (patents only to the extent of copyright protection)… Read Rothbard with an open mind, and you will understand it….
But when it comes to printers, Dr. Kinsella perhaps used a wrong analogy. Rifle manufacturers do not design their weapons only for a special caliber that they invent… That would be bad for business, since it is crucial for people prefer to have a large and stable supplies of ammunition. The idiots at Epson think that the same logic applies to them and that people will voluntarily choose to be dependant on one manufacturer when it comes to cartridges (and not find a way to refill those with ink, which is rather simple and inexpensive)…
Anyway, if we had a perfect, pure anarcho-capitalism, nothing would prevent Epson from contractually restrict your reproduction of their cartridges — or to use tort law against those outside of contracts who want to do the same (by using their goods without authorization)….
Who cares, anyway? They can only establish a monopoly in their stupid and absurd product — and there are plenty of other companies that can offer superior goods and services.
Published: April 9, 2007 4:09 PM
Stephan Kinsella
Sasha, Epson is not “idiotic”; far from it. Epson and HP make billions of dollars using these tactics. Hardly idiotic. Nor was NTP “idiotic” to extort $612M out of RIM, the manufacturer of BlackBerry.
What is idiotic is any so-called libertarian defending the travesty known as “intellectual property.”
Published: April 9, 2007 4:20 PM
Kevin B.
Sasha Radeta said:
I have no problem with contractual restrictions, but that is not what is happening. These rulings have been rightfully pooh-poohed.
Published: April 9, 2007 4:41 PM
Person
Hey, joke’s on them: I just bought 50 Epson printers, disassembled them, and sold off the parts. That’s 50 printers that they sold at a loss with no possibility of recouping through ink sales.
I can’t wait to see the looks on the shareholders’ faces at the annual meeting when the board announces it’s discontinuing the quarterly dividend =-)
Published: April 9, 2007 4:48 PM
Sasha Radeta
Dr. Kinsella,
I wouldn’t be so harsh when it comes to Rothbard, the dean of Austrian school of economics. He did a nice job of explaining how copyrights can be compatible with free markets, while we both agreed on his weaker points…
As far as NTP and BlackBerry goes, did I mention anything about that company? I really don’t know what you’re talking about. I never call them “idiotic.”
When it comes to Epson, as the company grows very large, it often looses sight of what consumers really want and need. It is true that producers of printers make money through cartridges – but the long run success can hardly be accomplished by limiting your base product to only supplier of the necessary components. You correctly stated that rifle manufacturers were not so stupid to make-up new types of ammunition for new types of guns – since no one would be that stupid to become dependant on one bullet manufacturer. Also, you neglected the growing number of people that simply and cheaply refill their old cartridges.
You can actually argue that buying cartridges is idiotic, as well as complaining about an absurd monopoly in one type of cartridge.
Regards and thanks for your response.
Published: April 9, 2007 4:52 PM
Sasha Radeta
Kevin,
Of you read more carefully, you will find that I never defended Epson and I never claimed that what they do now is the application “contract law.”
But if we had a perfect anarcho-capitalism, would they have some legal means to prevent the reproduction of their absurd and useless innovation? Absolutely yes. That was my whole point to those who scream against “intellectual property” (what a nonsensical term).
Published: April 9, 2007 4:57 PM
Mathieu Bédard
I was curious so I checked and the ‘official’ Epson cartridges go for about 5 times the price of the cheapest no name look-alike.
We can only guess how much more expensive would they be without those competitors..
Published: April 9, 2007 5:26 PM
scineram
[quote]Absolutely yes.[/quote]
Absolutely no.
PS: Why no BBCode? I unknow html.
Published: April 9, 2007 6:37 PM
Kevin B.
Sasha,
My miscommunication. I agree that restrictions could be attempted by contract and wish such restrictions were limited to contract and not open to these funhouse laws and court rulings.
Published: April 9, 2007 6:50 PM
RENE MERINO
WHAT EPSON AND HP OFFER (FOR PHOTOS ANYWAY) IS ARCHIVAL INK THAT LASTS LONGER THAN MOST OF US HUMANS. SO IF YOU WANT A PICTURE TO LAST, YOU MIGHT HAVE TO BUY THEIR INK…
Published: April 9, 2007 9:03 PM
Sasha Radeta
scineram,
you don’t have any real arguments in support of such claim. In absolutely free market you would still have legal means to contractually prevent your customers from reproducing your item, while tort law would protect you against third parties by punishing their trespass (unauthorized use).
—–
Kevin B.,
Not too many people think about property rights, including judges (sadly).
——-
Rene,
In the era of digitalization, we care about that less and less… We print and rip, and then print again, unlike the developed pictures back in the day… But you refill archival ink anyway and many sellers offer it at smaller prices.
Published: April 9, 2007 9:23 PM
Francisco Torres
Sasha Radeta,
We went over this: there is a perfectly fine anarcho-capitalist way of protecting your copyrights and trademarks (patents only to the extent of copyright protection)
This issue is not about copyrights or trademarks.
They can only establish a monopoly in their stupid and absurd product — and there are plenty of other companies that can offer superior goods and services.
The problem is with how they establish the monopoly – that is, by government fiat. There is no contractual agreement here with which to back yourself, Sasha – I have no obligation to buy Epson’s cartridges. However, by way of phony “property rights” they can damned sure make their competitors stop selling me theirs. THAT is contrary to one of the main tennets of liberty: uncoerced, voluntary transactions.
Published: April 9, 2007 10:23 PM
Brent
Without the government’s IP regime, what kind of company would try to sell and enforce a “no ink, except from us” contract stipulation? The idea of such a contract is perfectly libertarian IMO, but these companies, in today’s world, use the government to shutdown competing businesses — notice that they don’t dare directly confront their customers. Maybe they don’t try to enforce their “IP” via contracts precisely because customers would balk at the idea.
Published: April 9, 2007 10:49 PM
Calypso
To digress, but make a point: Anybody heard of Weatherby Arms? They created their own calibres, the firearms for them, and the ammunition that was only available from them.
Published: April 9, 2007 10:51 PM
Brent
A cheap way to encourage brand loyalty is through warranty contracts. But if I was CEO and I could literally sue other businesses for selling ink that can be used in my printer… sue them for many millions or even billions of dollars… I know I would be replaced if I didn’t.
Published: April 9, 2007 11:08 PM
Sasha Radeta
Francisco,
I know this is not a free-market copyright issue, but in a completely free market it would have been (since we don’t have an issue of independent discovery in Epson’s case)…
I know that we currently don’t have anarcho-capitalism. When you try to “convince” me about that, you only create a “straw-man” pseudo argument. However, even if we wake up in a perfectly free market, Epson could obtain the same kind of protection — through “uncoerced, voluntary transactions.” That’s what many forget when they scream against any form of so-called I.P., offering a communal use of someone else’s good as an alternative.
—–
Brent,
The state’s coercion did not leave logical space for an alternative method of copyright protection. We are moving toward the world in which the state could monopolize the protection of all forms of private property rights, but that does not mean that we should scream against these rights (…just using an analogy).
——
Calypso,
Wonderful example that responds to Dr. Kinsella’s rifle analogy. However, I don’t think that many people heard about that company (imagine if large militias or militaries voluntarily become dependant on one company’s whim) — and that was exactly my point.
Published: April 9, 2007 11:14 PM
Francisco Torres
I know that we currently don’t have anarcho-capitalism. When you try to “convince” me about that, you only create a “straw-man” pseudo argument.
Who is making that argument? What I pointed out is that this is not a copyright issue.
However, even if we wake up in a perfectly free market, Epson could obtain the same kind of protection — through “uncoerced, voluntary transactions.”
That is utterly false, Sasha. Epson does not own the idea Ink Cartridge, so how could they enforce ownership of it on an unfettered market?
That’s what many forget when they scream against any form of so-called I.P., offering a communal [sic] use of someone else’s good as an alternative.
Now, THAT is a strawman argument.
Published: April 9, 2007 11:32 PM
Sam
Has there been other times where I complain about monopolistic behaviour and others counter-complain that ‘as long as there’s competition everything going to be all right’? So what if a certain printer manufacturer create printers that can only use their expensive cartridges? As long as there are other printer manufacturers who are more polite then the big bad pseudo-monopolist loses lotsa revenue for their lack of flexibility?
Yet what’s technically wrong with a business creating a product that requires such specialist maintenance? Is that sort of complaining mean that it’s similarly wrong when, in ye old days before I.P., designers, such as Leonardo Da Vinci, deliberately put flaws in their blueprints to thwart would-be plan-copiers?
Published: April 9, 2007 11:50 PM
Brent
Sam,
The point is not that some person or business designs their product with the intention of selling future services for their product. Instead, the issue is whether the people who purchased that product — and they do have complete ownership of it in the case of these printers — have the right to service it themselves. What is happening is that people are finding better ways to service their own printers, which they rightfully own, and the businesses that manufactured the printers are using the government to shutdown these alternative service providers.
Published: April 10, 2007 1:36 AM
Libby
There is nothing wrong with what Epson is doing. Bottom line is that you don’t have to buy it and I certainly never will. Refilling is one of my top priorities when I go looking for a new printer. Fortunately Canon makes great printers that also are easy to refill, but even if HP or some other company made better printers, I would still factor in the refill ability.
The choice is yours, the only person to blame for buying a printer that can’t be refilled is YOU. It also comes down to competition. If enough people won’t buy printers that can’t be refilled, then manufacturers would get the hint. Obviously this is not enough of an issue yet with consumers who are willing to buy cartridges at full price.
Published: April 10, 2007 3:18 AM
Libby
In my opinion, a lot of these so called anarcho-capitalists are just socialists in disguise who want to leech off of other people’s hard work. If I create a product, I should be able to set the terms of its use. YOU DON’T HAVE TO ACCEPT AND BUY IT!
That’s right, it’s a two way street. The point is that these are useful products or valuable information that you want for nothing. You gain a lot of pleasure/utility from using these things and so the choice is yours to refrain from using them or accept the terms set by the owner. It is not YOUR right to enjoy what someone else has created.
Published: April 10, 2007 3:26 AM
Niels van der Linden
Nobody knows what free market arbiters and contracts will lead to. The point of market anarchy is to stop trying to design society.
Published: April 10, 2007 6:49 AM
Stephan Kinsella
Libby, It’s not that what Epson is doing is “wrong”; they are operating rationally given the current system. The issue is: why should the state grant a patent monopoly? In this case we have a manufacturer spending R&D to intentionally find a way to put some design into the cartridge not to improve it, but simply so that it makes any cartridge not having the design incompatible with the printer. The innovation’s purpose is not the innovation itself but merely as a way to “tie” the cartridge, legally, to the printer, via the patent monopoloy grant. The patent system is supposed to encourage innovation; what results is strategizing by companies trying to find ways to exploit the Letters of Marque (I like that turn of phrase). This is all anti-private property, anti-market.
Published: April 10, 2007 8:04 AM
Person
Stephan_Kinsella, doesn’t the patent on the cartridge allow Epson to sell printers for much less than they would otherwise? Essentially allowing customers to buy on installment without touching the credit system? Now, maybe you think they shouldn’t be allowed to operate this way because it ulimately relies on IP enforcement. But you can hardly claim that’s not innovation: customers *like* cheap printers, even if it means expensive cartridges!
Published: April 10, 2007 8:16 AM
Francisco Torres
Person,
Stephan_Kinsella, doesn’t the patent on the cartridge allow Epson to sell printers for much less than they would otherwise?
You’re begging the question. For much less compared to what? Compared to whom? Epson has to compete with others for the printer market, which means that competition (and the market) is what drives the printer prices, so you cannot say Epson would sell their printers at a different price than what the market would allow, sans IP Law.
Published: April 10, 2007 9:48 AM
Francisco Torres
Libby,
If I create a product, I should be able to set the terms of its use. YOU DON’T HAVE TO ACCEPT AND BUY IT!
It is more than obvious that Epson cannot impose nor enforce a terms of use upon their customers(*), so they simply go to Daddy-Government to quelch the competition. So it is not as simplistic as you imply.
(*) Epson has to compete with many other manufacturers, so it would be bad business policy to try to bully their own customers into buying their cartridges. So they simply make a roundabout of the Market and use the incidious IP Law to achieve similar results. What the market won’t deliver [passive, compliant customers], why, the government sure will, wouldn’t it?
Published: April 10, 2007 9:58 AM
Francisco Torres
It is not YOUR right to enjoy what someone else has created.
Libby, Epson did not invent the **Ink Cartridge**, they manufacture AN ink cartridge. What the competition is manufacturing is COMPATIBLE ink cartridges that compete with Epson’s.
Published: April 10, 2007 10:13 AM
Francisco Torres
A similar case can be found here. Again, a manufacturer, Lexmark, tried surreptitiously to use copyright (i.e. phony property) law to stop another company from using compatible microchips that would allow competing brands to sell ink cartridges that would work on Lexmark machines. The premise was that the microships used a program that, in “essence”, was very similar to the handshaking program that Lexmark developed and thus created a copyright violation. As an everyday programmer, I know that that is pure B.S. – the program itself is just an engineering solution that anyone can come up with. It was like trying to copyright the movements needed to use a hammer to hit a nail.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lexmark_Int%27l_v._Static_Control_Components
Published: April 10, 2007 10:29 AM
Nybble
Libby: “. . . If I create a product, I should be able to set the terms of its use.”
False. When you sell something, such as a printer, a CD, or a book, you no longer have any say in how it can be used. That’s what it means to transfer ownership. You may be able to get the buyer to agree to a separate contract predicated on specific behaviors as one of the terms of the sale (e.g. “If you copy this book, or allow a copy to be made, then you agree to give me original book, any copies you may own, and $500.”); such contracts may influence the buyer’s behavior by attaching consequences, but fulfilling the condition of the contract (i.e. making a copy) remains the buyer’s right, however costly. Contracts can only transfer rights by transferring property; they can’t create or destroy them.
Libby: “YOU DON’T HAVE TO ACCEPT AND BUY IT!”
This might be relevant if there was a formal contract involved. As it is the only contract accepted is the implicit one created by the exchange of money for the printer (or CD/book/etc.). You could try to argue for an implicit contract, but I think you’d have a hard time of it. The sale contract was easy; I took the printer and the seller took my money. The terms, and our acceptance of the same, were obvious. Furthermore, the implicit sale contract covers the absolute minimum necessary to make the exchange legal (as opposed to mutual theft).
Libby: “It is not YOUR right to enjoy what someone else has created.”
Fortunately such positive rights are not required. I own the item in which the information is embedded. Nothing gives anyone else the right to prevent me from (or punish me for) extracting that information and using it for any purpose I choose, or to prevent me from communicating that information to others for any purpose whatsoever. Neither action constitutes any kind of tort, and I have accepted no contractual obligations extending past the point of sale.
Niels van der Linden: “Nobody knows what free market arbiters and contracts will lead to. The point of market anarchy is to stop trying to design society.”
Exactly so, and the whole point of non-contractual copyrights and patents is to “design society” to include more artistic works and innovations than would otherwise be created.
Published: April 10, 2007 10:38 AM
DC
Exactly. Sasha’s system would require that companies rent out copyrighted goods, never actually selling the physical property itself. This is clearly not how markets have historically developed, nor is it how they currently function.
It is most likely that people will buy and sell property in a free market (as they do now, despite government intervention) and not “rent” particular services to be enjoyed under very specific conditions.
Sasha’s “communal” criticism can’t possibly apply to a system of private ownership. He presupposes his linchpin — that on a free market goods would be “rented” and not bought and sold — in order to make this claim. Simply assume that history will carry on as it has, and Sasha’s objection disappears.
(Not to mention that even Sasha’s system can’t protect content in the way that he seems to think that it does — at least not without coercion — although this has been discussed ad nauseum in many other comment threads).
Published: April 10, 2007 10:40 AM
Person
Francisco:You’re begging the question. For much less compared to what? Compared to whom? Epson has to compete with others for the printer market, which means that competition (and the market) is what drives the printer prices, so you cannot say Epson would sell their printers at a different price than what the market would allow, sans IP Law.
*sigh*
1) I’m not begging any question because I didn’t assert that Epson’s pricing structure justified IP.
2) I quite clearly specified what I was comparing to: if Espon couldn’t use patents to protect its business model, their best option without it would be to sell printers for more and the ink for less.
3) The fact the Epson would sell for different prices in different circumstances in no way contradicts the fact that competition with other providers determines the prices it can charge.
4) Drop the “sans” bit. It doesn’t make you look any snazzier.
Try again, and this time, go for “big picture”.
Published: April 10, 2007 10:57 AM
Francisco Torres
[…]said Epson’s director of consumer supplies Elizabeth Leung in a statement. “These lawsuits were filed as part of Epson’s worldwide efforts to protect the company from unfair competition.
I do not know if she intended to be funny or if she was being serious.
Published: April 10, 2007 11:25 AM
Francisco Torres
1) I’m not begging any question because I didn’t assert that Epson’s pricing structure justified IP.
I did not imply such a thing. You beg the question by thinking that Epson is selling printers at a price that is below a certain value, thanks to IP. Which value would that be? You are assuming that this value exists, so you are begging the question.
I did not know that using “sans” would make me sound more or less snazzier. I used the word because it is precise and concise.
Published: April 10, 2007 11:28 AM
Brent
Libby,
Please read the discussion more closely. Your idea is bordering on merchantilist.
Person,
You speak about plausible business strategies within today’s legal environment (which is also changing as courts make rulings, IP statutes are changed, etc.) as if business strategies are completely relevant to this discussion. I don’t see how they are germane.
Published: April 10, 2007 11:34 AM
Sasha Radeta
Francisco,
I know that you said that this is “not a copyright issue” – but in a completely free market Epson would use the copyright protection through contracts and/or torts. Therefore, your response is meaningless. This IS a copyright issue in a perfectly free-market that we want.
Nybble and DC don’t understand that in perfectly free market you would be free to sell only a certain use of YOUR goods, while excluding people from other, far more expensive uses. These are not “positive rights”…. Oh, by the way, markets DO function like that. You currently cannot obtain full ownership (legal control of all services that can be derived from a good) of any copyrighted product – yet, you still decide to buy these restricted uses. If we abolished the state, firms would be forced to restrict unwanted uses through contracts and tort – but the copyright protections would remain intact.
If some seller does not want to sell you the full ownership of his good – that is his basic right and you can’t do anything about it. It would be nothing but a fraud and theft to accept the copyrighted terms of use on a book — and then decide that you no longer accept that and to declare that the entire community has the right to use it online (communism).
Published: April 10, 2007 11:37 AM
Person
Francisco: Just to clarify, what do you think the “question” is, that I’m begging?
Brent: You speak about plausible business strategies within today’s legal environment (which is also changing as courts make rulings, IP statutes are changed, etc.) as if business strategies are completely relevant to this discussion. I don’t see how they are germane.
That’s because you didn’t read the post where I mentioned it. Why don’t you give it a shot?
Published: April 10, 2007 12:20 PM
Kevin Carson
Sasha,
In a free market anarchy, though, there would be no exogenous contract enforcement mechanisms funded from general tax revenues. Contract enforcement services would be funded by those who benefit from them. And it would be quite costly to verify violations of “copyright” contracts, especially against alleged third party violators.
What’s more, if the court system assigned burden of proof to the plaintiff, there wouldn’t be the kinds of intrusive surveillance the state has mandated at the behest of the Copyright Nazis at the RIAA and MPAA.
Contractually-based, free market copyright law might be a theoretical possibility, but it’s a lot less likely to be worth it to a “property” rights claimant operating on his own nickel.
Published: April 10, 2007 12:38 PM
DC
Sasha, it is strange what you have attributed to me. Take, for example:
No, I understand this completely, and whether or not people and firms are free to do so is irrelevant to my argument.
You write further:
They only work that way through aggression, thanks to the government.
Or they will continue to do what they seem to have done throughout history. It’s without precedent to think that the most natural transition to a free market would include nearly every firm switching gears and selling only specialized services, rather than the goods themselves. That’s all that I’m pointing out.
Published: April 10, 2007 12:51 PM
Sasha radeta
Kevin,
I never argued that in anarcho-capitalism we would have “exogenous contract enforcement mechanisms funded from general tax revenues” as you imputed, nor I argued in favor of such system… Yet another straw-man…
I only said that sellers that want copyright protections (and many of them do) can obtain it even in a perfectly free market. Therefore, there is no need to scream against the application of private property rights.
——–
DC,
Once again…, your statement regarding limited terms of use:“This is clearly not how markets have historically developed, nor is it how they currently function” – is simply incorrect.
Free markets allow rents and contractual terms of use, since according to Mises “ownership is a full control of services that can be derived from a good” — which implies the owners’ right to restrict unwanted use of one kind, while allowing and selling other uses…
The fact that the state established the monopoly over copyright protection, does not change the fact that many sellers will always have a right to sell limited kinds of use of their goods — and that many buyers do not object to that (since they choose to obtain limited use of many goods today). There is no reason to assume that in a perfectly free market Epson and other companies would not use the copyright protection through contracts and torts — and there is no reason to assume that customers that currently buy limited use of copyrighted items would not do the same in anarchy.
You can object the state monopoly in copyrights, but if you claim that copyrights would not lawfully exist in perfectly free market, you are simply wrong.
Regards.
Published: April 10, 2007 1:34 PM
DC
Sasha, you again seem to attribute something to me that I explicitly denied.
You write: “You can object the state monopoly in copyrights, but if you claim that copyrights would not lawfully exist in perfectly free market, you are simply wrong.”
Either this is irrelevant to what I have said, or you think that I’m making this claim. But I stated specifically: “No, I understand this [DC: that firms would be free to make such contracts] completely, and whether or not people and firms are free to do so is irrelevant to my argument.”
Of course firms will be free to use contracts in the way that you are claiming. (Although this won’t have quite the effect that you suppose, as has been shown in many other comment threads). Nevertheless, their freedom to do so is irrelevant to my argument above.
Here is where you get off-base, I think. You write:
In the first place, people do not currently buy “limited use” of physical objects. They buy the physical objects, and their use of it is restricted through aggression. That’s why it’s strange to assume that firms in the free market will suddenly only “rent” items, and not sell them, as they currently do.
Go ahead and argue that in a free market your contractual, renting, copyright might function. (Again, I don’t think that it will to the extent that you suppose). However, it’s clear from history that precedent is not on your side. If the market continues to function absent aggression, there would be no copyright unless firms shift from selling items to renting them in Sasha-copyright-esque arrangements.
Published: April 10, 2007 1:58 PM
Nybble
Sasha: “Nybble and DC don’t understand that in perfectly free market you would be free to sell only a certain use of YOUR goods, while excluding people from other, far more expensive uses.”
In which case you’re not selling any property at all; you’re just renting it out. In order to maintain any control over its use you must retain the ownership, and even then your control over its “use” is not absolute. I have no intention of renting everyday items like CDs, books, printers, etc., and I feel that any attempt to shift to such a model is doomed to fail. (You’re free to try it, of course.)
Even assuming that you successfully implement such a model, however, you still can’t exercise effective control over what people observe about the property while they’re using it, or place hard limitations (tort claims, as opposed to contractual fines voluntarily agreed to by the buyer/renter) on how the products of such observations are employed. The exclusive rights of the property owner do not extend so far.
Published: April 10, 2007 2:21 PM
Kevin B.
I would like to point out that there is at least one company that leases printers with a significant discount if you agree to purchase only their ink refills. Xerox currently does this. The company I work for has had such a contract for nearly a year now.
Published: April 10, 2007 2:40 PM
Sasha Radeta
DC,
Many people here are against voluntary copyright contracts even in the free-market case. I assumed you were one of them. mea culpa.
HOWEVER – you were incorrect in stating the following:
In the first place, people do not currently buy “limited use” of physical objects.
That is incorrect sir! When it comes to copyrighted items, people do not buy full ownership (unlimited use) of these items. Nobody is forcing people to buy copyrighted items at a point of a gun — and nobody forces sellers to exercise their copyrights. It is ludicrous to suggest that these parties would not continue to exchange the same kind of limited product use and money, even in anarcho-capitalism.
=====
Nybble,
Consumers currently don’t acquire full ownerships over copyrighted items… As far as monitoring of copyright violations goes, we can only assume that it will be more efficient in a free private competition — than today.
Published: April 10, 2007 3:02 PM
Nybble
Kevin B.: “I would like to point out that there is at least one company that leases printers with a significant discount if you agree to purchase only their ink refills. Xerox currently does this. . . .”
True. I was referring to the home market; leasing becomes more practical when you’re dealing with the sort of expensive, high-volume printers that Xerox deals in, just as NDAs (similar to Sasha’s “copyright contracts”) really do exist in places where it is practical to enforce them. The mass-production consumer market is not such a place, however.
Leasing make a lot more sense for businesses than it does for individuals, and it would be almost impossible to enforce an NDA when there are millions of buyers, any one of whom could have disclosed the information. For typical entertainment media — and even relatively expensive items like printers or ink cartridges — the cost of enforcing a “copyright contract” would be far higher than the price of the item itself, particularly considering that the enforcement costs would no longer be tax-subsidized.
Published: April 10, 2007 3:23 PM
DC
Sasha, most people here are not against voluntary arrangements of any kind. It is when aggression is introduced that they react, and rightly so.
You write:
Products such as books are declared to be under copyright by government edict, whether the producer recognizes it or not (or chooses to have the government enforce it or not). Therefore, it is invalid to argue that anyone voluntarily agrees to copyright contracts, or that copyright as we have it is voluntary.
The common understanding is that, when I buy a book, I own it. If a friend of mine sells me a book that he’s used, no contract is signed with the publisher. In fact, my purchasing of the book, regardless of the seller, is not a tacit signature on a copyright contract with the publisher. If a publisher wants to show that I’ve breached a voluntary arrangement, they can feel free at any time to produce a contract that I’ve signed.
Copyright adds conditions to my buying a book that violate my ownership of it, without my consent. If a publisher wants to own a book but let me “rent” narrow services derived from it to me, they are free to market it that way and have the necessary contracts on hand to let that arrangement happen. As it stands, though, when I buy a book, I sign no such contract; I own it.
Published: April 10, 2007 3:32 PM
Sasha Radeta
Nybble,
Selling only limited kinds of use makes sense for people who invest large sums of money to develop it. In the absence of government intervention, copyright contracts and tort would naturally replace current laws and their enforcement would not be any less efficient than our current nationalized system.
—-
DC,
Many people here (RTR and others) openly advocated violations of contracts and freedom of trespass (unauthorized use), justifying it with communal needs. Once again, mea culpa for placing you in that group.
The fact that books are now copyrighted by government’s edict does not change the fact that authors can choose not to be protected under copyright. Yet, they don’t do that, since the “shareware” would kill their business. Also no one is forcing consumers to purchase copyrighted items and if free-market contracts and property rights replaced current laws — consumers would still continue to buy copyrighted works…
I am not the advocate of current copyright system — but Murray Rothbard claimed that even today you accept implied contract whenever you purchase a copyrighted item. You know well that with $15-$20 you are not buying the full ownership of a book (including those expensive publishing rights). Copyright notices are there to remind you of that.
Published: April 10, 2007 3:52 PM
rtr
Sasha Radeta: “Many people here (RTR and others) openly advocated violations of contracts and freedom of trespass (unauthorized use), justifying it with communal needs.”
So did you advocate violations of contracts moron. If a woman promises or writes a contract to have sex with someone in the future, she can change her mind at any time with no damages whatsoever. You agreed with that example. He’s just slow to make the conection from physical bodily compulsion to physical non bodily material compulsion.
Still searching for justifications to compel slavery and servitude I see. I guess he’s still upset over the example whereby he contractually agreed to transfer all his production for a pencil and is now merely still living on bare subsistence by our good graces. He’s “free” not to produce anything, which I guess explains the garbage he posts.
Nor did I ever use the term “communal needs”.
Sasha Radeta lies, ignores proof, and repeats his idiocy ad nauseum. I’m through taking anything he says seriously. He’s an uneducated clown. And I’m far from the only one posting here who has come to the same conclusion.
Published: April 10, 2007 4:58 PM
Sasha Radeta
RTR,
“Post an intelligent and civil comment”
I know that you suffer from a nervous breakdown, but try to control yourself a little.
Mere promises of services are not contract. Contracts always must presuppose the exchange of goods and services. Hence, by saying that a woman in your example can change her mind I did not advocate any contract violation.
However, if a party accepts money and refuses to perform services promised by contract, that party will be responsible for damages, based on the value of those services not delivered. You can’t force anyone to work, because we don’t believe in slavery… but no theft will be permitted.
Nevertheless, aforementioned examples have nothing to do with copyright contracts, which are perfectly valid exchanges of goods and services. People have a right to sell limited use of their product — and they also have a right not to buy these services back from you, if you don’t like them anymore. You can destroy it or set it aside… At any rate, you cannot lawfully use someone else’s property in ways that you did not pay for. You can’t legally rent someone’s apartment for residential use and then change your mind and turn it into your whore-house.
I am glad that RTR showed to DC what kind of unintelligent scum opposes copyright.
Published: April 10, 2007 6:27 PM
rtr
I don’t respect losers like Sasha Radeta that call for civil comments after starting with uncivil comments. Why is it uncivil comments only seem to be a problem with you? You were utterly defeated in the last round and are still in denial. You ignored everyone’s examples and comments which attacked your specific sentences, and just resorted to repeating exactly what you had written before. I have no desire whatsoever to waste my time arguing with you again. It’s all on the record, post for post, and I’m entirely satisfied with that.
/goodbye
P.S. It sure would be nice to be able to ignore reading comments from specific posters.
Published: April 10, 2007 7:00 PM
Sasha Radeta
RTR,
Everyone can see who started with uncivil comments on this thread.
—-
Only so called voidable contracts could be subject to being unmade at the election of one party. Examples of voidable contracts are:
• A contract entered into by a minor (under the age of 18) for non essentials.
• A contract signed by a person under the influence of substances such as illegal drugs, alcohol or medicines.
• A contract involving fraud in the inducement or material misrepresentation.
• A contract entered into by a person with limited mental capacity.
I hope that RTR’s position (that he can unilaterally void any contract) is not coming from this last condition. Enforceable contracts can only cease to exist when both parties fulfill it or revoke it.
Published: April 10, 2007 7:36 PM
DC
Sasha, if you read what I’ve written above, you will see that this:
Is irrelevant to my claims. Your argument is still invalid, whether or not some producers can choose against enacting the copyright that exists on their product thanks to government edict.
You write: “and if free-market contracts and property rights replaced current laws — consumers would still continue to buy copyrighted works…”
Perhaps. It is clear that a free-market copyright system would function far differently than common practice today, though, which is all I’m here to point out.
You write:
No, I don’t “know full well,” as if that is common knowledge and practice. Certainly you keep asserting that it is common practice, but I’m still waiting for some semblance of proof. The whole “full ownership” bit you keep trying to push isn’t how things currently work. Go to any person’s house, point to a book on their bookshelf, and ask them whose property it is.
Copyrights aren’t there to remind me of a contract to which I implicitly agreed. The publisher can produce any contract that I’ve signed if they want to prove my contractual obligations. Until then, or until the general practice of book-selling changes, I own the books that I buy; they are my property.
Published: April 11, 2007 6:06 AM
Brent
Person,
I have no idea what you are talking about. Business strategy, as far as pricing structure, is your only point? If that’s it, then fine, but I thought you were trying to say something about IP.
Published: April 11, 2007 11:56 AM
Person
Brent: maybe I was trying to say something about Stephan_Kinsella’s post. You know, the one right before mine. You might have been able to deduce that from the fact that I addressed it to him.
Well, there’s your clue! Now, go find the relevance of my comment, which should have been obvious the first time around!
Published: April 11, 2007 12:09 PM
Francisco Torres
Person,
Francisco: Just to clarify, what do you think the “question” is, that I’m begging?
Assuming what you conclude is called “begging the question”. You ask a question to Mr. Kinsella that implies Epson is in fact selling their printers at a supposed lower price . . . – than what?
Published: April 11, 2007 12:55 PM
Kevin B.
Sasha,
It seems logical then to assume that cross-border purchases of such books would not necessarily imply copyright contract agreement.
Published: April 11, 2007 12:58 PM
Sasha Radeta
Kevin B,
uh… what?
—-
Francisco,
My statement is relevant. The fact is:
– sellers and buyers currently CHOOSE to trade in markets for limited use of many goods (buyers don’t mind not getting full ownership rights on books, etc.) and there is no reason why would that stop in a free market (since sellers in anarcho-capitalism could choose to be protected by tort and contractual copyright).
Again, in order to prove that in anarcho-capitalism all these innovators and designers would go crazy and started selling full ownership of their valuable goods — you have to explain why don’t they do that currently.
Anyway, I guess we both agree that markets should decide – not the government. I hope our disagreements about the compatibility of copyright with private property rights are now in the past tense. Regards.
Published: April 11, 2007 1:11 PM
Francisco Torres
I know that you said that this is “not a copyright issue” – but in a completely free market Epson would use the copyright protection through contracts and/or torts.
Lexmark already tried the “copyright violation” scheme and got rebuffed, for the simple reason that it is not a copyright scheme – nobody is copying an “idea” since the concept “ink cartrige” already exists. Please drop the premise.
Nybble and DC don’t understand that in perfectly free market you would be free to sell only a certain use of YOUR goods, while excluding people from other, far more expensive uses.
That would not be “selling”, Sacha, that would ne called “leasing”.
Be that as it may, Epson is not suing its customers for using its “property” in a different way as agreed. It is suing the competition for offering competing products that are compatible to Epson’s. How is that copyright violation seems to escape me, the two judges from the 6th circuit Supreme Court that told Lexmark to take a hike (after Lexmark tried using that argument) and basically the rest of the known world, but you.
Published: April 11, 2007 1:12 PM
Kevin B.
Sasha,
I’m guessing that you mean the copyright is accepted because the buyer knows that he will be subject to copyright law, since there is no stated contract limiting the use of the product.
My question is: What about product trade between two different juridictions – such as the U.S. and some other territory that doesn’t recognize U.S. copyright law? What is your opinion?
BTW, I believe it is going too far to say that buyers should think that they don’t fully own something that comes cheaply.
Published: April 11, 2007 1:36 PM
DC
Sasha, you are simply repeating the same bald assertion again and again, and calling it an argument. I understand that this is the position that you hold, but consider:
Your argument is that people are currently “renting” any book that they buy voluntarily, and so this practice would be likely to continue in a libertarian society. I counter that this reasoning is invalid, since government currently declares all works copyrighted by fiat — in other words, we aren’t seeing contractual agreement at work, but blanket aggression. We can’t be seeing voluntary agreements until the government lifts its heavy hands from the industry — then we will see if copyright continues on a contractual basis. Perhaps you’re right, but things as they are do not support your view, since we aren’t seeing voluntarily what you claim will continue.
Common sense and every day experience also informs us that people believe that they are buying — that is, acquiring the property title to — the books that they buy. No one speaks of book-buying as “leasing” or “acquiring partial ownership rights of” or “not acquiring full use of” or other nonsense. If I buy a book, then I own it. This is the most obvious understanding of the typical bookstore transaction. It is not assumed that I have signed an elaborate special-use and limited-ownership contract.
Thus, your argument seems both invalid and unsound.
The burden of proof is on your side. Stop shifting it with mere assertions that you are describing things as they currently function. Use some evidence, counter what I’ve said with something of substance. That would be a start to defending yourself.
Published: April 11, 2007 1:42 PM
Nybble
rtr: “P.S. It sure would be nice to be able to ignore reading comments from specific posters.”
Here is a Greasemonkey script to do just that. (Requires the Firefox web browser.)
Published: April 11, 2007 2:36 PM
Francisco Torres
sellers and buyers currently CHOOSE to trade in markets for limited use of many goods (buyers don’t mind not getting full ownership rights on books, etc.)
Unless you do daily surveys of all buyers, you cannot really mean that they choose to trade that way. It is clear they do not, otherwise those sellers would not go to Big Daddy Government for “protection”.
and there is no reason why would that stop in a free market
They would stop because the competition would be nmore than happy not to bug their customers with such meaningless agreements. THAT is the very reason some sellers rely on the government, i.e. having to compete, and not because of the free market.
(since sellers in anarcho-capitalism could choose to be protected by tort and contractual copyright).
They would probably choose. Why buyers would even bother buying from them is another issue. Again, if a seller tried to sell something with such provisos, they would be leaving the door open to competitors who would be more than happy to sell without such hindrances.
You assume that copyright law and IP were created out of a market need, but this is incorrect – it was created out of a need NOT to leave your luck to the devices of the free market, instead relying on Big Daddy Goons-with-Guns (i.e. the government) to “protect” a supplier from the free market and competition. The same goes with patent law.
Published: April 11, 2007 2:44 PM
Matt
Another possibility would be for Epson to offer really amazing tech support/warranty/replacement services for their printers but inform the customer upfront that all of this is void if another brand of cartridge is used.
That would be asier than suing the other manufacturers with IP laws, cheaper, and more respectful of consumer choice.
Published: April 11, 2007 3:02 PM
Person
Francisco:Assuming what you conclude is called “begging the question”. You ask a question to Mr. Kinsella that implies Epson is in fact selling their printers at a supposed lower price . . . – than what?
Let’s try this again. I know what “begging the question” is. What I just asked you, is, “what question am I begging?” That is, what *conclusion* are you accusing me of *assuming* in my argument? And I already answered your question there, at least two times: Epson is selling their printers at less than they would if it were impossible to exclude competition in selling ink for their printes.
Published: April 11, 2007 3:10 PM
Sasha Radeta
Francisco said:
First of all dude, copyright is not about exclusive rights over some idea or concept. If Epson managed to differentiate their cartridge, they can easily prove in court that someone violated their copyright agreement or committed an unauthorized use by replicating such unique product.
Epson is NOT suing the competition for offering competing products that are compatible to Epson’s! As you could find out from Dr. Kinsella’s introduction to this thread, they invested their resources into differentiating their cartridges and now they want to punish unauthorized copycats.
By the way, leasing is selling. It is selling of range of services derived from someone’s good, without ownership transfer.
=========================
Kevin B,
International treaties that regulate disputes between two or more jurisdictions and international law. That’s your answer.
==============
DC, Francisco (second posting)
Your response was ludicrous. Sellers can easily avoid being protected by copyright even today, if they think that “shareware” can make them more profitable (when related services cost a lot more than goods sold). Book authors, for example, are not crazy to put their books in free circulation and they would not go crazy in a perfectly free market (since their customers today don’t object to copyright, as evidenced by their willingness to currently purchase new books).
Once again, sellers can easily avoid copyright protection – just like they can avoid it in anarcho-capitalism. On the other hand, they can have that protection in both systems. Think for a moment and finally understand that all these wonderful, creative people (including Mises Institute) are not evil for not removing copyright today (or tomorrow in a perfectly free market).
Published: April 11, 2007 10:01 PM
averros
Sasha – you seem to lack comprehension of the simple fact: that contracts can bind ONLY PARTIES TO THE CONTRACT.
Copyrights bind EVERYONE.
So if person B bought some book from A with a contract stipulating that B shouldn’t make copies, and later A sees C selling cleary bootlegged copies of that book, A has NO way to claim that C has violated the contract, for there’s none. It cannot even compel C to tell where he got the text of the book. [I do not mean the current system of enforced snitching, of course].
Now, if A can find out who that contract-violating B is, A could take B to court and ask for compensation for the violation of the contract clause. For which the damages have to be specified in the contract itself, since it is a “non-performance” clause, and A suffered no loss of anything he already posessed, but rather lost some opportunity.
Obviously, this is not how the copyrigths work.
There is NO WAY to implement any regime similar to copyrights using contracts. None. Whatsoever.
Published: April 11, 2007 11:20 PM
Sasha Radeta
averros,
Property rights bind EVERYONE!
Suppose I (person A) lease you (person B) a house under a condition that you don’t turn it into a place of prostitution (otherwise you will pay a stiff penalty, because commercial use of that sort costs a lot of money).
Now, imagine that you go to Europe for a month and during that period some guy (person C) breaks into my house and turn it into a brothel.
Would I have a case against person C? Absolutely! He did not commit a breach of contract – but he did TRESPASS (unauthorized use) against my property, which resulted in TORT of financial injury (I was not compensated for an expensive use of my property).
===============
Now going back to your example:
Person A would definitely have a case against person C! Person C did not have any authorization to use person A’s property, and that’s a trespass by definition. Person C unlawfully assumed expensive rights, for which legal publishers must pay dearly — which constitutes the tort of financial injury, par excellence.
This is precisely why I accentuated that free-market copyright would function either through contract or tort. In my message posted at April 10, 2007 3:52 PM, I said:
I repeated this point even several times before on this thread (referring to Epson). Averros is either not reading very carefully, or he enjoys wasting people’s time.
Published: April 12, 2007 12:15 AM
TLWP Sam
To F. Torres: patents and copyrights did not come from any fact-of-life needs?!!?!?!!
Come on, one great basis for bothering with the Capitalism system is that risk and work should be linked with reward. Reward can’t guaranteed for all enterprises and inventions, but if something generates great rewards ideally shouldn’t it go to the lug who bothered to do something in first place?
If you invent anything and others are free to copy and mass produce it and they get the profits why bother? Talking about contracts and torts sound more or less the same as copyrights and patents. Especially in terms of inventing anything leads you spending a fortune in legal fees trying stop any and all contract-breakers who nowadays could be anywhere in the world. Or could there be private-defense goons for hire to trash any place that is copying your invention? Or should new inventions have self-destruct mechanisms in them to stop others from pulling them apart and figuring out how it works?
If an inventor can get no reward for inventing anything why bother? And without any protection does that mean innovation is incompatible with free-market Capitalism?
Published: April 12, 2007 12:34 AM
averros
Sasha –
Property rights bind EVERYONE!
So, you claim that information is property. That’s because a text of a book is just information, nothing more, and if you want property rights to apply to the text of the book, you have to assert that information is property.
Well. Since no one claimed ownership in the letter “A” (which is, undoubtly, information) and I use it extensively in my writing, commingling it with my labor, I hereby declare myself its owner and prohibit you from ever using it again.
Now you have to either explain why some information is property and other is not, or explain why homesteading is not a valid way to acquire ownership. (Or you can find the rightful owner of letter “A”, and cease trespassing on his property, anyway).
Wiggle your way out of this logic trap you got yourself into, will you?
By the way, analogy is not a valid argument, so I’ll simply ignore it. Besides, it is absolutely irrelevant – in my example B broke the terms of contract, and in your analogy B didn’t do anything wrong.
(In a spirit of fair waring – you’ve got yourself into a logic argument with a mathematican. So now you have only one honourable way out:)
Published: April 12, 2007 12:36 AM
averros
TLWP —
If you invent anything and others are free to copy and mass produce it and they get the profits why bother?
I, being an actual inventor (I used to obtain patents, until I learned what this is all about, – but I certainly didn’t stop inventing), can explain.
Reason #1: Because it is fun. Without this fun of finding out new and better ways to do things my work would be totally unbearable drudgery.
Reason #2: Because it adds to my professional reputation. Considerably. Which directly translates into my earning capacity.
Reason #3: Because I need to come up with big and little nontrivial ways of doing things daily just to get my job done and deliver the products I was hired to create.
Oh. And from all patents I wrote, I received nothing. They just sunk into patent portfolios of the corporations. Anybody cares to explain how that stimulated my creativity?
Published: April 12, 2007 12:53 AM
Sasha Radeta
O TEMOPORA, O MORES! If you’re indeed a mathematician, you are only showing how deep we have sunk.
I hope your last posting was just another attempt of wasting my time and does not reflect the effects of Bush’s notorious plan to increase the number of mathematicians. Read more carefully or turn on your cognitive apparatus!
Information is not property! Physical cartridges are property.
If you can prove to courts beyond reasonable doubt that someone used (replicated) your physical property without you authorization (either by committing a trespass or breach of contract) — you have a clear case against that person.
Replicated cartridges serve as physical evidence that either person B committed a breach of contract, or that person C committed an unauthorized use.
This has nothing to do with your insane charade about letter “A.” The free-market copyright is all about ownership rights. And as you know, “ownership” by definition means “full control of services that can be derived from a good.” This means that we can restrict unwanted uses of our goods, either through contracts, or through tort.
Go to sleep and stop embarrassing yourself.
Published: April 12, 2007 1:01 AM
tMoC
And as you know, “ownership” by definition means “full control of services that can be derived from a good.”
Eh no. It means “full control of a good.” Funny how you redefine every basic word in order to support your warped understanding of property.
Published: April 12, 2007 4:14 AM
DC
Sasha, it doesn’t appear to me as though you’ve addressed any of the counter-arguments presented.
Your argument regarding people’s freedom to ‘opt out’ is clearly invalid, since the government currently declares all works copyright, whether or not the producers seek its protection. That they can opt out if they choose is no proof that the system itself is free. Think about money — people are similarly free to ‘opt out’ should they choose, but this doesn’t imply that our monetary system is free. In fact, our government has a similar blanket-aggression edict that enforces something unnatural to the free market.
Today, producers enjoy the ‘handout’ of copyright from the government at no cost. On the free market, producers would not enjoy this form of subsidy / welfare. They could seek copyright if they wanted, but there would be a cost. Therefore, to say that a free market would function similarly to our current system is both invalid and unsound.
In addition, you haven’t addressed my counter-argument that our current system does not function the way that you envision free-market copyright working. When people buy books, they have a rightful claim to the property title. The copyright as practiced is tacked on by the government, and it is there to prevent me from using my property in certain ways.
There is no support for thinking that I only “rent” books from Borders. Rothbard may have envisioned that copyright would function by “renting” certain services derivable from a good, to use your language, but that is not how the system currently works. If it did work that way, then a publisher could produce a contract that I signed stating that I’m renting services of their property. Or, the copyright notice in the book would say something to that effect. As it stands, however, copyright is simply one more bit of regulation on how I can use my property. It is a rule that I have to follow, regardless that it is not the government’s business.
(Your straw man about my supposed claim of copyright users being evil is irrelevant).
Published: April 12, 2007 7:24 AM
Francisco Torres
If Epson managed to differentiate their cartridge, they can easily prove in court that someone violated their copyright agreement or committed an unauthorized use by replicating such unique product.
They did not use that argument, for a good reason – it is absurd. Copyright is understood as the protection of intellectual property, which includes works of artistic output, unique works of art, literature, even programs. An ink cartridge is not a work of art, it is an engineering solution, an invention, which is why the FedGov differentiates copyright from patent law. In this case, the only concept that applies is patent law. Lego already tried the same “copyright” or “trademark violation” scheme when they sued Megablok, and got rebuffed at the court again.
http://www.megabloks.com/en/corpo/pdf/Mega-Bloks-Appeal.pdf
Epson is NOT suing the competition for offering competing products that are compatible to Epson’s! As you could find out from Dr. Kinsella’s introduction to this thread, they invested their resources into differentiating their cartridges and now they want to punish unauthorized copycats.
Sasha, you are grasping at straws here. A differentiation is just that – I can differentiate a hammer by shaping the head differently, but it is still just a hammer. I started with a hammer and ended with a hammer. In this case, the *concept* is still the same: an ink cartridge. Epson started with a cartridge and ended having… a cartridge. That is why Epson is NOT suing the other companies for copyright infringement, but on patent law, since it was the FedGov that issued the patent – certainly NOT because the differentiations are “property”. So there is certainly NO property being trespassed here, only a license or protection granted by the government. The cartridges that are being sold by the competitors use THEIR raw materials, THEIR machines, THEIR engineers, THEIR salespeople. They are THEIR property, and not Epson’s. They just happen to be compatible with an Epson printer.
Published: April 12, 2007 9:56 AM
Francisco Torres
The conclusion is:
“And I already answered your question there, at least two times: Epson is selling their printers at less than they would if it were impossible to exclude competition in selling ink for their printe[r]s.”
That is begging the question. You are assuming what you want to prove: that Epson is selling at a certain price that is below… what? One that YOU imagine to be otherwise? Without a reference market price for a printer under no patent laws, it does not make sense to say that Epson is undervaluing its printers.
Published: April 12, 2007 10:09 AM
Person
Francisco: That is begging the question. You are assuming what you want to prove: that Epson is selling at a certain price that is below… what?
Francisco, get a clue. That’s not “begging the question”. That’s “disagreeing with you”. I never assumed that conclusion in my argument for it. I pointed out that without the patent that allows it to charge more for ink, it would have to charge more (than it currently does) for the intial printer in order for the whole venture to be profitable. No circularity there.
People make this argument all the time: “If input X to good Y were less expensive, sellers of Y would sell Y for less.” You wouldn’t respond, “You’re begging the question. For less than … what?”
Now, go out and learn what “begging the question” *actually means* and then try to articulate what about my post you object to.
Published: April 12, 2007 10:35 AM
Kevin B.
Sasha,
In the example averros gave, person C supposedly used a book in person B’s posession to make copies. Person B had a contract, of course, agreeing not to make copies. Well, suppose C had actually listened to A read the book aloud in some public place. Would you consider it trespass if C uses his incredible memory to later write down, word for word, everything he heard? And if that isn’t trespass, then how would it be trespass for C to write down what he hears if B had bought the book without copy rights, but with the right to read the book aloud in a public place?
Your argument seems to suggest that imitation, even without a prior contract prohibiting the action, can be considered trespass. But humans imitate others’ actions all the time, especially when those actions are beneficial.
This reminds me of a conversation I had with some people in the Philippines. They told me that they once had raised chickens to sell eggs. They told me that they eventually quit because other people would eventually start selling eggs too. In fact, the people I spoke to gave up on selling anything because they figured someone would just copy them and take away their business.
I know eggs aren’t the same as printer cartridges, but suppose the original buyers of eggs agreed not to raise chickens themselves to produce eggs for sale. It would be ridiculous to say that it would be trespass for anyone else to raise their own chickens and sell their own version of the egg, even if they got the idea from watching the vendors on the street.
All that being said, I completely agree with you that contracts limiting imitation could be made and enforced. I do not agree that those rules can be applied to others not party to such an agreement.
Please note that I am an entreprenuer who would have to adapt if copyright laws were dropped. Since change is inevitable, I will have to adapt anyway. I’d rather adapt to changes spurring more freedom than less.
Published: April 12, 2007 1:56 PM
Sasha Radeta
Francisco,
Read Rothbard! Under contractual copyright and common law tort, Epson could still protect itself against unauthorized replications of its cartridges. I’m not saying that they are doing this now, under the current, broken law! I said that they would have the same legal outcome even in anarcho-capitalism and that’s the fact (although I think it’s a stupid decision on their part).
=================================================
DC,
If majority authors really believed in the invalidity of IP, they would usually add the few extra words needed to GPL or “creative commons” or “public domain” the work.
Or, they would put something like this on their work (you should have noticed this on this blog):
Instead, we have the usual copyright notices. Why?
It’s all about simple economics. The unrestricted reproduction will lead to an enourmous supply and lead to a collapse in prices. If prices of final goods are approaching the zero, so will the prices of inputs approach to zero. What kind of publisher will pay a fortune for a literary masterpiece in a manuscript, if he knows that unauthorized copies will run him out of business.
Authors cannot offer technical support and services with their books. They rely on their property rights to establish copyright (limited terms of use) in order to make money.
============================================
Kevin B,
In your example, a person C is committing an unintentional trespass (unintentionally using services that can be derived from someone else’s good, without the owner’s permission). Hence, this party cannot be responsible for trespass in itself
— HOWEVER,
If this person decides to profit from this unintentional trespass, then this trespass is intentionally aggravated to tort. Unauthorized copies will still create a financial injury to the author, and person C will be responsible for tort in your scenario.
I hope this helps.
Published: April 12, 2007 2:24 PM
Sasha Radeta
By the way Kevin,
Freedom in a perfectly free market does mean that you will be allowed to freely commit tort by profiteering from a trespass (not paying for something that costs a lot of money when legally obtained — like publishing rights).
Published: April 12, 2007 2:28 PM
DC
Sasha, you are evading. Whether or not authors believe in the validity of IP is irrelevant; the fact is that the government has declared copyright universal by edict, so we cannot be seeing the free market at work. Therefore, it is fallacious to say that the free market will ‘continue to function’ the way that it is with respect to copyright, since it is clearly not free at this time.
Also, you haven’t countered any of the arguments presented against this position (either by me or Francisco). You’re simply explaining why a copyright system would need to work they way that you think it will . . . which couldn’t be more off topic.
Published: April 12, 2007 2:42 PM
Sasha Radeta
Whether or not authors believe in the validity of IP is irrelevant;
DC,
That’s like saying that supply is irrelevant in the market outcome.
Of course that the fact that people do not want relinquish their copyrights is relevant! It just shows you their preference, which can be perfectly excercised in anarcho-capitalism — and I explained why simple economics forces many innovators to seek this kind of arrangement (some sellers can only make a living by selling limited use of their property).
The fact that the state now has a monopoly over law enforcement when it comes to private property rights — does no mean that in the absence of state we would just forsake our means of survival and go into communism (anarcho-communists actually believe in this). The same applies to copyrights.
Try reading my postings with some more critical thinking, not just with a priory disagreement.
Published: April 12, 2007 3:04 PM
DC
More evasion, Sasha. Well, either that, or you aren’t aiming at creating a logically coherent argument.
You say that defense is a good analogy. Consider another one: paper fiat currency. It doesn’t really matter, though, as these tangents are irrelevant to my original point.
Published: April 12, 2007 3:07 PM
Kevin B.
Sasha,
I do not believe that freedom includes free trespass, but trespass needs to be clearly defined. The complex definition of trespass is being argued.
I cannot agree that my observation of you, unless previously agreed otherwise, would result in unintentional trespass. If I am observing anyone, then I am bound to learn something from them. Learning will lead to improvement (profit).
Only a fool would read a book aloud to oneself in a public place in front of others and expect not one of them to observe him. If that book were to give pleasure to the observer, would you expect payment to be made to the reader? After all, if the reader normally charges for his book, then the observer is committing a financial injury derived from his unintentional trespass.
Telling accidental observers to forget what they’ve learned is insane. To tell them that they cannot use what they’ve learned, since they would be profiting from someone else’s hypothetical profit loss seems extreme.
Published: April 12, 2007 3:29 PM
averros
Sasha –
O TEMOPORA, O MORES! If you’re indeed a mathematician, you are only showing how deep we have sunk.
No, dear. I only provoked you to declare loud and clear that you are nothing more than a clueless demagogue who resorts to ad hominem attacks when shown weakness of your argumentation.
Thank you for your willingness to display your true colors.
Kevin B. adequately dismantled your objections, and I see no need to repeat what he wrote. (Actually, there were cases of people with eidetic memory repoducing protected works of art verbatim – the most famous case being that of 14 years old Mozart writing down the score of Allergri’s Miserere after hearing it once. The Church protected the original score for a century threatening excommunication to anyone who would dare to copy it).
Published: April 12, 2007 6:58 PM
Francisco Torres
Read Rothbard! Under contractual copyright and common law tort, Epson could still protect itself against unauthorized replications of its cartridges.
Did they replicate Epson’s cartridges? Epson is suing under the understandig that they patented the differences, not the cartridges.
And what contractual agreement would apply here? That Epson owns the differentiations? Because they certainly do not own the concept of Ink Cartridge. I can imagine owning all hammers just because I changed the head on one – that would be rich.
Published: April 12, 2007 7:47 PM
Sasha Radeta
DC,
There is no evasion and no false analogies on my part. Stop hallucinating, please. If people don’t want and need copyright and property rights — the state is not preventing them from not exercising those rights. Hopefully, you see know that copyright could continue to exist under anarcho-capitalism. You were not able to make a single argument on why would people go against their economic survival and stop with their rights to sell limited uses of their goods.
Keep thinking and don’t get too frustrated.
===============================================
Kevin B,
Deriving services from some good is its use — and according to Mises, the owner has a right to control those services. What services do you derive from accidentally seeing me – I don’t care. Like I said, nobody is responsible for unintentional trespass.
However, would you support my right to set up the equipment from across the street – and to film your every move and to sell it over the internet?
By the way, I never mentioned any “hypothetical profit loss.” Let’s not be dishonest! I only mentioned real tort of financial injuries, which happens when you use a product in an expensive way — and than refusing to pay for that. You can’t rent a car and than refuse to pay… you can’t assume expensive publishing rights for free and without the author’s permission, either.
================================================
Averros,
I just honestly described your baseless arrogance and intentional misinterpretation of my arguments. Your unintelligent charade about the letter “A” was really worse than any ad hominem. You should be ashamed if you truly are a mathematician.
By the way, Kevin B. did not “dismantle” anything. He just needed some clarification.
=================================================
Francisco,
Are you O.K.? Seriously? How many times do I have to remind about Dr. Kinsella’s article that opened this thread.
Epson made a conscious effort to differentiate its cartridges, so nobody else’s cartridges can fit into their printers. However, some a-holes decided that they want to replicate Epson’s unique product, in spite of their implied contract which would prevent them from doing that (they knew that by paying $30 for Epson cartridges they did not buy a permission to reproduce it).
Don’t be silly in trying to imitate Averros. Epson does not own differentiations, just like you’re not owning “all hammers.” Epson owns unique physical goods (cartridges) and they can prove that copycats used/replicated their goods, without ther permission — and that constitutes trespass. That’s all.
Published: April 12, 2007 9:05 PM
DC
Sasha, you write:
It is clear that you never comprehended my posts, from my first contribution to this thread onward, if you really think this is what our debate was about. Then again, given your tendency to evade or shift the topic of debate, this makes sense.
Again, what people could do on a free market is irrelevant to my claims.
My only claim is that your logic has been fallacious. Don’t take it personally and assume that I’m attacking your whole system (once your premises are granted). I’m more interested in the validity and soundness of your presuppositions.
Since my contribution to this debate had to do with your argumentation, let’s get back to that: I claim that what you have argued is both invalid and unsound.
Here’s what I mean: you presuppose the linchpin of your claims — that on a free market copyrighted goods would be “rented” — in order to say that this is what is currently happening. A better way to make your case would be to start from principles that are generally accepted and then argue for what follows from them.
(In other words: You are claiming “copyright would have to function this way on a free market” and concluding “therefore copyright does function this way currently.” Don’t you see the problem?
Or, possibly, you are assuming or asserting the latter claim without feeling the need to back it up with evidence. And I have several arguments above, still unaddressed, that go against this strange conclusion.)
Published: April 13, 2007 7:37 AM
DC
It’s also interesting to note that Sasha’s responses to my post are becoming shorter, more dismissive, continue to talk about his system in a free market (something I’ve not been interested in here), and contain more and more personal-attacks.
Published: April 13, 2007 7:41 AM
greg
SR> …and according to Mises [and Rothbard, for the zillionth time]…
I think everyone gets your point by now. Rothbard and Mises were Gods, and everyone must look to you to tell them what the Gods said.
SR> …in spite of their implied contract which would prevent them from doing that…
With all these implied contracts littered across space and time, I nominate you to clean the mess up.
Published: April 13, 2007 12:06 PM
greg
DR> It’s also interesting to note that Sasha’s responses to my post[s] are becoming shorter,…
Dude, don’t let the flux fool you. You’re staring into a black hole.
Published: April 13, 2007 12:11 PM
Sasha Radeta
Greg,
Would you prefer Marx’s definition? If you have any objections to Mises’s definition of ownership, can you offer an alternative one? I just tried to remind you guys what ownership means (yes, using Mises and Rothbard as a reference, just in case you object to my own definition) — and showed you that copyright stems directly from ownership (negative) rights — right to exclude unwanted uses of your good, either through tort or contract.
=======
DC,
As your responses become more and more absurd, my responses are getting shorter and dismissive.
Why do I keep talking about free market? It’s simple: libertarians would never object to anything that would perfectly legally exist even in anarcho-capitalism. Major objections to copyright are based on anarcho-communism, and they relate to their opposition to ownership rights.
I also focused on our current (broken) system, which still shows that people demonstrate their preference for copyright and property rights — and that there is no reason for them to change that even if we abolished the state.
However, it seems to me that some people don’t even try to argue that copyright is not a product of property rights — they would just prefer if the state prevented people from protecting it.
Published: April 13, 2007 12:22 PM
Francisco Torres
Epson made a conscious effort to differentiate its cartridges, so nobody else’s cartridges can fit into their printers. However, some a-holes decided that they want to replicate Epson’s unique product, in spite of their implied contract which would prevent them from doing that (they knew that by paying $30 for Epson cartridges they did not buy a permission to reproduce it).
Since *when* placing a few changes in an INK CARTRIDGE converts it into something entirely different? Again, you are grasping at straws, Sasha. Do you intend to argue that differences made on a product that already is an established concept become “property”?
Epson owns unique physical goods (cartridges) and they can prove that copycats used/replicated their goods, without ther permission — and that constitutes trespass. That’s all.
“Unique” physical cartridges… now you are indulging in intellectual dishonesty. What would be “unique” about an ink catridge, Sasha? And how woult that be trespass? The competitors are using THEIR materials, THEIR machines, THEIR factories, THEIR engineers. The only thing that is *similar* between each product would be the shape, but the concept, the *idea*, is definitely NOT unique.
Your dishonesty stems from your argument that just because Epson owns *unique* cartridges (same stuff but with some differences) they would also own SOMEBODY ELSE’s cartridges if they contain the same differentiations because they would be the same, and thus the other cartridge holders would be stealing from Epson (!!!). THAT is a fallacy of composition.
Epson does not own differentiations, just like you’re not owning “all hammers.”
They are suing based on the differentiations, so at least they believe they own them. It is the differentiations that make the cartridges *unique*, in their mind, so why do you deny they do not own them?
Published: April 13, 2007 12:58 PM
Francisco Torres
Sorry, that’s “deny they own them”
Published: April 13, 2007 1:09 PM
DC
Well, Sasha, I suppose my arguments left unchallenged will stay that way,. Copyright does not currently function as renting services derivable from a good; instead, copyright is regulation on how people use their property. At least we both agree that this is egregious.
Your argument that copyrights will “continue” to function in a free market is invalid, since the copyright you argue is only homonymous to today’s practice. Apparently this doesn’t matter to you, so long as you get to keep arguing for how your system will work — and, by all means, keep doing so.
95% of your last 2 replies to me did not engage my actual arguments against your position. But it did confirm that you are only interested in talking about X, and not about the logic that gets you to X. Regards.
Published: April 13, 2007 1:12 PM
Sasha Radeta
DC,
You’re missing the point. Copyright currently DO serve as a mean of not selling all possible uses of some goods — and it’s the only mean of economic survival for many sellers. There is no reason why would all these sellers start giving-up their full ownership over these expensive innovations, even if we remove the government from the picture.
I’m sorry if you don’t understand this simple logic. There’s nothing more I can do about it.
==============================
Francisco,
I don’t need to argue that changing cartridges “makes them entirely different.” In order to prove that someone committed a trespass (unauthorized use in replication) it is enough to see copycat’s products and determine that replication took place.
As Dr. Kinsella brilliantly pointed out, Epson intentionally differentiated its printers’ ink injecting — so it is clear that the copycat’s compatible cartridges from came from intentional acts of replication (without owner’s permission and against their implicit contract). We don’t care about the ownership of materials used in trespass — we care about the ownership over the cartridge used as a template in replication. Copycats did not buy full ownership rights with $30 or so…
Published: April 13, 2007 1:47 PM
Kevin B.
Sasha, you wrote:
Dishonesty wasn’t my intention. I have interpreted your definition of financial injury to be based on a hypothetical profit loss. You specifically said that unauthorized copies will still create a financial injury to the author. But you are basing that on the assumption that the copies would have been purchased otherwise. That isn’t necessarily true. It is hypothetical. Profits aren’t real until they’ve been realized.
That is a question I would love to answer.
For the first part: Do you have the right to watch me from across the street? Alternatively, do you have the right to receive the photons shooting from my property into yours? Whether reception is by natural or artificial means, it seems logical that the photons are discarded by me; I am dumping them onto your property. If I didn’t want you to have them, then I shouldn’t be throwing them at you.
Second: If I dump any objects onto your property that is not considered pollution of some sort, then do you come into ownership of the abandoned objects? In this case, the objects are photons. You are not stealing them. They are being thrown onto your property. If they do transfer to your ownership, then you must be free to use them as you wish.
If these things are true, then it is my responsibility to keep my curtains shut if I do not want you watching me from across the street, whether you are doing it for personal pleasure or for some other profit. Agreed?
Published: April 13, 2007 2:02 PM
DC
Sasha: Okay, good — I think your last post addresses some of my counter arguments, which is a good start. You write:
On the first point, I have to point you once again to common sense and experience, which tells us that currently people believe that they buy property (not services) when they buy a book. Indeed, book stores and publishers will also say that they sell books, not services derivable from their property. Further, there are no contracts that state that only services were sold — in fact, copyrights written in books make it apparent that they are a regulation on the property, and they never state that the book is the property of the producer.
Copyright assumes that the owner of the book is its owner, but proclaims a government mandate that no content be used in ways deemed unacceptable by law.
The only counter argument that I’ve seen to this from you are assertions. Maybe you have some other ammo, but I don’t see substance in your claims.
This is sufficient to answer your objection, since producers don’t rely on renting their goods but rather on the government edict that allows them to regulate the behavior of others. It may be true that copyright would exist in the free market (I don’t think it would work quite the way that you imagine, although that’s beside the point), but it is clear that it would have to be different than the way current copyright practice functions.
Published: April 13, 2007 2:18 PM
Kevin B.
DC said:
The entertainment industry would have evolved to look like a completely different species. It is impossible to imagine what it would look like today absent previous government copyright law manipulation.
Published: April 13, 2007 2:28 PM
DC
Maybe this will help my case as well, maybe it will backfire, maybe it will only muddy the waters:
From the federal government’s website on copyright:
“Mere ownership of a book, manuscript, painting, or any other copy or phonorecord does not give the possessor the copyright. The law provides that transfer of ownership of any material object that embodies a protected work does not of itself convey any rights in the copyright.”
In other words: You can own the book, but we’re regulating your behavior and artificially giving “rights” to the producer.
In fact, this is made more explicit in the actual law:
“Ownership of a copyright, or of any of the exclusive rights under a copyright, is distinct from ownership of any material object in which the work is embodied. Transfer of ownership of any material object, including the copy or phonorecord in which the work is first fixed, does not of itself convey any rights in the copyrighted work embodied in the object; nor, in the absence of an agreement, does transfer of ownership of a copyright or of any exclusive rights under a copyright convey property rights in any material object.”
So, someone can sell a book — the physical property to me — but certain laws keep the ‘rights’ to use its ideas for someone else. This is not the free market system of contracts at work. If I buy a book and own it — that is, own the physical property — I can do with it whatever I want. It is only coercion that is keeping me from exercising my rights.
Notice also that copyright only lasts until 70 years after the author’s death. If it was contractual, as you have been claiming, Sasha, then it could go on forever — if the author sold reproduction rights to someone else, and so on.
But current practice shows that it is by government edict only: all works are copyrighted (whether or not someone seeks the enforcement of it), and all works cease being copyrighted at an arbitrary date selected by the government. Doesn’t sound like contracts (or implied contracts) to me. . .
**
This was listed under items not eligible for copyright:
“Ideas, procedures, methods, systems, processes, concepts, principles, discoveries, or devices, as distinguished from a description, explanation, or illustration”
Which seems to lend credence to what Francisco is arguing. So, unless Epson sues an ink cartridge company for writing a similar narrative about particular ink cartridge design, they cannot sue over a copied ink cartridge. I’m guessing that’s why these things (ideas) fall under patents, and not copyright.
At any rate, I think these cases show that copyright is not practiced as Sasha argues it must be practiced in a free market. The law makes it clear that even if I receive the property title to material (say, a book), that I am subject to regulation on how I may use it.
Published: April 13, 2007 2:35 PM
Kevin B.
Sasha,
I should have said “hypothetical revenues” and not “hypothetical profit.”
Published: April 13, 2007 2:45 PM
Sasha Radeta
Kevin B,
“Hypothetical revenues”… “hypothetical profits”…
Really, there is no need for so many postings about nothing. If I go to Hertz and decide to “borrow” one of their cars, I will owe some real damages to them, based on tort of financial injury (I didn’t pay for a rental, plus I’ll owe punitive damages)…
The same goes for the copyright. If you assume expensive commercial rights without the owner’s permission– you will have to pay for them. There is nothing hypothetical about that.
===================================================
DC,
Once again you are misinterpreting my statements.
The government does not believe in private property rights and I never said that it is basing its copyright laws on contracts.
What I’m telling you is the copyright exists as a de facto contract — which would continue to exist even if government is abolished.
Once again for our slower readers: innovators are not currently selling the full ownership rights of their works, because that’s the only way many of them can survive… And there is no reason why the would not continue to do the same — and libertarians don’t care about government’s definitions of contractual (market exchange) situations.
By the way, if you bothered to read Rothbard, you would know that he criticized the state for not allowing the perpetual copyright. HOWEVER, I disagree with that! If you hold and use an item for 70 years, you definitely established an “adverse possession”, which is one of the basic ways of property acquisition. The fact that you brought that up, only shows that you need more background in this topic. I wish you luck in your further research!
Published: April 13, 2007 8:22 PM
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Published: April 14, 2007 9:24 AM
DC
Sasha, once again I must remind you that my point has to do with the logical validity of your claims. Therefore, this:
Is completely irrelevant.
This:
Supports my argument against your claims, insofar as you have been arguing that copyright currently functions on contract while I’ve been pointing out that government currently administers contract law. (Therefore, to assume that we have a free market at work is faulty).
This may be so, but you are implicitly acknowledging my claim that your logic is invalid.
( http://mail.rochester.edu/~nobs/teaching/logic&arguments/arguments&logic.html )
Your counter argument to the points that I have laid out is a simple assertion. Perhaps you believe yourself to have that kind of authority on the issue; I would rather see some evidence or set of premises and a conclusion.
Once again, irrelevant with respect to validity and soundness. You’re on a roll . . .
Finally, this:
Is only an attempt to evade, dismiss, and end things. I apologize that I’m not satisfied when you don’t engage in debate and that, when I spot a bad argument, and challenge it. Regards.
Published: April 15, 2007 6:32 PM
Kevin B.
Sasha,
You are assuming that the third party is trespassing when he obtains the information, but my argument is that the information may be dumped/trashed onto the third party. If Hertz started throwing their cars onto my property, would they have a valid objection to me driving them around?
I don’t think you read my reply.
Published: April 16, 2007 6:40 PM
Sasha Radeta
DC,
Like said before, people currently don’t sell the full ownership of their original works of authorship (regardless of how government views these market contracts). There is no reason in the world why they would all go crazy and start doing that in a perfectly free market (I explained why would that be an entrepreneurial suicide).
I’m not interested in your absurd philosophizing. When I said that you need further background in this topic, I simply referred to your ignorance of basic contract law and property theory — I did not mean to offend you by that. You just need to find a different way of proving that people will go crazy in a perfectly free market, and start giving-up their book manuscripts for free (the prices of final goods reflect the prices of inputs).
=============================================
Kevin B,
Don’t be silly. I read your reply.
When someone dumps someone else’s property on you, you will not be responsible for unintentional trespass. However, if you intentionally use that trespass for the financial gain (without compensating the owner who legally controls all services that can be derived from that good) — then you are committing a tort of financial injury. If someone dumps a stolen Ferrari in my backyard, that doesn’t mean that I can legally start making money by renting this car.
You did not disapprove that in any way, so I don’t see what’s the point of your reply.
Published: April 16, 2007 7:12 PM
Sasha Radeta
Let me clarify:
If you unintentionally trespass (use a good without its owner’s authorization) – you will not owe any damages, but that doesn’t mean that trespass (unauthorized use) did not occur, and that you can turn such trespass into your profit, without paying anything to the owner.
And yes, I am assuming that unintentional trespass occurs when you unintentionally derive services from a good, without its owner’s permission. It can apply to any kind of use (trespass is any kind of unauthorized use).
Published: April 16, 2007 7:31 PM
Kevin B.
Sasha,
Silly? I doubted you read my reply because you did not answer my question. The basic question is still unanswered. In the last case, it was Hertz, the owner, who dumped the property on me. What then? Will you still define my use as trespass?
Published: April 16, 2007 9:13 PM
Sasha Radeta
I answered your question quite clearly.
In case that the owner himself mislaid his property on your land — you can ask the compensation for storage costs — but you cannot lawfully start renting that car, incorrectly assuming your full ownership over it.
However, in your book example, there are no storage costs. You can unintentionally use someone’s book without the owner’s permission (unintentional trespass by definition), however, you cannot legally transform that trespass into your financial gain without compensating the owner firs (otherwise, you’re aggravating your accidental trespass into the tort of financial injury).
I hope this helps.
Published: April 16, 2007 11:35 PM
DC
Sasha, you write:
Here again is your assumption, which I have argued against with reasoning and evidence. Your response is always another bald assertion, and I don’t see why I’m compelled to think that this is true.
In order to get to this logical step, it’s necessary to agree with the statement you made before it. Since that original statement is the one that I’m questioning, this quoted section doesn’t help. You are presupposing your conclusion.
If by “absurd philosophizing” you mean making a valid, sound, and coherent argument: I can tell.
It would be nice to see you provide the groundwork necessary to persuade others of your assertions, though. What good is a claim if there is no reason to believe it? (Further, in your case, there are also several unaddressed counter arguments that need attention).
In order for this criticism to make sense, we have to assume that copyright currently functions through voluntary contract. See the problem?
Don’t worry about offending me, Sasha; personal attacks are only as effective as their agent, and I really don’t care about your opinions of my knowledge or intellect. I was merely pointing out that you didn’t seem interested in making a coherent argument. You are continuing to prove me right.
Published: April 17, 2007 7:46 AM
Sasha Radeta
DC,
then start practicing what you preach and stop wasting space commenting on some “personal attack”. I did not attack you…. I simply pointed out deficits in your theoretical background, which caused some absurd statements on your part. I hope you now understand why your perpetual contract theory does not deny anything I said.
When I said that sellers today demonstrate their willingness to sell only partial use of their original works of authorship — it’s a matter of simple tautology. People DO sell only restricted use of copyrighted goods. Nobody is forcing these sellers to accept the government’s copyright protection (they can simply decline it and make their works a “public domain”). At the same time, nobody is forcing people to buy these goods.
I also explained why these choices are based on simple economics (prices of inputs are determined by final prices)– and copyright is the only way many authors can make money. As long as there is any authorship, there will be a copyright, even in anarcho-capitalism. You simply could not offer any reasonable alternative (should the book authors start selling the tech support, instead of making money on book-sales?).
Regards.
Published: April 17, 2007 2:13 PM
DC
Sasha, book sellers sell books. The government, who administers copyright, recognizes that people receive the property title in purchasing books, and slaps on copyright restrictions as a special privilege to booksellers. Publishers can’t produce a contract that has my signature on it. Nor is it universally recognized that I’ve implicitly signed such a contract — ask any person if they own their books.
You have a lot of work to do beyond claiming that it’s simple tautology (as if the definition of book seller is one who rents services!)
(Also, keep in mind that copyright is a recent invention in human history. It is ludicrous to think that it must exist or else we would have no authors.)
Published: April 17, 2007 6:20 PM
Sasha Radeta
DC,
You’re denying reality again. Book sellers sell limited uses of books. I they wanted to sell full ownership rights, they would allow you to reproduce their work at will (they can do that today — but they choose not to). I explained the economic reasons behind it all and anarcho-capitalism would not change a thing in that respect.
Published: April 17, 2007 7:18 PM
DC
Well, then. Sounds like we’re at an impasse. Regads.
Published: April 17, 2007 8:07 PM
Kevin B.
Sasha,
Do you honestly believe that once you have created an item, that without the owner’s permission, nobody else can create another one like it under any circumstances?
For instance, Toyota is designing new cars and shoving them in my face. That is what is happening. I am bombarded with their images all the time, on TV, on the road, hell…I see them from my house window. There they are – shoving themselves into my eyes. So I don’t have the owner’s permission? Well, Toyota should have thought of that before he threw them at me. He should have had me sign an agreement preventing my action before he shoved them in my face.
So the partial owners don’t have permission to replicate. They agreed not to take that action. Well, that means that those cars being driven around are owned by two parties, people with rights to drive them, and people with the rights to replicate them. That doesn’t stop them by being shoved in my face. It just means that, unless the purchaser agreed not to drive them in front of me, that the images are being forced onto me by whoever the owner of replication rights there is.
Now, if I pick up some of my clay, fashion it into a bowl, and then say, “Look Sasha! (shoving the bowl into your face) Look what I’ve made. But you can’t make anything like it now that you’ve seen it, until you have my permission.
So I pick up my clay and fashion it into a bowl…just…like…yours. You’re really pissed, so we go to a judge in our contract-based ancap society. He learns the details, that I did not take your bowl and that you showed it to me voluntarily. What is his decision?
Here’s my guess: He would rule that you are a victim…of being a dumbass. He would tell you that my replication does not deny you any rights to your property. You continue to possess it, and you may still replicate it. I may now use what is my property, my bowl, and do with it as I please, including trade.
Obviously our society could have some prior agreements, in which case I could be punished, had I agreed to the rules. Otherwise the most you could do is to refuse trade with me and to give me an angry look when you see me.
I know you aren’t a dumbass. I don’t think you want to be wrong in this case. It sounds scary, people having the ability to copy everything they see, but I think that in the far future there will be technology to do just that. At the push of a button – replicate. If so, then I would wager that that scary world is indeed inevitable.
Your thoughts?
Published: April 17, 2007 11:10 PM
Kevin B.
Sorry, I meant to say that you had fashioned the bowl and shoved it into my face.
Or it could read that I was trying to stop you from replicating the item and the judge calls me a dumbass.
I’ll be the dumbass if it helps.
Published: April 17, 2007 11:14 PM
Kevin B.
My kingdom for an edit feature.
Published: April 17, 2007 11:15 PM
Scott D
My edit feature for a kingdom.
(sorry, couldn’t resist)
Published: April 17, 2007 11:52 PM
Sasha Radeta
Kevin,
your premise is completely wrong. I never said that “once you have created an item, that without the owner’s permission, nobody else can create another one like it under any circumstances.”
Read Rothbard’s defense of anarcho-capitalist copyright. A free market advocate would never sanction independent discoveries. It is impossible to prove whether someone replicated (without owner’s permission) something that is not distinctive and original. Otherwise, you can’t prove that your particular object was replicated and not someone else’s.
When it comes to repeated questions about services that are “shoved in your face,” I will repeat this one more time (and more times if it’s necessary): You have a right to try to seek compensation if someone mislays his property on your land — or you can try to avoid unwanted services… HOWEVER, you simply cannot lawfully make money by using your unintentional unauthorized use (trespass). The very definition of ownership states that the owner controls all services that can be derived from his good. He can decide to give you some of these services for free — but that doesn’t give you the right to take some other service for free, without owner’s permission.
I don’t care about someone’s “anger” and I don’t find replication “scary” at all. I am simply defending the very meaning of ownership.
Published: April 18, 2007 1:10 AM
rtr
Poor Sasha still evading everyone’s proof and arguments.
Sasha Radeta: “The very definition of ownership states that the owner controls all services that can be derived from his good.”
This is clearly false. If someone can see Wrigley Field from their property they can derive service of seeing baseball games with no violation of property or ownership.
But that example goes to the heart of the tyranical violence Sasha Radeta advocates for copyright protectionism. You cannot use force to prevent people from looking, hearing, or thinking, or copying. You can only uniquely own physical maerial property. You can’t own other people seeing and copying your physical property.
Go ahead, ignore some more proof Sasha Radeta. Perhaps someone should go back and coppy and tally for him. There’s about 20-30 examples of counter argument just like this which Sash Radeta has completely ignored and pretended to evade by just repeating what he wrote from the beginning, even though many have gone out of their way to address specific examples he gave.
Still pretending if you close your eyes nobody can see you huh Sasha?
Published: April 18, 2007 9:42 AM
Sasha Radeta
Poor RTR,
I never ignored any of your blabbing. You can even say I was too cruel for humiliating you so much, almost every time you make a silly statement.
Even in your Wrigley Field example you were too challenged to apply my theory properly:
According to Mises’s/Rothbard’s property theory, a person who enjoys services from Wrigley Field has not done anything wrong. It’s an unintentional trespass, without any serious financial injury. HOWEVER, if that person organizes camera crews to broadcast the games, making loads of money — he is aggravating his unintentional trespass to tort of financial injury…
==============================
Notice that even Kevin B. could not disapprove my right to contractually prevent others from reproducing my own book. He also could not disapprove the fact that any third party that reproduces my book without my permission is committing a trespass (unauthorized use), which results in tort (financial injury, because I’m not compensated for that use).
Kevin only focused on extreme cases, in which someone forces him to hear a poem, he memorizes it, and now he thinks he has republishing rights. Once again, the owner absolutely controls all services that can be derived from his good and if you want to republish something from his book, you will have to have his permission.
You may ask: why such strict definition of ownership? Well, if we did not legally control all services that can be derived from our goods, how else could we have a legal case if someone does not pay us for our labor services, leasing, or rent…. Thief who uses our goods can claim that he returned those goods in perfect condition and that he doesn’t owe anything.
But more importantly, if we don’t have exclusive control over services that can be derived from our bodies (property), we could never acquire any property (because property is acquired when we mix our labor/services with unclaimed objects). Without such definition of ownership, any property right is relativized and this leads to lawlessness.
Published: April 18, 2007 1:15 PM
rtr
Sasha Radeta: “According to Mises’s/Rothbard’s property theory, a person who enjoys services from Wrigley Field has not done anything wrong. It’s an unintentional trespass, without any serious financial injury.”
That’s hilarious. Ain’t no tresspass neither. And an “unintentional tresspass by whom? By Wrigley Field for putting a ballgame in view from their property? Or by the Apartment Building owner who views the ballgame from their roof?
Hollywood Tours can sell tickets to drive trolleys to tourists for observations of celebrity houses with no tresspass whatsoever. You think the owners of those celebrity mansions can own and control who looks at their mansions from property they do not own? Wrong. But it’s at least a start, that logically followed leads to the utter collapse of your patent/copyright protectionism system, which is why you are going to extreme nonsensical claims in desperate defense.
But at the least you agree your statement is *false*. Sasha Redata: “The very definition of ownership states that the owner controls all services that can be derived from his good.”
This statement is proved false, is it not? The owner of Wrigley field does not control what people who view a baseball game occuring there observe from their own property rooftop. The aparrtment building owner can even sell tickets to the bleachers on his rooftop.
So be intellectually honest for a change and admit that your statement is false. Ownership does *not* give the owner control over all services which can be derived from his good. It’s quite clear everyone is free to look at whatever they can look at from their own property, and that is deriving a service from another’s property, with no tresspass, with no material physical violation of another’s property. And we’ve just seen a concrete clear example of that. Viewing a baseball game at Wrigley Field from an aprtment rooftop. And there are an infinite number of similar examples which can show exactly the same thing.
Sasha Radeta: “It’s an unintentional trespass, without any serious financial injury.”
You’re a fool. There’s no tresspass whatsoever. You think you are some gangsta’ hood who has the “right” to roll down a car window, flash a gun, and demand that nobody “look at you”?
No physical material property crossing occurs or is in any way mixed from one owner to another owner of physical material property. You cannot force someone to close their eyes. You cannot forcibly cut off someone’s ears. That’s agressive violence. What one can naturally see with one’s own eyes one can replicate in any manner they please with their own physical property. One can record what one sees with ones eyes as well with no physical material tresspass on physical material property.
But we’ve been over all of this before. You’re just too much of a dolt to realize your arguments were stripped and completely destroyed.
Published: April 18, 2007 2:28 PM
Kevin B.
Sasha,
Perhaps you can help me. When you state that ownership is control of all services derived from a good, it appears to me that it may conflict with the basic principle of self-ownership.
I believe you would agree that the self-ownership principle allows unobstructed action according to our will, within the equal rights of others (rightful liberty). I propose a situation involving the interaction between our own bodies, the starting point of all other personal property. Suppose you and I see each other. You hold up your hand and begin counting using your fingers. I learn this method from watching you. I begin to count using my fingers. I guess you would say that I am deriving a service from your body. Now, if the action of my body does not limit your action, then am I violating your rights or not? If I am not violating your rights, then am I not within the right use my own body in such a manner?
If the owner controls all services derived from his good (in this case you are the owner of your body), then you have control over my actions, my body. This seems to fly in the face of the principle of unobstructed action. So can your actions limit my actions without my consent?
Published: April 18, 2007 3:26 PM
Sasha Radeta
RTR,
As I said: if you deny that people can control services that can be derived from their property (including their bodies) — you are in fact denying legal control over sale of our labor, rents, or leasing. You also deny any property right, since all property is derived from our exclusive control over the labor/services of our body and its “mixing” with unclaimed object.
You are just one more example of how communism, primitivism, and mental disability directly correlates.
Also, your Hollywood tours example is equally absurd: we currently don’t have absolute private property rights and no mechanism of preventing many nuisances. If you had capability or willingness to think, I might ask you to go back to my spy-camera example… Imagine that we have new generation of spying equipment: do you argue that people should “legally” make money by recording your private life and broadcasting it publicly?
Anyway, you also deal with fringe and extreme cases, because copyright contracts are perfectly enforceable and unauthorized replication (use) is trespass by definition.
Regards.
Published: April 18, 2007 3:33 PM
Sasha Radeta
Kevin B,
You are forgetting that we talk about TORT and/or contract violations when it comes to copyright.
Your immitation of my finger movements is not creating any financial injuries. Therefore, your example is not relevant.
Also, you are incorrect when you state the following:
“If the owner controls all services derived from his good (in this case you are the owner of your body), then you have control over my actions, my body.”
First of all, I’m not controlling any of your actions. YOU CAN DO WHATEVER YOU WANT, but you must pay for tort that occurs from use (services) of my property. You forgetting that property rights are all about that.
Published: April 18, 2007 3:39 PM
rtr
Sasha Radeta: “As I said: if you deny that people can control services that can be derived from their property (including their bodies)”
Not “deny”. *Proved*. Learn to read.
Sasha Radeta: “it appears to me that it may conflict with the basic principle of self-ownership.”
Wrong. Are you so stupid to deny that people own their own eyes, own their own ears, own their own minds? That means from the pearch of their own bodies and own property they can look, listen, and think about whatever they can look, listen or think about from the perch of their own property into the beyond from the perch of their own property. Looking, listening, thinking, are not actions which violate physical material property of another. Got that moron?
Let’s just take it at a baby steps level, since you like to evade and then jump randomly back to repeating yourself.
I’ll get back to the rest of the worthless false garbage you write after you acknowledge that people can look at, listen to, or think about anything they want to, even if they don’t own that which they look at, listen to, or think about. That is *the* basic principle of self-ownership, using your own eyes, ears, and mind, is it not dummy?
You can pretend nobody can see you if you close your eyes. You can pretend nobody can hear you if you cover your ears and scream “la la la la la I can’t hear you!” But we can hear you screaming such. And you have no control over any service of your screaming “la la la la la I can’t hear you!” anyone derives from their *own* ears.
Do you see how your copyright claim interferes with the basic principle of ownership of one’s eyes, ears, and mind now? Take your time. We’ll go baby steps from now on.
Published: April 18, 2007 4:04 PM
Kevin B.
Sasha,
Are you suggesting that, after you’ve freely displayed your finger movements to me, you may require me to work for you if I wish to use my body in the same manner?
Financial injury is irrelevant. I am not stealing your body, nor am I preventing your use of it. The use of my body is mine or it is not. If it is mine, then I may offer it’s services to whomever I choose, for whatever gain, which is mine.
If I freely act in a way that alters someone else’s body for their benefit (i.e. learning to count), then I cannot claim any right to their future use of their own bodies, whether a result of my service or not, otherwise I am claiming partial ownership to their bodies.
Your method would seem to validate taxation, since the services are pushed onto the taxpayer without the taxpayer’s acceptance of the deal, but the taxpayer still benefits. The taxpayer gains financially from some of these services, so the government could technically sue the unwilling taxpayer for tort.
Published: April 18, 2007 4:09 PM
Sasha Radeta
RTR,
When mentally challenged individual (such as yourself) calls someone a “moron” it really sounds ridiculous.
You poor handicapped soul…, “ownership” does not interfere with people’s senses. The fact that you can’t walk on someone’s property at will, does not mean that someone declared the control over your legs. You simply must pay for financial injuries (tort) if it is caused by your unauthorized use (trespass)… That’s it. Simple concepts and without them there are no property rights.
Once again, if we don’t have exclusive control over services that can be derived from our property (including our bodies) — we don’t have a right to acquire property by mixing that labor with unclaimed objects… People agree with me (and Mises) every time they charge for their body’s labor services, rent, leasing, etc.
==========
=====================
Kevin B,
“Financial injury is irrelevant.”
WHAT!?!?!? Maybe it’s irrelevant to you, but not to me. If your trespass causes financial injury — only then we have a judicial controversy. Without an actual injury arising from unauthorized use (intentional or accidental) there is no copyright case.
“I am not stealing your body, nor am I preventing your use of it.”
When a thief hires you to do the job and refuses to pay it, he doesn’t steel your body. Do you now actually advocate the right of employers to pay their workers at will?
The use of my body is mine or it is not.
The use of your body is yours — even when you use it to steal someone’s car. You just have to pay for financial injuries that your trespass causes. It’s as simple as that and it applies to all sorts of trespasses (putting in service someone else’s property, without his permission).
You guys are trying to bore me to death.
Published: April 18, 2007 4:44 PM
rtr
Classic Sasha Radeta evasion even when it comes to baby steps.
Sasha Radeta: “You poor handicapped soul…, “ownership” does not interfere with people’s senses.”
Try again. Walking is not:
1.) Looking
2.) Listening
or
3.) Thinking
It’s a simple yes or no question. Can someone look at, listen to, or think about property which they don’t own from the perch of their own bodies and property?
Take your time you intellectually dishonest moron, and answer the question.
When your walking down the public street must you wear a blindfold so as not to derive services from the image of another person’s body also walking down the public street?
Baby Steps, take II. You can do it Sasha!
Published: April 18, 2007 4:58 PM
Kevin B.
rtr may be lacking in tact, but he has a good point.
While walking on your property may violate your property rights, looking, listening, and thinking do not. Just as walking on your body may violate your rights, but looking, listening, and thinking do not. Absent the use of force, of course.
The financial injury case is irrelevant because there is no financial injury. The justification of financial injury requires that rights have been violated. They have not.
That would be fraud. I did not commit fraud or theft when I imitated the finger action. We had no contract. No fraud. No theft. Your limit on my action is aggressive.
That is theft. I did not steal your body. There are no financial injuries. I did not place your body into service; you did voluntarily.
Published: April 18, 2007 6:06 PM
Sasha Radeta
Kevin B,
RTR is lacking in brain and unfortunately you fail to see it.
I mean, look at your absurd line of thinking:
– Just because I said that reading someone’s book without the owner’s permission is a trespass (by its very definition — UNAUTHORIZED USE), that does not mean that I declare my control over someone else’s eyesight!
By the same token, when I say that walking on my property without my permission is a trespass, that does not mean that I declare my control over someone else’s legs!
Do you now understand the absurdity of your critique: asking someone to pay for his unauthorized use of my property DOES NOT mean that I own his eyesight or hearing — any more than I owe the trespasser’s legs when I try to get him out of my property.
======
Seriously, you guys have a serious problem: a trespass is by definition unauthorized USE (of any kind). It is not just “unauthorized walking” as severely mentally challenged RTR may assume), otherwise, property rights could not possibly hold.
Published: April 18, 2007 10:26 PM
Sasha Radeta
But look at this new level of absurdity:
In other words, Kevin B is trying to tell us that employers should not pay their workers, if they decide to do so. After all:
– They did not steal their bodies
– Workers voluntarily showed at work
– Financial injuries are fundamentally the same as in my example in which you use someone’s expensive reproduction rights and then refuse to pay.
OH, but Kevin B said: “That would be fraud.
So it is a fraud when employer uses someone’s body’s service and refuses to pay — BUT when you use restricted services of someone’s book you can decide not to pay????? Is it not a fraud when you pay $20 for personal use of someone’s book, and then you unilaterally decide that you are now the full owner (which normally costs a lot of money)…
If you want to make a valid comparisons, remove the fraud element: If someone delivers a good to your address by mistake (and you don’t want it), this does not entitle you to become the legal owner of that good. The same goes for labor services: if someone starts painting your fence by mistake, by allowing him to complete that service, you simply form an implied contract. The same goes for your poem example, in which you decide to derive a service from someone else’s book, without obtaining any publishing rights.
PS
Remember, when it comes to simple objects that could be reproduced after a brief observation, the plaintiffs would have a hard time proving that such simple invention was not the product of someone else’s independent discovery. Use common sense…
Published: April 18, 2007 10:58 PM
Kevin B.
Sasha,
If someone starts paints my fence all the way to completion on accident, then he’s an idiot.
I’m already forced to pay people not to work. I’m not going to start paying them to be stupid as well.
Walking on your property consumes your property for a period of time. It may also damage it, but that isn’t necessary for trespass. The theft of control or posession is what matters. Your property’s action is forcefully interrupted when I walk on it without your permission.
There is nothing hindering your use when I look at it, listen to it, or think about it. I am not obstructing your action in that case.
By your thinking, the paparazzi would be in trouble. You have that going for you. 😉
Violation of contract. However, if they burst into my factory and start cranking out widgets, then I’ll thank my new oompa loompas at the end of the day with some chocolate candy bars.
If I agreed to the restrictions, then that would be another example of violation of contract, otherwise I retain my right to unobstructed action within your equal rights. And just because something is cheap, doesn’t mean it isn’t what it is. Ever hear of someone getting a great deal on antiques at a garage sale?
You moved me with the paparazzi, but the oompa loompas won me back. You can have them too. Just concede.
Published: April 19, 2007 12:58 AM
rtr
Baby Steps for Sash Radeta, Take III.
Sasha Radeta: “Remember, when it comes to simple objects that could be reproduced after a brief observation, the plaintiffs would have a hard time proving that such simple invention was not the product of someone else’s independent discovery.”
You’ve failed yet again. Here it is, copied and pasted for your stupid idiotic intellectually dishonest evasive moronic self:
rtr: “Try again. Walking is not:
1.) Looking
2.) Listening
or
3.) Thinking
It’s a simple yes or no question. Can someone look at, listen to, or think about property which they don’t own from the perch of their own bodies and property?
Take your time you intellectually dishonest moron, and answer the question.
When your walking down the public street must you wear a blindfold so as not to derive services from the image of another person’s body also walking down the public street?
Baby Steps, take II. You can do it Sasha!”
Your reputation is on the brink, if not already past ruination on this board, Sasha Radeta. Gonna answer the question or not?
Published: April 19, 2007 8:17 AM
Sasha Radeta
RTR,
If you weren’t so severely disabled, I would ask you to define trespass. I only tried to explain: people can do whatever they want with their bodies — but if they commit an unauthorized USE of someone else’s property (trespass) that results in financial injury (tort) they will have to pay for it.
Even if you redefine trespass as: “unauthorized use of someone else’s property, which involves the trespassers peripheral nervous system” — you would still not be able to eliminate the uses from sensory-somatic nervous system (eyes, ears…). If you say that trespass occurs when the trespasser uses his skin, that’s equally absurd (if he has gloves on, that theory breaks)…
Anyway, your stupid questions do not even deal with majority of copyright cases, which do not involve mere looking (for example, you have to handle a book before you can replicate it)…
=====================================
Kevin B,
People who accidentally start painting a wrong fence are not necessarily more idiotic than their accidental customers. Anyway, you don’t seem to be familiar either the common law outcome of such scenario: you would have to pay for their services, which you could have declined.
You seem to be missing the point again — why are labor contracts enforceable? If I promise now that I’ll give you $1 million tomorrow — I can perfectly legally change my mind, because I didn’t take any good or SERVICE from you. What’s different about labor contracts?
The answer: the failure to fulfill labor contract implies theft — simply because people’s ownership over any good (including own bodies) is defined as the legal control over all services that can be derived from it. Without such definition, there would be no property rights, since all property is derived from our sovereign control over our body’s labor.
“Use”/”service” stretch beyond peripheral nervous system.
Regards
PS
Of course that I am against paparazzi – I said that many times before. I am also against someone’s “right” to set up the spying equipment and to sell your intimate moments online. And no — you don’t become the owner of BMWs commercial rights by renting one for a day… And you don’t get these expensive rights on the garage sale either 🙂
Published: April 19, 2007 1:20 PM
rtr
Baby Steps for Sasha Radeta, Take IV. I think it’s clear to all who may want to discuss things with you or take you seriously have all the proof they need now to see that you are completely intellectually dishonest and evasive and could care less about truth. You can’t even answer simple yes or no questions.
You again fail with:
Sasha Radeta: “If you weren’t so severely disabled, I would ask you to define trespass. I only tried to explain: people can do whatever they want with their bodies — but if they commit an unauthorized USE of someone else’s property (trespass) that results in financial injury (tort) they will have to pay for it.”
Here it is reposted yet again for your mentally handicapped perusal:
rtr: “Try again. Walking is not:
1.) Looking
2.) Listening
or
3.) Thinking
It’s a simple yes or no question. Can someone look at, listen to, or think about property which they don’t own from the perch of their own bodies and property?
Take your time you intellectually dishonest moron, and answer the question.
When your walking down the public street must you wear a blindfold so as not to derive services from the image of another person’s body also walking down the public street?”
Published: April 19, 2007 1:40 PM
Kevin B.
Sasha, you said:
I know this was directed at rtr, but I had to note that we strayed from Epson to discuss the rights of third parties not subject to any formal agreement under an ancap (the target) system.
Do I have the right to remain silent or not?
Your definition of ownership forces others to action. How does that reinforce self-ownership?
On the side, the paparazzi also bother me as do intimate spies. However, I do not have the right to show them my willy without contract and then tell them it was a service that they have to pay me for. If they are using equipment that employs invasive photography, then there is possibility of tort. Passive photography, on the other hand, is just me showing off my willy. Oops!
Published: April 19, 2007 2:15 PM
Sasha Radeta
Poor RTR,
Your serious handicap is preventing you from realizing that trespass is not “unauthorized walking,” “unauthorized USE” (which involves more than just motor functions of human body). Your frustration comes from the fact that you are unable to create an alternative definition of “trespass” and “use.”
==================================
Kevin B,
You fail to see that majority of “third party” issues that involve copyright do not consist of mere looking. For example, you can’t really reproduce someone’s book by just glancing over someone’s shoulder… Nevertheless, if trespass is “unauthorized use” by its definition — try to define use for me… Or you can consult the dictionary…. There is no way to make a discrimination against certain parts of human nervous system, when it comes to use (enjoying the service) of some good.
“Do I have the right to remain silent or not?”
Of course you have a right to remain silent… There seems to be a confusion here. No one is preventing you from doing whatever you want with your body, but you will have to pay for services that you decide to keep and enjoy, even when it comes to implied contracts. I hope you understand why ownership must be defined as “control of all services that can be derived from a good” — otherwise, labor contracts would be just unenforceable promises and we would not have any property rights.
Also I notice some confusion here:
“On the side, the paparazzi also bother me as do intimate spies. However, I do not have the right to show them my willy without contract and then tell them it was a service that they have to pay me for. If they are using equipment that employs invasive photography, then there is possibility of tort.
Hold on one second! I talked about hi-tech spying equipment that someone can install outside of your property. What’s “invasive” about their use of their own eyes and equipment that never crosses your property line??? Such equipment is getting more and more sophisticated (from heat signatures and X-ray vision, we are advancing toward scary means of spying, even through closed curtains). By the way, is injuring someone with radioactivity (without physical contact) O.K. in your “book?”
What about computer spyware — someone can establish the use of your computer, including a webcam, without ever stepping onto your property…. Computer virus and spyware are nothing but a pieces of information that never physically enter your hardware (just like some information that your brain registers), but someone else can put your property into his service… This leads me to the issue of hypnosis — what if someone find a way to control your body without touching you?
Again, unless we accept Mises’s (common sense) definition of ownership (from which copyright directly stems), private property rights become meaningless.
Published: April 19, 2007 10:56 PM
Sasha Radeta
Stephan Kinsella:
“As mentioned previously in Spyware and Trespass, spam can, in principle, properly be considered a type of trespass–since it is a means by which the spammer uninvitedly uses another’s property.”
See also: http://blog.mises.org/archives/004201.asp
Now, I wouldn’t go so far to characterize the unwanted information as trespass (imagine if we applied it to all kinds of offensive speech), as long as it doesn’t give a trespassing party some kind of use of someone’s property, but the fundamental principle there is correct. Trespass was never limited to walking, as some retards like RTR may think.
Published: April 19, 2007 11:23 PM
Stephan Kinsella
Sasha, spam is arguably a form of trespass because it’s a means of using someone’s property–e.g., their (scarce, tangible) computer, hard drive, etc. I am not sure how this is supposed to buttress your (very confused) case.
Published: April 19, 2007 11:45 PM
Sasha Radeta
Dr. Kinsella,
If information, which cannot physically enter someone’s property, can be declared as form of trespass — then my case is so much stronger. I also subscribe to your (correct) opinion that physical contact is not necessary to “uninvitedly use another’s property.” However, I think I have much easier task proving that someone watching a DVD content is using that (scarce, tangible) good — compared to your (very confused) case against sending information which may annoy the receiver.
I guess when I drove RTR out of his mind with some information he did not want to see — that was the same kind of trespass. Oh, he’ll be happy when he finds out 🙂
Regards.
Published: April 20, 2007 12:01 AM
Sasha Radeta
Also, imagine the spyware that comes along with RAM (memory) booster. Someone could spy on you and to use your (scarce, tangible) computer from the comfort of his home — without having to even interfere with your own use of that computer. Without Mises’s definition of ownership and my (common sense) definition of use — there would be nothing illegal with this form of spyware… The same goes for hi-tech voyeurs that could broadcast your intimate moments, without ever physically stepping onto your property. I think you guys just proved what kind of horrible place this world would be, if some authority decided to redefine ownership rights in a way that would allow copyright violations.
Published: April 20, 2007 12:16 AM
Kevin B.
Sasha, you said:
You brought up the issue of radioactivity, but you did not notice the subtle difference between invasive and passive observation. Notice that with certain methods of observation, your property is trespassed, but with other methods it is not. The naked eye may or may not be part of an invasive observation. Consider whether I am emitting radiation onto you, or if you are emitting it onto me…
Published: April 20, 2007 12:38 AM
Kevin B.
Sorry about that.
Published: April 20, 2007 12:41 AM
rtr
Baby Steps for Sasha Radeta, Take V. Sasha is still evading a simple question days and numerous posts later, as he also does with everyone else’s argumentative points. It’s obvious he is petrified with fear to even look at his own argument in the mirror. It is indeed ugly. It is indeed full of holes. It is indeed moronic.
To recap, Sash Radeta claims: “The very definition of ownership states that the owner controls all services that can be derived from his good.”
He then repeatedly evades, and has yet to answer, my simple question:
1.) Can someone look at, listen to, or think about property which they don’t own from the perch of their own bodies and property?
2.) When you’re walking down the public street must you wear a blindfold so as not to derive services from the image of another person’s body also walking down the public street?
The contradiction in Sasha’s claim is obvious to all. That he refuses to address anyone’s points only shows that he is completely full of crap. But many of us already knew that anyway.
Well is the moron going to answer or not? It’s rather amusing how denial grips some and leads them into further and further humilation.
It’s quite obvious an artist can paint an image of anyone else’s person or property with the artist’s own property tools without any permission and without any tresspass. Just as people walking down the street can see and hear each other without any permission nor any tresspass. Thus, it’s *proved* that the owner of property does *not* control all services that can be derived from his good. He only controls the physical material good itself.
It would be absurd to use violence to prevent people from seeing or hearing each other without permission. It would literally lead to a world of blind, deaf, and dumb people. And frankly, one Sasha Radeta is more than enough.
Published: April 20, 2007 8:38 AM
rtr
rtr: “It would be absurd to use violence to prevent people from seeing or hearing each other without permission. It would literally lead to a world of blind, deaf, and dumb people.”
And thus now I have the main piece of my rigorous irrefutable Nobel Prize #9 praxelogical proof that patent and copyright protectionism cause technological and material wealth stagnation.
Who knew 2007 would be the year of the greatest advances in economic science ever so far? Just as some seemed ready to advocate hiding Austrian methodology to further academic careers.
Published: April 20, 2007 9:22 AM
rtr
Like a Statue of Liberty with its middle finger extended, I rest my case.
Published: April 21, 2007 9:07 PM
rtr
rtr: “When you’re walking down the public street must you wear a blindfold so as not to derive services from the image of another person’s body also walking down the public street”
Assuming, [of course], that “blindfolds” haven’t been copyrighted/patented.
One question. One annihilation. rtr > Mises.
Published: April 21, 2007 9:13 PM
rtr
rtr: “Assuming, [of course],”
Ceteris Paribus.
Published: April 21, 2007 9:16 PM
rtr
Well “I’m” in *awe*! I guess it takes time for others to realize. But not “that” long, *this* time. Nobody even wants to be first with the “Rothbardian” acknowledgement?
Stunned by recognition of the praxelogical professor. Time to appreciate automatic note taking function.
Published: April 21, 2007 9:39 PM
rtr
But even this subjective value is fleeting. That’s the middle finger “flux” for ya. Lately, Mises et al have been “dead”. Undercut on terms, with my very own ideas. C’est la vie.
Now that’s what I call a “donation”. You can almost hear the upward movement of my zipper.
Published: April 21, 2007 9:53 PM
rtr
And that’s how you get motivated upbraiding energy to keep one on one’s “metaphorical” toes. Give me some “smearing” tactics of early 19th century presidential elections. Got skewled by with a but of a glance of the praxelogical prof? But that’s the likes of the articles about the vulgarity of subjective value, the subjective value of vulgarity.
Published: April 21, 2007 10:15 PM
rtr
Eh, more “effort” than I thought it would be to bump off all other replies than those by “rtr” on the front page *new* replies section. But don’t let lack of praise outbid your gratitude.
Or is it beneath the “scientific” consideration of those “qualified”? Or do they need another month to “/ponder”?
Published: April 21, 2007 10:21 PM
Sasha Radeta
Since this RTR dude is clearly out of his mind, screaming and arguing with himself (this poor idiot does not differentiate between perfectly harmless unintentional trespass when you look at someone — and the tort of financial injury that can be caused by the voyeur’s broadcast of someone’s private life), I will just briefly comment Kevin B’s statements:
KEVIN: “You brought up the issue of radioactivity, but you did not notice the subtle difference between invasive and passive observation.”
“Invasive observation”???? You mean like an observation in which observer standing on his own property “invades you” with his own eyesight and the use of his own brain?!?!?!?! Well, you just proved my point – the trespass goes beyond physical contact and it can be applied to copyright violations. It is possible to cause the tort financial injury, without ever stepping on someone’s property. There is no such thing as invasive eyesight, but there is such thing as unauthorized use of someone else’s private property (all trespasses are done through peripheral nervous system, anyway… discriminating against one sense would be nonsensical).
KEVIN: “There are cases of fraud, but we both agree that fraud is trespass. If you wish to argue that hackers may force their way and use your computers resources, then you are right, but that is forced exclusionary use of your computer’s resources – trespass.”
First of all, hackers don’t ever leave their property and they never physically inject anything to your computer. It’s nothing but information they send to people, and information does not amount to the invasion of someone’s property. Even in cases of spyware, there would be no fraud case if it wasn’t for the resulting unauthorized use (trespass). In other words, unauthorized use is perfectly possible without ever physically touching someone else’s property. Even the spyware with RAM booster (that compensates for the use of HDD’s resources) would still be a trespass — although it never interferes with someone else’s use of the computer.
KEVIN: Consider that Mises wasn’t perfect.
Of course he wasn’t perfect. But you still haven’t denied one single iota of what Mises said. You only confirmed that without his definition of ownership, we would never have a case against someone who injures you with voyeurism, computer hacking, spyware, gamma radiation, the next generation brainwashing, etc. This same definition applies to copyright violations. You may not have the courage and honesty to admit it, but you confirmed everything Mises said about ownership rights — and Rothbard’s copyright theory stems directly from it.
Published: April 22, 2007 3:05 PM
rtr
Sasha Radeta: “perfectly harmless unintentional trespass when you look at someone”
Lol, that says it all. Sasha Radeta believes trespass occurs from looking at someone. He calls it “harmless”. He calls it “unintentional”. But clearly looking at someone is a priori defined *intentional* purposeful action. Yet another false contradiction. Sometimes one may liked being looked at while other times one may not like being looked at. But indeed looking at someone is “harmless” because there is no trespass. It would also be absurd to maintain on the one hand that looking is “harmless” trespass while simultaneously maintaining “copying” someone’s actions or ideas is “harmful” trespass.
Published: April 23, 2007 7:49 AM
Sasha Radeta
Yes RTR,
When someone sick and disturbed only stares at person against his will, I would argue (based on the only possible definition of ownership) that he is committing a harmless trespass, without any injury (tort). You see, even Kevin B had concede that there can be some observing actions that are “invasive.” However, no observation can be “invasive” in a physical sense. We can only conclude that all unwanted use of our bodies is a form of trespass — and that only those unwanted uses that result in an injury (financial or other) can be considered as tort.
You still did not provide any alternative definition of “ownership” and “use.” Mises’s definitions absolutely satisfy the criteria that Kevin B and Dr. Kinsella laid out: they justify the protection against unwanted hackers, spyware, voyeurism — who are “simultaneously” using our own property, without our permission. Unfortunately for you, the same fundamental principles justify the protection against copyright violations. As you could see from Dr. Kinsella and Kevin B., unauthorized use (trespass) is quite possible without the physical contact — and trespass that results in an injury is a tort.
Anyway, your replies do not even deal with majority of copyright cases, which involve much more than mere looking (for example, you have to handle a book before you can replicate it)… You simply cannot justify those normal kinds of trespasses, so you shifted your focus toward the extreme cases — absurdly trying to defend voyeurs and hackers.
Published: April 23, 2007 10:01 AM
Kevin B.
Sasha, you said:
I must disagree. The influence of whatever sort must be measurable to say that property has been trespassed. Without physical contact, measurement is impossible. Therefore, physical contact between the owner and the trespasser is required for the interaction to be properly deemed trespass. That statement, of course, attaches all property to its proper owner, since self-ownership is the root of all property.
All of your trespass examples may be proved or disproved using this method, including all possible voyeurism, hacking, radiation, brainwashing, etc.
Furthermore, since, absent prior contract, the copying of a book or printer cartridge does not violate property rights, then copying is a valid action. It may not be assumed someone must seek permission to use what has been passively observed, since that would be a violation of the observer’s property right of self-ownership.
This is not to say that an ancap society cannot agree not to copy other’s works, but that it must be agreed to formerly if the foreceful precention of such action is to be justified.
I would caution against interpreting government edicts as implied contracts, since such edicts nearly always (if not always) violate the rights of the individual.
Published: April 23, 2007 3:05 PM
Sasha Radeta
Kevin B,
How can you now possibly disagree with my statement, when you just stated that someone sending radioactive rays, hackers, and voyeurs broadcasting someone’s private life — are all indeed trespassing?!? These forms of trespasses can be done WITHOUT any contact with trespasser’s touching sense, and there is nothing you can say to change that fact.
You are now in a complete disarray. You feel like you have to disagree with me, although you conceded to all my key points. Obviously, it is quite possible to trespass without physical contact, and even Dr. Kinsella supported this fact.
However, most of the copyright violations are done through unauthorized physical contact with someone else’s property (like books or printer cartridges). So all your self-contradictory statements about non-touching forms of trespass don’t even touch the main issue about third party trespassing. Even without any government edicts, we would still have expressed and implied copyright contracts, as well as tort law, which would protect the owner’s and author’s from any unauthorized copying of their unique property.
Published: April 23, 2007 5:20 PM
Kevin B.
Sasha,
I am not in disarray, but I must be communicating poorly.
By physical contact I meant contact of matter and/or energy. Perhaps an example will help. Suppose I wanted to hurt your face. Two options are:
a) punch you with my fist, involves contact between my property (body) and yours (body)
b) burn you with a laser or torch, involves contact between my property (item) and yours (body)
Do you now see how physical contact of property is always involved? I hope you now see what I meant by “That statement, of course, attaches all property to its proper owner, since self-ownership is the root of all property.”
If Dr. Kinsella supported the idea of trespass without physical contact, then I do not think he considered it in terms of matter and energy.
Misunderstanding what I meant, you went on to say that the owners and authors would be protected from unauthorized copying – absolutely, I assume. Once you see that there must be contact for trespass, you will notice that there will only be protection from invasive means of copying not from passive means. To “protect” from passive observation would violate the property rights of the observer.
Published: April 23, 2007 6:09 PM
Sasha Radeta
Great progress Kevin B:
“contact of matter and/or energy.”
Dr. Kinsella will love that one (check this out: http://blog.mises.org/archives/006000.asp).
Anyway, if someone’s service is consisting of emitting some kind of energy (like the one needed for watching DVD content) — when you watch someone’s DVD without owner’s permission you are indeed trespassing unintentionally (there is a contact between your body and someone else’s energy).
Also, if you switch on your flashlight in order to glance at someone else’s book, you are committing a trespass (your light is getting in contact with someone else’s book:). You now have to concede that people who have any kind of contact with someone else’s book, without owner’s permission, are also committing a trespass. That’s a great progress from someone who tried to deny all of the copyright — and now trying to deny only a small portion of it (although with one serious problem, which I’ll cover below).
Anyway, you only chose 2 (TWO) out of countless ways in which someone may cause an injury (including financial) against someone else. But what happened to voyeurs who never transmit anything toward your home, but they may broadcast your private life, making money? Once again, your scientistic definition of trespass does not cover that situation, while Mises’s definition of ownership would allow for protection against such invasion of privacy. Anyway, now we’re back at the narrow fringe of this topic.
Published: April 23, 2007 9:12 PM
Kevin B.
Sasha,
We’re still disagreeing, but at least we’re on the same wavelength. 🙂
The web link didn’t work. HTTP 404.
Anyway, let’s get to it:
You’re saying that I took the DVD without the owner’s permission, or used the owner’s DVD player without permission, or even watched the owner’s DVD on his/her TV without permission and either way it’s trespass. 100% agreement. +1=1
Yesiree. We have measurement. We have trespass. 1+1=2
Uh oh. Not so fast. Who’s initiating the contact? If the owner shines his light of his book, presenting it to me, without prior contract (etc. etc.), then he is co-mingling his property with mine. So does his co-mingling action with my property, the adding of value to my property without permission, give him some rights to my property? That would allow someone to alter another’s body without permission and to claim ownership to the alteration. Who’s trespassing who here? 2-1=1
Au contraire! I did cover the voyeur. He is not trespassing in that case. Keep your curtains closed you somewhat free-spirited exhibitionist! 🙂
The definition I have offered is quite solid and indeed measurable. Yours is a little fuzzy, but not too bad given how far the world is from either conclusion. Though I would still disagree in depth, I would nevertheless accept your methods of the current practice.
I conclude that I’ve benefited from this conversation. Final score: 1
Published: April 24, 2007 12:43 AM
Kevin B.
I meant to say, “I would nevertheless accept your methods over the current practice.”
Published: April 24, 2007 12:47 AM
Sasha Radeta
Kevin B,
So you finally agree that free market copyright would be enforceable through contract and tort — but you try to reduce the scope of what we consider “use” in acts of trespass against someone else’s property.
Without qualifying “passive” activities as “uses” of market services — you could never have any enforceable contracts that pertain to such activity. If your didn’t “use” the services of your shoe-shine boy — you could simply walk away without paying anything to him…. Oh, by the way, when you sit on that chair, he will start cleaning your shoes without even asking you, because that’s an excellent example of implied contract (he presumes that you didn’t sit on that chair to rest). Unfortunately, you still don’t seem to understand the common law: if someone starts shining your shoes — and you just watch that person do it, you are in fact having an implied contract with that person and you will owe the compensation. The same goes even if someone paints your fence — ask any lawyer.
I think you are still confused when it comes to the issue of what “using someone’s service” means. You don’t have to initiate a physical contact through matter and energy in order to enjoy someone’s service. Some services are consisted of enjoying someone else’s matter and energy. In your theory, I could simply walk into a day-spa, allow a masseuse to initiate the physical contact with my body — and than just run away without paying — claiming I never used any of their services, since I haven’t initiate any kind of contact in a massage. If you try to say that spas could charge you for just laying on their table, that would be equally absurd, since then they could refuse to give you a massage and still charge you for visit… So many services, from just watching a DVD to strip-tease are based on passive use…
But if you think about it harder, your definition isn’t far from mine — the passive use of someone’s service is always user’s choice (back to implied contract theory). If I walk into a room in which someone’s showing a copyrighted DVD content, I can choose not to watch it. If I do watch it, that’s a harmless trespass, however, if I use this trespass to cause some financial injury to the author, I would still be liable.
By the way, your defense of voyeurism is not convincing. Voyeurs are not about sexual exploitation, but the feeling of control (playing all-seeing god’s eye). They can go-off by filming your hypothetical daughter in your garden (when you don’t have any curtains), on her way to school — and actually broadcast and sell this materials to other sickoes… And you would defend their “right” to do it freely? Without accepting Mises’s definition of ownership (which is really broad and fuzzy, but intentionally) you actually would have to defend these horrible acts. I wouldn’t and I think it makes a perfect sense.
Anyway, welcome to the free-market pro-copyright bandwagon 🙂
Published: April 24, 2007 5:32 PM
Kevin B.
Sasha,
I never denied that current law recognizes many implied contracts. In fact, it is quite often stated that we have an implied contract with the State, whether you and I agree or not. Regardless, I am saying that under an ancap system of justice, some of today’s implied contracts would not be deemed so, and people would behave differently.
I suppose that, since I am without Mises’s really broad and fuzzy definition of ownership, I must defend those sickoes.
After you mentioned financial injuries a few times, I had an entertaining thought: How would Sasha’s tort system look in a barter economy?
I imagine a young man overhears a good piece of advice from an older man, an unintentional trespass. The young man then tells a prostitute that he has some good advice, and the prostitute trades sex for the advice. Well, the old man hears the story and takes the young man to court. So, for restitution, what does the old man get? Sex or good advice?
Published: April 24, 2007 6:37 PM
Kevin B.
I would like to point out that you have been taking very obvious examples of acceptance and presenting them as if they would fall outside my definition of trespass. In both of your last examples, the shoe-shine boy and the spa, you present me as actively engaging in the service of another. If you wished to be more truthful to my definition, this is how your examples would read:
Sasha: Oh, by the way, when the boy forces the chair beneath your butt, he will start cleaning your shoes without even asking you, because that’s an excellent example of implied contract (he presumes that he didn’t put that chair underneath you for you to rest). Unfortunately, you still don’t seem to understand the common law: if someone starts shining your shoes — and you just watch that person do it, you are in fact having an implied contract with that person and you will owe the compensation.
Sasha: In your theory, someone could build a spa around me, a masseuse would initiate physical contact with my body — and then I could leave afterward without paying them the payment that they said I owed them — claiming their services were forced on me, since I hadn’t entered the spa or even said that I wanted a massage.
I’m sure that if you think my argument is flawed, then you have the imagination to give an example without altering the essentials of my definition of trespass.
Published: April 24, 2007 7:21 PM
Sasha Radeta
“Regardless, I am saying that under an ancap system of justice, some of today’s implied contracts would not be deemed so, and people would behave differently.”
Whatever dude, saying something – does not make it so. Common law wonderfully preserved free-market principles and it crystallized them through centuries of human experience. Whenever you silently and implied by fact enjoy someone’s services without asking this service-provider not to deliver it — you are actually having an implied contract. The fact that you are ready to defend voyeur sickoes only shows your stubbornness in sticking to something that’s clearly wrong. However, I think you missed my point:
– if passive enjoyment of some service (like a massage, viewing DVD content, or someone’s body) is a legitimate “use” of market services (and it is — since we have market contracts for obtaining these uses), then it is also quite possible to have unauthorized uses, or trespasses in these kinds of activities. It seems like you are trying to deny this tautology, if I understood you correctly.
Shoe-shine boys do not push chairs underneath someone’s butt — and people don’t normally get forced to watch someone’s movie. If you (‘passively”) use some services without paying for them, your trespass may be too insignificant to yield a much more expensive court case…. However, you should not be allowed to use such trespass to inflict a more serious financial injury upon your victim (like copying just one copy of a DVD, which is benign — and then deciding to upload it online for millions of people).
You asked something rather absurd:
““After you mentioned financial injuries a few times, I had an entertaining thought: How would Sasha’s tort system look in a barter economy?”
Now, why would I imagine something so silly?
First of all, you forget that libertarians argue that slave contracts are unenforceable (it is the biological fact that you have the sole control over the services of your body) and that no one should be forced to work (be enslaved) — even in cases of someone who refuses to deliver a service that was paid for.
Even if you pay me for a delivery of 100 hamburgers, and I decide not to make them — I could not be forced by any court to make this burgers… I could just refuse to work. However, the court can ask for monetary or any kind of material compensation in the value of those goods that I didn’t deliver.
So there’s your answer: the young man will owe whatever the court determines to be the value of the advice. Even in your twisted world, in which there is no money (some kind of universally accepted good used as a medium of exchange), you would still have some material compensation in the amount of some good (representing the free-market compensation that would be necessary to obtain this “advice” if the “young man” decided to obtain it through legal means). Satisfied?
I’m sure that if you think my argument is flawed, then you have the imagination to give an example without altering the essentials of my definition of trespass.
I am sure that if I really “altered” any essential of your definition of trespass, you will have no trouble of pointing out where I actually altered anything. Didn’t you say: “Uh oh. Not so fast. Who’s initiating the contact?” Well, let’s see…
If you come to someone’s spa or sit in someone’s chair, you are not initiating any contact with personnel — and your presence there cannot be charged (if that was the case, they could refuse to provide you the service and still ask for your money). Anyway, when you enjoy the service that you are being charged for, the massage, you are not initiating any kind of contact with either matter or energy of the masseuse.
Even in your counter-example in which someone shines his light on his book, presenting it to you, that person does not force you to read, deriving the strictly limited kind service that someone offers. Watch for implied contracts 🙂
Published: April 24, 2007 9:58 PM
Kevin B.
Sasha! How, when we just finished discussing it, could you say such a thing:
After all that typing, you’ve forgotten already. Property ownership stems from self-ownership. If I go to someone’s spa or sit in someone’s chair, then my property’s action is the initiation of contact with his property.
Egad, I said be imaginative, but are you serious? You just said that I went to the spa, but I am not initiating contact?! How the hell do I enter a spa without initiating contact? Who are you? David Blaine? I don’t know what kind of magic tricks or supernatural powers you have, but the rest of us physical mortals have to come into contact with the material world to get into a spa. With your miraculous abilities, it’s no wonder people are trying to get you on tape!
Apparently he is forcing me to turn away, because, according to you, if I maintain my current action of observation, then my body will be altered and I will come under his partial ownership! Damned if I do, damned if I don’t. And don’t you dare – DARE try to say that I have accepted an implied contract not to share what I’ve read when someone shoves a book in my face without asking. Sicko voyeurs, move over! How rude!
Published: April 24, 2007 11:45 PM
Sasha Radeta
Kevin B.
I just hope you were satisfied with my answer to your question about restitutions in barter economy. You’re welcome, anyway.
When it comes to the massage example, you seem to be very confused. By entering someone’s spa and placing myself on a massage table, I am not engaging into any kind of physical contact with personnel who is providing any market services. Once again, my presence there, even a handshake with a receptionist, cannot be considered as a service that I can be charged for.
The only service they would charge me for is the massage — and in that kind of service I am completely passive. Now, according to your theory, without initiation of physical contact is not a “use” of service. In other words, there can be no enforceable contracts when it comes to massages and I can just walk away without paying.
The same absurdity is present when it comes to your defense of voyeurs who could, according to your theory, freely film and broadcast the life of your child. You simply accept obviously sick conclusion of your theory, instead of concluding that your theory is twisted and wrong.
By the way, you don’t have to turn away when you walk into a room where someone is presenting a copyrighted movie, or when someone is showing you a copyrighted text… You can simply choose to enjoy the free service, without trying to breach an implied contract and to commit a tort of financial injury, afterwards. It’s analogous to the well-known example in which someone is trying to paint your fence by mistake… yes, he is forcing you to shout: “stop!” But so what? Go ahead and sue him for making you do that, if you can convince the court that saying that simple word caused you some kind of an expense…
Anyway, most of the “third party” copyright violators are not forced to commit trespasses. They do that because they have an incentive to enjoy market services for the smallest price possible.
Regards.
Published: April 25, 2007 1:38 PM
Kevin B.
Published: April 26, 2007 1:36 AM
Kevin B.
Sasha,
Your definition of property would be used as justification for the “lawful” hinderance of the action of some for the benefit of others, whose actions were not first threatened. That is a partial taking of self-ownership. Is that not intentional trespass?
In your own words:
It’s analogous to the well-known example in which someone is trying to paint your fence by mistake… yes, he is forcing you to shout: “stop!” But so what? Go ahead and sue him for making you do that, if you can convince the court that saying that simple word caused you some kind of an expense… (italics mine)
It appears that you would reduce the self-ownership of others for your own material gain, all in the name of self-ownership, of course. Your argument is illogical.
Published: April 26, 2007 1:46 AM
Sasha Radeta
Kevin B,
Uh… What?
Asking someone to respect his implied contract does not take away anyone’s self-ownership. You have choice not to make such contract and if someone trespasses against your property — ask him to leave.
I’m not advocating taking anyone’s self-ownership. Let’s go closer to our topic: if I send you my product for free personal use (for free), and I clearly explain this to you — and you accept such use — that doesn’t mean that you are now entitled for full ownership of that product (including commercial rights).
The fact that you don’t understand some arguments does not mean that they are illogical. Try to be more modest.
Published: April 27, 2007 10:45 AM
Kevin B.
Sasha,
Regarding your painter scenario, I am not arguing that it wouldn’t be interpreted by some, even in a contractual society, as a quasi-contract. I am simply trying to point out that it is illogical.
I assumed that you would agree that our right to action is only limited by the equal rights of others. If that was an error, then let me know. That rule seems to me to be a necessary consequence of complete self-ownership, but you may disagree.
If you do agree, then consider this:
We own ourselves. Our property is an extension of our self-ownership. To alter another’s property without permission is a trespass, whether intentional or not. To force others to assist you denies their complete self-ownership.
Your painter commits an unintentional trespass when he paints the fence. If the owner does not mind, he forgives the trespass. Allowing the painter to continue may be considered rude, but it is not trespass, since he is not compelling the painter in any way, shape, or form. In fact, the owner is allowing the painter to make a mistake. For the painter to demand that the owner stop him would be to force the owner to action against his will – trespass! The “implied contract” is trespass!
If it must be that “ownership is a full control of services that can be derived from a good,” then in the painter’s full control, he painted the wrong fence, he made a mistake, he wasted his labor, he provided a service for free, he, he, he.
Your example of implied contract is a welfare contract, forcing others to work to protect the fools. If the law agrees with you in this case, then the law is foolish. If it is doing so in the name of self-ownership, then it is illogical as well.
I understand your argument full well, Sasha. You want me to prevent you from making a mistake. Well Sasha, that’s my choice and not yours.
Published: April 28, 2007 4:28 AM
Sasha Radeta
Kevin said: “To alter another’s property without permission is a trespass, whether intentional or not.”
The problem here is: the permission you refer to can also be implied in fact. Person can make an honest mistake, without being an idiot, but in this scenario you can prevent someone’s mistake (trespass) by a simple “stop” (or by not using product someone sends you for personal use).
If you choose not to say anything — you actually don’t have a trespass case. You actions can only be interpreted as welcoming this particular kind of service and you will be responsible for this implied contract.
Imagine that an attractive call-girl gets to my apartment by mistake (she was told just to come in and to proceed to the bathroom). When I see her, don’t ask her leave, but instead I let her pleasure me with her services. After all night worth of her labor, I decide not to pay her anything, but to actually declare her entry as a trespass, although I more than welcomed her — don’t you see a problem with this?
The absence of price negotiations will really help you in painter’s scenario (you will be responsible for the cheapest price possible). However, when it comes to products that someone sends you for free, you really have nothing to complain about — if you accept this kind of service, you cannot lawfully assume more expensive uses that were never given to you by the rightful owner.
Regards.
PS
I agree. Nobody can prevent you from making mistakes that you consciously choose. I just tried to point out that insisting on these mistakes seems absurd. If your conclusions are clearly wrong and even twisted (like your defense of someone who stalks your hypothetical child and broadcasts her life over the internet), something is obviously wrong with your premises. Since you refuse to reconsider these arguments, I guess we will not move a millimeter further in these discussions? Nevertheless, the fact that you accepted the principles of free-market copyright shows a great progress on your part and maybe I’m expecting too much now.
Published: April 28, 2007 4:58 AM
Kevin B.
In case I haven’t been clear enough:
In an otherwise blank scenario, if the painter tells me that he will paint my fence for $5 and then I ask him to paint my fence, then, of course, I owe him $5. If he begins to paint my house as well, then I still owe him $5, even if I do nothing to stop him.
True story:
A couple of months ago, I went to Best Buy and purchased a computer for about $1500. When I got home, I realized they had given me a more expensive model that went for around $2000. I thought about returning it, and if they happened to show up at my door with the right one, then I would have returned it, but, since otherwise I would gain nothing, I decided to keep it.
It ended up breaking a few days later, and so I returned it anyway. They quickly realized it was the wrong one. Did they accuse me of trespass? No, they apologized for giving me the wrong model. They even commented that it would have been a great deal had it not broken. I agreed and soon left with my new correct model. I’m sure the salesman left that day with something new as well, a new reprimand.
Published: April 28, 2007 5:12 AM
Kevin B.
Sasha,
PS
I didn’t see your last post before I wrote mine. I can’t believe you’re awake…and here!
Published: April 28, 2007 5:15 AM
Sasha Radeta
Red Bull kicked in 🙂
Anyway, Best Buy did what it did — for exactly this reason: great advertisement. Legally, things stand as I said. Our hypothetical painter is well-known business law example, and I explained why your welcoming actions do not demonstrate any trespass on his part.
Anyway — imagine that Best Buy gave you an extra product by mistake — and then after you use it, you decide that they actually trespassed against you. You decide to sue them for storage fee 🙂 That’s what your theory is suggesting.
Anyway, as I said: you can accept some services for free, and many sellers will do that for you (advertisement will pay for it) — however, you cannot lawfully assume more expensive uses that were never given to you by the rightful owner.
Published: April 28, 2007 5:37 AM
Sasha Radeta
And one more “anyway” — I think you’re done with concessions on this thread… Maybe I should do something else 🙂
Published: April 28, 2007 5:43 AM
Kevin B.
Sasha,
Not for you, you lucky dog!
Seriously, her entry was an unintentional trespass, since you accepted it after the fact. I agree that the “night worth of her labor” would not be trespass, and that I seem to have overlooked that in the painter scenario from my earlier post, but, unless she mentioned the price, there was no price. Have you considered that perhaps a friend of his sent her over? That happens…and that’s one of the troubles with people assuming implied contracts such as these – they are ignorant of all of the possibilities.
Are you suggesting that the ends justify the means?
I suppose that my use would imply acceptance, but not price. If they realize their mistake, then they must make the effort to retrieve it. They cannot recoup their labor losses.
The defining characteristic of a free gift is that there are no strings attached. In trade, there must be agreement before there is contract. If someone offers me a service and asks for nothing in return, he cannot say that I agreed to a price. Handing me a knife, he cannot say that I agreed not to use it – in any way. Now that would be an assumption.
Allow me to counter your sex scenario:
Suppose that instead of a hooker, there is a vagrant. Instead of sex, he washes your window. Now, many people give him money afterward, but does that mean it is implied that you will as well? Suppose he wears a sign that says, “$1 per window.” Would your inaction be agreement? I gather that you would say so, but what if there were hundreds of them, driving you nuts to have to say no all the time. See that their action is forcing you to action.
I had to change it from hookers, because nobody would believe that you would say no. ;P
Published: April 28, 2007 6:01 AM
Sasha Radeta
Kevin said:
‘I agree that the “night worth of her labor” would not be trespass, and that I seem to have overlooked that in the painter scenario from my earlier post
THERE YOU GO! Another mile forward from you 🙂 Now, since there is no trespass when it comes to services in question (once again, we can’t charge someone for entering the room), here comes the issue of price. You can stop assuming that someone bought a call-girl for you, since that’s not part of our scenario. When someone delivers goods and/or services by mistake, it is true that you didn’t negotiate the price. However, you decided to obtain and enjoy these goods and services — and you will owe a compensation. The court will determine the amount of compensation and there’s nothing strange about that. That’s what tort is all about.
Furthermore, if someone gives you a specific use of his product without any strings attached — that doesn’t mean that he gave you the full ownership rights over that item. You cannot legally have more rights than you actually got from the owner. If I give you my car for your personal use (and I make you aware of that), you can’t lawfully assume the full-ownership over my property.
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PS
I never said that end justifies means. I only said that if your conclusion is clearly wrong from the perspective of substantive self-ownership, something must be wrong with your premises (assuming that your logic is valid — and it is). If ownership means the control over all services that can be derived from a good, our self-ownership should give us the control over the broadcasting rights of our private lives. This becomes clearer when I use a “child vs. adult voyeur stalker” as an example. However, you can see that this isn’t even crucial for my copyright argument. That’s why I put this under the post scriptum.
Published: April 28, 2007 6:55 AM
Kevin B.
Sasha,
Bravo! You must first make me aware of limitations before I accept the property for limitations on ownership to be accepted. If you are given a piece of property without agreeing to conditions beforehand, then the rights to the property are unlimited.
There is something strange about owing compensation for a gift.
If ownership means the control over all services that can be derived from a good, our self-ownership should give us the control over the broadcasting rights of our private lives.Your self-ownership gives you control of your actions. You can remain in control, even if you are being recorded. One may choose to give certain property to others, even when one is too ignorant to realize it, i.e. walking around naked on the lawn.
Wisdom includes the tendency to reconsider one’s own position. Consider yourself formally invited.
Published: April 30, 2007 3:18 PM