Lora & Coleman: The Nonviolent Black Market in Information

by Stephan Kinsella on July 21, 2010

Tags:Entrepreneurship,Praxeology,Free Markets,Legal System

07/21/2010Mises DailyManuel LoraDaniel Coleman

Unlike most black markets, the black market for information is characterized by peace and stability. There is a near-perfect harmony between the supply and the demand for movies, music, songs, and other digital content that falls under the control of intellectual-property legislation.

In the market for information, we do not see the kinds of conflicts that are rampant in other black markets. There are no turf wars between gangs for the right to offer the latest pop hit or blockbuster movie; there are no robberies committed by would-be users who need the money to get their fix. The vast majority of copyright violators go about their business without harming anyone.

In fact, those who upload, host, and share illegal content are not in any significant danger at all. What sets the black market in information apart from other black markets? Why is it nonviolent?

Technology

Perhaps the most easily recognizable reason why we do not see violence associated with sharing illegal content has to do with technology. Let’s briefly examine the most common method for downloading illegal content: BitTorrent. BitTorrent works, not by hosting the vast amounts of downloadable content in a single place, but merely by connecting users with the thousands of others who are sharing the file.

Searching for desired content takes only a few moments. There are numerous websites that host torrent files, including many that can boast high community standards of quality and security.

Because the torrent files are themselves very small, users download them instantaneously. How quickly the content is obtained is a function of how many “seeders” there are to share the file(s), as well as the speed of the user’s internet connection. Combine a popular (and therefore well-seeded) file with good bandwidth, and it takes a user only seconds to acquire a song, and only minutes to acquire an entire film.

In other words, the black market for information is generally efficient, anonymous, convenient, and safe. The costs to the user are negligible: Bandwidth and hard drive space are cheap and plentiful. BitTorent websites, and the content they make available, are free to access. Labor is but a few clicks and keystrokes, and — as was mentioned above — it hardly takes any time.

Determining the quality of the digital product is usually a trivial afterthought, especially for that content in greatest demand. The community at large serves as a guard against broken files or malware, with certain torrent communities offering layers of security by restricting membership or verifying content before it is offered to the public. Products in other black markets, in contrast, are notoriously inconsistent with respect to their quality — with many such products posing serious health risks.1 Checking for quality is itself an inconvenient or even dangerous task, since the mere possession of the good is a crime and users must keep their consumption a secret.

Another important feature of the black market in digital content is its flat hierarchy. Most black markets are characterized by the importance placed on power and rank. These hierarchies distort by exaggeration the importance — and profits — of suppliers and well-positioned middlemen, while those lower in rank suffer most of the hardships for far less pay. Money flows “up” the chain of command to those with the most power, while the grittier aspects of the business flow “down” to those on the streets: dealers, users, money collectors, and the like.

Those dealing with illegal information need not hazard the same power games. The Internet provides the means to move the data around relatively anonymously, and few distinctions are made among users so long as they are part of the system and contribute to the community by their activity. Torrents work in part because of this homogeneity, by making suppliers and consumers peers. For any given file, you could be uploading to or downloading from anyone. In most cases, the user uploads the file to others while he is still in the process of downloading it.

“The purpose of the market is to make useful things relatively less scarce. With information, that goal is already here.”Finally, one of the chief advantages enjoyed by consumers of illegal information is the connectivity of the Internet, which ensures that distribution costs are minimized. There is no place of business for those offering the latest movie, and therefore there are no turf wars. There is no distribution network to finance, and therefore no middlemen looking for a cut of profits. There are no palms to grease. There are no equivalents to pimps or pushers. Entering or leaving the trade poses no risk to the person from rival dealers or angry consumers.

When one compares all of the above technological advantages to the black markets in virtually every other good, it is no wonder that the latter are dangerous, seedy enterprises. Far from enjoying negligible costs and few risks, there are substantial costs and life-threatening risks associated with doing business in other illegal goods. The state has made it so that these black-market entrepreneurs risk everything to participate. Not only must they evade or bribe government agents, and live under the constant threat of being caught, but because competition cannot be done openly, would-be black-market entrepreneurs face the threat of violence from their competition — and even colleagues — as well.

Information and Praxeology

The technological advantages of sharing information point us to an important praxeological principle that also explains the nonviolence of this black market. Unlike the goods people exchange money for, information is nonscarce. Being nonscarce, it is a nonrivalrous good and, as such, it is free.

In fact, as Rothbard points out, nonscarce goods cannot even be economized — that is, they cannot be made the object of human action.2 To see the relevance of this point to illegal movie downloads, consider another nonscarce good: air. For the most part, air remains only a part of the general conditions of human action and does not factor into the economizing of means to achieve ends. One can breathe as much air as he likes without exhausting its supply or decreasing the amount (or quality) of air left for everyone else.

It takes special circumstances to make air a scarce good and thus something that acting man must economize. For example, one might decide to dive to the bottom of the sea with the assistance of oxygen tanks — and thus face decisions on what to do with the limited amount of air available. Or, if the earth were to become polluted enough, the world’s breathable air supply could itself become a scarce good and an ongoing concern in human affairs.

We should observe that air, since it is a physical good, is scarce in principle but may be considered nonscarce insofar as its supply and ubiquity exceeds all of the potential uses to which acting persons can put it. But ideas and information are not physical goods, and therefore they are not only nonscarce in practice but also nonscarce in principle. It is impossible to diminish their supply or reduce their quality.

“The black market in information is simply individuals cooperating in order to manipulate their own private property.”If information cannot be made the object of human action, and illegal digital content is but information, how is it possible for there to be a black market for it? What is it that really happens when users obtain illegal digital content? It is clear that no ideas are altered, exchanged, or diminished. Instead, the black market in information is simply individuals cooperating in order to manipulate their own private property — namely, altering the physical state of their computers in certain patterns. We term these patterns “songs,” “movies,” and the like, informally treating them like physical objects. But at no point does copying a pattern inhibit anyone else’s ability to enjoy that same pattern. It turns out that copying is not theft.

If the content in question were not merely information — if the content was itself only a scarce, physical good — then there is no doubt the black market for that good would look radically different. Suppose that there was no way to copy DVDs or transfer their contents to another medium. Any illegal copies of films would have to be sold on the black market. But with this reimagined black market would come all of the limitations we have already discussed: the restricted number and quality of goods, the need to avoid authorities, the inevitable establishment of turf and turf wars, and so on. The market for illegal movies would quickly resemble that for other black markets: shady, marginalized, and dangerous.

Yet hubs of pirated content on the Internet do not function like the streets and back alleys of other black markets. A user need not pay money to acquire some quantity of a forbidden good. Indeed, the user’s own private property remains secure throughout his interaction with others. The only thing being exchanged between dealers and consumers is access to certain patterns of information — in the case of torrents, the file that coordinates downloads and uploads.

What is nonscarce cannot itself be homesteaded or owned. Since the use of a pattern requires a consumer to already possess the proper media, people entering the black market for information have no need to fight with others, because there is no scarce thing to fight over.

And so we have reached the crux of the matter: the black market in information is nonviolent primarily because its goods are of a different kind than those of all other black markets. All of the technological advantages enjoyed within the black market for information stem from this feature of its products. The information is nonscarce, free, and easy to share — one need not even give over any property to participate. Should it be so surprising if there is a flourishing supply to meet the demand?

Conclusion: Intellectual Property and the State

In this article, we have avoided speaking of the state as much as possible in order to examine the nature of digital content in its own right. We have seen that it is nonscarce and free, and thus easy to share and consume.

Unfortunately, the state will not — to use a cliché — let information be free. But can legislation alter the laws of the universe? Ideas are not scarce, and neither can one make them scarce by claiming they are “protected.” Nothing but chaos has emerged from the onslaught of intellectual-property laws.

Intellectual-property legislation attempts to turn nonscarce, unownable information into a scarce, ownable thing. It imputes to information a government-mandated and regulated property right that is then assigned, by bureaucratic means, to individuals and corporations. All of this, as Stephan Kinsella explains, violates legitimate rights (including the rights of innocent third parties).

The purpose of the market is to improve the human condition in the most effective way possible. Through improvements in technology and resource management, we manage to produce more with less. In other words, the purpose of the market is to make useful things relatively less scarce. With information, that goal is already here.

Indeed, in information and ideas we possess the “holy grail” of the economy: a universal, free good. Sadly, the state has taken this magnificent human triumph away from us via intellectual-property laws. Intellectual property is thus a tragic regression in human affairs.

NOTES

1For an excellent discussion on the effect criminalization has on the quality of goods, see Mark Thornton, The Economics of Prohibition (Auburn: Ludwig von Mises Institute, 2007).

2Murray Rothbard, Man, Economy, and State (Auburn: Ludwig von Mises Institute, 2001), p. 4.

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archived comments from the mises blog:

{ 237 comments… read them below or add one }

Kerem Tibuk July 21, 2010 at 8:44 am

Areas, land, houses, apartments etc may be physical goods. But there is no scarcity in occupying the space or passing through. By occupying space during a certain time, or passing through it is impossible to diminish their supply or reduce their property.

Many people pass through, and occupy space without the consent of the supposedly private properties in land, houses, spaces etc. And this happens in a non violent way. People go in an out, peek at the bedrooms of the houses and watch the activity in them.

Why is there no violence, gangs turf wars.

Mostly thanks to technology. To be more precise, the technology that is called the invisibility cloak. Once the idea was the subject of wizard novels, but thanks to science and advancements in nano technology it is easy to get an invisibility cloak and travel freely without the consent of the land owners.

Since there is so much land and relatively so little people there is no scarcity regarding land. And we now non scarce things can not be economized. Also since we are Marxist all we care about the property rights is that if they are economically valuable or not. Since property has nothing to do with the individual that causes it to exist but only to do with economic value that depends on the valuations of other humans, non scarce and economically worthless things can not be property.

Also being Marxist we all know property is a necessary evil arising from the problem of scarcity. Once capitalism and technology cures the scarcity problem buy increasing productivity and inventing things like invisibility cloaks all private property can then be abolished and communism could be embraced. Then every individual could play the piano for a few hours in the morning, and paint in the afternoon. The state which is the basis for private property would dissolve.

Peter Surda July 21, 2010 at 9:08 am

Dear Kerem,

you have a long history of not comprehending what “rival” and “non-rival” means (admittedly though, some of the IP opponents are insufficiently clear on this, which might explain your confusion). You propagate a theory according to which “non-rival” means “supply exceeds demand”. Whereas the actual definition is “consumption does not decrease supply”. This is a crucial point to which you seem to be completely oblivious.

Which brings me to the next point, which is another way of looking at the problem of property rights in non-rival goods. Non-rival goods are not changed by consumption, or, for that matter, anything. However, if you cannot change something, it cannot have boundaries. If it cannot have boundaries, you cannot homestead it or trespass it. If you cannot homestead or trespass it, it cannot be property. This brings up a question then, how do IP proponents solve this problem? They, of course, revert to metaphors and use those to “define” the boundaries of non-rival goods.

Stephan Kinsella July 21, 2010 at 9:26 am

Peter, excellent point as usual.

On a tangential note–you have said before, in other comments, IIRC, something about falsifiability–can I take it you are not a Misesian dualist?

Peter Surda July 21, 2010 at 10:18 am

Thanks Stephan,

I think it is more accurate to say I am foremost a falsificationist. However, most questions by their nature cannot be satisfactorily answered in a properly falsifiable argument. You need to start making unfalsifiable assumptions at some point, or you will be stuck with a very limited view of the world. There are situations where none of the options left to you are falsifiable. For example, the question of dualism versus monism. So, that’s where I usually use the occam’s razor principle. I have no problem with Misesian dualism, as long as I keep in my mind that praxeological axioms are assumptions, rather than “truth”.

I know that strictly speaking praxeology and falsificationism contradict each other, but each allows me to explore a different part of reality. According to Goedel’s incompleteness theorems, an arithmetic axiomatic system cannot be at the same time complete and consistent, so why should an axiomatic system that addresses more complex phenomena be able to fix this? I don’t think that any theory can explain everything.

Stephan Kinsella July 21, 2010 at 10:39 am

Peter, I take it you have not read much on this from the Austrian POV? I highly recommend you read the following:
1. Mises’s Ultimate Foundation of Economic Science — online at Mises, and short. http://mises.org/books/ufofes/
2. Rothbard’s The Mantle of Science http://mises.org/rothbard/mantle.asp
3. Hoppe’s Economic Science and the Austrian method. http://mises.org/esandtam.asp

These might help you think more systematically and clearly about these issues, and help you avoid a bit of reinventing the wheel and using “brute force”. This is a tendency of engineers but we can fight it!

Peter Surda July 21, 2010 at 10:55 am: Thanks again Stephan, time permitting I will address the deficiencies in my understanding.
Peter Surda July 24, 2010 at 4:47 pm: Hi Stephan,

I started reading the first, and there is hardly anything to disagree with. But still one important problem. Mises says that axioms are created in a way that the negation thereof is unthinkable. But the process of constructing axioms is still based on inductive logic. Unthinkable equals lack of imagination. That is why the methodology of falsifiability (and, to a lesser extent, parsimony) is there. It addresses a major problem. People lack imagination and tend to make too many assumptions and the wrong ones. Just look at all the crap people post (including me of course, but hopefully, to a lesser extent). To them, it is perfectly normal, because they erroneously think the alternative is unthinkable. I hope that by realising that erring is a part of the process, I can be on average less wrong than the others.

I will finish reading it eventually, no worries.

Sasha Radeta July 21, 2010 at 10:11 am

Peter, you have no clue about the definition of scarcity – but I can’t blame you, because you’re not an economist and neither is Mr. Kinsella (I blame schools instead). As you don’t know, market prices reflect the issue of scarcity and they are formed by both supply and demand forces. If you define scarcity as “consumption decreases supply” you can absurdly claim that a pile of turd is economically scarce, just because it would go down in supply if you consume it in some form. On the other hand, supply of services from our goods or even physical bodies does not have to decrease with use (“consumption”) but this by no means implies that these services are not scarce.

Then you start to hallucinate that non-rival goods do not change with consumption. Let me use an example from market for prostitution market: if you use service of a prostitute, you don’t really have to get violent and “change” her with consumption. However, here services are not free and they are scarce.

So please allow me to end your, and Dr. Kinsella’s, agony of darkness in economics: correct definition of scarcity is : “demand exceeds supply when prices are set to zero” (in absence of market, there are shortages).

What all IP opponents are missing is that goods protected with IP are produced in order to provide scarce services (limited use) to consumers. These services are scarce, they are not unlimited and in absence of such market (if price were zero) supply of these services (supply of works of authorship) would inevitably go down.

Peter Surda July 21, 2010 at 10:46 am

Peter, you have no clue about the definition of scarcity.

Apparently you completely missed that I was defining rivalry and not scarcity.

but I can’t blame you, because you’re not an economist and neither is Mr. Kinsella (I blame schools instead)

I can’t blame you either, because you have consistently showed a blatant disregard for logic.

As you don’t know, market prices reflect the issue of scarcity and they are formed by both supply and demand forces.

Unlike Stephan, I actually define scarcity and rivalry differently. I think the distinction is important. So, I will skip over the parts of your argument that which use my definition of rivalry for the question of scarcity.

Then you start to hallucinate that non-rival goods do not change with consumption.

Last time I checked I was not hallucinating, but often I wonder what kind of substances some of my opponents imbibe, inhale or inject themselves with.

Let me use an example from market for prostitution market: if you use service of a prostitute, you don’t really have to get violent and “change” her with consumption.

You appear to be making the same error Kerem Tibuk did, in thinking that the change must refer to comparing a past and a future state, or that the change needs to be permanent. However, you miss that a change that occurs only during the consumption is still change. The physical interaction between a customer and a prostitute, during the act of consumption, stretches the vagina of the prostitute. That is change enough and perfectly observable and detectable by an uninterested third party without any prior assumptions. In addition to that, maybe even more importantly, for the duration of the service provision, the prostitute is unavailable for other customers. At least after all her openings and extremities are occupied. I hope your knowledge of human anatomy is sufficient to recognise that this temporarily decreases the supply of her services available.

However, here services are not free and they are scarce.

As demonstrated above, they are also rival.

What all IP opponents are missing is that goods protected with IP are produced in order to provide scarce services (limited use) to consumers.

On the contrary. It is the IP proponents that miss that if you can provide scarce services, you can also charge for them, even if part of the process involves handling non-scarce services.

in absence of such market (if price were zero)

According to this argument, if any part of a good you sell is non-scarce, without a property rights in that non-scarce part, there would be no market. Of course, there cannot be a market for goods that are non-scarce, but if only a part of the good is non-scarce, the problem doesn’t exist. For example, atoms of gold are practically everywhere and there is no market for them. But if one inductively arrives to the conclusion that no markets exist for any good containing gold (e.g. jewelery), then one is overextending the usability of inductive reasoning.

Sasha Radeta July 21, 2010 at 11:48 am

Peter,
A prostitute does not charge her fee based on the stretch you make to her vagina. You don’t have to stretch the mouth of a prostitute who performs oral or to “change” the appearance of a stripper in order to make their services economically scarce. Like all communists you don’t understand the price process and the fact that it does not have to involve physical consumption. Your definition of scarcity is based on mental delusions and not on economic science. Also, you wrote so much nonsense in order to create an appearance of an answer. That’s pathetic. Best regards,

mpolzkill July 21, 2010 at 11:55 am: !

I was waiting for this, not quite as good Tibuk’s classic, but still pretty good.

What are you talking about? She (or he) may well declare “no sale” based on these realities.

You sure will change him (or her) if it’s their maiden voyage in the profession.
Peter Surda July 21, 2010 at 2:29 pm: A prostitute does not charge her fee based on the stretch you make to her vagina.

What does this have to do with anything? Instead of admitting your error, you divert the attention and start talking about something else.

Your definition of scarcity is based on mental delusions and not on economic science.

Since I haven’t actually provided one, I wonder what you are talking about.

Also, you wrote so much nonsense in order to create an appearance of an answer.

If it is nonsense, why, pray tell, are you not attempting to counter it, and rather resort to nonsense yourself?

That’s pathetic.

The discourses between a scientist and a religious nut tend to be that way.
newson July 21, 2010 at 11:06 pm: maybe the prostitute can charge a fee for the fantasy of all those who dream about the experience without experiencing it materially.

Kerem Tibuk July 21, 2010 at 10:24 am

Dear Peter,I know what scarcity is and what the later invented term “rivalrous” is.

These concepts are absent in the trespass situation, which agression against IP mostly is, other hand contract violations.

Sacrcity, rivalry, supply and demand are terms of the science of economics and they are only relevant to the exchange value of goods. Not if a good can be property or not.

Because property arises with only one individual, and the act is called homesteading. Homesteading is not a social phenomenon, and the concept of property is not a social construct. Thus properties validity can not depend on the concepts that are themselves dependent on the society, or at least the second individual that may or may not enter in the picture.

Peter Surda July 21, 2010 at 10:49 am

These concepts are absent in the trespass situation, which agression against IP mostly is, other hand contract violations.

You ducked the question. You return to circular logic and conveniently ignored the stop sign I put in the middle of your road.

Because property arises with only one individual, and the act is called homesteading.

I already pointed out my objections to this, in addition you have not answered the question how to homestead that which you cannot change. Or to phrase it differently, if it was possible to homestead that which cannot change, what would be the scope of such homesteading?

Kerem Tibuk July 21, 2010 at 10:57 am

I am not ducking anything. I am trying to tell you what property is. And how it arises. And in the case of trespass nothing happens to “the supply”. It does not diminish or decrease in quality.’

And how is a homesteader of IP, or the creator of IP doesn’t change anything? Rearranging patterns, or abstract reflections of reality, is as much change as rearranging atoms and molecules.

Peter Surda July 21, 2010 at 11:11 am: Rearranging patterns…

Another metaphor, on par with “extending sovereignty”, “fruits of one’s labour” and so on. A habit hard to kick I see.
newson July 21, 2010 at 11:16 pm: yuri geller?
Dylan July 23, 2010 at 1:27 am: Tell that to the guy with a mob on his front lawn.

Shay July 21, 2010 at 10:39 am

Why just yesterday I tried to walk into my house, but bumped into something invisible. I pushed my way in, and the room was apparently full of people with invisibility cloaks on. I could hardly even get to my kitchen, and had to give up trying to make a meal.

newson July 21, 2010 at 11:25 pm: the invisibility cloak is subject to patent pending. there are invisible patent infringers in your house. better call ghostbusters.

Reply

tralphkays July 22, 2010 at 4:21 am

Karem
you said: “But there is no scarcity in occupying the space or passing through. By occupying space during a certain time, or passing through it is impossible to diminish their supply or reduce their property.”
You have obviously never been stuck in a traffic jam on a Los Angeles area freeway.

Sasha Radeta July 21, 2010 at 8:45 am

This article’s summary states:
“Ideas and information are not physical goods; therefore they are not only nonscarce in practice but also nonscarce in principle. It is impossible to diminish their supply or reduce their quality.

I agree with this 100%, as do most of the IP supporters! After all, copyrights law state that they do not protect ideas, concepts or anything non-tangible in nature. Copyright law simply spells out specific, exclusive uses over a piece of physical property (such as books, CDs, etc). When authors or their publishers sell the service of limited use of their property, they never relinquish their property rights (if someone even touches it in ways that author doesn’t agree upon and if this creates an economic injury to owner — it is a simple case of tort).

The uniqueness of original work of authorship can only serve as evidence of one’s unauthorized use (trespass). No one ever claimed ownership of these features (such as patterns, sound, etc). It is such a shame that authors dedicated so much time and energy to a non-issue and that they attacked IP on completely false grounds. At the same time, their article does not even call for a longer or more devastating rebuttal.

mpolzkill July 21, 2010 at 9:37 am

“The uniqueness of original work of authorship can only serve as evidence of one’s unauthorized use (trespass).”

Help me out here, please, could you rephrase that? I think I know what you’re saying, but I’m not sure.

(really, if you guys could ever demonstrate how you got your rights, or that they are in fact “negative rights”, I’d be on your side. If you even care, maybe not)

– hugs and kisses,

confused “IP” Khmer Rouge member

Sasha Radeta July 21, 2010 at 10:38 am

Dear Khmer Rouge,
Let’s use a concrete example: if you get caught distributing CDs with Metallica’s music, they will use the distinctive features (sound) of their music to prove that they were the author of the original CD (physical property) and that you used this property in ways they never agreed upon (you trespassed). They will not legally claim any ownership of “sound” or anything intangible – what’s not clear about it.

Copyright owners get their property rights (control of services derived from owned good) by either purchasing it or producing it, mixing their labor with unclaimed inputs or inputs they obtained from market exchange. If this new and original good has unique features, anyone who replicates it without owner’s permission can get in trouble because he leaves physical evidence of this trespass and creates economic injury to the author. This uniqueness and link to the original author make IP different from other forms of real, physical property — but there is nothing mystical or esoteric about it.

Ciao! XO XO!

mpolzkill July 21, 2010 at 10:50 am

Dear Rent Seeker,

Your English wasn’t clear to me, I’m not an English expert, but I don’t think the sentence I quoted was a complete one.

No, I know there is nothing mystical or esoteric about it. The ones who can give more trouble around here than anyone else, if it’s in their interest to help you make a living in this way, they will kill anyone who resists your schemes.

So then (assuming you’ve ever truly created anything in your life, and then went to your master to get a deal for it), you don’t own patterns or ideas, you own a government license. Correct?

-Thank you,

Pol Pot Jr.

Sasha Radeta July 21, 2010 at 11:18 am

I own neither. I own private property. What makes IP special is that the government invited itself to enumerate exclusive uses that belong to me (falsely “granting” these rights, although the very fact of ownership should provide exclusivity of such rights) — plus government appointed its bureaucracy to act as the protector of these rights, leaving me with few, more efficient, market alternatives.

mpolzkill July 21, 2010 at 11:27 am: So you *would* own this right to tell the rest of the world what they may or may not do with your ideas, but the government took all that over. Lucky for you, I says.
Sasha Radeta July 21, 2010 at 11:31 am: Private agencies and common law would do just fine.

mpolzkill July 21, 2010 at 11:36 am

Not if this is the best you guys can do in explaining yourselves.

Sasha Radeta July 21, 2010 at 11:54 am: This is not the brightest audience.
mpolzkill July 21, 2010 at 12:01 pm: Ah, you’re holding back! Could you please direct me to where you really let the Commies have it so that I may admire your skills? And who knows, you know, perhaps be convinced by your arguments that your stated rights are in fact rights and that the world needs to respect them or perish.

newson July 21, 2010 at 11:30 pm

“distinctive features”

how distintive? is one extra note sufficient to make a work distinctive, or 235? who decides, and on what authority?

Tyrone Dell July 22, 2010 at 1:46 am: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kk6NhjD3Dbg

Reply
Peter Surda July 22, 2010 at 4:15 am: how distintive? … who decides, and on what authority?

Thanks for this, I did some thinking about music patterns a couple of days ago. If you have a musical original, and then out of it you create one that is shifted by an octave, musicians will probably tell you it’s the same music. However, if you put the recordings onto a frequency graph, the patterns will be different. Well, not really, I’m being intentionally vague for dramatic effect. If you put the two recordings onto a graph with a linear scale, the pattern will be different. But if you change into an exponential scale (base 2), behold!, same pattern.

So the question is, which of the scales is relevant? Why?

Reply

Shay July 21, 2010 at 10:42 am

Copyright law simply spells out specific, exclusive uses over a piece of physical property (such as books, CDs, etc).

Almost. It spells out an ever-growing list (that you can’t actually obtain) of things that no property may be crafted into without permission.

Sasha Radeta July 21, 2010 at 11:28 am: Shay,
if crafting any property involves unauthorized use of one’s property (work of authorship in this case) we have a trespass. The government should have left the issue there. Instead, they started listing and “granting” rights, as if they were their to give. Just like the Bill of Rights created confusion about the scope of federal power — Copyright law created unnecessary confusion about the ownership rights (always new issue can arise and list will never be complete). However, instead of letting private agencies and the common law deal with the issue, they invented this big and expensive bureaucracy.

Reply

Daniel Coleman July 21, 2010 at 4:35 pm

If you read the article, Mr. Radeta, you will notice that in fact it has very little to do with this. We spend most of the article examining the nature of the black market for information, not attacking IP. It’s a praxeological investigation.

Silas Barta July 22, 2010 at 9:30 am

Then why did you positively frame infringment of ideas that would not have existed but for their creators, as being a “nonviolent market”?

Would you ever write an article about the “nonviolent black market in stolen crops”? Wouldn’t you object to that kind of framing?

mpolzkill July 22, 2010 at 9:32 am

Do these guys give a new meaning to the term “loaded phrases”, or what?

Peter Surda July 22, 2010 at 10:33 am

I assume for the same reason as me: neither of us believes in the Theory of Claims on Causality. Causality is an insufficient condition for trespass.

Silas Barta July 22, 2010 at 1:14 pm

Yeah, I’ve totally seen anti-IP Misesians refer to that. All the time.

Peter Surda July 22, 2010 at 10:17 pm: As IP proponents are so weak on the theory side, it is up to IP opponents to perform the guesswork with what they actually mean.

Daniel Coleman July 22, 2010 at 11:18 am

Dear Silas, if you read the article, you will notice that our assessment of the black market in information as “nonviolent” has much more to do with the absence of turf wars and other phenomena that are common in black markets than it does a normative assessment of its activity.

To answer your reductio: let’s suppose that there were a flourishing black market in stolen crops, and furthermore that this black market had none of the violence problems typically associated with other black markets. The activity of such a market would be be illicit, but nevertheless I would not object to an article entitled “The Nonviolent Black Market in Stolen Crops” which analyzed its nonviolent characteristics.

Silas Barta July 22, 2010 at 1:16 pm

So you’ve finished off the Koolaid then. Nice.

I’m looking forward to seeing your article about the nonviolent stolen goods-fencing market and how it only has turf wars because the evil terrorist police shut down such operations, and how great it would be if they could operate unhindered, and how their original owners really won’t miss them anyway, because they should have reasonable expected that *some* of their items would be stolen, and it’s impossible to completely prevent that sort of thing.

Daniel Coleman July 22, 2010 at 2:22 pm: I’m really not sure what you’re getting at. There are some pretty specific reasons why the black market in IP is nonviolent. For the sake of your very narrow point, I can imagine a nonviolent black market in stolen goods — i.e., buyers and sellers meeting peacefully without the dangers we discuss. (Of course, the activity is still illicit, whereas downloading movies is licit. But there’s no logical contradiction in imagining it.)

However, for reasons we discuss in our IP article, I don’t think a black market in stolen goods would in fact be characterized by nonviolence. So I don’t see the relevance of your complaint — especially since it seems to me like you simply hadn’t read the article and assumed the title meant something that it in fact didn’t.
Silas Barta July 22, 2010 at 2:29 pm: But the market in pirated works *is* marked by violence to the extent that the state intervenes — just like the market in stolen physical goods.

Of course if you simply *assume* that intellectual work piracy is 100% justified while theft of physical goods is the opposite, then — ta-da! — you can reach that conclusion. But who cares about circular reasoning?
Daniel Coleman July 22, 2010 at 3:13 pm: Again, I would encourage you to read the article. It is not an attempt to justify the libertarian view on intellectual property. The article is a praxeological analysis of the black market in information.

It is not true that the black markets in IP and other goods (esp. stolen goods) are marked by violence of the same degree or even kind. The black market in drugs, for instance, is marked by violence not only where the state interferes; it goes beyond that. Dealers and users themselves often fight, there are turf wars among suppliers, and many other issues of violence plague the market — none of which are state agents directly causing the problem. They are indirect and unintended consequences.

Yet this is not the case with IP. Even though there are some ways in which the state directs violence to those downloading or supplying digital content, the black market there is characterized by peace and flourishing — and there are praxeological reasons for this.
Silas Barta July 22, 2010 at 5:13 pm: I *did* read everything in the article that told me something I didn’t already know. And your supposed distinction is not a difference. The violence by non-state actors in the drug market exists because of state violence — just like in the piracy market!

Daniel_Coleman, don’t kid yourself: this wasn’t an innocent “analysis” of what goes on; it was a not-so-subtle, not-so-impressive, not-so-novel defense of IP infringement.
Daniel Coleman July 23, 2010 at 8:24 am: Your comment ignores the relevant distinction between the black markets concerning violence by private individuals. In both cases the state is primarily to blame, but it doesn’t follow this that there are no interesting differences between the two. In fact, there is quite an interesting difference between pirated digital content and just about every other black market out there.

But this doesn’t appear to be making any impact. So I’ll have to let the article speak for itself, and people who find this comment thread can read it and make up their own minds on the matter.

Magnus July 21, 2010 at 9:11 am

Kerem Tibuk: Areas, land, houses, apartments etc may be physical goods. But there is no scarcity in occupying the space or passing through. By occupying space during a certain time, or passing through it is impossible to diminish their supply or reduce their property. …the technology that is called the invisibility cloak.

You are, of course, attempting to demonstrate what you see as an absurdity, but the example you have chosen here is not absurd at all, and proves that your position is actually incorrect.

In light of 100 year-old technology, the kind of “trespassing” you describe actually happens every day. It is not nano-invisibility cloaks, of course, but in the form of airplanes.

Once upon a time, the idea behind real property was that a person owned all of the airspace above his land, up to the heavens, as it were. Now that airplanes have enabled the use of that airspace for something new, we realize that the ordinary landowner is not actually USING the airspace above his land, since an airplane is able to pass overhead without the owner even knowing about it. Satellites, too.

There is therefore no rivalry between these two uses, and thus no scarcity. Therefore, flying over someone’s land (high enough not to be heard) is not a trespass.

At the risk of attracting a pest, I would also mention that the same thing goes with electromagnetic transmissions that pass through people’s houses (and bodies?) all the time, without being considered a trespass. Someone is very likely transmitting some EM signal through your residence or personal space right now, whether it’s a Wi-Fi, cell phone, radio, or (until recently) a TV signal. You don’t typically even know about it, and that use is not rivalrous with anything you are already doing in or with the house. A rivalry only occurs when someone else also attempts to use the same EM space, at the same time and in the same manner, at which point you have a conflict of uses, and thus a property issue, and thus the potential for a property-rights violation.

(This rivalry issue can be resolved regardless of whether we describe a EM transmission as the excitation of some area of pre-existing space, or as the delivery of transmitted particles — a person sending an EM signal uses some part of the physical world for an economic purpose, and therefore may acquire property rights in it, as defined by that use, if he is the first user.)

André July 21, 2010 at 11:09 am

Magnus, I think I can agree with you, but there I want to add a couple of things.
First thing – if some electromagnetic information is passing through my body and then medical science proves that those waves are dangerous or harmful, that would be “trespassing” in my book and somebody would have to respond for that.
Second thing – the example of airspace. I think that’s really a good example, for a whole lot of reasons. Anyway the conclusions you draw are a bit dangerous, for how I see it. Property rights should not be linked to productivity or usage in order to exist. If I bought a car and I don’t want to use it – well, it’s none of anyone’s business. That would not allow a professional driver to come into my garage and take it because – anyway I was not using it or I am not able to use it as good as the thief would. In a way, I think that the same principle applies to the airspace above my land, somehow. Maybe it would be more correct to say : I have no rights over something I would not be able to use EVER, no matter what I do or what technology I acquire.

I think there is a big issue here, and I am not sure what to think. When, for example, few centuries ago latifundia (pieces of property covering tremendous areas, assigned to many families of farmers, in exchange to a part of their crops) have been expropriated in Europe from legitimate owners, property rights have been surely violated. Yet, it’s hard to deny that such a step allowed the whole economy to better employ resources and increase wealth. Those lazy, noble landowners were just sitting and collecting their rent – surely such fragmentation of property helped to optimize productivity. But was it right?

J. Murray July 22, 2010 at 8:21 am

The thing is, all of those percieved trespasses can be blocked out. If you’re worried about electromagnetic rays, you can construct a faraday cage in your home, even into the frame itself. Such a construction will block out nearly all electromagnetic transmissions, with the exception of the low level energy such as the Earth’s magnetosphere (we can’t very well blame a natural feature of our planet as a trespass). Of course, this comes with a drawback as you will no longer be able to pick up radio, cellular, or television transmissions without creating an external capture device (antenna, satellite dish, etc). And there is still the matter of homestead rights. Entering a place of business and getting upset over the transmission of their WiFi through you is not a trespass given the WiFi label is clearly posted on the door and you are entering their private property fully aware of the terms of entrance. Being the WiFi signal was there before you, then it isn’t a trespass.

The same goes with you and your neighbors. If you believe that constructing the faraday cage is too expensive and demand your neighbors to construct it to block their use of electromagnetic tresspass, they have an equal claim against you. You would have to construct and build a dozen cages for your neighbors if you claimed those same 12 neighbors were transmitting unwanted signals into your home. And since you’ll be the one bringing up the complaint, they’ll only retaliate against you and not amongst themselves as none of the 12 mind the electromagnetics that happen between them. In essence, YOU would then be forced to build 12 faraday cage devices while each neighbor only has to fund 1/12 of one. No home is without a device that creates electromagnetic leakage. Your microwave, your cordless phone, cellphone, wireless router, and even your circuit breaker (just to point out the futility of attempting to live without any such waves) transmit waves into others. In essence, your activities that allow you to have so much as refrigerated food and lights at night tresspass one another and we implicitly agree that this is not a problem, thus creating an agreement among each other not to consider such production of EM waves as a tresspass.

This, of course, does not justify the original, and ridiculous, Harry Potter example of stealth people watching you sleep at night. This isn’t an implicit agreement, or something equally done by everyone as to avoid a destruction of living standards, so it doesn’t hold water.

Silas Barta July 22, 2010 at 9:33 am

What if I build a really tall faraday cage and block everyone from receiving the tower signals if I’m between them and the tower?

Still no problem?

Peter Surda July 22, 2010 at 10:26 am

No problem, because with an approach like this you’re likely to end up bankrupt and the faraday cage dismantled.

Silas Barta July 22, 2010 at 1:13 pm: What basis does anyone have to sue me for building it? Or are you agreeing I’d have the right to do that?
J. Murray July 22, 2010 at 5:02 pm: Homestead rights again. You would have to have constructed that cage prior to anyone else who is currently receiving the signal to avoid violating their rights. Properly translated, you would have to have constructed that cage on a plot of land you owned to block out the television and radio waves prior to the invention of the radio. Given it’s unlikely you’re 120+ years old and had the foresight to know the impending invention of radio transmission, you’re SOL when it comes to the concept of not being “invaded” by EM waves.
Silas Barta July 22, 2010 at 5:10 pm: How can someone have a “right” for their specific patterns of transmissions, over other people’s homesteaded property, not to be interfered with? Isn’t this exactly the same kind of right that IP proponents assert? The right for their propogations of patterns (over others’ property) not to be interfered with via instantiations of the same pattern?

Why yes, it is!

(Note: a faraday cage only works, as I recently found out, by causing the equal and opposite EM field to be generated. Nah, *that’s* not parallel to IP infringment, is it?)
Peter Surda July 22, 2010 at 10:16 pm: I didn’t say anyone has a right to sue you.
Peter Surda July 23, 2010 at 3:38 am: How can someone have a “right” for their specific patterns of transmissions…

The implication does not work this way. You cannot have rights in something (whatever that is) on the ground of on a specific pattern, because you cannot define pattern boundaries in a scientific manner. If you have rights in EM emmissions of some sort, it would need to be the result of something else. Or, it can be a negative right (people have the right to ask others not to interfere with their physical goods).
Peter Surda July 23, 2010 at 3:40 am: Oh and why do you link to a site where I explain that you are making wrong assumptions?
jerry July 23, 2010 at 3:54 am: “you cannot define pattern boundaries in a scientific manner”

Peter – would you mind expanding on this a little please.
Peter Surda July 23, 2010 at 4:30 am: Peter – would you mind expanding on this a little please.

It’s the same problem with metaphors all over again. What is the identity of a pattern? Although you might be able to define what a pattern is in a scientific manner (rather than merely a “mix of causality and similarity”), that still is insufficient to conclude the identity of patterns. Remember when I wrote that it is possible to prove A and B are different, but impossible to prove they are the same? You would need to use inductive reasoning. Without it, you cannot determine if two transmissions are using “the same” pattern. That’s the problem here. I mean apart from the other problem of how you can determine boundaries of non-rival goods. Or maybe it’s the same problem from a different perspective.

By measuring changes in oscillation, for example, as I described at the beginning, you can show how something (e.g. transmission A) is causing problems receiving transmission B. That does not mean however that these transmissions are somehow metaphysically “the same pattern”. Those are two completely separate problems. However, because humans are prone to using metaphors, they might not realise this.
jerry July 23, 2010 at 6:29 am: Ok, not necessarily disagreeing, just clarifying.

With regard to homesteading and faraday cages and the like, I don’t think this is really much to do with patterns and IP – I think it is one of a class of problems which highlight that the attempts to define “property” in a general and useful sense are failing spectacularly. For example, a problem which I think in essence is the same is: what if you own the land through which a river runs, and you decide to build a dam. This could change the surrounding land considerably – this has in fact happened in Egypt where the Aswan Dam has meant that the farmland in a considerable area around is now deplete of essential nutrients and cannot now be used as it was.

Who can claim what here? What is the correct property rights analysis here? A farmer might claim a right to the integrity of his land, that he homesteaded this land which relied on an inflow of water from the river. But who violated his rights? The dam builder? The person who blew up the local power station which resulted in the need for the dam in the first place? This is all physical, nothing to do with patterns or IP, yet I think we get fundamentally the same problem.

I think if the word property were banned from these threads, they would be more productive.
Peter Surda July 23, 2010 at 10:23 am: Block (e.g. in Privatization of Roads and Highways) is good on this. If there are some externalities attached to property (e.g. egress, river flow etc), the seller or buyer can require conditions or insurance attached to the sale. That demotivates people from causing trouble to others, because doing so will cause direct costs (as opposed to just social disruptions). There is no need why this should mean the rights would need to be redefined. In fact, Block is very good at externalities in general, although he rarely uses the word.

mpolzkill July 24, 2010 at 4:13 pm

I just ran into a fascinating discussion on “trespassing”:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bwXi02hdTJk

Coincidentally, Gene Simmons is a major “IP” fascist, as well as a pretty vocal fascist on other matters too.

Kerem Tibuk July 21, 2010 at 10:23 am

Magnus,

“In light of 100 year-old technology, the kind of “trespassing” you describe actually happens every day. It is not nano-invisibility cloaks, of course, but in the form of airplanes.

This is totally false and it shows your difficulty regarding property.

Most IP Socialists I have encountered commonly the most important aspect of the property theory and itis called “homesteading”. Without the concept of homesteading all private property is on shaky grounds. And notice the concept of homesteading is nowhere to be found in any posts advocating IP socialism. It became an ancient relic of the long dead, for the Mises Inst, Rothbardian theory of property.

Nobody in history in any meaningful way claimed their land extended all the way to heavens exactly because nobody, not the owners not the potential challengers or aggressors, thought of actually using the air above.

The air above which planes use, got homesteaded exactly after the invention of planes and became property. And this is true about radio frequencies. Nobody claimed to owned the frequencies before they know what radio waves were.

Jon Leckie July 21, 2010 at 10:40 am

“This is totally false and it shows your difficulty regarding property”.

Kerem, you should be a little more polite. Magnus is correct: it used to be a firmly established principle of English common law that a landowner’s property rights (devolved from the Crown as the absolute source of rights) extended to the centre of the earth and the heavens above. It may be that this wasn’t a “meaningful” claim, proved by the fact that the claim was dissolved once air flight arrived, but Magnus is not incorrect in what he says.

Kerem Tibuk July 21, 2010 at 10:45 am

If this issue was discussed it is as relevant to the property theory as the discussion on how many angels could fit on the head of a pin.

Jon Leckie July 21, 2010 at 11:04 am: Irrelevant perhaps, but false, no. Anyway, I’m enjoying the debate – please continue!

Reply

Sasha Radeta July 21, 2010 at 11:04 am

Jon, the principle of ad caelum or air rights deals with right of easement (nobody can lawfully build an overpass covering your house and backyard – just like you can’t lawfully shoot down the airplanes above your property)… This has nothing to do with our subject.

Peter Surda July 21, 2010 at 10:52 am

And notice the concept of homesteading is nowhere to be found in any posts advocating IP socialism.

That is why this heroic IP socialist rides his horse directly at this metaphor and smashes it into pieces, while the followers of the IP religion stare dumbfounded, their minds unable to comprehend what happened.

Magnus July 21, 2010 at 10:33 am

How does anything you’ve said actually refute the proposition that property rights arise and are defined by a rivalry of uses?

Kerem Tibuk July 21, 2010 at 10:44 am

Why do you insist on vringing in the issue of rivalry?

Rivalry is not a prerequisite of property. Property is the result of an individual action not the result of a social situation. It is not a social construct and a second person is not needed to property exist or for property to be justified.

You come across to something nature given. You use it and transform it in the process. In other words you homestead it. And you own it.

If you can carry this situation in a social context, this means you keep you property right. You carry your individuality, yourself to the society. Then you are free. Otherwise you are not.

Why is this so hard to understand?

Peter Surda July 21, 2010 at 11:06 am

Rivalry is not a prerequisite of property.

Boundaries are a prerequisite for property. Change is a prerequisite for boundaries. Rivalry is a prerequisite for change. There you go.

Kerem Tibuk July 21, 2010 at 11:12 am

there is no boundary when it comes to stupidity.

Peter Surda July 21, 2010 at 11:26 am: Indeed.

Reply

Sasha Radeta July 21, 2010 at 10:57 am

Goods don’t have to be subject to rivalry for someone to claim ownership over them (you can claim ownership over a big sack of crap). However, if goods you own are scarce, they have a market price and you can choose to rent them or sell services derived from them. Copyright holders do just that: they sell service of limited, personal use of their property, while retaining some expensive and highly valuable uses.

Peter Surda July 21, 2010 at 11:07 am

Goods don’t have to be subject to rivalry for someone to claim ownership over them…

Read my above comments and be amazed at what logic can do.

Sasha Radeta July 21, 2010 at 11:53 am

I read your above comments and I am truly amazed what your logic can do when it is based on false or even insane premises. Smart but insane – I mean your comments, not you.

Peter Surda July 21, 2010 at 2:34 pm: It is a pity that your amazement does not translate into the ability to counterargue.

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Piotr from Warsaw July 21, 2010 at 10:36 am

If ideas and information are “nonscarce in principle” and it is “impossible to diminish their supply or reduce their quality” the “intellectual-property legislation” cannot do it either. So what is the problem?

Peter Surda July 21, 2010 at 11:00 am

The problem is that people are being threatened with violence.

Kerem Tibuk July 21, 2010 at 11:07 am

Only the trespassers. And they are not being threatened by being shot unlike land trespassers.

Is it possible for you not to interact with a certain IP?

yes.

Are you still interacting with it, and knowingly, without the consent of the owner?

yes.

Whether you decrease the supply or lower the quality or not, you are agressing against property in the way that you are trespassing.

Peter Surda July 21, 2010 at 11:15 am

Only the trespassers.

But Kerem, how do you trespass that which has no boundaries? Your whole theory rests on a bunch of metaphors, for which you have no explanation.

Kerem Tibuk July 21, 2010 at 11:19 am

There are boundaries Peter. To recognaize them you need some skills in abstraction but only on the level of a 5 year old.

It is your choice to interact with a certain IP, say the movie Avatar.

You can steer clear of it, using the boundaries but you choose not to.

You use it. You watch it, or you copy it and sell it. You disregard the boundries, thus you trespass.

Peter Surda July 21, 2010 at 11:30 am: There are boundaries Peter.

Causality and similarity are. Boundaries aren’t.

To recognaize them you need some skills in abstraction but only on the level of a 5 year old.

No, it requires a non-scientific approach and the use of metaphors.

Now, since it turned out that you do not actually have a scientific theory, just a bunch of metaphors, my job here is done.
Kerem Tibuk July 21, 2010 at 11:39 am: Yes Peter,

Peter please tell us all that the concept of a “copy” doesn’t exist.

Tell us they are all the copies we thought were copies were actually similarities. Yes they may be caused by the original but nooooo, we can never call them copies.

Tell us when some one comes across ten thousand unauthorized DVD copies, oops, of a bootlegged copy, oops again, of the movie avatar we can never be sure that if these are copies or similar productions. Yes there is causality but that is it. Causality can only cause similar reproductions but no copies since that concept is non existent.

Please entertain us.

There were people who even denied IP exists at all so absurdities never amaze me. But I am sure there are new people who wait to be entertained.
Peter Surda July 21, 2010 at 2:24 pm: Dear Kerem,

Please entertain us.

I am glad you are enjoying this, apparently you missed that the purpose is to learn and not to entertain.

Peter please tell us all that the concept of a “copy” doesn’t exist.

The concept of a copy as presented by you is a metaphor, it is not a scientific concept. You still don’t get that it is you who claims that you can distinguish a copy from a mix of externality and substitute, yet fail to explain how to do this. It is your own inability that is causing your disturbance.

There were people who even denied IP exists at all so absurdities never amaze me.

But Kerem, when I used a scientific description for a copy, it is you insists that it is incorrect, but other than throwing metaphors my way, you are unable to counter it. It is your own ineptitude that is the cause of this absurdity. Your own lack of scientific rigor and preference of a religious approach to the problem.

You have provided zero reasons why merit should be given to any of your “definitions”. You have reached the point where your religion collides with science, and, of course, this exposes you to cognitive dissonance. I don’t know how it’s going to end, but my guess is that one day a skeptic will cut it short and extend the sovereignty of his foot into the ass of an IP cult member.
Kerem Tibuk July 21, 2010 at 2:59 pm: Stop beating around the bush and say it Peter. Dont be afraid to sound like a lunatic. You are doing it for science.

“The concept of a copy as presented by you is a metaphor, it is not a scientific concept.”

Tell us if there is scientific concept called a copy. Please. Millions of people who copy stuff daily want to know that they are doing. Are they behaving scientifically enough when they choose the command “copy” and then “paste”? Or are they using a metaphor through the right click?

“But Kerem, when I used a scientific description for a copy, it is you insists that it is incorrect, but other than throwing metaphors my way, you are unable to counter it.”

I have never seen you define the concept of “copy” other than deny the concept. Here is your chance.

Tell us.

What is the meaning of a “copy”? Is it possible to “copy” something?

Is there any thing in anyway that prevents you from differentiating a thing that is nature given, a thing that you have created and a thing that must be created by some other individual, given you have your mind faculties in order?

Oh and have learned what ethics is, and how property is a sub study of ethics?
Peter Surda July 21, 2010 at 3:18 pm: The failure of my opponents to perform simple logic operation never ceases to surprise me.

Millions of people who copy stuff daily want to know that they are doing. Are they behaving scientifically enough when they choose the command “copy” and then “paste”?

What does acting in some way have to do with the inability to scientifically categorise that action with regards to a specific theory? Nothing. You seem to be losing your ground and attempting to divert attention.

A copy is a mix of causality and similarity. Its precise meaning depends on the context (because similarity is essentialy utilitarianism) and the scope of relevance (because causality extends to infinity).

I have never seen you define the concept of “copy” other than deny the concept. Here is your chance.

Then you apparently can’t read. I don’t deny the concept of copy, that is just one of your delusions, just like you seem to think I deny the existence of causality. I maintain however that the concept of copy is subjective, depends both on the scope of relevance and the utility of the parties involved (those involved in the alleged act of copying as well as the observer). The concept of change, however, is not subjective (unless again you are talking in metaphors like “rearranging patterns”).

Oh and have learned what ethics is, and how property is a sub study of ethics?

Not again Kerem. Logic and definitions take precedence over ethics. It is pointless to muse whether a self-contradictory theory or theory that does not use definitions are ethical.
Kerem Tibuk July 21, 2010 at 3:36 pm: “Then you apparently can’t read. I don’t deny the concept of copy, that is just one of your delusions, just like you seem to think I deny the existence of causality. I maintain however that the concept of copy is subjective, depends both on the scope of relevance and the utility of the parties involved (those involved in the alleged act of copying as well as the observer). ”

The concept of “copy” has to be an objective concept by definition otherwise you are effectively destroying the only essence of it.

If a copy can not be objectively defined and determined that means the concept of copying is impossible. That is the reason you use the concept of “similar” instead of “copy”.

But when it comes to outright denying the concept of copy you somehow get frightened and can not do it. I thought you were a scientist. But a coward at that.

Come one.

When I select the word “Pythagoras” with the help of my mouse and then right click and then select copy. And if I go to another space on my screen and right click again, and this time select paste. Is the resul, “Pythagoras” an objectively defined and determined copy of the original word? Or is it just similar. Some that looks like Pythagoras perhaps but not him. Maybe his cousin?

PS: I used the exact method of copying and pasting the word “Pythagoras ” I described above. There I did it again. It is hard to spell Pythagoras, oops I did it again.
Peter Surda July 21, 2010 at 4:01 pm: If a copy can not be objectively defined and determined that means the concept of copying is impossible.

Are you serious? Is this really your claim? That explains all the nonsense you are promoting. Thank you for an insight into your mind.

mpolzkill July 21, 2010 at 11:15 am

Every law has the threat of death behind it. Always remember that when scheming.

mpolzkill July 21, 2010 at 11:16 am

Massa Tibuk, Alabama, 1850:

“Only those not returning my property are threatened. And they are not being threatened by being shot unlike land trespassers.

Is it possible for you not to help my certain property?

yes.

Are you still interacting with it, and knowingly, without the consent of the owner?

yes.

Whether or not your defintion of property is different then mine, you are aggressing against my abilty to make a living in the way that you are helping my slave.”

Kerem Tibuk July 21, 2010 at 11:21 am

That is a reply relevant to and in the context of the boundary issue.

Do you think the issue of slavery a boundary issue?

Or some other issue about property?

mpolzkill July 21, 2010 at 11:39 am: It was a joke based on your bald assertions about property and your appeals to coercion. Your every comment has that context.

Magnus July 21, 2010 at 11:01 am

Well, you’ve finally gotten down to the root of your error — property rights (and indeed ALL rights) are inherently social.

Rivalry is a prerequisite of property.

The issue of justification (or the lack of justification) only exists in the social relationship, which (by definition) can only exist if there is more than one person.

Rights (and property and contracts and justifications and morals and ethics all the rest) only exist in the minds of men.

It’s like the concept of marriage — there’s no such thing as a marriage with only one person. It is, by definition, a state of relation, and therefore implies, requires and assumes the existence of more than one person.

Property is a concept describing a state of relation, and therefore implies, requires and assumes the existence of more than one person.

Kerem Tibuk July 21, 2010 at 11:10 am

Magnus,

I respect you more than these IP socialist in that at least you do not try to hide your socialism.

You claim rights arise from the society like every other socialist, and it is better to debate an honest socialist than a dishonest one.

Shay July 21, 2010 at 12:10 pm

Yeah, I really hate those socialists. What can we do about those socialists? If only those socialists would be honest about being socialists. It’s always the damn socialists. Those socialists, sheesh…

Kerem Tibuk July 21, 2010 at 3:11 pm: Yeah. What you say has consequences. They define you. At least politically.

Do you expect to advocate socialization of privately produced property and claim rights arise not from the individual but from the society, and to be called something else than a socialists.

You guys who do not think about the consequences of your claims may thing these are simple name calling games but they are not.

Reply

Aaron July 21, 2010 at 8:41 pm

Great Scott! I don’t think he was saying rights emerge out of society, but because rights are a just and equitable way to interact peaceably with other people. If there were only one person on planet earth he would still own himself and all he homesteaded, but what would really be the point of asserting those rights he possesses? He may assert them to the air or the animals, but its really a moot point without other people present.

Kerem Tibuk July 23, 2010 at 6:42 am: “If there were only one person on planet earth he would still own himself and all he homesteaded, but what would really be the point of asserting those rights he possesses? ”

Asserting the rights don’t have a point. Assertion necessarily requires another individual, or rather society.

But how can you assert the right, in society, do you think? What is the basis of your rights in society? How can you justify “this is mine”? How can you say to Friday, when he comes to the island, “Friday this is mine”?

You can do it, because you had that same control over yourself and the things you homesteaded, BEFORE you are a part of society. You gain them as an individual. You didn’t need Friday to be in control of yourself and homestead. That is why it is yours.

This is called individualism. It is called liberty based on property rights. It is also called libertarianism in general.

Do you see why I am so frustrated with this IP Socialism? Because it is not only about IP or some second rate patent attorney and his obsession.

This issue is about the basis of the whole theory of property and thus liberty.

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Allen Weingarten July 21, 2010 at 11:17 am

I accept Rothbard’s view that there is no justification for patents, but that a seller and purchaser of a product have a right to make a contract, which may then be covered by a copyright.

Magnus July 21, 2010 at 11:24 am

But I am not bound by anyone else’s contract.

If I acquire a copy of an article, even from a thief, or from someone who breached his contract in order to give it to me, then I am still not bound by the original contract between the original seller and original purchaser.

And because I am not contractually bound, no one who gets a copy from me would be contractually bound.

Copyright restrictions cannot be replicated with contracts, pure and simple. Contracts only bind the parties, but copyright purports to bind everyone whether they agreed to anything or not.

Kerem Tibuk July 21, 2010 at 11:29 am

Magnus,

Do you think you can enter the apartment, I rented through a contract from my landlord, whenever you want just because you don’t have a contract with him?

mpolzkill July 21, 2010 at 11:32 am: This one isn’t nearly as fun as your one about the interesting girls you must know.

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Magnus July 21, 2010 at 11:54 am: People are funny about property rights in the context of physical space, including land and structures like apartments (as opposed to property in movable objects).

The general approach (not saying it’s correct) is that in terms of people moving into or on physical space, property rights are absolute, extending beyond the actual use of the owner at the time. This is why you can leave your apartment, and yet still be the owner, and thus have the right to exclude everyone.

But, as with EM signals, we see that the very same apartment, and the air inside it, and the walls that encapsulate it, can be used by someone else to transmit a non-interfering signal through it, when you’re there or not. People can also take the reflected light off of your house by taking a picture of it, without violating your property rights.

But we humans definitely have a tendency toward absolutism of property rights in the context of (a) physical space (especially living space), when it’s combined with (b) the physical intrusion by another person (as opposed to intruding with EM waves).

Why is that? Probably because of the fact that the physical presence of someone else entering your living space, whom you did not give express permission to be there, triggers the fight-or-flight response. It’s an evolutionary thing — humans are both predators and prey, and we know that having someone inside your space is a presumptive threat, even if it is done innocently, helpfully, or without the owner’s knowledge.

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Allen Weingarten July 21, 2010 at 5:15 pm

Magnus, please clarify. If you acquire something from a thief, are you saying that you have a right to it? I understand that if you don’t know that something was stolen you are not culpable. However, you appear to be saying that if someone stole John’s car, and you knowingly obtained it, that John no longer has the right to what was his car.

Magnus July 21, 2010 at 6:26 pm: You cannot not acquire title to a stolen physical book, but that general principle does not answer the IP question — is the content of the book (the pattern of the ink) property?

And it doesn’t have to be a thief who transmits the book. Let’s say A makes a contract with B to never copy the book A wrote. Then, B dies. Or he leaves the book behind in his hotel. Or simply decides to breach his contract with A. By whatever means the book falls into the hands of C, C has no contract with A to refrain from copying it.

Therefore, A has no contractual claim against C for any copying C may do, nor against anyone who gets C’s copy and makes further copies.

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Peter Surda July 22, 2010 at 3:22 am: If you acquire something from a thief, are you saying that you have a right to it?

You can enjoy immaterial benefits that are causally related to the theft. For example, if you obtain a stolen car, and the owner finds it, you are obligated to return the car, the fuel (if consumed) and maybe pay for depreciation. However, he cannot request that the objects that were transported with the car against his will be relocated to their original position. If you made out with your girlfriend in the car, he cannot request this procedure to be reversed either (indeed, what would that mean?).

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André July 21, 2010 at 11:40 am

I could not agree more with you, Allen.

“If I acquire a copy of an article, even from a thief, or from someone who breached his contract in order to give it to me, then I am still not bound by the original contract between the original seller and original purchaser.”

Well, actually you are bound as well to the original contract, in a way – you are responsible for the theft if you knew the good was stolen.

BioTube July 21, 2010 at 1:46 pm

Not really; I might be compelled to return the medium on which I received the article, but nothing prevents me from making a copy(perhaps digitally) and then doing whatever the fsck I want to with it. If I receive it digitally, there’s nothing to return.

Darcy July 21, 2010 at 6:28 pm

You are violating the property when you make your copy, since you are not authorized to do so at any point by the legitimate owner.

Making a copy of anything without knowing who owns the original is potentially criminal.

Matthew Swaringen July 21, 2010 at 6:31 pm: That’s a daft notion. Anyone should at any time be able to know what they are doing is wrong or is not wrong. Any moral code that establishes that you could be doing something wrong and might not know is ridiculous.

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Piotr from Warsaw July 21, 2010 at 11:20 am

Another thing bothers me: “information cannot be made the object of human action”. If I “acquire” information, “look for” information or “provide” information isn’t it an object of my action?

Daniel Coleman July 21, 2010 at 11:58 am

No, the information remains just one of the general conditions of your actions. Rothbard uses the term “recipes” for technological ideas in Man, Economy, and State, and points out that these, being nonscarce, are not objects of human action.

So what happens when you “acquire,” “look for,” or “provide” information, as you say? Think about whatever scarce, physical thing is altered in a given process, and that is the object of your action. If you look for information online, you are manipulating your computer, which could have been put to alternate uses. You are also economizing your time, which is always scarce. And so on.

Typically when we talk about an idea, we are actually referring to an instantiation of the idea in some physical, scarce thing.

Piotr from Warsaw July 21, 2010 at 12:39 pm

I looked into Rothbard and I am not so very certain about your interpretation. I will quote: “The dostinguishing feature of a recipe is that, once learned, it generally does not have to be learned again. It can be noted and remembered. Remembered, it no longer has to be produced; it remains with the actor as an unlimited factor of production that never wears out or needs to be economized by human action. It becomes a general condition of human action in the same way as air.” And here goes a footnote: “We shall not deal at this point with the complications involved in the original learning of any recipe by the actor, which is the object of human action” (page 11). What bothers me is such expressions as “once learned”, “no longer has to be produced”, “becomes a general condition of human action”. That implies that it was not a general condition before it was learned. As about the footnote it is unclear if he thinks recipe or original learning is the object of human action. Also your sentence “Typically when we talk about an idea, we are actually referring to an instantiation of the idea in some physical, scarce thing.” is unclear to me. Do you mean that sometimes we are referring to an instantiation and sometimes not?

Kerem Tibuk July 21, 2010 at 2:47 pm: I think Rothbard’s point is that,

The recipes that are usually used to increase productivity, are like capital but unlike capital they can not be consumed.

I don’t know what he means about being part of human action though. Maybe he means it becomes a part of the memory thus part of the human.

On the other hand, although theoretically the recipe can not be consumed, it can be forgotten and lost forever. Then it would not be a part of any human action since it would not be a part of the human memory.

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Magnus July 21, 2010 at 11:41 am

You claim rights arise from the society like every other socialist, and it is better to debate an honest socialist than a dishonest one.

Thanks.

I suppose I am a “socialist” as to objects that are used without interfering with any use of that object by anyone else. These things are unowned, and un-ownable.

It’s a little tricky to identify which aspects of objects are owned and which are not. For example, let’s look at something physical but not palpable — light.

Do I own the light that bounces off my face? If so, then no one can take a photo of me. No one can even look at me! If not, then that reflected light belongs to anyone who chooses to capture it, by turning their eyes to me, or snapping a photo, collecting that stream of reflected light at a particular moment.

Do I own the light that is streaming in toward my crops that are growing in my fields? Yes, I believe, because I am using it to grow my crops, which need it, which will die without it. If someone were to set up a large light-collector over my fields to take the light before it falls on my crops, he could try to sell it to me. But I was using that light stream first, so I can claim a property right in it.

Do I own the air? Normally, air is considered so plentiful and readily available that it is non-rivalrous. But not always. How about the air that’s right in front of my mouth, as I am breathing it in? I’d say that I am using it, particularly if someone were able to capture it just as I was trying to inhale it, forcing me to find some other air to breathe.

What about the air that I breathe out? I am not using that, and can be said to have abandoned it. But what if I am trying to collect my breath as I exhale it? Normally, that pocket of gas is abandoned, and unowned, and returned to the (mostly) non-scarce volume of air that envelops the planet. But if I am trying to perform an experiment (to test my breathing capacity, for example), then I am using that pocket of gas, and thus can be said to own it.

mpolzkill July 21, 2010 at 11:48 am

This is good stuff, thanks. How about our friends at GM, Magnus, do they own their jobs and continuing pensions?

Sasha Radeta July 21, 2010 at 12:03 pm

Air and light cannot be owned, but that has nothing to do with our topic.

Shay July 21, 2010 at 12:15 pm: The point wasn’t about whether we could own them, but the reasoning behind whether we can. Your response is like saying that subtracting 10 from 11 has no relevance to subtracting 4 from 5, as they are different numbers.

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Daniel Coleman July 21, 2010 at 4:44 pm: Actually, it raises a pertinent objection to your position, Mr. Radeta. Take our years-old example of “Dance Man,” who while standing on his own property happened to see copyrighted dance moves being performed by someone else. We have gone back and forth before about whether a 3rd party under these conditions, who uses the dance moves later, has been in breach of any contract or otherwise acted aggressively.

However, the fact that sight takes place through a medium causes an additional wrinkle in the discussion. Light beams are unowned, as you say, but it is the beams of light that Dance Man interacts with, not the actual property of the dance “owner” himself! Therefore, the dance “owner” cannot claim that Dance Man has used his property. All Dance Man used was his own property (to stand on) and the light waves which bounced off of the dancer doing the moves. At no point did Dance Man demonstrably make any contact with the dance “owner”‘s actual, physical property.

Thus, your argument here has to rely on the nebulous and imprecise term “use.” But merely calling something “use” is insufficient to demonstrate that anyone’s property was in fact trespassed upon. The dance “owner” cannot demonstrate that Dance Man has actually appropriated any of his [the “owner”‘s] physical property. And the point about light beams, which are in fact the only thing Dance Man uses to get his information, sharpens this point considerably.

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Kerem Tibuk July 21, 2010 at 2:34 pm

“Do I own the light that bounces off my face? If so, then no one can take a photo of me. No one can even look at me! If not, then that reflected light belongs to anyone who chooses to capture it, by turning their eyes to me, or snapping a photo, collecting that stream of reflected light at a particular moment.”

Consequences of the reflection is only possible in social context where more than one individual must exist. The existence of the consequence depends on some second party. So you can not own your reflection. It is an externality. Also the reflection off your face is not the object of a creation but subject of a natural phenomenon. You maybe held accountable for an intentional reflection, which would be not natural but artificial. Like reflecting light in someones eye and temporarily blinding him. That would be aggression.

“Do I own the light that is streaming in toward my crops that are growing in my fields? Yes, I believe, because I am using it to grow my crops, which need it, which will die without it. If someone were to set up a large light-collector over my fields to take the light before it falls on my crops, he could try to sell it to me. But I was using that light stream first, so I can claim a property right in it.”

Whoever uses the natural resource first, homesteads it. He owns it. If you are using the sun light above, you homesteaded it, and nobody can prevent the light to fall on your field. If he does that is clear aggression.

“Do I own the air? Normally, air is considered so plentiful and readily available that it is non-rivalrous. But not always. How about the air that’s right in front of my mouth, as I am breathing it in? I’d say that I am using it, particularly if someone were able to capture it just as I was trying to inhale it, forcing me to find some other air to breathe.”

Depends on the circumstances. Air can also be produced. If you are on a Martian colony where atmosphere is produced you do not own the air at all. Whoever produces it owns it. What was the movie Total Recall?

On earth this issue is more of an air pollution issue, since your examples are highly unlikely. Since there are no clear barriers regarding the air and air travels freely, we can say all the air is homesteaded by everyone. But if air pollution can not pollute the whole atmosphere equally, not everyone would be effected thus compensated when there is pollution, but only the ones adversely affected.

In general, whatever you use, to stay alive in general, that is unowned you homestead it. Homesteading is an individual act. No one ever in history, has waited for some rival before he started using the nature given resource. In the real world, an individual homesteads and makes something his property. And then and only then, maybe a second later maybe a year later, some other individual has to make an ethical choice regarding the said property. he either respects the property right of the homesteader, or he aggresses against it.

Property is the extension of the individual. It is a tool for his survival. In both the narrow individual sense, and in the general human sense. Just like the individual is the ultimate sovereign over himself, when he extends his sovereignty to his property he becomes the ultimate sovereign over his property.

Individuals ability to use his body and the property he homesteaded, as he pleases is the natural state. If he can carry this state into a society, also carrying the same abilities regarding himself and his property we can say he has liberty.

That is why property is the key to liberty in society.

It is not that complicated really.

Peter Surda July 21, 2010 at 3:01 pm

So you can not own your reflection. It is an externality.

Yet, elsewhere you say that all transactions consist of exchanges of property. If both of these are true then, is a contract that contains the condition that photography of some objects is forbidden, invalid?

It is not that complicated really.

It doesn’t seem to prevent you from making arbitrary assumptions and creating weird constructs.

Kerem Tibuk July 21, 2010 at 3:06 pm

“Yet, elsewhere you say that all transactions consist of exchanges of property.”

No I said all contracts are about exchanges of property. I know it gets confusing to learn different subjects simultaneous but try to read carefully and understand what you read.

“If both of these are true then, is a contract that contains the condition that photography of some objects is forbidden, invalid?”

What?

I am saying contracts are about property exchanges and reflections can not be property and you still can ask about contracts regarding reflections? Are you drunk or something?

Peter Surda July 21, 2010 at 3:26 pm

Admittedly, you completely lost me. So are contracts that do not contain an exchange of property valid or not? If they are, then why do you claim that contracts are about exchange of property? If they aren’t, then is it possible for you to prohibit photography of something, without physically preventing light reflecting off it? Since you just said reflection of light is an externality, obviously you cannot claim undesired photography to be trespass. So I wonder, have you actually thought this through?

Kerem Tibuk July 21, 2010 at 3:45 pm: “So are contracts that do not contain an exchange of property valid or not?”

They are not.

“If they are, then why do you claim that contracts are about exchange of property?”

They are not.

“If they aren’t, then is it possible for you to prohibit photography of something, without physically preventing light reflecting off it?”

No it is no possible because contracts are about property exchanges and reflections are externalities and not property.

“Since you just said reflection of light is an externality, obviously you cannot claim undesired photography to be trespass. ”

No it is not trespass by itself because externalities are externalities and not property and this has nothing to do with contracts.
Peter Surda July 21, 2010 at 4:05 pm: Phew, what a relief. Now I know that before you are able to put any of your weird theories into action in a way that has an effect on me, you are likely to be killed by someone who does not appreciate that you don’t consider an obligation to refrain from an undesired activity binding.
mpolzkill July 21, 2010 at 4:27 pm: But he might get in and out with out being detected, Peter. Remember? He said it could be done.

Magnus July 21, 2010 at 3:07 pm

Homesteading is an individual act. No one ever in history, has waited for some rival before he started using the nature given resource. In the real world, an individual homesteads and makes something his property.

No, an individual uses something in order to change the world in some way that benefits him.

We only call that “homesteading” when referring to the property rights that he acquires in the course of being the first user, to distinguish him from later users, but if there is no other person in question (like the theoretical Robinson Crusoe, or the Last Man on Earth scenario), then there is no homesteading, only a guy using stuff.

Just like the individual is the ultimate sovereign over himself, when he extends his sovereignty to his property he becomes the ultimate sovereign over his property.

There is no such thing as sovereignty over objects! That’s so ridiculously wrong-headed!

Property does not concern the relationship between a person and a thing. Property concerns the relationship between people with regard to things.

This “King of My Stuff” theory of yours is way off base!

Kerem Tibuk July 21, 2010 at 3:23 pm

Let me get this straight.

Crusoe is on the island, he picks berries but they are not his property but just his stuff. He can do whatever he wants with the berries that includes all the things in the definition of property except to exclude some other individual and only because there is no one to actually exclude.

Friday comes to the island.

At what point the stuff becomes Crusoe’s property?

When Friday lands on the island and he is not aware of either Crusoe or his berries.

When he sees Crusoe and his berries but doesn’t even think of taking or rivaling over the berries.

When he thinks about the possibility of trying to take the berries from Crusoe.

When he actually confronts Crusoe and says he wants those berries.

When he actually physically tries to take berries.

When he hits Crusoe on the head because of the rivalry regarding the berries.

Or when they form a society and vote on the rights of each individual.

I know positivism can be enticing. Sitting in your chair designing society and how laws should be made to further societies goals. But in real life this doesn’t happen and if and when it does it only leads to tyranny.

Magnus July 21, 2010 at 3:52 pm

Friday comes to the island.

At what point the stuff becomes Crusoe’s property?

When Crusoe is on the island alone, nothing there is “his,” per se. It’s not “his” stuff, and it’s not his property. That makes no sense. It’s like saying he’s King of a Coconut. You can’t be King of a Coconut. You can only be king of other people.

Property is a description of a person’s relationship with another person with regard to a thing. And since there is no other person involved (since Crusoe interacts with no one, and may even expect to be alone for the remainder of his life), there is no property. It’s just a guy using the objects of his environment however he wants, to benefit himself.

When Friday comes to the island, then there are two people who now have a relationship, friendly or otherwise. Only with two (or more) people interacting in some way is there the capacity for that relationship to be characterized as subject to property rights.

Crusoe and Friday’s relationship is governed by property rights as soon as one man begins to use something in a way that interferes with the other man’s use of that thing. This property-based relationship exists for as long as they interact in such a way that one man’s use of something interferes with the other man’s use of it.

The substantive definition of that property right, however, is determined by reference to Crusoe’s behavior before the two men met — whoever was the first user of the thing in question is the owner.

In this case, Crusoe’s first use of the berries pre-dates the existence of the Crusoe-Friday relationship. Although Crusoe’s property right in the berries only existed after the two men met (and thus had at least the potential to both use the same thing), the property right itself is defined by Crusoe’s use of the berries before they met.

Aaron July 21, 2010 at 8:56 pm: Brilliant.
Bala July 21, 2010 at 10:00 pm: ” Property is a description of a person’s relationship with another person with regard to a thing. ”

Ouch!!! You wouldn’t believe sheer number of times I have told this guy the same thing, but he still insists on denying it without argument.
Kerem Tibuk July 22, 2010 at 2:57 am: Magnus,

You are asserting the same absurd argument and it is obvious that you can not actually see the absurdity of your claims. As I said, this is common for positivist but let me step back and try to look at this from another perspective. Then you may see the absurdity of your assertions, and that all rights originate from the individual and his nature and then carried to the society.

Let’s forget about the external property and say there is only Crusoe, himself on the island.

Can Crusoe do whatever he wants as long as the natural circumstances allow? Run around, sing, jump up and down, take swim. etc.

Yes, he can.

Can we say he has the absolute liberty, he is as free as one can possibly get?

Yes, because freedom is defined as the state where no other individual constrains the choice of another individual. The nature, the reality can constrain the individual but if no other human being does, we can say he has liberty. I am making this distinction because “liberty” and “might” are often confused, mostly by socialists.

Thus the natural state of Crusoe in isolation, is liberty.

Now, when Friday comes to the island, Crusoe losing his liberty becomes a possibility.

Now here is the important part you don’t seem to get.

Although the possibility of Crusoe losing his liberty becomes a possibility, this doesn’t mean existence of Crusoe’s liberty depends on Friday to exist on the island. The natural state of the individual is already liberty. Crusoe already had his liberty. It is as meaningful as it can get. Fridays arrival doesn’t add any meaning to Crusoe’s liberty or increase it, or enhance it in any way. Only it can threaten it.

If Crusoe can carry this liberty he already possesses in isolation, into a society, we can then say he can keep his liberty.

You and some of the others here claim, “rights are only meaningful in society”.

What do you mean by meaningful?

Yes, in isolation rights can not be threatened by other individuals but the threat is not the thing that gives meaning to control over ones body and his possessions. What gives meaning to liberty is the state where no other individual can stop you from what you are doing.

What is it that the individual doesn’t have in isolation, that he gains in society?

Only the threat of losing whatever he had.

Property theory is just an extension of this circumstance because man needs to homestead and extend himself to the outside. Humans are not ghosts floating around and they need to use, transform hence homestead nature given things, in order to survive.

However you define the concept of “owning”, Crusoe has that in isolation. Except for the ability to exclude other humans. But of course since Crusoe is in isolation, this exclusion is already a natural state. Before Friday arrives at the island, Friday is excluded from Crusoe’s property by nature, or reality if you will. The question is, and what rights are, “Can Crusoe keep this state after Friday comes?”

Crusoe homestead an apple. He can do whatever with it he wants, and all this actions are covered by the concept of “owning”. There is nothing that Crusoe can not do before any other human declares it to be his property or not. And his apple is naturally excluded from other humans because there are no other humans.

Can Crusoe carry this state after Fridays arrival? That is the question.

So property rights, including self ownership, is the only tool that carries the liberty of an individual in isolation to the society.

An individual is free if and only if, he can act in society as if he was in isolation and that is only possible through property.

That is the reason a mans home is his castle, or rather a mans home is a mans isolated island. Whenever a man acts through his property he actually exercises the luxury of the free man in isolation.

Of course society has its benefits, and there is no need to list them here. But since human is an individual first, since humans nature dictates that every human is unique, the best state that a man can be is in society but with his property rights guaranteeing him the liberty his nature requires.

Now, if you think man as an individual is nothing, and humans are only something as a part of society then I might understand your insistence on the concept of rights arising from the society. But that is not discussion amongst people who all claim to be libertarians.
Peter Surda July 22, 2010 at 4:32 am: Yes, because freedom is defined as the state where no other individual constrains the choice of another individual.

This is another utter nonsense. Any act of consumption of scarce resources, including homesteading and using those resource which are not up to sale, restricts choices. Any discrimination restricts choices. If I buy the last cola in the shop, the next customer’s choice is restricted. If a woman decides to go out with one guy, that restricts the choice of another guy.

Kerem, you lost it. The more I push you, the more nonsense you spew. Reflections being externalities, non-enforceability of promises to refrain from an activity, property existing with one person, boundaries existing without change, and all the other crap. Now I can only wonder if people you interact with will be as tolerant as me and appreciate your positions without you landing up broke, in jail, or dead.
Magnus July 22, 2010 at 9:08 am: However you define the concept of “owning”, Crusoe has that in isolation.

No, that is totally wrong.

I will say this for the third time — “ownership” is NOT a trait or characteristic that a person can have in isolation. That’s a nonsense assertion, that contradicts the meaning of the term “ownership.”

Being an “owner” is ONLY possible IN RELATION to other people.

The term “ownership” is kind of like “husband” or “slave” or “teacher.”

You can ONLY be an husband IN RELATION to a wife. There is no such thing as a husband without a wife.

You can ONLY be a slave IN RELATION to a master. There is no such thing as a slave without a master.

You can ONLY be an owner of some object IN RELATION to a non-owner of it. There is no such thing as an owner without a non-owner.

It would be easier to understand if there were some unique word in English for “non-owner,” since that would help clarify. But “non-owner” will do.

When referring to an individual owner of some object, then the rest of the entire human race are non-owners. But if Crusoe were the last man on earth, he would not be the owner. There would be no social role terms that could describe him at all, because he would have no possibility for society.

When Crusoe is alone on the island, jumping around and swimming as he wants to, with no possibility of physical restraint from any other person whatsoever, he is not the “owner” of anything. There is no NON-OWNER around, so there cannot be any owner-nonowner relationship.

Likewise, Crusoe (while alone) cannot be an employee, slave, master, husband, teacher, king, subject, citizen, or any other form of SOCIAL ROLE, because he has no society, and therefore cannot have a relation to an employer, master, slave, wife, student, subject, king, or co-citizen.

OWNERSHIP IS A SOCIAL ROLE. It is only a social role, and the term has no meaning whatsoever outside of the context of a social role.

Whatever term you use to describe his unfettered lack of restraint, it is not ownership.

Likewise, Crusoe jumping around freely on the sand is not a state of total liberty, in that sense.

Like all forms of property (including ownership, along with every lesser form of property right), liberty ONLY exists in the context of one person’s relation to another.

If you are describing the lack of restraint that a person experiences when alone as “liberty,” then that is a different meaning of the word “liberty” when used in the context of the ethics of social interaction. A lack of physical restraint is not the same thing as a moral or ethical right to liberty.

Peter Surda July 21, 2010 at 3:55 pm

At what point the stuff becomes Crusoe’s property?

“The stuff” becomes Crusoe’s property at the time of homesteading. However, the concept has no meaning unless it is known to Crusoe that other people exist, which subsequently proves to be the case as Friday appears. Merely because there is noone else on the island at the time of homesteading does not mean that no other people exist in general, or ever will. Friday’s arrival does not change the fact whether other people exist or do not, it only changes whether this is known to Crusoe or not.

This is why I like the methodology of falsifiablity. Crusoe, assuming that there are no other people, has no use for the concept of property. His assumption however being falsified by Friday’s arrival, and facing the presence of rival goods, a theory needs to be developed to explain how the goods should be divided.

Kerem Tibuk July 22, 2010 at 3:05 am: Peter,

Read my response to Magnus, it covers you also.

But I this little gem I can not over look.

“a theory needs to be developed to explain how the goods should be divided.”

Really?

Is this a Freudian slip or is the truth finally coming out?

And you guys get pissed when I call you Marxist socialists.
Peter Surda July 22, 2010 at 6:01 am: a theory needs to be developed to explain how the goods should be divided.

Really? Is this a Freudian slip or is the truth finally coming out?

Maybe I should have phrased it differently in order for you to comprehend it. So, replace “developed” with “discovered”. If Crusoe assumes there are no other people, or to put it more accurately, if it can’t occur to him that there are other people, he cannot discover the concept of property any more than he can discover any concept derived from social interaction. Maybe, after a long time, he can discover some that can be emulated by a computer. But a computer cannot own anything, unless, of course, Crusoe can single handedly bring about the technological singularity. But none of this is possible until the concept of another entity besides him occurs to him.
mpolzkill July 22, 2010 at 7:36 am: “And you guys get pissed when I call you Marxist socialists”

No, Tibuk, you slipped. You’ve become a troll.
Kerem Tibuk July 23, 2010 at 6:50 am: yeah misphrasings can happen but the sad part is you thought the mistake was the concept of “develop” or “discover”.

I was actually talking abut “the goods being divided”.

Since that doesn’t even bother you even on the second examination, please do not offer any thoughts on the political concepts, like “socialism” and “socialist”. I don’t think you are knowledgeable enough to condone or condemn the usages.
Peter Surda July 25, 2010 at 9:05 am: Yes Kerem, “goods being divided”. You know, because that’s what property does, it explains how rival goods should be divided. I know that you believe that the concept of property exists even with one person and in the absence of rival goods, despite me (and others) explaining that such a concept is meaningless, undiscoverable and unexercisable. Just like with all the other subproblems of IP, you expect us to believe in concepts which you haven’t explained or provided evidence for, while considering scepticism to be heresy.

Peter July 21, 2010 at 9:46 pm

Rothbard himself once said that we libertarians should really be called “socialists”, and those-we-call-socialists should be called something else, because it’s we who have the best interests of “society” at heart.
[PS: If anyone knows where he wrote this, let me know; I can’t recall, and wish I could]

Kerem Tibuk July 22, 2010 at 3:08 am: I completely agree.

Only through private property there can be a functioning society and thus every libertarian is actually a socialists if you take the meaning as it is. But “the best interest of society” is pushing it. Since it is in every “individuals interest” to be a part of a functioning society, it is actually the individuals interest. Society is an abstraction and it can not have an interest.

Unfortunately contemporary meaning of socialism is something else, and when I use it I mean that meaning.

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Bala July 21, 2010 at 10:08 pm

Welcome to the world of people who have been labelled “socialist” by Kerem Tibuk simply because they all said (in their own words) that “property rights”, like all “rights” have no meaning outside of a social context.

Pythagoras July 21, 2010 at 1:40 pm

Good afternoon, children.

I am Pythagoras. You probably all know me best for my theorem relating the lengths of the sides of a right triangle to its hypotenuse. Well, I have some good news (for me.) According to my friend Kerem, that widely used theorem is actually my “property(!)” since I certainly created it from my own labor and talents. It looks like many of you have been “interacting” with my property, although you all clearly have a choice not too. I mean, it certainly must have some value, because 7th graders are still talking about it all these years later. Because I’m a nice guy, all prior acts of “theft” and “piracy” are forgiven. HOWEVER, since I may dictate the terms to which others “use” my property, everyone is heretofore required to pay me $5 every time there is an “interaction” with my property. Yup, every algebra test, every engineering schematic, every time a surveyor pulls out one of those stupid tripods. (You get the picture.) I hope you guys have been saving.

Kerem Tibuk July 21, 2010 at 2:40 pm

The real Pythagoras gave away this property very long time ago for fame and glory.

It is not really an unusual thing for people to give their property away. It is called charity in general. And it doesn’t undermine any private property rights. What makes you think everything that can be property must be a part of an economic exchange? When are you people going to get rid of this Marxist paradigm that property rights are inherently linked to value or some economics action?

Robert A. Wicks July 21, 2010 at 3:13 pm: How could you possibly know that Pythagoras gave that away?

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Darcy July 21, 2010 at 6:39 pm

The problem with your argument, and what demonstrates your total lack of comprehension of the difference between ideas and information, is that one does not “use” the Pythagoras theorem the way one uses a book or a laser disc. In fact the Pythagoras theorem has no physical manifestation whatsoever, it is merely a mental interpretation of mathematical relationships. Any man having never come into contact with the rest of humanity could discover it and formulate his own interpretation of it in his own language. Actually this fascinating property of mathematics is the foundation of Neal Stephenson’s latest novel, Anathem.

james b. longacre July 21, 2010 at 4:20 pm

if i snuck my camera into a concert where the property owners said we dont want photos taken and took photos of a band perfromance and placed the photos on the web or sold some of them would anyone else have claim to those photos??

i mean, sneaking my camera didnt damage any property or preventing its functuionnality anywhere and since concert hall owners didnt get my camera/chip/film can all that be said there was that a camera-in-pocket trespass took place and they forbid me from entering property again??
but the photos would just be reflected light captured and info disseminated??

Peter Surda July 22, 2010 at 3:08 am

You took the words right out of my mouth. Brilliant.

Kerem Tibuk July 22, 2010 at 3:18 am

You seem to accept there was crime, a trespass but you seem to separate the result of the trespass, the photographs, apart from the trespass.

When a crime has been committed, the aim after the crime, is to try to get to the state before the crime has taken place. Since we can not go back in time, we do what we can to get as close as possible to the original state before the crime took place.

Since if there was no trespass, no photographs could exist, the compensation of this crime would cover the photographs taken. So the pictures could be deleted or destroyed justly. If it spreads and it is to late, then other material compensations could be applied.

And yes it was a brilliant scenario. At least relative to the arguments in these posts. And I would be surprised if it came from Peter.

Peter Surda July 22, 2010 at 4:36 am

Wait Kerem, you contradict yourself. What trespass? Trespass requires property and you said reflections are not property.

james b. longacre July 22, 2010 at 5:40 am

thats what i was wondering?? what is there to compensate?? re-tresspass on the trespasser?

peeing on their doorstep?? carrying the camera didnt require any property modification only a barrier breech so to speak.
how do you get back property from a reflection that is view by potentially thousands??

Kerem Tibuk July 23, 2010 at 7:00 am

Trespass of land.

James conceded to that in the example.

Peter Surda July 23, 2010 at 9:39 am

He purchased the right to enter. He merely didn’t fulfill the condition in the contract, which you elsewhere consider unenforceable.

Let me eliminate some unnecessary factors. If I permitted people to come to my garden only on the condition that they refrain from photography (requiring nothing in exchange), according to you, that’s not a contract. So why is then taking a photography trespass?

Just like I said, the harder I push, the more nonsense you spew.

Kerem Tibuk July 23, 2010 at 1:15 pm: You can not be this stupid. You know what your problem is? Your only aim in these discussions is to get “gotcha” moment and momentarily feel you have defeated someone in an argument. If you tried to understand the other party instead of chasing victories you wouldn’t sound this idiotic and you would learn something:

I am tired of trying to teach you the theory of contracts. I used to tell you to read Rothbard regarding this issue, but now I have decided you arent mentally capable of comprehending Rothbard.

That contract you accepted when you bought that ticket is a conditional property exchange. And it is a valid contract.
Peter Surda July 23, 2010 at 4:13 pm: Your only aim in these discussions is to get “gotcha” moment and momentarily feel you have defeated someone in an argument.

No Kerem, that’s what you do. You insist that you are right despite lack of any evidence, and instead of admitting it, you make up new and new nonsense. You expect to get a “gotcha” from me. I don’t. I’m a falsificationist. I know that when I present a falsifiable theory, it is expected (!!!) that others attempt to disprove it. But that is not what you do. Instead, you profess your religious doctrines. Rather than me being stupid, you are a religious nut, only instead of yelling “inshallah, infidels shall be defeated” you preach against “IP socialism”.

That contract you accepted when you bought that ticket is a conditional property exchange.

Ah, so suddenly it is not a conditional use of property, but conditional property exchange. I am glad you got that right. Of course, I have no problem with this Rothbard’s argument. The problem is that elsewhere, you contradict it.

Besides, I said that if you eliminate the price, there is no property exchange. You have not addressed that.

james b. longacre July 21, 2010 at 4:27 pm

“So are contracts that do not contain an exchange of property valid or not?”

if i contract to perform a cat scan on someone that seems valid. i own the cat scan, the electrical outlets that power it and the building around it. i own my labor to operate the cat scan. is labor a property or does the person getting a cat scan get or posses or own my labor??? is that what you are asking???

Nate July 21, 2010 at 5:20 pm

This discussion is fascinating, but what about the real-world consequences of this position? If information is non-rivalrous, then what is to become of the man who earns his living selling digitized or digitizable information of some sort? If the product of that man’s labor can be endlessly duplicated after it has been purchased once—thereby denying the producer revenue from subsequent consumption of his product—then what would impel him to continue his labor? Why wouldn’t he become a bricklayer or a librarian or something else that allows him to actually earn a living?

Michael McLees July 21, 2010 at 6:32 pm

Don’t worry about it. People will give him money as charity and he will be invited to give lectures. That should be enough.

(sarcasm)

Darcy July 21, 2010 at 6:33 pm

And they may even invite him to sleep on the couch in their living room, if he supplies the goods the consumers truly want.

Matthew Swaringen July 21, 2010 at 6:45 pm

These strawman arguments are unbelievable. Honestly. Do you both not recognize that the law hasn’t prevented people from doing what they want to do now? So in your current IP world guess what, people copy! And yet there are rich musicians, rich directors, etc. (And there is nothing at all wrong with them being rich, provided they provide the value to consumers).

The idea that taking away IP law will suddenly make people pay nothing is ludicrous. The only thing taking away IP law does is take away the reason for the government to continue expanding a system of control designed to prevent copying .

Do either of you have any proof at all that people would copy more if it were legal? Have you not considered that the incentives in the current system actually promote copying to “stick it to the man” who is rich solely because he forces you to buy from him through law? This is exactly the kind of argument you see everywhere online.

Rather than your miraculous IP laws solving anything they only provide reasons for people to break them.

Also, the if the IP laws prevent any copying it’s the copying of the popular stuff that is slowed down. The little guys don’t have the money to even get this “protection.” So perhaps there are a few extra sales for the big guys, while the little guy dies in obscurity .

It is truly obscurity (or customer dissatisfaction) that is the enemy of those who earn a living off copyable things.

It’s also utterly ridiculous to only look at the potential downside of copying and saying we need to have laws to prevent it. Guess what? The musician, artist, video game developer, director, etc. can only make millions because he can make copies on the cheap with modern technology. With digital files he has to spend even less than he did in the past. Those who wrote before the printing press were not rich. The majority of musicians could never have lived off their talent. These things are possible because of the very thing you would curse with restrictions.

Darcy July 21, 2010 at 6:58 pm

Media piracy is not a capital crime, like murder, so the fact that it takes place a little bit and industry has not collapsed is not an argument in favor of it.

Media pirates are like candy thieves – so long as it takes place on a small scale by uncivilized individuals, it is merely a nuisance to be dealt with at the least possible expense. However, should it become protected by law, then it would result in the total destruction of all candy markets.

Anyone capable of elementary economic analysis can see this. There is no economics in the analysis of IP opponents (not surprising that Kinsella is a lawyer, not an economist).

Matthew Swaringen July 21, 2010 at 8:45 pm

So your argument is that profit maximization for the creators of IP is the goal of economics Darcy?

So we should just throw out everyone’s individual freedom so that you can keep “property” rights in nonscarce things?

Liberty is a fundamentally more important principle than property, which is why it’s important that property theory have it’s basis in principles that maximize individual liberty. Without liberty property is meaningless. The purpose of ownership of property is the promotion of liberty.

If you value property more than liberty then you are lost. The entire core of libertarian philosophy is liberty and non-aggression and you can’t have IP without force against others unless you can convince absolutely everyone that they should believe in your fantasy even though it’s to no one’s benefit.

What is your basis for IP anyway Darcy? Do you believe it based on the principle that someone owns whatever they do first just like homesteading? And if so, how do you advocate your ability to post, write, or even breathe? Some other human did that long before you did. If your drawing lines based on “complexity” who are you to say what’s complex enough? Do you think there might be different opinions on that? Validate yours. Prove IP exists absent your desire for it to exist.

Darcy July 21, 2010 at 9:47 pm: The production of wealth is the objective of economics, and it always has been. IP opponents seem utterly unconcerned with this problem, and so they are not economists.The basis for IP is the production of wealth. The basis of all property is the production of wealth. The basis of communism is the denial of wealth.If you value liberty more than property, you simply understand neither. They are not commensurable. Liberty is the right to defend your own property.
Bala July 22, 2010 at 1:56 am: ” The production of wealth is the objective of economics, and it always has been. ”

Couldn’t be more incorrect. You could say “understanding what makes wealth creation possible and what renders it impossible”, but not “production of wealth”.

” The basis for IP is the production of wealth. ”

Yeah!! Maybe. But then the onus is on IP proponents to prove that IP leads to wealth creation.

” The basis of all property is the production of wealth. ”

No. The basis of all property is man’s desire for peaceful coexistence because such a situation is more conducive to his own well-being.

” The basis of communism is the denial of wealth. ”

No. It is the denial of the concept of “property rights”
mpolzkill July 22, 2010 at 8:12 am: The basis for the FED is the production of wealth, for the gamers of course. I guess that really makes this a collection of non-economists around here. Hey, I think I’ve heard that somewhere.

The basis of Communism is that it’s a bizarre quasi-religion. In short, something to do with many peoples’ desire for “all to be as one”, as it were. It is the lamest stretch of a comparison I can think of to call libertarians who don’t believe in “IP” communistic. Make money in any way you can imagine (without violating anyone else’s negative rights); please, go imagine something instead of using this corporatist scheme. I will never be one of those trying to stop you or get a cent of it from you, I’m not a communist.

I undertand that you guys think a widespread disbelief in “IP” will usher in an age of total poverty where we are all equally miserable, but couldn’t you stop insulting us in this way? Maybe we’re wrong, but we aren’t all lying, trying to fool you so that we can then deliberately proceed to this nightmare world. Sheesh.
Darcy July 22, 2010 at 5:19 pm: Oh I don’t think you are lying about being a communist, I genuinely believe that you are a communist in denial.

Why else would an argument against IP leave out production and value?
mpolzkill July 22, 2010 at 6:59 pm: Wow, what a silly goose I am, thanks for setting me straight. And to think of the all the years I fought hundreds of Commies because I loathed them and hated every single thing they said they stood for; I sure got some ‘splainin’ to do with all my Comrades!

I’m not against “IP”, you clowns have never defined it to my satisfaction yet. You have “IP”, good on ya, my neighbor is “born again”. I have no more arguments against “IP” than I do against the Tooth Fairy. Well, *one* more, unless the Feds ever start a Tooth Fairy program. [I know, don’t ever give them any more ideas]
Peter Surda July 22, 2010 at 10:28 pm: Why else would an argument against IP leave out production and value?

Maybe because austrian economics is value-free?
Darcy July 23, 2010 at 7:00 am: I think you confused the sense of value in value-free. It means free of the writer’s value judgement, not free of economic value.
mpolzkill July 24, 2010 at 9:46 am: And I’ll say this for nth time: the world’s full of people who assert the value of their interference with people who have not assaulted anyone. Eternal war until some unknown critical number of you stop.

Aaron July 21, 2010 at 9:10 pm

More like theyre wealthier because of greater monopolistic influences in the entertainment industries…

Darcy July 21, 2010 at 6:26 pm

Dollars are also non-scarce, non-rival goods. Any other consideration is irrelevant. We should all get to print as many as we want.

Matthew Swaringen July 21, 2010 at 6:52 pm

Your attempt at an ad absurdum argument is epic fail. Aside from that, you might want to listen to Walter Block on the non-government counterfeiter.

http://mises.org/media/3520

Darcy July 21, 2010 at 6:54 pm

Your grammatically-tortured response is not a counter-argument.

Matthew Swaringen July 21, 2010 at 8:32 pm

I admit it isn’t, however, your argument deserves no counter. I’ll take your hit on my grammar, but I’d rather have bad grammar than bad reasoning.

Darcy July 21, 2010 at 9:50 pm

If my reasoning were bad, you would have immediately pointed out how. Instead you have made a fool of yourself. The other IP opponents, more wisely, simply remain silent with their shame, having nothing to reply and no basis to defend their position.

mpolzkill July 21, 2010 at 11:42 pm: That’s probably it. What are you guys smoking?

Peter Surda July 22, 2010 at 3:33 am

It’s not the printing that is problematic from the point of view of property rights, but when you pass them off as having been printed by someone else. It is the fraud that occurs when you attempt to circulate them on false pretenses. You can print as much as them as you want (well, if you don’t worry about the government) without violating any rights.

Darcy July 22, 2010 at 5:17 pm

It’s not the copying that’s problematic in media piracy, it’s redistributing the copy. You can make as many home backups as you want of media.

There is no demand for U.S. dollars because the U.S. government is the original printer (it isn’t). There is demand for U.S. dollars because their supply is strictly limited and controlled. Printing your own U.S. dollars would not be fraud as no one cares who printed it. Does anyone care that the banks simply make up credit out of thin air?

Peter Surda July 23, 2010 at 3:56 am

If you are trying to refute my argument then I don’t get it. I agree with what you say, in general, about US dollars. There is one more reason though why there is demand for US dollars: because US government requires US citizens and companies to use dollars when paying taxes and it prescribes the exchange rates to use when to do your bookkeeping. If this was absent, the market value of dollar would sink (approximately net asset value of government property divided by US dollars in broader sense, notes plus coins + credit). Depending on how well US government would handle the situation, US dollars might be crowded out of circulation in favour of currencies with lower inflation rate, and then really noone would care how much of them there would be, apart from their numismatic value.

Then you start talking about FRB. While I agree that FRB causes inflation and therefore is something that I should care about, I also don’t see how it violates any rights, since there is no right to value.

So I really don’t understand why you wrote your post.

Darcy July 23, 2010 at 6:58 am

What can I reply? If you do not accept rudimentary Austrian economics when it comes to money, we can’t have an economic debate over IP.

If the requirement to pay your taxes in dollars was removed tomorrow, people would still use the U.S. dollar. It’s the regression theorem.

Peter Surda July 23, 2010 at 10:16 am: I would not consider the illegality of FRB “rudimentary Austrian economics”. Even if you disregard me having problems with it, erudite Austrian scholars are often very careful with making this conclusion. Furthermore, looks like you are not reading carefully. I did not say that if the legal tender laws were removed, immediately everyone would stop using dollars. I said that the market value would drop, and depending on how the US government handled it, they might be crowded out.

Furthermore, you fail to resolve the original problem. Even if you assume FRB is fraud and fiduciary media (in the absence of legal tender laws) are also somehow a violation of rights, the analogy to IP is still not there. Or I should say, the analogy is there, but it proves the IP opponents are right. If you try to use a fraudulent (in the meaning of our previous assumption) currency, then you are trying to defraud the buyer, not some mystical third party (“the author”). Indeed, in this case there is no such thing as “the author”, so his rights cannot be violated. The maximum this would prove is that buyers of unauthorised copies (or downloaders) can sue the seller (or uploader). Which is exactly what IP opponents claim is the logical conclusion. No right of author or any damage to him can be deduced by this analogy. Furthermore, the practical equivalence is missing. I find it a quite difficult to believe that the consumers of illegitimate copies of IP would complain to the providers thereof that they are making it less scarce.

Ohhh Henry July 21, 2010 at 7:29 pm

if i snuck my camera into a concert where the property owners said we dont want photos taken and took photos of a band perfromance and placed the photos on the web or sold some of them would anyone else have claim to those photos??

If you snuck your camera into the concert hall then this would probably be a violation of the ticket agreement. You would have violated a contract with the venue owner or concert impresario and they would have a valid complaint. In most government jurisdictions this could be addressed by a civil lawsuit. If you entered the concert hall without a ticket then you have committed trespass, which is usually considered a minor criminal offense. Even in a libertarian society without coercive justice systems, either of these two offenses would be grounds for the seeking of redress through non-coercive means such as voluntary arbitration, public denunciation or shunning.

But nobody who receives the photos, or copies of the photos, has committed any kind of contract violation or trespassing against the concert hall owners, impresarios or artists. Nobody has a “claim” to the photos, unless for example the terms of the concert ticket stated that any photos taken by the ticket holder become the property of the ticket issuer. But this is a fairly meaningless concept because photos, or copies of photos, are not really property except to the extent that a piece of film or paper containing an image or a memory card containing digital photos may be physically owned. Only the physical property of the ticket holder could be considered to be eligible for confiscation by the ticket issuer.

Darcy July 21, 2010 at 7:40 pm

Is a gang member who videotapes his friend raping a woman guilty of anything then? He did not actually touch the rape victim. Anyone who sells this tape should also not be guilty of anything either, and in fact no one who profits from selling this tape should have to pay back compensation to the rape victim.

mpolzkill July 21, 2010 at 8:01 pm

“Public denunciation or shunning”

Mm hm.

Darcy July 21, 2010 at 9:56 pm: Giving the pornographers free publicity is certain to put an end to their activities.

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Peter Surda July 22, 2010 at 3:48 am

If you snuck your camera into the concert hall then this would probably be a violation of the ticket agreement.

While I fully agree, Kerem claims that a contract condition like this is invalid because that would be slavery. Although he never explicitly worded it fully this way, from what I can tell that appears to be his argument.

Kerem Tibuk July 23, 2010 at 7:03 am

No, because there is exchange of property when you buy a ticket and that is why it is legitimate It is not a contract that binds your general action but only to conditional property use, the land of the concert hall for example.

I keep telling you to read Rothbard, but you seem to be very happy when it comes to staying ignorant.

Peter Surda July 23, 2010 at 9:41 am: Wait a minute. Conditional property use? What the hell is that? Another arbitrary assumption to the rescue? And if the entrance was free, what then?

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Peter Namtvedt July 21, 2010 at 7:54 pm

Here I find a volume of examples of heat, with little light on the subject of property. If you examined the trail of moral and logical claims to anything, I am convinced that the trail begins with the human mind. It must, for the evaluation of anything that is behind any claims or conflicting claims is “man is the measure of all things.” It is not some opposable thumb that accounts for the discovery of the wheel, or of space-flight, or the cure for polio.

We keep coming back to the mind of man. All property is intellectual property! It does not boil down to labor. A proper return on investment is due the inventor of the light bulb, the iPhone, the jet engine, the latest drug to rid my body of cancer. Keep this up and a defense of industrial espionage will make life-saving products incredibly expensive. That will only invite the government to step in to make things “fair”, as if any government ever could eliminate special interests and come even close to determining what is “fair.”

You libertarian gold-diggers and rent-seekers will end up delivering us all to some future Lenin, Hitler or Stalin, the way you keep attacking the very roots of our civilization.

DixieFlatline July 21, 2010 at 8:14 pm

It is amazing how much name-calling and how little reason Objectivists and IP proponents display in these discussions, over and over again.

If one is right, and can demonstrate it with reason (without contradiction) then why are the strawmen and ad hominem necessary?

Why can Darcy, Peter Namtvedt or Kerem articulate a logically consistent argument in support of IP?

Particularly Kerem, who seems to have expended hundreds of hours of his precious time arguing on Mises.org without once offering coherent and consistent definition of property?

One does not need to be concerned with being slaves to rent seekers, when one is already a slave to their inability to question first premises.

Darcy July 21, 2010 at 9:54 pm

A fascinating literary exercise where the author constructs a world of his own imagining, and then imagines himself the only intelligent being in that world. Great literature, but no economics in there.

DixieFlatline July 21, 2010 at 11:38 pm: Still waiting for something substantive Darcy. Are you capable of articulating an intelligent argument based on your position?

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Aaron July 21, 2010 at 10:12 pm

Alright, people. Let’s just calm down and see if we can reason this out. And make one thing clear, from the outset: Downloading digital content is wrong. Not because of some nebulous or just plain irresponsible IP law, but because it is FRAUD. Ok, the actual DLing isn’t fraud unless you KNOW the source isn’t the original owner, but I’ll get into that in a moment. First lets establish some terminology and concepts.
No-one disagrees that property must be physical in nature, be scarce, or owned by someone (thus allowing all principles associated with property to be applied successfully and 100% of the time–Thanks, Dr. Hoppe!). Nor do Austrians in particular care for such nonsensical concepts as “deserving” or “fair” profits or receipts, so such ideals cannot be factors. Its all about contracts and bundles of rights!
Every contract is NOT a transfer, as most believe, of actual property, but the RIGHTS associated with its use. Take a car. You sell the car to another person (clear title or none needed). What is implied in the sale? That the new owner may use the car as he wishes, without restrictions. Similarly, a rental implies limited use, with clearly stated restrictions of use, AND all rights not granted via the rental agreement including the one to dictate terms of use retained by the unlimited owner of the rental car.
So sales of goods are an actual selling of bundles of rights. I say bundles because as already shown, certain rights may be retained or not, depending on the conditions of the sale. On this scale then of rights, all may be transferred or just one. As long as both parties understand and agree to the terms of their agreement, its legit.
Take movies, for example. YES, they are, at their basic level, “just information” and “not an economic good” because of their abundance. However, Warner Brothers isn’t in the information business; they are in the movie business. They take the unsellable information, package it a certain way and in a specific manner and attempt to sell that particular arrangement to make a profit. Don’t get ahead of me! Because ideas are not property, they should not have the ability to determine where their created characters pop up in other media or used in other goods, but they DO have one and only right: to dictate the terms of the rights transfer of their creation.
Every movie (theoretically–please don’t nitpick at the details; I’m not an expert on the creation of movies) has one master copy in the beginning. It is owned by WB. They then may dictate which rights to sell and which to retain in regards to that one master copy. They generally sell the right to make copies (but doubtless still under certain conditions) to printing houses, so they can make a profit in selling copies of the movie to viewers and theaters. It would be a renting of this right, too, for an outright sale would result in forfeiting all possible future income from that master copy.
That is why ON THE COVER of every movie sold by WB is the announcement, “You are not purchasing the right to make copies, show publicly, etc. etc.” They are, in a very real sense specifying which rights a consumer purchases when they pay for the DVD. If the customer agrees the rights he purchases are more valuable than his dollars, he buys.
What of digital copies, then? Digital copies have to be made by someone first, then copied, ad infinitum. Unless the person who made the first digital copy FIRST purchased the right to make copies, he is committing FRAUD by acting as if he possessed that right, just as a man commits fraud by signing another’s name as a means to acquire goods, because he does not possess the right to use another’s mark in that manner. Honestly, any person down the line from the first person would only be culpable if he had a knowledge of wrongdoing. In other words, there must be intent or knowledge of intent to constitute a wrong. So the person in possession of all of the necessary elements of the libertarian theory of property rights may see downloading free digital media as the supporting the fraud that it is, but everyone else is really doomed to muddle in the nonsense of IP and ideas as property.
Thats why the WHOLE IP argument is really pointless. Its like arguing Republican versus Democrat, when the only difference between them is how to spend and appropriate the State’s ill-gotten funds. Its all about bundles of rights and the selling, or WITHHOLDING of some, all, or certain ones. Right! Thanks for sticking with me, and I hope I contributed something to the discussion! ^_^

Piotr from Warsaw July 21, 2010 at 11:36 pm

Your comment seems very reasonable to me. To be honest, I can’t grasp the essence of this whole discussion. Should the IP laws be changed or totally abolished? If abolished, what does it mean? What will, for example, Warner Brothers not be allowed to do with the master copy in comparison to the present situation?

Piotr from Warsaw July 22, 2010 at 12:19 am

Or maybe not just the master copy but generally.

james b. longacre July 22, 2010 at 5:03 am

o be honest, I can’t grasp the essence of this whole discussion. Should the IP laws be changed or totally abolished? If abolished, what does it mean?

i suspect to the extent that govt has laws to wha ti t claims protect authors, developers etc those wold be abolished and a market system of contract adherence would arise . but i dont know if that would be very effective or not. it may end up being a first to market issue with r & d and art being funded up front with risk capital. patronage and service industry so to speak.

Darcy July 22, 2010 at 5:26 pm

It is a meaningless non-explanation to claim that the abolition of government would resolve the problem of IP. Suppose the government is abolished. Pirates declare they now have the right to sell Blu-Ray discs of Inception. Warner Brothers then hires a security group to destroy those discs. The Pirates declare that their rights have been violated, and so does Warner Brothers.

Who is in their right? How will this be settled? On the one hand, you have a bunch of back-alley pirates making pennies off of disc sales. On the other hand, you have a billion-dollar capitalist enterprise defending its billion-dollar industry. Who do you think will win?

The problem with an argument from anarchy is that the very business model of pirates makes it impossible for them to defend their property against much wealthier, pro-IP societies.

Peter Surda July 23, 2010 at 4:05 am

The problem with an argument from anarchy is that the very business model of pirates makes it impossible for them to defend their property against much wealthier, pro-IP societies.

Although this is a utilitarian argument, it still doesn’t look like you’re right. Even now when part of the IP legal system is paid for by the government, lawsuits are a loss: http://recordingindustryvspeople.blogspot.com/2010/07/ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-riaa-paid-its-lawyers.html

The ones who gain money on IP are not the “creators”. It’s the lawyers.

Darcy July 23, 2010 at 6:54 am: The fact that it cost so much in lawyers to pursue pirates is because the pirates are protected by the government’s courts.
Matthew Swaringen July 23, 2010 at 7:34 pm: Right, government courts which believe in that crappy due process thing. We’d dissolve that in your society since we should just assume people are guilty as soon as they are accused and therefore completely invade their privacy to prove the accusation.
Peter Surda July 24, 2010 at 4:10 pm: Government’s courts protect pirates no more than anyone else. But only the government can force an ISP to cough up a subscriber’s name, or invade the said subscriber’s home and confiscate his computers because someone doesn’t like what they are doing. Only a government can shutdown shared hosting servers based on questionable evidence, causing collateral damage to thousands innocent internet users, without even explaining to them what is going on (and forbidding the parties who it involves mitigate the damage).

james b. longacre September 4, 2010 at 5:36 am

“It is a meaningless non-explanation to claim that the abolition of government would resolve the problem of IP.”

what is a meaningless non-explanation?
if the abolition govt occurred and there were those who felt they own an idea i dont see that as meaningless.
if a system of contract was in its place that attempted to scarcify ideas via non disclosure or owing a logo or something and yet third parties still managed to repeat these things some may still see that as a problem.
if someone made a pan and called it calphalon yet it was cheap aluminum and not another calphalon pan of space age materials.
to me various types of consumer advocacy could arise to clear up naming issues of passing alumi-calphalon off as space age -calphalon. those seem like legitmate problems….without a govt.

“The problem with an argument from anarchy is that the very business model of pirates…”
it seems meaningless to call anything but sea faring theifs pirates though.
and try to drop the grammer critiques. they are meaningless too.

Aaron July 23, 2010 at 2:30 am

James and Piotr,

The whole point of that post was to illustrate how much of a red herring the whole IP concept was in the first place. Since the practise and theory of exchanging goods is in actuality founded entirely in the transfer of rights, when viewed in this light EVERY argument for or against IP vanishes as the dew before the morning sun. If WB chose to chase people for the fraud they were committing (the system itself would have to be altered of course for such an action to even take place), it would honestly cost much more than the compensation would be worth. So they wouldn’t pursue the small people through legal action.
IP laws would have to be abolished, because they are unnecessary. Not that they are unnecessary, but exist to “protect” something that cannot be. Ideas are not property, and so cannot be so “protected”. If I teach someone a method of lathing metal, for instance, I cannot morally restrict him using his own body and other property to use the knowledge now in his brain. Thats fallacy to even try. But this you know. Sorry, got on a tangent.
Since the IP laws would then be abolished, every single suit, if one came up, would be based on someone either assuming they possessed rights with certain properties they did not or consciously defrauding others into believing they did. In either case it would be a simple matter to point to the original agreement (in whatever form it took) and prove such and such rights are sold, such and such are withheld, etc. Damages could be sought, I suppose, but now Im delving into speculation of how an imaginary legal construct would be decided in the court system, which I refuse to do. Umm…I hope that answers your questions. Oh!
Authors and inventors would still be granted ownership of their creations, as per guaranteed by the Constitution of the US (at least for those living in the US), but ONLY as far as they choose to retain certain rights or not. If they sell all of their rights to the creation, it belongs lock, stock and barrel to the purchaser. Or so the theory of bundled rights is concerned. He could, as stated above, retain the right to duplication, as with a photograph.
However protection for things like that can only be extended to the original object, and certainly not someone attempting to duplicate the shot by using their own camera, imitating (as closely as possible) the conditions shown in the photograph. Coercing them to not use their property in some way is, as you doubtless agree, is wrong. Ok. let me know what you think. Cheers!

Piotr from Warsaw July 23, 2010 at 5:50 am: You seem to accept a copyright (in a quite literary sense) at least in relation to products directly manufactured by the authors. But I am not convinced if it can be reconciled with the thesis of the authors of the article that information and ideas are like atmospheric air (not air e.g. contained in some object or delivered by someone/something but the air we all breathe). You cannot make atmospheric air a part of a bundle of rights. You cannot restrict someone from using atmospheric air anyway he/she wants. So you could not make such a demand about the information on your “master” copy(ies).
Personaly I think the authors are wrong and they interpret Rothbard in a wrong way. I made a comment about it earlier.

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Zorg July 22, 2010 at 2:08 am

You are correct as far as contracts go, but near the end you’re still perpetuating the
idea that the originator somehow “deserves” remuneration from *every* viewer of the
movie from now till Kingdom Come.

The “bundle of rights” derive from the contractual agreement and the exclusive rightful
possession of the original master, NOT from the crazy idea that the information
(the movie) in itself is property and that this property multiplies itself into infinity.
The reason the producers can make a deal is because they originated that unique
master and others want to profit by showing the film and sharing the proceeds. It’s
quite rudimentary and no bizarre claims need to be made in order to do this deal.

But unfortunately they are not satisfied with contractual arrangements and the people
they can bind to an agreement so that they can profit for however long the initial theater or DVD sales and rental run lasts. They want every possible dime they can get from any pair of eyes that view the darn thing from now till doomsday and that’s why they turn to
pseudo-logic and lobbyists and politicians and goons. That is the reversion to the claim that
the information comprising the movie is itself property and the mere act of viewing the movie without money changing hands or permission is somehow theft (or “fraud” as you put it). The free market does not work this way and does not support this view, and so they turn to the state for muscle. They implement draconian laws that would be irrelevant and unenforceable in
a free market.

As soon as you leave the parties to the contract involved in distribution like theater chains and rental chains like Blockbuster, the whole thing breaks down. The reason it does is simple: It cannot stand on its own after that. The market doesn’t support it. People don’t support it. There’s no contract. Where’s the contract with society at large? The FBI warning screen and the copyright notice on every rented or ripped copy of the thing?

You can call in the thugs at that point and throw Grandma in jail for 5 years and take
her life savings (up to $250K, according to the infamous FBI Warning) because Junior
ripped her a copy of Gone With the Wind to watch at home when she’s lonely, but you
accomplish nothing there except to demonstrate the extremely bizarre nature of the
IP claim as it morphs into violence directed at people not party to the distribution
contract.

The problem with posting warnings on books and video covers is that those are
not contracts. Let’s not get into the habit of inventing contracts where they don’t
exist like the “social contract”. If I find a movie at a garage sale and pay $.50 for it,
there isn’t any contract with anybody. Is the seller supposed to be the custodian
of rights now for the Hollywood studio that made the picture? Is he going to forward
proof of transfer of rights to Mr. Big after I leave? Come on, man.

Aaron July 23, 2010 at 3:05 am

Geez. I said nothing about contracts being formed by printed words. Don’t take this the wrong way, but most of your argument consists of ‘should be’s’ and ‘shouldn’t be’s’ and ‘fairness’. Its all crap, honestly. Its very simple, Zorg. I know you’re intelligent: I can tell from how you write.
WB owns the master copy of Batman, yes? Yes.
Theory of bundled rights provides for the retention by WB of the right to duplicate the master copy or not, or by whom, or any number of different terms and conditions, yes? Yes. It’s their property, after all–they can do what they want with it!
Given how they will NOT sell the right to duplicate, they LEASE the ability to printing houses to do so. WB honestly does not care if the printing house makes a profit, just as long as they get their money first, which they do indeed.
Now, because they have retained the right to duplicate Batman at their discretion, they are STATING this retained right on the backs of movies, or stating the fact they’ve retained that particular right. It is not a contract in that respect, but an element of the purchasing contract: “Which rights am I purchasing with my money associated with this product? Is it worth it to me, etc. etc.”
As far as others down the chain are concerned, for this particular system of property rights to be adhered to would require a DRASTIC change in the current system, insofar as little individuals would not be prosecuted for copying media. Heck, there would crop up hundreds of little movie houses showing all sorts of films under the radar. Under this (ideal) system however, it would be entirely the responsibility of WB to chase those violating those rights infringements. If they didnt deem it profitable enough to prosecute, they would not (which it wouldnt be, even for a small-time theatre showing “illegal” movies).
Garage sales are a little different, I’ll concede. I personally will not stop purchasing pre-owned movies, because I believe it immoral for someone to try and claim I do not have the right to be rid of something I purchased as I see fit. I believe (my opinion) the right to resell may NOT be withheld, as it infringes upon my right to keep or not my property as I will, as is tantamount to indenturing me forever to my past purchases. In those cases WB is just trying to level their near-monopolistic clout against potential competition (existing copies of Batman). Its worth considering that particular scenario further, I believe…

Aaron July 23, 2010 at 3:29 am: Forgot about the “First-Sale Doctrine”. That is the moral way to handle seeming conflicts with the bundle of rights theory and reselling, seems to me…

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Peter Surda July 22, 2010 at 4:03 am

Your arguments depends on a metaphor, by granting identity to an arbitrary chunk of causality. Merely because two objects (original and copy) are causally related does not mean that the one who is in control of the first one has a claim on the second one. Or that, if they can be property, their owner is the same. Causality is an insufficient condition. Your argument requires that you divide causality into “good” (externalities) and “bad” (property). So far, the only explanation IP proponents have for this is metaphorical. I however contend it is a false dichotomy.

Walt D. July 22, 2010 at 12:13 am

“Ideas and information are not physical goods; therefore they are not only nonscarce in practice but also nonscarce in principle. It is impossible to diminish their supply or reduce their quality.”
How can this be true in general? Simple case in point. I have just been watching the Science Channel series “Through the Wormhole”. They showed the Large Hadron Collider in CERN Switzerland. The data storage facilities to store the “information” collected by the LHC are the largest in the world. Surely this information is “scarce”, since it only exists in one place in the world. Furthermore, this information can not be easily duplicated using existing technology for essentially zero marginal cost. This is unlike the case of digital music copied from a CD onto a computer hard drive. An large explosion or fire at the facility could certainly diminish the supply and/or reduce the quality.

Zorg July 22, 2010 at 12:27 am

Since these defenders of IP are not persuaded by intellectual arguments on the nature
of property, perhaps we should just expose all of the various absurdities
which follow from the claims of IP. I can’t possibly list them all, but here’s a start.

1) Unless arrangements are explicitly set forth in a contract between two willing
parties, the claim of IP fails the desert island test and the free market test. On the desert
island, the IP claimant who attempts to stop a fellow survivor from copying his “patented”
process of fishing or coconut shelling will be despised and thought truly mad by his
compatriots. If he sings for his supper, and happens to be quite good, he might earn a
fish or two, but if he raids his neighbor’s hut for a fish because he’s seeking recompense
for the crime of his neighbor having hummed his original tune and taught it to others without
express written permission for “publishing rights”…well, finish the thought yourselves. It’s just nuts, isn’t it? [skip to the end to read about my patented group therapy treatment for IP-ers]

IP claims fail the free market test. In a free market lacking a state apparatus, where voluntary exchanges of actual property occur by the millions every day in a non-controversial way, there
is little to no incentive to pursue enforcement due to the economic loss it would entail.
Without a state, how does one discover, hunt down, gather evidence, prove the crime,
intent, and damages against hundreds or thousands of “violators”? Does one spend $10,000
chasing down a teen who “stole” a $.99 song via unauthorized download? If you can’t
socialize these costs in a free society, how will you pay for them? Would an insurance
company cover you when millions of copies of digital files can be made and spread far
and wide? Would free market courts have any interest at all in supporting your IP claim
absent a written contract? No one thinks so, but if you do then explain how the
economics would work when it costs next to nothing for millions of people to have
access to the information you want to punish them all individually for accessing. Won’t free market courts be too rooted in real world economics to consider these types of cases which present millions of counts for the same crime and millions of violators all from one piece of infinitely reproducible “property” like a song or book or some sketch of a new handy kitchen appliance that you invented?

Is it not more likely that a free society would deal with enforcing contracts and
tangible property because IP is just an endless morass of claims and counter-claims and
utter silliness?

How will you react when the market develops useful strategies for safely marketing creative and informational works for profit without the need for IP laws? Will you accept how a free
society deals with the issue through the marketplace, or will you continue to spend money
chasing down the last “violator” who read a PDF of your book without your permission?

Does the absurdity of it all strike you yet?

2) IP claims, and the enforcement of them are necessarily arbitrary. Think about IP claims.
What is IP? Can you define it? If we all have these supposed rights in original material, why can’t I copyright sentences all day long and then search the web for violators to pursue for damages
if they use an English sentence of mine? “Oh, that’s silly,” you say. Why is it silly? Now you’ll
tell me that I may not copyright my original creations and forbid others to my rightful property?

I’m sure you (IP proponent) will call me names and claim I am not serious, so enlighten me.
Define the limits of this stuff if you can. Does an author have copyright forever plus one day,
or a lifetime, or 20 years, or six weeks, or just for the first printing, or what? How did you
determine this from natural law or logic or whatever you use to justify this stuff?

Should the inventor of the paper clip have the monopoly in perpetuity? Well, if IP is
property, he ought to have it as long as he lives and wills, and then his heirs or assigns
ought to possess the monopoly in perpetuity as well – by right (if it’s a right). Or does the
monopolist begin to lose his “right” and begin “harming society” with his monopoly after
50 years, 20 years, 3 years? If you advocate temporary patents and copyrights, can you explain how this “right” was determined to be temporary when the idea and the work remains forever?

Or will you just confess to the arbitrary nature of these rules and give up now?

The list of examples of absurdities can go on forever: Can I own a color, a smell, a
sentence, a type of fictional character, a turn of phrase, a process to apply butter to toast,
a new geometric shape, the Magnetic Method of Attaching Business Cards to Refrigerators?

Can I patent the process of administering group therapy treatment to frustrated IP-ers
involving fists and pillows and the simultaneous shouting of “You stole my idea! You stole
my idea!”??? : )

james b. longacre September 4, 2010 at 5:48 am: Does one spend $10,000
chasing down a teen who “stole” a $.99 song via unauthorized download?

there are some so called artists who did some bad things to me. to them i hope everything they ever to tp copyright ends up on evyones iphone and they wouldnt get a dime. much less in fact

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Peter Surda July 22, 2010 at 3:02 am

Now wait a minute Kerem,

if a reflection is an externality and so is photography, how can recording a movie in cinema on a camcorder be a copy (i.e. violation of property)? Or, for that matter, how can reading an optical medium be a copy? Looks like it is not me who is confused about “copying”. Glad to see that Kerem is much more likely to get busted for a copyright infringement than me.

Kerem Tibuk July 23, 2010 at 7:08 am

Yeah nice. Try to sneak the externality argument in again. We have been over this and I dont intend to repeat myself every time.

There are natural things with natural reflections, ie externalities.

There are things that can not be hidden, and has to exposed, for their primal usage.

And there are things like IP, like movies that are not “let go to the universe when produced” as you may think. They are intentionally produced to be shown on certain circumstances.

IP is not an externality. Externalities can not be eliminated, they are unintended consequences, IP production can be eliminated.

mpolzkill July 23, 2010 at 9:42 am: You *are* quite the salesman, Tibuk. I do believe that Peter and I are the only ones who still read your posts. (And only Surda does so closely, of course)

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Peter Surda July 23, 2010 at 9:47 am: We have been over this and I dont intend to repeat myself every time.

Now, this is just wishful thinking. The only thing we have been “over with” is you asserting, without any explanation whatsoever, that the answer is obvious.

There are natural things with natural reflections, ie externalities. There are things that can not be hidden, and has to exposed, for their primal usage.

Yes Kerem, another pull-out-of-your-assism to the rescue. Except it’s just another metaphor, only more obscure than the others. What the hell does that even mean? Natural reflections? Things that cannot be hidden? Primary usage? Have you lost your mind?

IP is not an externality.

You know, if you want to be taken seriously, you have to provide more than bold assumptions.

Why don’t you finally admit that you have no clue what you are talking about.

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Nathan Y July 22, 2010 at 4:35 am

I still like the replicator hypothetical to destroy the pro-IP argument.

André July 22, 2010 at 5:04 am

Just one thing. Imagine that tomorrow all the IP laws were abrogated. What would happen? Nothing – I tell you. Just more paperwork for every purchase that involves “informational investments” behind the final product. You go and buy a medicine, they will make you sign loads of papers so that, in case you copy the chemical structure inside – you are going to be sued for millions. Same for cars, hi-tech gadgets, and so on… You would be able to buy apples and cows probably, without signing anything (but only the “old races”, not those recently engineered). If any “big” company takes the chance to invest million in researching for the best “structure” for a certain product, it cannot afford to put it on the market and wait for the first “pirate” to make a copy and take advantage of their researches. They would face the serious risk of bankruptcy – and probably every entrepreneur would anyway cut on his “research budget”. This is not libertarianism, this is some kind of IP-soviet union…

Daniel Coleman July 22, 2010 at 5:34 am

This doomsday scenario is, in my opinion, ill-conceived.

For one thing, what you are describing in the post-IP world is an attempt by entrepreneurs to keep up copyright protection. However, the most damaging IP laws, from the libertarian perspective, are patents. Patents do not rely on contracts or asking those who buy your product not to copy them; they box out the competition by making a technique itself illegal. If IP were dropped tomorrow, there is nothing that, e.g., HP could do to stop competitors from making ink cartridges that were compatible with their devices. Instead of paying $30 for a couple of cartridges of ink, printer ink would return to its more realistic market rate. (The estimates suggest that ink would be the kind of thing you could pick up as a six-pack in the dollar store.) Likewise, many patented techniques would be open for everyone to use and experiment with.

As for the alternative copyright protections you describe: companies may try such roundabout and clumsy methods of protecting their product, but they will face at least two problems in doing so. First, even if they contract with clients, there is no legal barrier that prevents third parties from taking action that would today be considered a violation of copyright. If A buys a book from B, but later resells it or gives it away to C, then C is under no obligations to A. Second, competition will destroy this kind of behavior in the market. All of that paperwork would, as you suggest, be a nightmare: and there will be costs associated with it. The firms that attempt to keep up protections will pay for it, and they will likely anger their consumers in the process. Other firms will be able to offer (all else being equal) the same product at a lower cost, and they will be able to do so without annoying their customers. Who do you think will win out in that scenario?

You may be right that many companies will cut back on R&D or give up innovating altogether. But if that’s the case, then they are only creating a vacuum that another, more insightful and skilled entrepreneur could step into later. Those companies that reacted to the death of IP in such a reactionary way would be putting a shelf life on themselves. They are the dinosaurs who will go extinct. Human beings flourish by innovating, improving, growing, and developing. Individuals and companies will continue to improve their products, processes, and capital because that is human beings improve their condition.

If you are not persuaded by my argument, I would suggest you take a look at the industry in which the death of IP has been closest to a reality. With the advent of the Internet and the ubiquity of copying, altering, sharing, etc. news stories, would you say that news and news-related discussion is in bad shape or in better shape than ever?

Sure, a few of the big corporations complain and some are even asking for subsidies from the government to survive, but they are the corporations who have taken your predicted view of the death of IP. They are going out of business because they are not adapting to reality — and not willing to try. Meanwhile, news, reporting, and discussion is livelier than it ever has been, thanks to millions of blogs and websites.

André July 22, 2010 at 9:09 am

Thanks for the reply. I can say I definitely agree with you on many points, but I would retain my doubts when it comes to “big” investments.

Some fields were forced to improve the quality of their products, thanks to the Internet. News surely are better today than ever. And so is porn, for example – another market doomed to leave its products unprotected. But these products do not require years of engineering and tremendous investments – in terms of human resources, labs, materials, and so on. I had in my mind those products, like biotechnological results or medicines, which cannot really exist without a system protecting the results of their investments.

Remember that song “Don’t download this song”, from Yankovich? Well, it’s basically correct in its essence, I think. Some pop superstar won’t be able to buy another golden palace if producers are forced to reduce CD price. And I cannot care less, definitely. But – if I cannot have certain medical developments, then I am a bit more worried. As long as reverse-engineering technology is going to be cheaper than the process providing certain products – and there’s plenty of such cases – I am afraid I will have to be between those defending contractual IP protections. There are, I think, fields in which such protections do provide an important service – not only for the producer, but also for future consumers.

Of course if we were talking about downloading movies, music and books with .torrent files, I would agree with you 100%, without adding a word – I even think that such a thing improves the culture of us all.

Great article, by the way.

Daniel Coleman July 22, 2010 at 10:57 am

Thanks for your kind words. Have you examined Boldrin and Levine’s chapter on the pharmaceutical industry? It’s chapter nine on this page: http://levine.sscnet.ucla.edu/general/intellectual/against.htm

Aaron July 23, 2010 at 2:40 am: Fantastic article. Iron-clad reasoning. Well done!

james b. longacre September 4, 2010 at 5:58 am

pro-ip argument….

i am not sure to what extent the ‘posters’ at this sight support the current or simlar apparatus of copyrights and tradmarks and patents.

there may be many who think that ip is valid if one can show how their idea was spawned by them and developed – they should own it and permit others to use it as they see fit.

ip as a ‘property’ does fail, it cant be like a blender.

ip as a govt mechanism many probably support because they believe they should own their mental product, but i cant see why.

André July 22, 2010 at 9:20 am

by the way HP is already doing something to avoid competitors to substitute its expansive ink cartridges… it’s in the way they build their printers (in particular some models), I don’t know how they do it, but it works. If the cartridge does not come from HP, on the long run it damages several parts of the printer. I had to change one printer here at my office because of that, so … I am afraid they already bypassed patents here in Italy – where we enjoy a flourishing market of “compatible ink cartridges”.

Aaron July 23, 2010 at 2:37 am

Tch. Don’t buy an HP then. If you don’t like the strictures placed on the use of a product sold, don’t purchase it. It’s that simple.

Matthew Swaringen July 23, 2010 at 1:38 pm: Aaron, what is your conclusion that his statement is a complaint based on? It sounded extremely matter-of-fact to me.

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Nathan July 23, 2010 at 1:28 pm

While altruism is a worthy virtue to aspire to I disagree with the assertion that the right to earn a living through the creation and propgation of one’s ideas is wrong. If I write a song why shouldn’t I be paid for it? Recording equipment, musical instruments, and the labor I put into writing and then recording the song all have associated costs. If artists aren’t paid for their songs they most likely will not record any. The songs that were recorded in such a system would probably be of lower quality than what we enjoy today because most songwriters would choose a line of work capable of providing a living.
The same is true of any inovation. Whether I write a book or discover a better way to vulcanize rubber the idea is worth something, and it isn’t evil or wrong to expect some kind of compensation for it. I don’t know how articles written for Mises Daily work, but I’m guessing authors receive some form of payment for their work. Would there be as many submissions if there weren’t? Even if there were, would they be of the same quality? Likely not.

Matthew Swaringen July 23, 2010 at 1:54 pm

Nathan, there is no call for altruism on the parts of those against IP here, or for “sharing the wealth.” Artists have absolutely no natural control after they release things they create. Arguments to the contrary are based entirely on the desire of humans to control, or to find ways to make them get paid for their work.

So the ones calling for altruism are not those who argue against IP, but those who argue for it. They argue that everyone should give up freedom to copy so that we can maximize distributors profits (and in turn maximize the profits of artists).

Now I’d agree with you that earning a return on investments is important, but how that return is earned is unimportant. It absolutely does not have to be based on IP. Before IP artists still created art, and musicians still wrote music. We think of these things as classic now. Some prefer their qualities to modern art and music. If we have more now it’s not because of IP but because of prosperity due to individual freedom.

Those who would say that society is only prosperous because of IP need to prove a whole lot. They need to prove that we are more free because of IP rather than less free first, and then to prove this whole conjecture about how much art/science/etc. won’t be produced if they are wrong.

One thing we definitely can say is that right now there are things that aren’t being done because of IP. There are people right now who won’t make adaptations of books, sequels, that others might be interested in. There are game modifications that are told they can’t exist (even for free) due to theoretical competition with commercial games, and there is software that is made freely that is hampered by patents. Businesses are afraid to use it for fear of being sued. There is also a huge amount of litigation for anyone who bothers to try due to patent trolls/etc.

Nathan July 23, 2010 at 4:35 pm

You raise fair points, sir.

I have another question. How are innovators’ works to be protected? I don’t ask to be snide or difficult; it is an honest question. Though IP is an imperfect system which does sometimes hinder improvements it still offers protection for creators. You’re right: in the past music and art were still produced, but the very nature of a classical masterpiece made counterfeiting or copying and redistribution difficult. Protection was built into the media of the time. Not so with today’s easily copied mp3s and mpegs. What is proposed to replace the IP system so that a publisher can’t take an article and simply swap their name for the true author’s?

Matthew Swaringen July 23, 2010 at 8:27 pm: I understand your desire for protection but I think it’s more important to concentrate on why you want that protection.

There are a couple of possible reasons that most people fall under (you’re free to define a 3rd path if you feel both of these are inaccurate).

1) Protection is necessary because intellectual property is innate. Humans own what they create.
2) Protection is necessary to provide incentives for creators. If they don’t have protection no one will pay them sufficiently enough for them to create.

My response to #1 is that it is a very murky argument. How do you define “create” in terms of what is sufficient for someone to claim ownership. If “create” refers to any action or idea arising out of human intellect then purposeful action (means to achieve ends) is something that was owned by the first human being. If he desired, he could have told all other humans after to do nothing purposeful without his permission. No one goes to this degree, but instead they argue that some level of complexity is necessary for a given arrangement of ideas to count.

Yet, thus far, I’ve never seen a principled argument that delineates clearly where ownable patterns begin and unownable patterns end. It is my view that any moral requirement should be clear in principle, not “up to interpretation.” So if a song is ownable, a single verses should be ownable, a phrase, a word, a letter, etc.

Now, supposing you don’t agree with my view, you might say that morality is murky in itself and there are times when we can’t know whether what we are doing is wrong or not. That’s… ok, but unprovable and I think it’s unhelpful. If one goes that route hemight as well just make up what he wants to believe since in theory everything is equally valid. Or perhaps there is a new IP proponent out there who can define a clear principle for level of complexity. I’d be very surprised.

My reply to #2 is it’s unprovable that IP protection is necessary, as I mentioned in my prior post. The only thing we can know for sure is that IP makes some artists/authors/musicians more than they otherwise would make if people were not forced to pay. It’s likely though, that this gain only applies to those whose works are already popular. By virtue of having to spend more on popular competition’s products, those who are more obscure are very likely making less.

How do I advocate this view?

We know that a person has a certain amount of money they are willing to spend on entertainment. They won’t spend less on food, housing, etc. generally to spend it on entertainment instead. If you know a person who would buy a smaller house to get more movies instead, let me know but I think this is a true argument in most cases.

Like most government regulations IP doesn’t change fundamental resources. It just rearranges their allocation. In this case, those who are popular force people to buy from them, leaving less money available to pay for other entertainment the person would otherwise pursue.

“Protection was built into the media of the time. Not so with today’s easily copied mp3s and mpegs.”

I think what you mean by “built into” here is that we didn’t have the ability to easily copy audio at the time since the media weren’t yet created. Consider this, your scenario of easily copied mp3s and mpegs is not by default detrimental. That ability to copy easily not only creates the ability for alternative distribution for others, but also for the artist or author. Whereas in the past the musician had to perform for the audience, or make money through performances by others in front of large audiences, now musicians can make money from people thousands of miles away on an individual level.

The musician has the ability to sell his work directly, and not have to go through 3rd party publishers or performances if he is capable of marketing his work to a large enough degree of popularity. He can also sell his performance business (concerts/etc) much more broadly than he ever could without this copying, particularly if his work is for a certain niche.

Now, the other part to your contention is also important:
“What is proposed to replace the IP system so that a publisher can’t take an article and simply swap their name for the true author’s?”

What is to prevent this now? If the author didn’t somehow register their work or have a timestamp available then someone else could take an article and say they wrote it at any time. IP doesn’t prevent this by default. It only prevents this for those who would be able to protect themselves just as well in a free market. There is no one here who supports people lying about writing things they didn’t. We all believe this is a serious offense in any society. But this doesn’t require an IP concept, it just requires the “fraud is wrong” concept. So it could be handled within legitimate legal grounds.

Now if your argument is that customers would go with the cheaper product, regardless of whether or not the creator is supported, I’d say you aren’t right about that in all cases. This is clearly not true, because there are many people who don’t believe in IP and have no problems with copying things freely but who do buy things.

For example, I download Japanese animation that is subtitled by fans for free, and later purchase DVDs or BDs when they are available to be purchased legally in the US by official distributors. You can go to any fansub or pirate website and ask people and you’ll see there are lots of people who do buy things. Does everyone? No, but a lot of these people are kids and rather than learning good reasoning for paying people (you want to support them so they’ll create more of what you like) they learn about IP, which they don’t follow because it’s contrary to human nature to do that which doesn’t lead to your own benefit.

This is why I don’t think any minarchist society and certainly no anarchist society could ever provide incentives for people to believe in IP. It’s just not something people will follow, and I’ve argued with numerous pirates who actually say they believe in IP, but even they don’t follow it! If someone really wants IP, they are going to advocate a huge mega-state that will violate privacy (encrypted p2p is here) and still… be ineffective for changing human nature.

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james b. longacre September 4, 2010 at 6:07 am

This is why I don’t think any minarchist society and certainly no anarchist society could ever provide incentives for people to believe in IP.

kinsella called ip law, law which governed trademarks, copyrights and patents – the ip stuff. maybe he mispoke.
i expect some would do just that. some may figure that if one brought a pivotal idea to a market first they should have control over the idea…and likely use a royalty like system to further mental products from great thinkers. various technological societies perhaps.

i heard that edison had a quote that went something like ‘in so many years candles will be far more expensive that electric light’. you may want someone like that in a position think their entire life an ip would be a way to do that. incentive.

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