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Copyright Lawyer: The Public Domain Goes Against Free Market Capitalism

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Re: Copyright Lawyer: The Public Domain Goes Against Free Market Capitalism

#41

Post by stretchwithme »

stretchwithme wrote: post #36
dkl wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And if we don't want people to invent smart phones, cures for cancer and televisions, we should eliminate patents. I reject this. Software, which is a component of all of the things you mention, didn't always have patents, and it flourished without them.

I think patents make sense when it is our mutual self interest to have them. If something is more abundant without them, then it makes no sense to patent that thing. The statement you are rejecting was a general one. There can and should be exceptions based upon the evidence. Which suggests we should actually vary the length of patents experimentally to obtain the evidence.

Even within the software realm, it makes sense that some things be patentable and others not.

For example, if you create translation software that requires a lot of resources to develop, patents probably makes sense.

But in other things, patents are an obstacle. For example, technologies that connect people and organizations that must be agreed upon to work and where establishing a common language is more valuable than could be obtained by simple adoption by an individual.

Think HTML and HTTP and TCP/IP. Similar technologies that were controlled by companies suffered because they were controlled by companies. Their attempts to charge a toll impaired adoption. The incentives lead companies to not connect, to differentiate and not agree.

So when people point to the Internet as an example of why government should be making technology choices, what they are really pointing to is an example of inappropriate patenting that could only be overcome by an entity with more interest in seeing the thing succeed than in charging a toll.

In other words, precisely the set of interests people would have if a patent did not apply in this situation.

Re: Copyright Lawyer: The Public Domain Goes Against Free Market Capitalism

#42

Post by anonymoushn »

jules wrote: post #38
anonymoushn wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's easy. You write some text, then you own a number representing the text (probably a number between 10^2400 and 10^240000) and all encodings of that number (some of which might be as small as 10^120). Now whenever you see anyone else using that number or any encoding of that number without giving you money, you tell them to give you money, and if they don't you get the government to threaten to kidnap them or stea…

In the same way, owning a physical object is ridiculous. Quantum mechanically, you can't tell the difference between an electron in your object and an electron somewhere else. So you end up owning an particular arrangement of electrons and protons, not the electrons and protons themselves. We can then apply the same reductio ad absurdum by examining somebody who claims to own a very small object, say a single electro…

Right. What I'm saying is less like an assertion that you can't own an idea and more like an explanation of how you go about owning ideas (but mostly ideas that are bigger than 7). I suppose my opinion is pretty easy to guess, though...

Re: Copyright Lawyer: The Public Domain Goes Against Free Market Capitalism

#43

Post by deskamess »

jules wrote: post #40
deskamess wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Property rights and copy rights are different beasts. Unlike theft of property, copying does not disenfranchise the originator of his asset. I find Thomas Jeffersons quote instructive: "He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me." http://movingtofreedom.org/2006/10/06/thomas-jefferson-on-pa... This is wh…

You are making the mistake of thinking that copy right is somehow the right to own your own book, say. If you think that then of course somebody copying and distributing it doesn't take your book away. Copy rights protect your ability to sell your book, not to own a physical copy of your book. Somebody else who is copying and distributing your book does hamper your ability to sell your book. Copy right protects your…

I am not making any such mistake.

I fully grasp that copyright is applied to an idea. You assign the term intellectual property to it.

I can copy a wine making recipe without dispossessing you of the ability to make wine. The process is still in your head. This process is an idea. I cannot steal a bottle of wine and still leave you in possession of it. The bottle of wine is property.

The copyright process attempts to provide short term protection to 'ideas' to reward inventors by dissuading copying (penalties). That does not suddenly convert the 'idea' to 'property', since any copying that happens, still does not dispossess the inventor of the idea. In assigning copyright the market has tagged the 'idea' as removed from the public domain for a short period. The natural order is restored when the period of protection ends and the idea falls back into public domain.

To come back to the reason for my original post... and repeating myself... Copying a copyrighted item does not dispossess the owner of the underlying asset. A property theft does dispossess the owner of the underlying asset. That is a significant difference.

Re: Copyright Lawyer: The Public Domain Goes Against Free Market Capitalism

#44

Post by jules »

deskamess wrote: post #43
jules wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are making the mistake of thinking that copy right is somehow the right to own your own book, say. If you think that then of course somebody copying and distributing it doesn't take your book away. Copy rights protect your ability to sell your book, not to own a physical copy of your book. Somebody else who is copying and distributing your book does hamper your ability to sell your book. Copy right protects your…

I am not making any such mistake. I fully grasp that copyright is applied to an idea. You assign the term intellectual property to it. I can copy a wine making recipe without dispossessing you of the ability to make wine. The process is still in your head. This process is an idea. I cannot steal a bottle of wine and still leave you in possession of it. The bottle of wine is property. The copyright process attempts to…

That's the same straw-man I already answered. I repeat, when you copy and distribute, you don't rid the maker of the recipe from the ability to make wine, you rid him of the ability to sell the recipe.

I can see what you're getting at with natural order. You are saying that he didn't have the ability to sell his recipe in the first place, because in a 'natural world' (i.e. without special enforcement by the government) he wouldn't be able to do that in the first place.

What do you think the world was like centuries ago? If I'm stronger than you, I can take your axe. THAT is the natural world. You could argue that that's bad, since previously he owned the axe and now he doesn't. In the same way that you argue that the recipe maker didn't have the ability to sell his recipe in the first place without law enforcement, I argue that the axe wasn't his in the first place without law enforcement. He never really had this axe, because I was always strong enough to take it from him.

But all of this is completely beside the point. We don't make laws because they are right or wrong. We make laws from an utilitarian perspective: do they improve the world? If you want to successfully argue against copyright law, you have to argue that these laws make the world a worse place.

Re: Copyright Lawyer: The Public Domain Goes Against Free Market Capitalism

#45

Post by sp332 »

mikecane wrote: post #37
sp332 wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually, it's just wrong. Copyright is an artificial, state-enforced restriction on competition. In a free market, people should be able to compete. Copyright is the opposite of the free market.

Wait, tell me how a writer having a Copyright on his, say, crime fiction book prevents any other writer from doing his or her own crime fiction book and competing? This I need to hear.

If a publisher pays a writer some money to license the writer's copyright, then the publisher can print and sell copies of the books. But if a different publisher can do a better job, customers might buy that other publisher's nicer books, and the writer might not get any money. Or, more likely, another publisher makes the books cheaper and everyone buys those. The customers are still getting the same text, maybe an exact duplicate of the licensed copies, but without copyright the original author might not get any money at all.

Re: Copyright Lawyer: The Public Domain Goes Against Free Market Capitalism

#46

Post by adulau »

adulau wrote: post #6

The history showed that many works when going into public domain generated a brand new active market. As an example, the work from Freud has been recently put in the public domain (in Europe, it means only that the patrimonial rights are expected but the effect are somehow similar to put the works in the public domain). The first day you could find in all the book-stores many new publications from his works included…

Sorry, a small typo: s/expected/expired/

Re: Copyright Lawyer: The Public Domain Goes Against Free Market Capitalism

#47

Post by pyre »

jules wrote: post #44
deskamess wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am not making any such mistake. I fully grasp that copyright is applied to an idea. You assign the term intellectual property to it. I can copy a wine making recipe without dispossessing you of the ability to make wine. The process is still in your head. This process is an idea. I cannot steal a bottle of wine and still leave you in possession of it. The bottle of wine is property. The copyright process attempts to…

That's the same straw-man I already answered. I repeat, when you copy and distribute, you don't rid the maker of the recipe from the ability to make wine, you rid him of the ability to sell the recipe. I can see what you're getting at with natural order. You are saying that he didn't have the ability to sell his recipe in the first place, because in a 'natural world' (i.e. without special enforcement by the governmen…

  > you rid him of the ability to sell the recipe.
Copyright controls the ability to copy/distribute. It says nothing about selling. Are you going to tell me that if I copy a movie, I've deprived Hollywood of the ability to sell that movie? Are they not still able to sell DVDs in parallel with the operation of The Pirate Bay? "rid him of the ability to sell" seems rather strong language for an issue that's more nuanced that you seem to want to admit to.

Re: Copyright Lawyer: The Public Domain Goes Against Free Market Capitalism

#48

Post by mikecane »

sp332 wrote: post #45
mikecane wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wait, tell me how a writer having a Copyright on his, say, crime fiction book prevents any other writer from doing his or her own crime fiction book and competing? This I need to hear.

If a publisher pays a writer some money to license the writer's copyright, then the publisher can print and sell copies of the books. But if a different publisher can do a better job, customers might buy that other publisher's nicer books, and the writer might not get any money. Or, more likely, another publisher makes the books cheaper and everyone buys those. The customers are still getting the same text, maybe an…

That is life. When I rent an apartment, I lock out all others who competed for it.

Re: Copyright Lawyer: The Public Domain Goes Against Free Market Capitalism

#49

Post by jules »

pyre wrote: post #47
jules wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's the same straw-man I already answered. I repeat, when you copy and distribute, you don't rid the maker of the recipe from the ability to make wine, you rid him of the ability to sell the recipe. I can see what you're getting at with natural order. You are saying that he didn't have the ability to sell his recipe in the first place, because in a 'natural world' (i.e. without special enforcement by the governmen…

> you rid him of the ability to sell the recipe. Copyright controls the ability to copy/distribute. It says nothing about selling. Are you going to tell me that if I copy a movie, I've deprived Hollywood of the ability to sell that movie? Are they not still able to sell DVDs in parallel with the operation of The Pirate Bay? "rid him of the ability to sell" seems rather strong language for an issue that's more nuanced…

Selling is the most important intended use case for copy right, just like using is the most important intended use case for property right.

If you copy and distribute a movie, then yes you are depriving Hollywood of some of its ability to sell the movie. Of course not all of it, just like I don't rid you of your use of your car if I steal it for one day and then put it back.

Re: Copyright Lawyer: The Public Domain Goes Against Free Market Capitalism

#50

Post by zampo4 »

jules wrote: post #23
sp332 wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually, it's just wrong. Copyright is an artificial, state-enforced restriction on competition. In a free market, people should be able to compete. Copyright is the opposite of the free market.

Property law is an artificial, state-enforced restriction on competition. In a free market, people should be able to compete.

Anti-trust law is an artificial, state-enforced restriction on competition. In a free market, people should be able to compete.
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