The 'intellectual property' oxymoron • Hacker News Board

Re: The 'intellectual property' oxymoron

#91

Post by gnaritas » Sun, Jul 03, 2011, 10:50 PM UTC

adsr wrote: post #90

gnaritas wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not the point; once released, why should people not be allowed to freely copy and share it? Why do you think you get to control what other people do with information?

It's not only about copying and sharing, but also who has the right to sell and distribute. If you create software, you are copyright owner of that software, which means I can not take it, sell it and take credit for it. I don't think I get to control what other people do with information, but you should have the right to control what others do with your work.

> If you create software, you are copyright owner of that software, which means I can not take it, sell it and take credit for it.

Ug.. it's pointless to state how things currently work in a meta discussion about whether the current method makes sense.

I'm asking you to justify copyright, not explain it. I repeat, why do you think you should get to control what other people do with information?

> I don't think I get to control what other people do with information, but you should have the right to control what others do with your work.

And I say you shouldn't, so justify your belief. You should be able to control yourself, that's it; not the products of your labor when copied. Information is not property, you don't have less of it if I copy it and you should have no say over me copying it regardless of who produced it.

Re: The 'intellectual property' oxymoron

#92

Post by adsr » Sun, Jul 03, 2011, 11:04 PM UTC

gnaritas wrote: post #91

adsr wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not only about copying and sharing, but also who has the right to sell and distribute. If you create software, you are copyright owner of that software, which means I can not take it, sell it and take credit for it. I don't think I get to control what other people do with information, but you should have the right to control what others do with your work.

> If you create software, you are copyright owner of that software, which means I can not take it, sell it and take credit for it. Ug.. it's pointless to state how things currently work in a meta discussion about whether the current method makes sense . I'm asking you to justify copyright, not explain it. I repeat, why do you think you should get to control what other people do with information? > I don't think I get…

As I said copying is only one part of copyright. If you spend a year in production and spending a large amount of money in the process. You should be the owner of the product, or anyone could just make a copy and sell it at a heavy discount with no associated costs of production.

The interesting thing is that the same argument can in fact be made for property. How can you claim to own something at all? It's related to labor, having spent x amount of time working to buy something.

Re: The 'intellectual property' oxymoron

#93

Post by Tycho » Sun, Jul 03, 2011, 11:22 PM UTC

Property underpins our ability to survive. All wealth is ultimately a product of the mind (whether it's writing a novel, or finding some oil and knowing how to use it), so as a general rule if a man cannot control the produce of his mind, he can't expect to survive. I see intellectual property as pretty fundamental to any society that respects individual rights.

Re: The 'intellectual property' oxymoron

#94

Post by andrewflnr » Sun, Jul 03, 2011, 11:23 PM UTC

FrojoS wrote: post #56

In my mind kickstarter.com is the solution to the intelectual property problem. How can, knowledge workers, for instance musicians, earn money in the 21. century? Simple, charge upfront before publishing. Imagine a popular band like U2 would ask for the money, they expect from their next album, upfront. I think, their fans, including me, would do what ever it takes to raise that money together. Et voila, you can stil…

That does sound like an interesting model. Producers would, I suppose, initially have to establish their reputations by releasing things for free. The dynamics of choosing prices would be completely different, more like selling equity.

One thing that would worry me: a lot of people would have to be involved in getting a piece to a point where it could be sold. How would it be protected while all these people are looking at it and working on it?

Also, if you work out one of these deals with a publisher, and transmit it over the Internet, are you legally protected against people stealing it en route?

Re: The 'intellectual property' oxymoron

#95

Post by andrewflnr » Sun, Jul 03, 2011, 11:33 PM UTC

tzs wrote: post #53

There's an economic justification for the current type of IP law in societies that philosophically believe that the free market should be used whenever possible to determine the allocation of resources. It goes like this: ------ It can be shown by the mathematical economics folks that the free market leads to economically optimum results if and only if the goods in the market have certain attributes. If goods do not…

A tax on internet connectivity to fund creators of intellectual goods sounds like an awful idea to me. Who qualifies as a "creator of intellectual goods"? Do you have to register for that? Can you have another job as well? How is popularity measured, especially where multiple works by the same person are involved? Multiple contributors to the same work, with varying degrees of input? You can assume that the number of "creators of intellectual goods" will be inflated. Is there really going to be enough money from a Internet connectivity tax to supply the living of all the artists who "deserve" it?

It sounds like a nightmare to implement, which means it would almost certainly be implemented horribly. That alone, disregarding any theoretical merits, should rule it out as a viable idea.

Re: The 'intellectual property' oxymoron

#96

Post by gnaritas » Sun, Jul 03, 2011, 11:38 PM UTC

adsr wrote: post #92

gnaritas wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you create software, you are copyright owner of that software, which means I can not take it, sell it and take credit for it. Ug.. it's pointless to state how things currently work in a meta discussion about whether the current method makes sense . I'm asking you to justify copyright, not explain it. I repeat, why do you think you should get to control what other people do with information? > I don't think I get…

As I said copying is only one part of copyright. If you spend a year in production and spending a large amount of money in the process. You should be the owner of the product, or anyone could just make a copy and sell it at a heavy discount with no associated costs of production. The interesting thing is that the same argument can in fact be made for property. How can you claim to own something at all? It's related t…

> If you spend a year in production and spending a large amount of money in the process. You should be the owner of the product, or anyone could just make a copy and sell it at a heavy discount with no associated costs of production.

You're still assuming a world where copyright exists. Are you unable to think outside of those bounds? Do you not see that perhaps you wouldn't even attempt to do this in a world without copyright because you'd know up front you can't make money selling it?

> The interesting thing is that the same argument can in fact be made for property.

No it can't. Property is physical, if I steal your car, you no longer have it. If I copy your novel, you don't even know it happened. Physical property and intellectual property aren't at all the same.

> It's related to labor, having spent x amount of time working to buy something.

No, it really isn't.

Re: The 'intellectual property' oxymoron

#97

Post by johnnyjustice » Sun, Jul 03, 2011, 11:42 PM UTC

eropple wrote: post #60

lukeschlather wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or nobody sells your book at all. You give it away for free on the Internet, and you make money off speaking appearances.

Because that's very realistic (Cory Doctorow aside, and he's a special case). It's foolish besides--speaking engagements, etc. take away time from actually producing creative works . It's the sort of miss-the-point silliness often espoused by the anti-IP sorts: "spend an incredible amount of time doing X to maybe, if you're lucky, sell a marginal number of Y, where Y is totally unrelated to X." It's silly and a misal…

Well that's not fair, its not simply foolish. He prefaced his comment with "Or" meaning that its a possible business model. I think it would be fantastic to speak to my favorite writers and I know their time is valuable so I would pay to. But I am not stating that it is the perfect path. Though it would be nice if people considered it as a possibility.

Re: The 'intellectual property' oxymoron

#98

Post by andrewflnr » Sun, Jul 03, 2011, 11:47 PM UTC

hxa7241 wrote: post #17

michael_dorfman wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

None of these are ethical problems if you accept the premise that the author of a work is entitled to be remunerated for the production of said work, and can contract (exclusively, for a period of time) with a publisher for the distribution of said work. Put another way: you may (or may not) be old enough to remember when an American paperback company, Ace books, produced and sold paperback copies of Tolkien's "Lord…

> if you accept the premise that the author of a work is entitled to be remunerated for the production of said work That is not the premise, that is the matter in question. If it is simply assumed as the answer, nothing has been said. As to the idea of harm here, it is not in the actions or materials themselves. It depends on assuming the particular law is the baseline, and then saying without that the person would b…

I think what he is proposing is to accept it as a premise because it makes intuitive sense, and stop making it so complicated. Really, where do all these ideas about liberty and harm come from? Our intuition, or rather, our conscience. If you want to go really fundamental, why does harm to human beings matter at all?

What was said below about IP ethically being about attribution was pretty close to the mark, in my opinion. It just makes sense for people to have a right to control what they make, physical or otherwise, and to go too far beyond that seems to me to be dangerously over-thinking the issue.

Re: The 'intellectual property' oxymoron

#99

Post by icebraining » Sun, Jul 03, 2011, 11:50 PM UTC

adsr wrote: post #85

icebraining wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>It's a basic right Right now, it's a right, yes (what exactly does 'basic' mean?). The question is whether it should be. >Same with software, a GPL license would be worthless without copyright. The GPL is just an hack, using copyright to achieve a goal. If you were rewriting IP law, you could very well institute copyleft without copyright.

GPL is good, since it's up to the author to chose if he/she want's to license it under the terms of the license. It's the authors role of a copyright owner that makes this possible. Forcing everyone to share their work seems like a bigger violation than copyright. Lastly, a GPL license wouldn't be possible to enforce without copyright, or the concept of a copyright owner.

You wouldn't need to force - you could just give the author the right to demand that or not.

>Lastly, a GPL license wouldn't be possible to enforce without copyright, or the concept of a copyright owner.

Yes for the GPL, no for copyleft. The GPL was simply a mechanism that Stallman et all found to enable copyleft without having the power to rewrite the law.

If you did have the power to rewrite the law - and if you were to eliminate copyright, you would - it'd be perfectly possible to add a 'copyleft right' without relying on copyright.

The problem is that in Common law all those rights are based to the Copyright concept, and that blinds people to assume that must be. Here in Europe, we have 'authorship rights' - such as attribution - and they are not based on copyright; copyright is just one of them. You could take it out without affecting other authorship rights.

Re: The 'intellectual property' oxymoron

#100

Post by icebraining » Mon, Jul 04, 2011, 12:00 AM UTC

michael_dorfman wrote: post #26

Jach wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting you chose the word 'deprived' instead of the more typical 'stole'. I think it's hard to justify stealing when only a copy was copied. So then 'deprived of income' in the sense of withheld income. Who is doing the withholding, and why do you think you're entitled to what they're withholding? And how much? (While the third party didn't have to write your work, they nevertheless would have to do a lot of wor…

In the example I offered, the economics are no mystery, but if it helps you to put numbers in the picture, let's go for it. Suppose I write a book of sonnets. I negotiate with a publisher whereby he has the exclusive right to print, distribute, and sell said book of sonnets for a period of five years, and I will be paid $1 per copy sold. The book proves popular, and a pirate publisher produces, distributes, and sells…

You are being deprived of something you never had. If someone says they'll gift me a car, and then they don't, have they stole from me? No, because I never had the car in the first place.

And who's to say you are being deprived of such income? For all you know, you could have received the exact same amount even if the pirate publisher had never sold it - maybe he did all the marketing work that enabled those sales.

More: for all you know, maybe the marketing work that the pirate went through has helped sell more of your publisher's copies that it would had the pirate never copied it at all.

It's simply impossible to tell if you were deprived of any 'potential income' or not.