Earlier quoted context omitted.
Do you have the freedom to use violence to prevent others from profiting from your ideas?
You have the freedom to use violence prevent anything you bloody well like.
Was your first question rhetorical?
New Zealand bans some software patents
91–100 of 230 posts
Re: New Zealand bans some software patents
#92Earlier quoted context omitted.
You have the freedom to use violence prevent anything you bloody well like.
Was your first question rhetorical?
Yes, sorry :/
Well, maybe I didn't realize it though since I don't spend much time thinking about my freedoms in the state of nature, and people were making all these arguments about physical property being a natural right.
Re: New Zealand bans some software patents
#93Earlier quoted context omitted.
How can you have ownership without protection?
People can and do protect what they believe to be their property. Families and tribes can and do protect the territory they believe to belong to their members. I like David Friedman's description of property rights not primarily as moral or legal constructs, but as mutually recognized commitment strategies which discourage trespasses. He points out that territorialism in the animal kingdom is similar to property righ…
I would call that a state; why is it not a state?
Re: New Zealand bans some software patents
#94Earlier quoted context omitted.
Sorry, if it's you in the forest with a shotgun defending your property in a libertarian utopia, you're the government.
You're free to define "government" in such a way, but that's not a very useful definition in a discussion about what role the "government" should play.
I think we went through this before. What was your definition of government again? A man and a woman alone together in a forest and the man has the shotgun?
Re: New Zealand bans some software patents
#95Earlier quoted context omitted.
Do you have the freedom to profit from your ideas in the state of nature?
Assuming we're talking about the Hobbesian "state of nature" then yes, of course you do have that freedom. Along with every other freedom. But you only have a right to profit insofar as you can keep others from exercising their freedom to steal your ideas (or anything else).
If I have a natural right to profit from my ideas, isn't it reasonable that I might want a legal right?
Re: New Zealand bans some software patents
#96Earlier quoted context omitted.
While intellectual property is almost entirely a legal creation, government is not necessary for property to exist. Indeed, John Locke considered property to be a natural right along with life and liberty.
And, empirically, property existed long before governments.
Well yes, as soon as a creature needs to expend energy to obtain a thing they plan on using later, another creature is going to try to obtain it in a simpler way: by stealing it. And so, even apes and birds have a concept of 'property': things that are theirs, usually cached food, that they will take pains to hide and/or defend.
With humans it isn't quite so clear. The default societal structure for humans is the band, which is basically an extended family unit. In a band, property is shared by the group. If a member of another band sneaks in and takes something, that's theft and will result in retaliation. So a concept of property exists at the band level. But I don't believe that individual members of a band have stuff they are allowed to use but no one else.
It's only in more complex societies that private property at the individual level definitely exists. But these societies also have some form of government, even if it's just a tribal chief.
So if by 'property' you mean private (i.e, individual) property, it's not quite so clear which came first: property or government.
Re: New Zealand bans some software patents
#97Earlier quoted context omitted.
Assuming we're talking about the Hobbesian "state of nature" then yes, of course you do have that freedom. Along with every other freedom. But you only have a right to profit insofar as you can keep others from exercising their freedom to steal your ideas (or anything else).
If I have a natural right to profit from my ideas, isn't it reasonable that I might want a legal right?
In a state of nature, there is no such thing as a "legal right", or law of any kind other than might-makes-right.
Re: New Zealand bans some software patents
#98Earlier quoted context omitted.
So the reason I brought up physical property is because if that's not a complete fiction then it's bizarre for intellectual property to be a complete fiction. Governments don't create things out of whole cloth, the laws always correspond to something, even if they do it badly.
Oh, I don't think it is a complete fiction either. Just for starters, something as simple as plagiarism is reviled with the law rarely being involved. We don't need the law to tell us that plagiarism is unacceptable. What I do think is a fiction is trying to apply concepts meant for physical goods to ideas. Concepts like "theft", or being able to transfer ownership. It strikes me as the political/legal equivalent of…
I agree that conflating physical and intellectual property is a problem. I think we need a different laws that reward intellectual work directly instead of doing it by creating artificial value, e.g. with DRM, patents, lawsuits, etc.
Re: New Zealand bans some software patents
#99Software patents are an abomination. I could stomach copyright on software, because at least one is still permitted independent implementation and expression. I can't copy your code, but I can rewrite it. Software patents on the other hand put a fence around ideas themselves. You can't draw a cursor using XOR by implementing it yourself, period, for 20 years. The patent system is deeply broken, and it doesn't even st…
You got my vote on the first sentence.
Re: New Zealand bans some software patents
#100Software patents are an abomination. I could stomach copyright on software, because at least one is still permitted independent implementation and expression. I can't copy your code, but I can rewrite it. Software patents on the other hand put a fence around ideas themselves. You can't draw a cursor using XOR by implementing it yourself, period, for 20 years. The patent system is deeply broken, and it doesn't even st…
BTW, for Florian Mueller who might be reading, here is your paymaster's official published position on software patents: