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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

#31

Post by pyre »

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.

Intellectual Property is a concept that tries to put ownership on ideas/abstract concepts. How does one 'own' and idea? In the physical sense, one can 'own' a physical object through possession.

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

#32

Post by gburt »

jeffool wrote: post #15
gburt wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would call the Rolex/iPod examples fraud, wouldn't you? "Free market capitalism" is only rarely conflated with anarchy. (don't get me wrong, I agree that Intellectual Property is the opposite of "free market")

More likely it would be trademark violation. After all, who is to decide what "Rolex" means, anyway?

Absolutely. Today. But what I was getting at is if we were to hypothetically do away with IP, what he was claiming was a side effect doesn't seem to be one to me. It seems that if someone pretended to be selling a Rolex, and it was accepted that Rolexes were good, high quality watches produced by the Rolex company, they would be committing fraud.

Who gets to decide what any word means? Why is it special that it's a proper noun? If someone were going around claiming to be jeffool from HN, that'd be a clear case of fraud too, no?

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

#33

Post by jules »

pyre wrote: post #31
jules wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Intellectual Property is a concept that tries to put ownership on ideas/abstract concepts. How does one 'own' and idea? In the physical sense, one can 'own' a physical object through possession.

In what sense do you own a physical object, and how is it fundamentally different than having the copyrights to a work? What's stopping me from taking the object from you? The same entity that's stopping me from copying and selling a book that you wrote.

There are many good arguments against copyright law, but that copyright is somehow fundamentally different than property law is not one of them.

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

#34

Post by anonymoushn »

pyre wrote: post #31
jules wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Intellectual Property is a concept that tries to put ownership on ideas/abstract concepts. How does one 'own' and idea? In the physical sense, one can 'own' a physical object through possession.

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 steal their money if they don't give you money. However, if you pick a number around 7, I don't think you'll be able to pull it off.

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

#35

Post by mikecane »

billybob wrote: post #10

Pure free market capitalism would be if I could buy your book the day it's released, make photocopies, and sell them outside the bookstore for cheaper. Pure free market capitalism would let me make a fake Rolex. It would let me reverse-engineer an iPod and sell it with the label "iPod." There are downsides to this, and that's why we have IP laws. But those laws are not free market capitalism; they are restraints on i…

I submit that "free market" and "capitalism" are antagonistic to one another and should never be mixed for they cannot co-exist. One is active enterprise, the other is non-productive gambling and usury. (And I know there are people ready to downvote me for that sentence, but put away your notions of Wall Street being "investors." Risk-taking VCs are, but not Wall Street.)

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

#36

Post by stretchwithme »

dkl wrote: post #30
stretchwithme wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When the pioneer goes out into the wilderness and establishes a farm, doing the hard work of removing stumps and planting a crop, he has added to the value of that land and deserves to have ownership recognized and protected. The freedom of others to wander the wilderness, eating whatever they find is taken away. But it is reasonable to curtail it, because agriculture is very productive compared to the hunter gathere…

> 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.

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

#37

Post by mikecane »

sp332 wrote: post #22
logjam wrote: post #18

Can't argue with that. 'Course, geniuses like this particular copyright lawyer would note that laws prohibiting strip mining Yosemite "go against free market capitalism" too. More limits on "free market capitalism" will thankfully continue to elevate us a bit above what amounts to the brainless economics and political philosophies of cancer cells.

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.

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

#38

Post by jules »

anonymoushn wrote: post #34
pyre wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Intellectual Property is a concept that tries to put ownership on ideas/abstract concepts. How does one 'own' and idea? In the physical sense, one can 'own' a physical object through possession.

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 electron.

The sensible way to define property is defining it by those cases where the state protects your rights to it. One defines intellectual property in exactly the same way.

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

#39

Post by deskamess »

jules wrote: post #33
pyre wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Intellectual Property is a concept that tries to put ownership on ideas/abstract concepts. How does one 'own' and idea? In the physical sense, one can 'own' a physical object through possession.

In what sense do you own a physical object, and how is it fundamentally different than having the copyrights to a work? What's stopping me from taking the object from you? The same entity that's stopping me from copying and selling a book that you wrote. There are many good arguments against copyright law, but that copyright is somehow fundamentally different than property law is not one of them.

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 why the term intellectual property is not, in my mind, the right term and one can even argue that it has the word 'property' to get us thinking along the lines of 'physical property'. Theft vs. copying.

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

#40

Post by jules »

deskamess wrote: post #39
jules wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In what sense do you own a physical object, and how is it fundamentally different than having the copyrights to a work? What's stopping me from taking the object from you? The same entity that's stopping me from copying and selling a book that you wrote. There are many good arguments against copyright law, but that copyright is somehow fundamentally different than property law is not one of them.

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 ability to use your intellectual property (again, NOT a particular copy of that intellectual property), just like property rights protect your ability to use your physical property.
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