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The 'intellectual property' oxymoron

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Re: The 'intellectual property' oxymoron

#51

Post by lukeschlather »

jarrett wrote: post #37

While I agree that our current intellectual property system is doing a great deal of harm (particularly due to it being slanted in favor of monied interests), there is a protect-the-little-guy rationale for some form of copyright. Let's imagine a world without copyright. Suppose I spend a year writing a novel. This novel is great; it has the capacity to become the #1 bestseller, provided the right marketing is there.…

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

Re: The 'intellectual property' oxymoron

#52

Post by michael_dorfman »

Jach wrote: post #30
michael_dorfman wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Not really. Why is it $1? Suppose you make a contract with one publisher who will pay you $1 per copy sold and also negotiate with a different publisher who will pay you $2 per copy sold. How much are you deprived then, $1.50? $2? You're assuming that every copy the pirate sold could have been sold by your current publisher(s) but wasn't.

Because I stipulated that the contract was exclusive and time-limited. In other words, the assumption that every copy the pirate sold would have been sold by my current publisher is accurate-- hence the simplicity of the hypothetical.

Re: The 'intellectual property' oxymoron

#53

Post by tzs »

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 have those attributes, the free market does not work with those goods in the sense that it does not lead to a good allocation of resources.

Intellectual goods do not have those attributes. Therefore the free market does not work for intellectual goods.

If we want to have optimal allocation of resources to the production of intellectual goods, we either need some mechanism other than the free market (e.g., patronage, probably by the government) or we need to pretend that intellectual goods DO have the necessary attributes. Our current IP law takes the later approach.

------

Nearly every anti-current-IP-system opinion I've read (including the submitted article and most of the comments here so far) fails to propose how to achieve reasonable allocation of resources using some system other than the current system (except for RMS...he's one of the few who gets it--see below).

At best we usually get suggestions that creators of intellectual goods will find something else to do. For instance, musicians will give concerts, writers will make their living doing contract articles, programmers will provide customization or support, and so on.

Those suggestions are missing the point. When a great novelist is spending time writing articles, he's not writing his next great novel. When a great programmer is handling tech support, he's not writing great programs. Those resources are not being optimally allocated.

RMS has suggested that there be a tax on internet connectivity, with the money going to fund creators of intellectual goods, with distribution of the money based on the cube root of popularity.

Re: The 'intellectual property' oxymoron

#54

Post by smokeyj »

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…

People are engaging in activity Y.

Activity Y is not profitable.

How can we control the internet to make Activity Y profitable?

Suggesting folks engaged in Activity Y figure it out is not an acceptable response.

I can't help but feel this is a false dilemma. What about Activity A B and C that aren't profitable? Shouldn't we care about the proliferation and development of all these activities? Furthermore, maybe folks engaging in Activity Y should just evolve and adopt to the modern climate of the digital age. See GNU/Linux.

Re: The 'intellectual property' oxymoron

#55

Post by benologist »

lukeschlather wrote: post #51
jarrett wrote: post #37

While I agree that our current intellectual property system is doing a great deal of harm (particularly due to it being slanted in favor of monied interests), there is a protect-the-little-guy rationale for some form of copyright. Let's imagine a world without copyright. Suppose I spend a year writing a novel. This novel is great; it has the capacity to become the #1 bestseller, provided the right marketing is there.…

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

It's very easy to say someone else should work for nothing and do additional work to earn money.

Do you have a free-job that consumes most of your time, and a paid-job you fit in around it?

Re: The 'intellectual property' oxymoron

#56

Post by FrojoS »

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 still become rich as musician without mega concerts or a police state.

I've been talking about this solution with my friends for years. We never made it happen. Now kickstarter.com is here. But I'm still waiting for a large adaptation in industries like music or software and video games. Is it just a question of time and promotion or am I'm overlooking something important?

PS: I posted this a few seconds ago at http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2723374 but then realized it would fit better here.

Re: The 'intellectual property' oxymoron

#57

Post by adsr »

smokeyj wrote: post #54
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…

People are engaging in activity Y. Activity Y is not profitable. How can we control the internet to make Activity Y profitable? Suggesting folks engaged in Activity Y figure it out is not an acceptable response. I can't help but feel this is a false dilemma. What about Activity A B and C that aren't profitable? Shouldn't we care about the proliferation and development of all these activities? Furthermore, maybe folks…

It's a strawman argument, since there are two components here. First, it's hard to make a living as a writer, perhaps your just not good enough or only appeal to a small part of the population. Secondly your right to get paid for your work. The second part doesn't go away simply because making a living as a writer is hard.

Re: The 'intellectual property' oxymoron

#58

Post by xilun0 »

SigmundA wrote: post #50
hxa7241 wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, that is wrong -- it seems covered by the ethics of lying/truth-telling (from Kant, it is contradictory: if lying were a universal rule, it would destroy the possibility of communication in general). But IP is about more than just clear attribution. And clear attribution is not dependent on IP -- we can have it without the other IP features. So a justification of attribution is not sufficient to support IP too.

You haven't explained how they are different, what is the difference between a co-worker stealing your idea for personal gain and someone else in society doing the same? In IP it's essentially about someone lying to society about the source of the idea. The only difference I see is the organizational entities scope, but the ethic is the same. IP is basically contractualized attribution. Owning an idea as property is…

you are pretending there is on difference between attribution of ideas and utilisation of ideas. I won't even explain why this is not true.

Re: The 'intellectual property' oxymoron

#59

Post by Helianthus »

adsr wrote: post #57
smokeyj wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People are engaging in activity Y. Activity Y is not profitable. How can we control the internet to make Activity Y profitable? Suggesting folks engaged in Activity Y figure it out is not an acceptable response. I can't help but feel this is a false dilemma. What about Activity A B and C that aren't profitable? Shouldn't we care about the proliferation and development of all these activities? Furthermore, maybe folks…

It's a strawman argument, since there are two components here. First, it's hard to make a living as a writer, perhaps your just not good enough or only appeal to a small part of the population. Secondly your right to get paid for your work. The second part doesn't go away simply because making a living as a writer is hard.

Yes, it does in fact. It isn't society's responsibility to make writing profitable. Just because the internet et al are making it harder to make a living as a writer doesn't mean we have any responsibility to turn around and make it easier.

Re: The 'intellectual property' oxymoron

#60

Post by eropple »

lukeschlather wrote: post #51
jarrett wrote: post #37

While I agree that our current intellectual property system is doing a great deal of harm (particularly due to it being slanted in favor of monied interests), there is a protect-the-little-guy rationale for some form of copyright. Let's imagine a world without copyright. Suppose I spend a year writing a novel. This novel is great; it has the capacity to become the #1 bestseller, provided the right marketing is there.…

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 misallocation of a wtiter's resources to take away from actually writing to hit the speaking circuit.

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