Intellectual Property - In All Fairness!

[MoonShadow]

deuxmill - people have been around 100,000 years and patents on things like bracelets last 10 years.  If the grant to the patent speeds up the rate of invention, then that 10 year patent is worth it.

It does the opposite of speeding it up, since it puts a 10 year halt on anyone playing around with that invention to make it better.

The problem with your idea is that we have empirical evidence.  Countries with IP laws excel at innovation.  The others don't. 

Evidence shows China is on the brink of kicking our collective buts with innovation. Companies that abandon their IP rights in exchange with being able to do business in China (one of their prerequisites) tend to still do extremely well, too.

There is a strong cultural component to innovation, and the dominat culture that is China doesn't really have it.  That is not to say that it can't happen, if the powers that be in China can recongnize that fact, but odds are high that innovation in China will long be connected to Western companies.  Japan, for that matter, doesn't innovate very well, but both cultures are particularly good at productive efficiency.

Not strictly true - patent filings show that culturally they are all great.  The Japanese are masters at innovation.  Properly supported, so are the Chinese.  Look at the impact of Taiwan and Singapore.  The real issue in mainland China is that you can't protect your investment from a secretary stealing a backup and selling your source code to a rival.

In both the cases of Taiwan and Singapore, the 'seeds' of innovation came decades ago from the adoption of Western culture and economic concepts.  Japan to some degree as well, but there has definitely been some cultural resistance that inhibits the encouragement of 'innovative' types.  I will oversimplify it by saying that it's related to the cultural drive to conform that suppresses whatever leads to 'innovative' types.  Certainly, this is a generalization, and there are always exceptions; but Western cultures tend to value individualility more than China or Japan, the US the most in that respect.  I believe that this is the core element, but I can't really know.  But just think about it, the Western cultures continue to produce the majority of well known innovators such as Steve Jobs, and tends to be more likely to place those same types of people into positions of authority, able to leverage that innovative "quality" into a final product.

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[Hawker]

...snip...

In both the cases of Taiwan and Singapore, the 'seeds' of innovation came decades ago from the adoption of Western culture and economic concepts.  Japan to some degree as well, but there has definitely been some cultural resistance that inhibits the encouragement of 'innovative' types.  I will oversimplify it by saying that it's related to the cultural drive to conform that suppresses whatever leads to 'innovative' types.  Certainly, this is a generalization, and there are always exceptions; but Western cultures tend to value individualility more than China or Japan, the US the most in that respect.  I believe that this is the core element, but I can't really know.  But just think about it, the Western cultures continue to produce the majority of well known innovators such as Steve Jobs, and tends to be more likely to place those same types of people into positions of authority, able to leverage that innovative "quality" into a final product.

Sorry you are mistaken.  The reason Western inventors do well is that they can get their money back on research.  Chinese people in Taiwan are good at innovation while those in Shanghai are not because the ones in Taiwan have IP laws that are rigorously enforced while the ones in PRC do not. 

[Rassah]

There is a strong cultural component to innovation, and the dominat culture that is China doesn't really have it.  That is not to say that it can't happen, if the powers that be in China can recongnize that fact, but odds are high that innovation in China will long be connected to Western companies.  Japan, for that matter, doesn't innovate very well, but both cultures are particularly good at productive efficiency.

China has an enormous amount of national and cultural pride, mainly stemming from being kicked around by the rest of the world so much in their more recent history. That is their biggest driver for building up their current economy, and is the current driver for them wanting to change from manufacturers to innovators. I have no doubt that will happen (unless their economy crashes due to current currency issues).

[chickenado]

The problem with your idea is that we have empirical evidence.  Countries with IP laws excel at innovation.  The others don't. 

We may have empirical evidence for correlation, but we don't have empirical evidence for causation.

The societies that excel at innovation, already excelled at innovation before the introduction of IP laws.  This suggests a cultural component, and it suggests that IP laws were a reaction to the big role that innovation already played in those economies, not the other way around.   A law that regulates civil aviation, for instance, would be nonsensical in a society where manned flight hasn't been invented yet, and just as likely to be passed as a law that regulates time travel.  It would be a fallacy to conclude that just because a country has laws regulating civil aviation, those laws were the cause for the invention and bringing to market of manned flight.    Copyright law, in particular, was a reaction to the invention of the printing press. It initially aimed to restrict its effects on society, not enhance them.

This is all conjecture of course, but the point is that there is no conclusive proof for either position.  Economists don't seem to have reached consensus on whether IP law does more harm than good, macroeconomically. There are plenty of excellent, peer-reviewed empirical as well as ab initio studies to support both sides.

To quote from an earlier poster, a law that can't be proven (beyond reasonable doubt) to be beneficial, has no business existing. 

[Hawker]

The problem with your idea is that we have empirical evidence.  Countries with IP laws excel at innovation.  The others don't.  

We may have empirical evidence for correlation, but we don't have empirical evidence for causation.

The societies that excel at innovation, already excelled at innovation before the introduction of IP laws.  This suggests a cultural component, and it suggests that IP laws were a reaction to the big role that innovation already played in those economies, not the other way around.   A law that regulates civil aviation, for instance, would be nonsensical in a society where manned flight hasn't been invented yet, and just as likely to be passed as a law that regulates time travel.  It would be a fallacy to conclude that just because a country has laws regulating civil aviation, those laws were the cause for the invention and bringing to market of manned flight.    Copyright law, in particular, was a reaction to the invention of the printing press. It initially aimed to restrict its effects on society, not enhance them.

This is all conjecture of course, but the point is that there is no conclusive proof for either position.  Economists don't seem to have reached consensus on whether IP law does more harm than good, macroeconomically. There are plenty of excellent, peer-reviewed empirical as well as ab initio studies to support both sides.

To quote from an earlier poster, a law that can't be proven (beyond reasonable doubt) to be beneficial, has no business existing.  

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright#History

"Whereas Printers, Booksellers, and other Persons, have of late frequently taken the Liberty of Printing... Books, and other Writings, without the Consent of the Authors... to their very great Detriment, and too often to the Ruin of them and their Families:..."

Seems very clear that the goal was to protect authors.  

[MoonShadow]

There is a strong cultural component to innovation, and the dominat culture that is China doesn't really have it.  That is not to say that it can't happen, if the powers that be in China can recongnize that fact, but odds are high that innovation in China will long be connected to Western companies.  Japan, for that matter, doesn't innovate very well, but both cultures are particularly good at productive efficiency.

China has an enormous amount of national and cultural pride, mainly stemming from being kicked around by the rest of the world so much in their more recent history.

That has exactly zero to do with it.

[chickenado]

Its NAP done properly.  People do get together in societies and societies do act to protect themselves from harm.  If the society believes losing the benefits of IP law is harmful, it will protect and enforce IP laws...

The moral question is whether society is entitled to have IP laws.  Answer is yes since society has a right to protect itself from harm and its a legitimate decision that losing the benefits of IP law will be harmful in some cases.

I agree that the practical question of what to protect is not a moral question - it's something that ideally should be decided by a group of elected representatives.

You really like this society concept.

[...]

Margaret Thatcher's quote comes to mind, "there is no such thing as society, there are only individuals".

I don't agree with that quote.

That would be like saying "there is no such thing as biology, there is only physics".

But there clearly is such a thing as biology. Biology explains emergent properties that physics alone cannot explain.  Biology is an abstraction layer built on top of biochemistry, which is an abstraction layer built on top of chemistry, which is an abstraction layer built on top of physics. 

What biology cannot be however, is in violation of the abstraction layers it was built upon.  All biological laws must also obey the laws of physics.  All macrobiological theories must also obey the theory of DNA, and so on.  Any putative theory that doesn't obey the lower level theories can be discarded a priori.  Conversely, it would be fallacious to take lower level theories and homomorphically apply them to the emergent phenomena occuring at higher levels.  Organisms don't behave like cells. Cells don't behave like atoms. Atoms don't behave like subatomic particles.


Analogously,

There clearly is such a thing as society. Just like there is a swarm of birds.  Society has emergent properties that can't be understood by looking at nature of the individual alone.  These "swarm effects" affect all of us deeply because we are a social species. It is important to understand those effects and plan our lives accordingly. But while we are doing that, we must always keep the following principles in mind:

1. Societies are not individuals. Societies do not behave like individuals.

2. Before we can establish "rights" for society as a whole, we must establish rights for the individual

3. Any societal "rights" that violate the individual rights established in principle 2 can be discarded a priori


When people talk about society, I constantly come across the the fallacy of personification. "Society wants".  "Society needs".  "Society feels".  "Society has decided...".   These phrases are nonsensical.  Society doesn't want, need, feel, or decide anything.  Society is an abstract concept and not a person.
Some persons can perhaps claim to represent groups of other persons, but they are still persons, and not societies.
 
Even if society can be considered a superorganism, it's a "dumb" superorganism, in the sense that it displays behaviors and reacts to stimuli.    But society does not have dreams, desires, feelings, free will, or a consciousness.

Individual rights can never be overridden by a tyrant, a minority, a majority, or a plurality.  Individual rights can only be overridden by unanimity.



Conclusion/ tl;dr

It may well be that IP is beneficial to society, but none of us can pretend to know this for certain.

If that is your belief, join a group of people that have mutually agreed to honor each other's IP, and if it really is that beneficial your group with thrive and others will attempt to copy you.  But in the mean time, do not initiate force against those who disagree with you.

[Hawker]

...snip...

1. Societies are not individuals. Societies do not behave like individuals.

2. Before we can establish "rights" for society as a whole, we must establish rights for the individual

3. Any societal "rights" that violate the individual rights established in principle 2 can be discarded a priori


When people talk about society, I constantly come across the the fallacy of personification. "Society wants".  "Society needs".  "Society feels".  "Society has decided...".   These phrases are nonsensical.  Society doesn't want, need, feel, or decide anything.  Society is an abstract concept and not a person.
Some persons can perhaps claim to represent groups of other persons, but they are still persons, and not societies.
 
...snip...

Point 1 - agree.  Not only do societies not behave like individuals - they have capacities that exceed anything a group of individuals are capable of.  For a society can raise armies where people voluntarily enter combat knowing death is certain.  That kind of tribal power is way beyond individuals.
Point 2 - disagree.  The first thing people do in an emergency is form a group and look after the group.  We don't all rush off to look after only ourselves.  So establishing what is right for the society comes first, then we make individual rights.  Even if you don't like it, that's the way humans actually work.
Point 3 - redundant as point 2 was illogical.

[chickenado]

The first thing people do in an emergency is form a group and look after the group.  We don't all rush off to look after only ourselves.

Wrong. The first thing people try to do in an emergency is to save their own and their immediate family's ass.

Yes, people often form groups in emergencies, but they do so voluntarily.  Those who have more to gain than lose from joining the group, will choose the group. Those who don't will indeed rush off and try to fend for themselves.

In practice, joining the group is the decision most will make because of the huge benefits that the division of labor and voluntary exchange have to offer.  But the reason they are making that decision is ultimately selfish, not to sacrifice themselves for the survival of the group.

The decision to survive as an individual, the decision for autonomy, thus comes first.

So establishing what is right for the society comes first, then we make individual rights.  

How exactly is this established? Must it be an unanimous decision? Or will a majority vote suffice? Or perhaps it's decided by an elite of self-appointed expert philosophers? A roll of dice? Or perhaps it's the biggest bully who gets the final word? What about those who disagree? Will they be allowed to leave this society? Will they be allowed to live unmolested by whatever arbitrary societal good comes above their right to use their body and property?  

Even if you don't like it, that's the way humans actually work.

Is/ought problem. Humans also actually and habitually steal, murder, rape, torture, and  commit genocide on scale too big to be ignored as unrepresentative of human nature.  Sometimes endorsed by a majority who has decided that initiation of force is "for the good of society".   That still doesn't make those things right.

The purpose of individual rights is not to eliminate those evils from the word.  The purpose is to do justice, where they are committed.


"Bad people will always do bad things, good people will always do good things, but for good people to do bad things it takes the myth of virtuous collectivism*"

* take your pick: government, religion, culture, "society", nation, tribe, personality cult.  Fundamentally, they are all the same misfiring of our hunter gatherer instincts, the same tyrannical myth used by the strong to manipulate the weak.

[Hawker]

Chicken - you need to read up on is/ought.  You have it backwards.

The rest of your post is just opinion.  Of course you are entitled to your opinion but so is everyone else and provided you don't do any harm to the rest of society, you are encouraged to act on your opinions.

[chickenado]

Chicken - you need to read up on is/ought.  You have it backwards.

You claim that the rights of the collective ought to trump the rights of the individual because humans allegedly "work like that", ie. because that's the way it is.

What did I get backward? Or did I misunderstand you?

The rest of your post is just opinion.  Of course you are entitled to your opinion but so is everyone else and provided you don't do any harm to the rest of society, you are encouraged to act on your opinions.

What "harm to society" means is also just opinion. Every member of that society of yours has a different opinion on that.  Some people think that drawing a cartoon of their imaginary friend causes such "harm to society" that it must be punished by death.
Whose opinion is valid? Everybody's? Then surely I am "harming society" whatever I do because some people will have contradictory opinions. Not Everybody's? Well then I'm not entitled to my opinion, am I?

My belief in the NAP might "just" be opinion, but at least it's consistent with everyone being entitled to an opinion, and encouraged to act on it as long as they don't aggress against any individuals. See, no internal contradictions in my opinion.

Your pro-IP stance is also "just" an opinion. But if that is your opinion, you cannot simultaneously hold the opinion that theft of physical property is a crime. Or at least not without contradicting yourself. 

[FredericBastiat]

My belief in the NAP might "just" be opinion, but at least it's consistent with everyone being entitled to an opinion, and encouraged to act on it as long as they don't aggress against any individuals. See, no internal contradictions in my opinion.

Your pro-IP stance is also "just" an opinion. But if that is your opinion, you cannot simultaneously hold the opinion that theft of physical property is a crime. Or at least not without contradicting yourself.  

Hawker has to maintain that society trumps the individual or he loses consistency in his argument, which is woefully illogical to begin with. His argument is that there are no rights of the individual except those bestowed upon him by his superiors, or a majority, which is proximally the same from a force point of view, as somebody has to execute the laws (and by doing so gains special privilege and authority, if via a monopoly).

To say society achieves this, of course makes no sense, since a person or individual had to create the law to begin with, the difference being he has gained a majority of opinion to "strengthen" his position. This leaves gaping holes in what can be right and wrong from an opinion standpoint. You could bring back slavery, ethnic cleansing, eminent domain (oh wait we already do that) etc.

All of it is logically inconsistent from an is/ought point of view, but he doesn't care about that. Assuming the negative rights of the NAP as an axiom, his "societal rights" edicts fall apart fairly quickly, but then being logical was never his strong suit.

[Hawker]

...snip...
The rest of your post is just opinion.  Of course you are entitled to your opinion but so is everyone else and provided you don't do any harm to the rest of society, you are encouraged to act on your opinions.

What "harm to society" means is also just opinion. Every member of that society of yours has a different opinion on that.  Some people think that drawing a cartoon of their imaginary friend causes such "harm to society" that it must be punished by death.
Whose opinion is valid? Everybody's? Then surely I am "harming society" whatever I do because some people will have contradictory opinions. Not Everybody's? Well then I'm not entitled to my opinion, am I?

My belief in the NAP might "just" be opinion, but at least it's consistent with everyone being entitled to an opinion, and encouraged to act on it as long as they don't aggress against any individuals. See, no internal contradictions in my opinion.

Your pro-IP stance is also "just" an opinion. But if that is your opinion, you cannot simultaneously hold the opinion that theft of physical property is a crime. Or at least not without contradicting yourself. 

People organise together to form societies.  The societies make rules to make life better.  If one person decides to break these rules because it benefits him to the detriment of the rest of society, its hardly unreasonable to say that person will be punished.

In the case of intellectual property, if one person is investing $100 million to make a drug, and someone else takes the finished product and copies it and sells it for less than the inventor, the inventor loses his $100 million and no more drugs will be developed.  If we, as a society, want to encourage drug development, that's a bad result.  No matter what moral basis you operate on, you cannot be allowed to harm the rest of society simply because you are greedy enough to want to profit from selling medicine but too lazy to do the research.

How you kid yourself that stealing IP doesn't harm other people baffles me...but then the advocates of slavery also believed they were morally right.

[chickenado]

How you kid yourself that stealing IP doesn't harm other people baffles me...but then the advocates of slavery also believed they were morally right.

I never made such a claim.

The concept of "harm" is irrelevant to my argument.

For the purpose of social ethics, I don't care whether the act of copying patterns is "harmful" to others or not.  All I care about is whether someone's life and property is being aggressed against.

The concept of "aggression against life and physical property" is 1) precisely defined and  2) objectively measurable with arbitrary precision.

The concept of "harm" is neither.  It could mean almost anything.  (though I would be delighted if you could come up with a precise, measurable definition of "societal harm").

That's why it can't be used to derive social ethics. Rights are meaningless if there is no objective way to discover whether a rights violation has occurred.

Not that I don't have my own personal views an what is harmful or immoral. For instance, I believe that procrastination is harmful to society. Does that give me the right to aggress against people who procrastinate? No, because it's a personal ethic and not a social ethic.  


Also, you are confusing "not doing X",  with "doing the opposite of X".  The opposite of giving is taking. refusal to give is not the same as taking.  refusal to take is not the same as giving.  The opposite of positive 1 is negative 1, not zero.

If I drop dead tomorrow I am not in in any way "harming" Pfizer through "lost sales" of Lipidor.  I am merely ceasing to benefit Pfizer.

If Pfizer develops a life saving drug, and refuses to sell it to some people, Pfizer is not "killing" those people. It is merely refusing to benefit them.

[Hawker]

How you kid yourself that stealing IP doesn't harm other people baffles me...but then the advocates of slavery also believed they were morally right.

I never made such a claim.

The concept of "harm" is irrelevant to my argument.

For the purpose of social ethics, I don't care whether the act of copying patterns is "harmful" to others or not.  All I care about is whether someone's life and property is being aggressed against.

The concept of "aggression against life and physical property" is 1) precisely defined and  2) objectively measurable with arbitrary precision.

The concept of "harm" is neither.  It could mean almost anything.  (though I would be delighted if you could come up with a precise, measurable definition of "societal harm").
...snip...

Stealing intellectual property is aggression.  If someone is persuaded to invest money on the basis of patent protection and you steal the property, that is aggression.

Saying you don't care if your behaviour causes harm merely underlines that you want to be able to profit from stealing other people's work.  Personally I would prefer to profit from robbing banks.  I don't think either of us can really count on these as career options though.

[chickenado]

Stealing intellectual property is aggression.

If that is true, the statement "stealing physical property is not aggression" must follow. by homesteading "intellectual property" you are staking a claim to ALL physical matter in the universe, whether previously owned or unowned.  

If someone is persuaded to invest money on the basis of patent protection and you steal the property, that is aggression.

If someone is persuaded to invest money in a monopoly of burger joints, enforced by a local protection racket, and if a competing burger chain manages to break up the racket, the investor isn't a victim of theft. He is a victim of a bad business decision (and possibly an accessory to an act to aggression)

btw it doesn't make a difference whether that protection racket tries legitimize itself by using fancy names or appealing to collectivist myths.

Saying you don't care if your behaviour causes harm merely underlines that you want to be able to profit from stealing other people's work.  

Don't put words in my mouth. I never said such a thing.  I said that my caring about causing "harm" should not be relevant for social ethics.  I care about reducing my CO2 emissions because I think they cause harm. Others don't care because they don't believe in climate scientists. I shall not force them to reduce emissions because those are NOT social ethics.

Btw, I pay for movies because I'm a nice guy, not because I believe it's a crime not to.  I disapprove of assholes, but I don't believe they are committing a crime merely by being assholes.  

Personally I would prefer to profit from robbing banks.  

You obviously don't consider that a crime. (See above).

[MoonShadow]

Stealing intellectual property is aggression.  If someone is persuaded to invest money on the basis of patent protection and you steal the property, that is aggression.

Even theft of real property isn't always aggression, it's theft.  A 'cat burgler' is a sneek thief, but does not threaten anyone in doing so.  Copying of copyrighted data isn't theft, it's copyright infringement.  Theft is taking something that belongs to another, and thus denying them the ability to utilize their own property.  Copying of copyrighted data does not prevent the copyright holder from utilizing the data in exactly the manner originally intended.

[Hawker]

Stealing intellectual property is aggression.

If that is true, the statement "stealing physical property is not aggression" must follow. by homesteading "intellectual property" you are staking a claim to ALL physical matter in the universe, whether previously owned or unowned.  

....snip...

Logic fail.  Stealing apples is not the same as stealing oranges but both are bad things.  Same with stealing any other property. 

[Hawker]

Stealing intellectual property is aggression.  If someone is persuaded to invest money on the basis of patent protection and you steal the property, that is aggression.

Even theft of real property isn't always aggression, it's theft.  A 'cat burgler' is a sneek thief, but does not threaten anyone in doing so.  Copying of copyrighted data isn't theft, it's copyright infringement.  Theft is taking something that belongs to another, and thus denying them the ability to utilize their own property.  Copying of copyrighted data does not prevent the copyright holder from utilizing the data in exactly the manner originally intended.

Sorry you have confused theft and larceny.

[ALPHA.]

Copyright infringement is not larceny. Whether the medium is paper, electronic code or something else, it was your property to begin with. You have only modified it to your whim. It belongs to nobody but yourself. To claim that these mediums can become somebody elses by merely the alteration of its shape is the greatest theft of all.