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[EvanR]

At the risk of opening up a giant can of worms, Atlas, it IS curious exactly what onarchy's 'default contract' for IP would entail. Continuous payments by all parties with the IP, payment per copy operation, payment per reading, etc. Doesn't seem like a good application for a constitution. No, I do not want to know the details. It's bureaucracy.

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[EvanR]

I agree, my point on IP is that just because someone Pirated your work doesn't mean they were going to buy it anyway. They accepted a lesser quality with less caveats, to look at your work.

These 'problems' are just bad business practices, not crime. Pool plus free samples plus donations should be a good experiment.

[EvanR]

Oh, and sell your product even after the initial release. This works great right now considering the defacto lack of property rights on music files. You can get them all for free but people still pay for them, a lot.

[wb3]

I think the on the music side, the ratio for the profit margin wasn't stable. Studios could replicate the digital for next to nothing and charge the same as if they were still creating CD's.  That model was never going to work.

However, if they want to be fair, I will pay a 300% mark up, over the cost of them hitting copy on their computer.

[onarchy]

Patents are state enforced disclosure of trade secrets in exchange for a limited monopoly before becoming public domain.
Originally intended to expand human knowledge because before patents trade secrets where closely guarded and no-one could build on those ideas. Of course now the term of the monopolies is ridiculous but the original idea was sound.

in short the patent system is a great idea let down by poor execution.

It is good to see that there are at least some reasonable people on this forum. Patents are a sham in execution for several reasons. One of the primary reasons for this is that there is missing a crucial kind of intellectual property. I will write more about this in a future book, but let me quickly summarize it. Today patents make the information freely available to anyone, but the economic utilization of the information is restricted. A copyright restricts distribution but anyone can utilize the information economically. What is needed is a new kind of information property right that is something in between a copyright and a patent. I call it a scientific property right. Here there are no restrictions on who can distribute the information, but there is a fee associated with publication. The information itself can be economically utilized in any way.

This is particularly well suited for scientific publication (which already has an extremely well-developed reference system), including university books. Scientific property rights come in three variations:


1) scientific data property rights
2) scientific method property rights
3) scientific discovery property rights


Let's go through with examples. Suppose there is a team of people who have decoded human DNA, (like the human genome project). These people could then publish it and acquire scientific data property rights to this data. What this means is that anyone who wants to download this data, look at it, study it and utilize it economically are free to do so at no cost and no restrictions. However, anyone who PUBLISHES a paper that UTILIZES and/or REFERENCES the data in their work must pay a fee for the data. The data is exclusive, but not the source. Anyone can go back to the source (the human genome in this case) and make a new data set that can be made public domain or given a similar data property right, even when the two data sets are identical (they usually aren't).

These data property rights would in this case be an excellent alternative to the horrible gene patents that sometimes are given for "isolating" DNA.

Scientific method property rights works similar to the data property rights except that they resemble patents. There is no data source. It's the method itself that is exclusive. Once a scientific method has been protected by property rights no-one else can do the same with an identical method. Those who e.g. publish statistical or other mathematical methods would here find a revenue model for their work. Again, it's free to READ and USE the methods in economic activity, but if you publish a scientific paper based on them in which you use this method and reference it, you pay a fee.

This is an extremely good alternative to patents, especially for small inventors, because you don't have to actually implement the idea or invest millions of dollars in it in order to get revenues from it. So long as people write about it and reference it they pay a fee, and the economic usage and availability of the invention is in the public domain.

Finally, sometimes a scientific discovery is made, and it has extreme news value in the first year or so and then it ceases to be of such great value. A discovery right ONLY protects the revenue from PUBLICATION of the discovery. In other words, there are no restrictions on who can publish (so long as they pay the fee) and anyone can read the information and utilize it freely without restrictions. Discovery rights expire much faster than other scientific rights, maybe e.g. in a year or so.

This generates an entirely new business model for scientific explorers. It actually becomes profitable to generate new news-worthy scientific discoveries. Many of the companies who today try to protect their inventions by patents will instead live from making headlines.

In general this finally brings market forces into science. Science has been rotting away, especially in the last century resulting in such junk science as the current climate change scare. But not only that, many of the people who today are forced to either choose copyright or patents to protect their intellectual work will now find an array of possible property rights that are more suitable for their kind of model.

To a libertarian anti-IP person this sounds like complete tyranny. Since science is of zero value to humans (it's non-material) it is a major violation to protect scientific property rights.

[­­­Atlas_]

Alright, that's it. I'm going to tear this apart in a podcast.

[onarchy]

It wasn't the ideas themselves that created wealth. It was the actions of the individuals. They may have needed the input of information but in the end, the sweat of their own brow made it happen.

I have discussed extensively for many hours with self-proclaimed stalinist marxists and this argument of yours is IDENTICAL to theirs. This is the Marxist theory of value. They claim that intellectual work is "a precondition" or "a needed input" as you say, but that the actual value comes from physical labor and ONLY the physical labor. In other words you are indeed an information Marxist, as I have stated all along.

[EvanR]

However, if they want to be fair, I will pay a 300% mark up, over the cost of them hitting copy on their computer.

The price isn't going to be determined by cost of transfer, obviously. Ignoring the giant unsustainable recording industry, the company or band will need to make enough money to cover their time and the cost of promotion. So they need to find a way to charge enough people enough money. Stage 1 get fans with gigs or free samples, stage 2 advertise your new album and sell with a pool, stage 3 sell copies and accept donations.

Stage 4, the so called pirates make you even more famous by freely distributing your work , which covers stage 1 when you need to repeat the process.

Onarchy has nothing better to do than try to prove the obvious fact that ideas have value.

[onarchy]

The main issue is a dispute over the social land rights to the word 'property.' Property, regardless of how you define it, will currently evoke fears and a scramble to protect it. You advocate a change to the concept of property for your own purposes not just because you want that concept to be protected, but because the word property will make it easier to rally support. This is disingenuous. To be fair, you should leave the normal definition of property alone as it is, and advocate state protection for your idea independently, and call it something else. If it sounds ludicrous to people, well, at least you lost fair and square. As a tip you should come up with a name for it that is definitely marketable, but property is already taken.

Property can be defined as things that are OWNED, i.e. wielded SOVEREIGNTY over by an owner. It says nothing about whether that property is physical or what not. In fact, over the centuries various things have been proclaimed as property that we today consider alien. Take slavery. People were indeed property. A slave proponent could argue that you should leave his property alone and that the term property is already taken. In a rational world that's not how things work.

[onarchy]

The whole IP argument is over how much do you deserve for your work.

Seems like a good default is 'however much people will pay for it.'
But not 'however much I can get them to cough up at gunpoint'.

That's EXACTLY what happens when you go into a store and want to have any physical good. If you say "I don't think this is worth any money so I'll just take it for free" you will soon find yourself having to cough up at gunpoint. How horrible!

In short, this argument of yours is empty since it can equally well be applied to physical property. You have to explain WHY intellectual work should not be property whereas physical work is allowed to be protected by property rights.

[NghtRppr]

You're claiming that intellectual property should be considered as legitimate property.

No, YOU are claiming that physical property should be considered as legitimate property.[/quote]

Even you will admit that physical property should be considered legitimate. If you disagree then please tell me where you live so I can collect your things. However, since you aren't claiming IP as legitimate then this discussion is over since there's nothing for me to argue against. 

The rational basis for ALL property rights is this: living beings are not regular objects, we are in fact processes, i.e. a temporary pattern of matter which needs to ACT and spend energy (i.e. do WORK) to exist. Thus work is the means by which living things exist. In us humans work comes in three different forms, 1) the purely physiological work of self-production that we share with all other life, 2) physical things we build using our mind and body, and 3) pure mental work, which results in information -- mind stuff. Self-ownership comes from 1. The human self expands beyond the metabolic self with our mind which requires property rights of non-metabolic things, 2 and 3. In this view there is no difference between these various forms of property rights.

That's just one long assertion. Why should you own the ideas that you think up?

It's irrelevant that information itself is not scarce, because that's not what you are protecting by law, it is the life and intellectual work of another person that IP protects.

Why does anyone owe your intellectual work protection?

[EvanR]

I understand this is one of your alternative forms of property. But it isn't a very good definition for various reasons. I own the earth's atmosphere. Sorry but I do. I can't enforce my property rights on it, but that's not important to you. As an onarchist I would strive to invent diabolical technology to assert these rights on the atmosphere.

No onarchy, you are circular again. Trading property is one of the aspects of actual property, you can't just take it from the store because you have to buy it because its property. By saying that copy catting methods or copying data is the same is just, again, you calling it property. That's fine. But you can say it all with fewer bytes by stating 'ideas are property.'

[­­­Atlas_]

Mind workers create something of value but to regulate life and its many aspects in the name of paying their supposed dues isn't the way to go about it. That's all that I am arguing.

[onarchy]

Even you will admit that physical property should be considered legitimate. If you disagree then please tell me where you live so I can collect your things. However, since you aren't claiming IP as legitimate then this discussion is over since there's nothing for me to argue against. 

Has to be the weirdest argument today. Of course I claim that IP is legitimate. Just because we happen to agree that physical property is legitimate doesn't mean that we have the same reasons or that the burden of evidence for IP is any less. I base myself on the Lockean labor theory of property, and I am not a materialist. Hence both intellectual and physical work give rise to property. You have to explain why materialism is true, and why do you not adopt a completely consistent materialistic viewpoint, only in those areas which suits you?

That's just one long assertion. Why should you own the ideas that you think up?

Actually that was a very nice argument, not an assertion. I don't own the ideas I think up. I own my own intellectual labor, because labor is the means by which I exist. I.e. human existence = labor. Self-ownership means ownership of your labor. Since I don't own the ideas, but my labor, I have very limited rights of ideas. I cannot prevent you from thinking with my ideas, because you own your own mind, and I cannot have full sovereignty over HOW an idea is used. Since labor is all I own I can basically only own the rights to economic exploitation of the ideas.

It's irrelevant that information itself is not scarce, because that's not what you are protecting by law, it is the life and intellectual work of another person that IP protects.

Why does anyone owe your intellectual work protection?

Because they owe ME protection, and my intellectual work is a part of ME. (I don't like the word "owe" in this case since it sounds like rights are debt/duty-based, which they are not)

[onarchy]

Mind workers create something of value but to regulate life and its many aspects in the name of paying their supposed dues isn't the way to go about it. That's all that I am arguing.

That's what Marxists say about physical property too.

[EvanR]

Why should you own the ideas that you think up?

To make a stronger (but not as interesting to many people) assertion, you DO effectively own the ideas you think up. As long as you keep them secret within your organization. Whether you should point guns at the entirety of untrusted earth when they distribute the idea is a policy decision on your part.

[­­­Atlas_]

Here's the real question:

Does enforcing the existence of intellectual property help individual happiness and prosperity?

[onarchy]

I understand this is one of your alternative forms of property. But it isn't a very good definition for various reasons. I own the earth's atmosphere. Sorry but I do. I can't enforce my property rights on it, but that's not important to you. As an onarchist I would strive to invent diabolical technology to assert these rights on the atmosphere.

WHY do you own it? You did not create the atmosphere and according to the labor theory of property you therefore don't own it.

No onarchy, you are circular again. Trading property is one of the aspects of actual property, you can't just take it from the store because you have to buy it because its property.

Yes, so the very moment we are not discussing what property IS, then your argument is perfectly ok, but the definition of property is precisely what is under question.

By saying that copy catting methods or copying data is the same is just, again, you calling it property. That's fine. But you can say it all with fewer bytes by stating 'ideas are property.'

Nope. Ideas are not property. Intellectual labor is property. No-one can own an idea without creating a totalitarian society.

[­­­Atlas_]

By saying that copy catting methods or copying data is the same is just, again, you calling it property. That's fine. But you can say it all with fewer bytes by stating 'ideas are property.'

Nope. Ideas are not property. Intellectual labor is property. No-one can own an idea without creating a totalitarian society.

This where it all falls apart. The definition of intellectual labor is only held up by subjective whims and desires.

[onarchy]

Here's the real question:

Does enforcing the existence of intellectual property help individual happiness and prosperity?

It certainly makes the CREATOR of the intellectual work happy, and most people actually feel more happy when they are behaving like decent human beings too. Therefore their conscience is clear when they actually don't steal the hard labor of a mind worker. I know that this obviously don't apply to a lot of the people in here, but I'm talking about normal, decent human beings who have not been seduced by Marxism.