Free speech is free data; free data is free speech.

[Explodicle]

IP is just another externality, and would be solved the same way libertarianism would solve any other externality: insurance. For a ridiculously simplified example, let's say a group of people have health insurance and also some disease. The insurance companies would rather not pay all these sick people, so they offer to buy insurance for all their customers on the open market. An entrepreneur pays to have the cure developed in secret, agrees to the offers in place by the various insurance companies, and then releases the cure for "free". The entrepreneur now makes massive profits, enough to pay off any loans for insurance trades and also the cost of development.

In effect, people are paying for their own cure, but a free market allows them to easily coordinate. You COULD try to be a free rider and hope everyone else buys insurance, but if no cure is developed you don't get any insurance payoff. This only works if transaction costs are low (Coase theorem), so IMHO libertarians should be working on projects to reduce them. The burden is on us to prove this is possible!

[SgtSpike]

IP is just another externality, and would be solved the same way libertarianism would solve any other externality: insurance. For a ridiculously simplified example, let's say a group of people have health insurance and also some disease. The insurance companies would rather not pay all these sick people, so they offer to buy insurance for all their customers on the open market. An entrepreneur pays to have the cure developed in secret, agrees to the offers in place by the various insurance companies, and then releases the cure for "free". The entrepreneur now makes massive profits, enough to pay off any loans for insurance trades and also the cost of development.

In effect, people are paying for their own cure, but a free market allows them to easily coordinate. You COULD try to be a free rider and hope everyone else buys insurance, but if no cure is developed you don't get any insurance payoff. This only works if transaction costs are low (Coase theorem), so IMHO libertarians should be working on projects to reduce them. The burden is on us to prove this is possible!

Ok, I can see that working.  And this assumes that the disease is something that wasn't known at the time of signing up for insurance, right?  What about the people who know they have the disease before signing up for insurance?  Or diseases that are with people from birth?  The insurers could just not accept them because it's a pre-existing condition, and the research would be slower or non-existent than it currently is in today's market.

[tiberiandusk]

How do you feel about corporations holding patents on genes everyone have? They didn't develop a new gene they just found one that already existed in nature but since their medicine targets that gene no one else can do research on it without licensing the rights to a naturally occurring protein. Intellectual property laws are tricky. How do you ensure people can profit from their ideas while making sure certain things belong to everyone? With the arts in seems that if the artists is good people will reward them. What we have now days is a system rigged to make a few big studio execs extremely wealthy while trying to short change the people that actually wrote, filmed, recorded, edited the product. With the internet the main barrier to entry is removed. You don't need a factory pumping out cassettes and CDs. You just need a website and a reputation for a good product and you can be successful without having to sign a contract with some faceless corporation hoping you get 2% of net. Some people are always going to want something for nothing. The problem is when you think of those people as lost sales. They weren't going to give you money no matter how cheap your product is. Focus on quality and what your fans want and you should be fine. You'll make money on tour and from selling merch. You know, actually working. The days of recording something once and expecting never have to lift a finger again are over. The internet is a great level playing field if you know how to use it.

[westkybitcoins]

There are a number of articles out there presenting powerful arguments as to how the concept of "intellectual property" actually stifles innovations. (I may dig some of my favorites up if anyone actually cares to view them, and time permitting.) The two biggest objections people first think of to eliminating IP are movies and drugs. But with drugs, most of the cost is actually artificially inflated via the government. And as far as movies, well, I don't know that I'd call most of what Hollywood puts out "innovative."

But beyond that is the principle, which is far more important than one or two industries. Is it right to punish people for copying something that the designer allowed them to see? If the answer is no, but we do it anyway because "society benefits," then I would just agree to disagree... many wrongs can be committed in the cause of benefiting society. (If the answer is supposedly "yes", regardless of the societal benefit/detriment, then I think there might be some trouble defending that view.)

My view: following the logical, consistently correct course of action always ultimately leads to mankind's betterment as a whole, even if in the short term we can't fully see it.

The concept of ideas as property is inconsistent with the concept of physical property which we have absolute rights to. And since I find the concept of arbitrary property rights, as determined by some authority, to be rather disturbing, I choose to accept that the concept of ideas as property is inherently flawed, and ultimately a detriment for mankind.

[BrightAnarchist]

The bottom line is that the government's war on piracy will be about as successful as its war on drugs. Once government gets involved, it's bound to make more problems than it solves. SOPA, for example, will eventually be used for far more sinister purposes than just fighting piracy.

Although I don't approve of piracy personally, I also don't believe that anyone has the moral right to force me to pay (taxes) to support police that protect their property - no matter if it's intellectual or physical or whatever. Rather, it is every property owner's duty to pay the cost of defending ownership, NOT the non-owners of that property. If it was, that would be slavery!

This is one more reason I like Bitcoin. A Bitcoin is my property not because of some complex philosophy, not because government says it is so, not because goons will come attack you if you take it, but because *you don't have my private key*.

If Microsoft can stop people from pirating Windows good for them, if they can't that's their problem. But that's Anarchy, and anarchy is where technology is slowly taking us - get used to it.

[westkybitcoins]

The days of recording something once and expecting never have to lift a finger again are over. The internet is a great level playing field if you know how to use it.

It's the arbitrary nature of it that really started breaking down my defenses on this (yes, I used to be vehemently pro-IP.) Most people in today's society would argue for a time limit on an artist holding a claim to their music/imagery/etc. But how long? And for that matter... why a limit at all? If I dig a bit of gold out of the ground, I and my descendents can bequeath it down the family line for centuries. Why not IP? Questions like that arose when I started trying to logically attack the premises of the anti-IP crowd, and forced me to conclude that, at the very least, ideas are in a completely different category than physical property.

[FredericBastiat]

If you're ok with no new drugs being developed, well, I can't argue against that.  Me, I rather like corporations spending billions of dollars on research so I can live healthier and longer.

Don't put words in my mouth. I never said I'm ok with no new drugs being developed. I just said it's your business what you do with your stuff (physical, not ethereal). Me knowing how you did it and then acting based on that knowledge, should not be punished. That's a violation of speech, a violation of property rights and a violation of my person (you may imprison me if we disagree, merely for disagreement sake).

I'll respect your opinion if you respect mine. Me knowing something about you and yours and then doing something about it is not tantamount to theft and piracy. It isn't proportional punishment.

[SgtSpike]

How do you feel about corporations holding patents on genes everyone have? They didn't develop a new gene they just found one that already existed in nature but since their medicine targets that gene no one else can do research on it without licensing the rights to a naturally occurring protein. Intellectual property laws are tricky. How do you ensure people can profit from their ideas while making sure certain things belong to everyone? With the arts in seems that if the artists is good people will reward them. What we have now days is a system rigged to make a few big studio execs extremely wealthy while trying to short change the people that actually wrote, filmed, recorded, edited the product. With the internet the main barrier to entry is removed. You don't need a factory pumping out cassettes and CDs. You just need a website and a reputation for a good product and you can be successful without having to sign a contract with some faceless corporation hoping you get 2% of net. Some people are always going to want something for nothing. The problem is when you think of those people as lost sales. They weren't going to give you money no matter how cheap your product is. Focus on quality and what your fans want and you should be fine. You'll make money on tour and from selling merch. You know, actually working. The days of recording something once and expecting never have to lift a finger again are over. The internet is a great level playing field if you know how to use it.

Gene patents are really silly.

The barrier to entry for music production being broken down is really true.  You don't need more than a few hundred dollars worth of hardware and software to make an album that really sounds pretty good.  Add a couple of grand, and you're almost at the same level as professional, and the big bucks are only spent on mixing it all down properly.

But that said, what about people who just like to record music at home, then sell it on the internet.  Do they just take donations?  Or forget about making any money from music at all?  FWIW, I'm one of those people.  Terrified of playing any sort of music in front of people, but many people love listening to it, so I record it, and sell albums online.  In your scenario, with no IP, I would have no way to make any money off of my music.

There are a number of articles out there presenting powerful arguments as to how the concept of "intellectual property" actually stifles innovations. (I may dig some of my favorites up if anyone actually cares to view them, and time permitting.) The two biggest objections people first think of to eliminating IP are movies and drugs. But with drugs, most of the cost is actually artificially inflated via the government. And as far as movies, well, I don't know that I'd call most of what Hollywood puts out "innovative."

But beyond that is the principle, which is far more important than one or two industries. Is it right to punish people for copying something that the designer allowed them to see? If the answer is no, but we do it anyway because "society benefits," then I would just agree to disagree... many wrongs can be committed in the cause of benefiting society. (If the answer is supposedly "yes", regardless of the societal benefit/detriment, then I think there might be some trouble defending that view.)

My view: following the logical, consistently correct course of action always ultimately leads to mankind's betterment as a whole, even if in the short term we can't fully see it.

The concept of ideas as property is inconsistent with the concept of physical property which we have absolute rights to. And since I find the concept of arbitrary property rights, as determined by some authority, to be rather disturbing, I choose to accept that the concept of ideas as property is inherently flawed, and ultimately a detriment for mankind.

I enjoy the average Hollywood blockbuster, myself.  I'm not sure why there's always so much hate piled on them.  I enjoy them a heck of a lot better than most low-budget films with poor quality acting and cheesy special effects.  I would surely miss the caliper of Hollywood movies and TV shows were IP protection to go to the wayside.

I'd like to hear more about how most of the cost of drugs is because of the government.  And even if the government is the cause of 90% of the cost of drugs, that 10% is still going to be billions of dollars that someone has to pay, or the research isn't going to get done.

[SgtSpike]

If you're ok with no new drugs being developed, well, I can't argue against that.  Me, I rather like corporations spending billions of dollars on research so I can live healthier and longer.

Don't put words in my mouth. I never said I'm ok with no new drugs being developed. I just said it's your business what you do with your stuff (physical, not ethereal). Me knowing how you did it and then acting based on that knowledge, should not be punished. That's a violation of speech, a violation of property rights and a violation of my person (you may imprison me if we disagree, merely for disagreement sake).

I'll respect your opinion if you respect mine. Me knowing something about you and yours and then doing something about it is not tantamount to theft and piracy. It isn't proportional punishment.

But your views of not having IP protection would directly result in a lack of innovation in the drug and pharmaceutical world.  How else am I supposed to take that besides you supporting a lack of innovation in the medical world?

[Explodicle]

IP is just another externality, and would be solved the same way libertarianism would solve any other externality: insurance. For a ridiculously simplified example, let's say a group of people have health insurance and also some disease. The insurance companies would rather not pay all these sick people, so they offer to buy insurance for all their customers on the open market. An entrepreneur pays to have the cure developed in secret, agrees to the offers in place by the various insurance companies, and then releases the cure for "free". The entrepreneur now makes massive profits, enough to pay off any loans for insurance trades and also the cost of development.

In effect, people are paying for their own cure, but a free market allows them to easily coordinate. You COULD try to be a free rider and hope everyone else buys insurance, but if no cure is developed you don't get any insurance payoff. This only works if transaction costs are low (Coase theorem), so IMHO libertarians should be working on projects to reduce them. The burden is on us to prove this is possible!

Ok, I can see that working.  And this assumes that the disease is something that wasn't known at the time of signing up for insurance, right?  What about the people who know they have the disease before signing up for insurance?  Or diseases that are with people from birth?  The insurers could just not accept them because it's a pre-existing condition, and the research would be slower or non-existent than it currently is in today's market.

Oh, insurance companies will accept people with pre-existing conditions... They just dredge it up when it's time to pay because modern insurance companies BOTH assess coverage AND take the financial risk.

In theory, even people with pre-existing conditions should be able to buy insurance against having it in the future. I will now employ the standard excuse of blaming the state for regulating insurance to death. 

[epbaha]

IP laws do stifle innovation.  see http://goo.gl/L3LYi

and of course, it isn't theft... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IeTybKL1pM4

[jothan]

I will agree piracy is not the same as theft; I think anyone here will agree sopa is a horrible idea. But that doesnt mean its even a remotely sane idea to abolish intellectual property all together.

why not?
its an absurd thing to have ownership of an idea, and actually to think of an idea as your property.

if you want to have ownership of idea/music/copiable KEEP IT TO YOURSELF IN YOUR HEAD.

Copyrights, trademarks and patents are not in any way ownership of the idea. Like ownership, these different laws grant you a monopoly on certain rights, but it is quite distinct from ownership.

[SgtSpike]

IP laws do stifle innovation.  see http://goo.gl/L3LYi

and of course, it isn't theft... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IeTybKL1pM4

Because I don't want to go rifling through a bunch of random biased websites, can you concisely tell me why IP laws stifle innovation?

[FredericBastiat]

But your views of not having IP protection would directly result in a lack of innovation in the drug and pharmaceutical world.  How else am I supposed to take that besides you supporting a lack of innovation in the medical world?

I don't think innovation would go away. People adjust their behavior and their tactics based on the prevailing market in which their environed. If everybody was free to emulate their neighbor, a lot more people would be trying things and spending a lot less time trying to set traps for the competition to fall into.

There would likely be more tinkering, adjusting, inventing and incremental innovation as opposed to worrying about being sued because some yahoo half a continent away who happenstanced upon a concept before you and decided to get governments "blessing" to prevent and exclude all others from it's use now has you dead to rights. Now you're in violation with the law, and you may not even know it.

The same IP laws can be used to "harm" others too. What if I invented a cancer cure pill and I were able to patent it (legal exclusion and proscription)? Let's also suppose that it's relatively easy to replicate. I just happened to figure it out and you didn't. So I decide instead of making a bazillion dollars once, I decide I enjoy watching people suffering and dying before their time. There's always a flipside to every coin.

[SgtSpike]

But your views of not having IP protection would directly result in a lack of innovation in the drug and pharmaceutical world.  How else am I supposed to take that besides you supporting a lack of innovation in the medical world?

I don't think innovation would go away. People adjust their behavior and their tactics based on the prevailing market in which their environed. If everybody was free to emulate their neighbor, a lot more people would be trying things and spending a lot less time trying to set traps for the competition to fall into.

There would likely be more tinkering, adjusting, inventing and incremental innovation as opposed to worrying about being sued because some yahoo half a continent away who happenstanced upon a concept before you and decided to get governments "blessing" to prevent and exclude all others from it's use now has you dead to rights. Now you're in violation with the law, and you may not even know it.

The same IP laws can be used to "harm" others too. What if I invented a cancer cure pill and I were able to patent it (legal exclusion and proscription)? Let's also suppose that it's relatively easy to replicate. I just happened to figure it out and you didn't. So I decide instead of making a bazillion dollars once, I decide I enjoy watching people suffering and dying before their time. There's always a flipside to every coin.

Why would people try to innovate if they can't make money off of it?  Anyone with an invention would just keep it to themselves or a big company would just rip off their idea and put it on store shelves before they were even halfway to market with it.  People would be much less likely to innovate if their ideas wouldn't be protected.  In fact, I would expect to see a lot more fakes, ripoffs, and copycats than anything.  They're easy to make, and easy to make money off of.  We don't see a lot of them right now because law protects the rights of the company with the "real" product.  Can you imagine how many iPhone-like phones would come out that looked and acted exactly like the normal iPhone, but had less functionality?  Maybe lower battery life, or a slower processor?  But the average consumer wouldn't notice, so the copy-caters would make money, while Apple gets a ruined reputation from mistakes made in the copycat products.  Yeah, sounds lovely.

Patent research is something that any inventor puts time into before going into production, or even heavily investing in creating a new product.  It's not hard to do (the patent database is publicly available), and it ensures you don't run into such a situation where someone across the continent invented the same thing you already did.

As far as I know, that sort of situation hasn't arisen (where medicine has not been created after research proved a success), so I don't know why you are using it as an example.

[FredericBastiat]

Copyrights, trademarks and patents are not in any way ownership of the idea. Like ownership, these different laws grant you a monopoly on certain rights, but it is quite distinct from ownership.

So let's call it out for what it really is. It's primarily a legal censorship tool. It is a monopoly on specific production, distribution and sales; which when enforced against others, results in the expropriation of the property of the "infringer". IP isn't ownership of an idea since it is physically impossible to "own" due to it being a theoretical concept.

IP is indirect ownership of the property of legal infringers whose property composition resembles that of the monopoly holder. Crazy twisted in my opinion.

[FredericBastiat]

There was another thread equal to this one that's almost 100 pages long that already covers what we're just getting started into. I'm sure we can all dispense with the formalities, read that, and move on.

If you're going to have private property rights then they will conflict with the logic of intellectual property. They are incompatible concepts. Any amount of argumentation about the justification of the benefits to society don't make the idea any more logical, consistent or relevant, and they certainly don't level the playing field any. In fact, they do the opposite.

If it isn't logically consistent, somebody's going to get burned. It will always happen. History is riddled with people who can't seem to make the connection between the yours, mine and ours concept. You muddle that up, and society and your precious investments will all eventually go down the drain. The system has already been gamed. Special privileges given for special persons backed by a powerful political structure is always going to result in a mixed bag.

I just ask that everybody respect everybody else's person and property. Not real difficult to comprehend. Let's not turn it into rocket science.

[SgtSpike]

There was another thread equal to this one that's almost 100 pages long that already covers what we're just getting started into. I'm sure we can all dispense with the formalities, read that, and move on.

If you're going to have private property rights then they will conflict with the logic of intellectual property. They are incompatible concepts. Any amount of argumentation about the justification of the benefits to society don't make the idea any more logical, consistent or relevant, and they certainly don't level the playing field any. In fact, they do the opposite.

If it isn't logically consistent, somebody's going to get burned. It will always happen. History is riddled with people who can't seem to make the connection between the yours, mine and ours concept. You muddle that up, and society and your precious investments will all eventually go down the drain. The system has already been gamed. Special privileges given for special persons backed by a powerful political structure is always going to result in a mixed bag.

I just ask that everybody respect everybody else's person and property. Not real difficult to comprehend. Let's not turn it into rocket science.

Nice way of avoiding a response.

I have no problem with respecting everyone else's person and property.

- I do have a problem with someone else selling a product that is exactly the same as mine.
- I do have a problem with someone else selling a product that looks exactly the same as mine, and under my brand name, but has reduced functionality, thus ruining my brand.
- I do have a problem with pharmaceutical companies not being able to recover the costs of medical research through 14-year monopolies provided by patents, thus severely limiting the amount of medical research done in the first place.
- I do have a problem with movies and music not having protection, as it will mean a lower quality and selection of movies and music will be available to watch.
- I do have a problem with companies not wanting to innovate because their ideas would be stolen by competitors.

I don't really care about your theoretical conflict of private property rights and intellectual property rights.  They are incompatible, yes, but I am fine with the current compromise between the two.

I don't really see how the rest of what you said is even relevant to this discussion without specific examples.

[FredericBastiat]

Nice way of avoiding a response.

I have no problem with respecting everyone else's person and property. Then you must respect every composition of my property too, otherwise you're censoring me.

- I do have a problem with someone else selling a product that is exactly the same as mine. Are you going to expropriate my property because of it's appearance?
- I do have a problem with someone else selling a product that looks exactly the same as mine, and under my brand name, but has reduced functionality, thus ruining my brand. What? You don't like competition. Define better. Define reduced functionality. Should you have a legal right to prevent me from making inferior products that emulate yours? Should you have a legal right to brand protection? Should you have a legal right to your reputation (it being conceptual and all)?
- I do have a problem with pharmaceutical companies not being able to recover the costs of medical research through 14-year monopolies provided by patents, thus severely limiting the amount of medical research done in the first place. Do you have a legal right to recover your costs? Am I legally required to give you a bailout or something?
- I do have a problem with movies and music not having protection, as it will mean a lower quality and selection of movies and music will be available to watch. Do you have a legal right to subjectively "higher quality" movies? Is having high quality music and movies an individual right?
- I do have a problem with companies not wanting to innovate because their ideas would be stolen by competitors. Define steal. Please try to use the laws of physics and not some disembodied metaphsical reified concept.

I don't really care about your theoretical conflict of private property rights and intellectual property rights. Of course you don't. It doesn't suit you. You want special privilege, monopoly and less competition. They are incompatible, yes, but I am fine with the current compromise between the two. At least you admit it has flaws. Perhaps, you'll realize it isn't as great as all the talking heads in politics says it is.

I don't really see how the rest of what you said is even relevant to this discussion without specific examples. So I have to solve all of your problems first before the concept has any logical validity? And if I can't come up with an example you can continue to repress my right to my property? One might conclude that if I'm ignorant, you can take advantage of me until I learn to assert my personal rights.

Maybe we should all take a philosophy 101 class and then come back and have this discussion.

[westkybitcoins]

There are a number of articles out there presenting powerful arguments as to how the concept of "intellectual property" actually stifles innovations. (I may dig some of my favorites up if anyone actually cares to view them, and time permitting.) The two biggest objections people first think of to eliminating IP are movies and drugs. But with drugs, most of the cost is actually artificially inflated via the government. And as far as movies, well, I don't know that I'd call most of what Hollywood puts out "innovative."

But beyond that is the principle, which is far more important than one or two industries. Is it right to punish people for copying something that the designer allowed them to see? If the answer is no, but we do it anyway because "society benefits," then I would just agree to disagree... many wrongs can be committed in the cause of benefiting society. (If the answer is supposedly "yes", regardless of the societal benefit/detriment, then I think there might be some trouble defending that view.)

My view: following the logical, consistently correct course of action always ultimately leads to mankind's betterment as a whole, even if in the short term we can't fully see it.

The concept of ideas as property is inconsistent with the concept of physical property which we have absolute rights to. And since I find the concept of arbitrary property rights, as determined by some authority, to be rather disturbing, I choose to accept that the concept of ideas as property is inherently flawed, and ultimately a detriment for mankind.

I enjoy the average Hollywood blockbuster, myself.  I'm not sure why there's always so much hate piled on them.  I enjoy them a heck of a lot better than most low-budget films with poor quality acting and cheesy special effects.  I would surely miss the caliper of Hollywood movies and TV shows were IP protection to go to the wayside.

Oh, don't get me wrong, I enjoy some of them myself. But I have noticed lately things seem to be getting a bit... derivative. I joke with my friends about how "apparently U.S. culture peaked in the 1980s" based on what Hollywood keeps running with.

I'd like to hear more about how most of the cost of drugs is because of the government.  And even if the government is the cause of 90% of the cost of drugs, that 10% is still going to be billions of dollars that someone has to pay, or the research isn't going to get done.

Full disclosure: I'm not a doctor, and don't work in the industry. My info comes from what I've read and heard.

My take is that the bulk of drug "development spending" comes from two things: mandatory FDA payments to the U.S. govn't, and regulations on the drug manufacturers.

The regulations should be easy to see. Even if you believe industries should be government-regulated, a look at the regulations in the drug industry should raise an eyebrow or two. Many seem to be there for the sole purpose of squashing newcomers to the market (who would force costs lower via competition.) It reminds me of how certain simple medical utensils could be made at lower cost, but due to the fact they have to be "medical grade" (which often doesn't mean much) regardless of the actual product use, you wind up with $200 bottles of aspirin and other nonsense.

The FDA approval payments aren't as often discussed. It seems that drug companies need to pay huge sums of money to the FDA to get a drug approved. Which sounds reasonable, until you examine how little the FDA actually does to check the drug out themselves. Again, an example from another governmental arena: in many states, you have to get your car "approved" for driving once a year. You can pay ridiculous sums of money, and in exchange for the "service" to society a bureaucrat walks out and essentially looks under the hood and kicks the tires. Apparently the FDA does the equivalent, if not less.