[From Mises Blog, Jan. 2009; archived comments below]
Hayek, IP, and Knowledge
January 16, 2009 5:00 PM by Stephan Kinsella
I am hesitant to compliment Tucker’s A Book that Changes Everything, given that he generously over-praises me in it, but I can’t help it–it’s really a great piece–just perfect. And he has a tantalizing suggestion in it: “As I’ve thought more about their book, it seems that it might suggest a revision in classical-liberal theory. We have traditionally thought that cooperation and competition were the two pillars of social order; a third could be added: emulation. In addition, there is surely work to do here that integrates Hayek’s theory of knowledge with the problem of IP”
Now, I’ve long been critical of aspects of the Hayekian focus on “knowledge problems” (see my post Knowledge vs. Calculation). But Tucker has a good point. Property rights are rights in scarce resources. All actions employ means, including scarce resources in our bodies, and in appropriated scarce resources (property). All action employs these means to attain certain ends. But all action is based on information or knowledge: beliefs by the actor about what causal laws are operative, what ends are possible, and so on. People acquire knowledge as they develop and grow; some by introspection and experience, but so much more is acquired dissemination from others, by those in one’s community, and by the inherited body of knowledge passed down, and added to, over the centuries. Emulation and the acquisition of knowledge play a key role–are essential to–society, and economy.
So Tucker has hit the nail on the head: one problem with IP is that by monopolizing information, knowledge–patterns–it restricts and locks up the flow of knowledge. It thus impedes the operations of the free market and productivity, by reducting the scope of human action, impairing its efficiency by hampering the means at one’s disposal.
Update: See also my Against Intellectual Property, p. 53, noting that “All action, including action which employs owned scarce means (property), involves the use of technical knowledge. Some of this knowledge may be gained from things we see, including the property of others.”
Also, see my Knowledge, Calculation, Conflict, and Law, pp. 58-59, arguing that it should be realized that “knowledge” is merely a “technical problem that confronts any individual when choosing means to achieve certain ends, and when deciding which ends to pursue. … The need to acquire knowledge faces even Crusoe alone on his island, who has no need for private-property rules because there are no other people and thus no possibility of interpersonal conflict.”
And see Guido Hu?lsmann’s Knowledge, Judgment, and the Use of Property:
However, there is still a more fundamental condition of action. This is the fact that knowledge as such is never scarce. Knowledge problems thus do have a place in economics only insofar as knowledge has to be selected for application. Yet the selection of knowledge depends entirely on the property of the acting person.
At each moment we dispose of a myriad of information, and we often know of many ways to achieve any given end. For example, if my apartment is cold, I could keep my body warm through gymnastics or additional sweaters. I could also burn parts of my furniture or simply turn on the heating and pay higher bills. I could also sit down in my armchair and invent a new technology permitting one to heat my apartment at half of the present cost. To be sure, the latter alternative is the most elegant one. In any case, as conditions do not cease to change, we constantly have to acquire new knowledge if only to conserve our present standard of living. However, economic science does not have to deal with the factors conditioning the acquisition of knowledge.
… For the moment we are entirely unconcerned with the creation of knowledge, that is, of judgments that prove to be successful in action. We do not bother about the way we reduce our sheer ignorance. Rather we have to consider the principles that govern the selection of the judgments that we actually apply in our actions.
…In choosing the most important action we implicitly select some parts of our technological knowledge for application. In other terms, our choices imply a judgment upon the importance of our technological knowledge under the expected conditions of our action. This economic judgment is our only concern. Technological knowledge as such is immaterial for economics.
Notice how Hu?lsmann here distinguishes between action, and the means one employes, and the “technological knowledge” ones uses to guide one’s actions, to employ various causal means in the world to achieve certain ends–but that it is distinct from action and means.
Archived comments (2):
Comments (60)
Published: January 16, 2009 5:38 PM
Great stuff. Thanks.
Published: January 16, 2009 6:20 PM
Published: January 16, 2009 8:28 PM
Published: January 16, 2009 9:23 PM
As I argued on my blog:
“All of the economic calculation arguments equally apply as critiques of lack of intellectual property. When Mises and Hayek formulated their economic calculation arguments, they made a powerful case regarding the practical implications of the lack of property rights. However, they cannot delimit by fiat the full extent of their arguments’ logical implications: only the logical examination of the arguments’ premises and steps can do that.
“What Mises and Hayek actually accomplished was to establish the need for the ability to perform economic calculations in any situation in which an actor has the choice between alternate uses of any scarce means toward ends, not merely those that they deem “economic goods”. And indeed one quite common choice actors face is that of expending scarce means (their time and labor) to produce non-scarce intellectual works, versus expending those means toward some other end.
“In such a situation, any claim about the implications of lack of price signals (due to lack of property rights) would likewise work against the lack of property rights in the potential intellectual work produced. The absence of IP effectively places a “price cap” on the intellectual work of $0, although other goods and services related to that intellectual work (transmission of it, future cooperation regarding it, etc.) may still have prices. An entrepreneur would therefore always “see” zero monetary demand for the production of the intellectual works he is capable of, even though we know at least some intellectual works have positive value (at least one person would pay some amount of money for that intellectual work to be available somehow).
“While the existence of these other, related goods with prices, may appear to give the accurate, relevant price signals, it does not: prices for them signal consumer desire for different behavior than prices for the intellectual work would. (To be specific, the “price of an intellectual work” is the “price of the right to legally instantiate that intellectual work”, just as the “price of an orange” is the “price of the right to legally use that orange”.) For example: desire for a machine that is capable of producing a pill according to a given formula, is not the same as desire that the knowledge exists of how to make a pill that cures cancer. In the fomer case, the actor values physical manipulation capability; in the latter, he values the status of a malady changing from incurable to curable at a cost.
“Therefore, any libertarian critical of the ability of property-free economies to rationally allocate resources, should also see a type of calculational chaos to the extent that actors choose for or against producing intellectual works.”
***
All Stephan_Kinsella has done here is show a vague resemblance between Hayek’s argument and his personal beliefs; more realistically, Hayek has shown — though he may have wished to deem this “not an implication” without giving a reason — that IP-free societies are in a state of calculational chaos with respect to ideas.
Sadly, I doubt anyone’s going to give my point any serious consideration, as it criticizes a sacred cow here.
Published: January 16, 2009 11:17 PM
If your point is not taken more seriously than this, it is not because of ideology, but rather the weakness of the argument itself. But, condescending as always, you dismiss a very convincing position (the principled opposition to “IP,” as advocated by some here) as a sacred cow.
Published: January 17, 2009 12:18 AM
It is kinda like the concept of zero is considered heretical in time past. In the mind of ancient thinkers, it was a concept quite difficult to grasp.
Published: January 17, 2009 12:55 AM
It is not surprising then that the early users of zero in twelve century Europe did not disclose their “invention”. They only sold their service instead of disclosing the knowledge to the masses for decades or as long as they could keep it secret. We had social planners instead of patent laws then, too.
Published: January 17, 2009 2:18 AM
You showed in your reply that you are not an inventor. Here is the opportunity to show that you are not an entrepreneur either.
Again, back to Silas question translated for you: how do you expect an entrepreneur to rank and select an inventor from the inventor pool?
Published: January 17, 2009 2:27 AM
Yes, people freely give out information to others (and have been for thousands of years) just like they give out tangible property. This doesn’t negate or abolish property.
This argument is so weak that full socialists aren’t even using it. No socialist claims there can not be private property because people like Bill Gates have been giving out parts of his wealth for years to others.
Published: January 17, 2009 5:48 AM
Published: January 17, 2009 6:57 AM
Published: January 17, 2009 8:05 AM
This argument makes no sense at all.
In the first place, there is no right to a “flow of knowledge”, just as there is no right to an education. There is only a right to seek knowledge by means of your own effort or trade for it with others who know what you wish to learn.
In the second place, you are free to pass any book you purchase on to whomever you wish — just as you are free to restate the knowledge, using your own, new wording and phrasing, and publish a billion copies of if you wish. Indeed, there are vast numbers of such books published every year that contain restatements of knowledge first published by someone else.
In the third place, in the case of patents, you are not permitted to restrict any knowledge about the invention. To the contrary, the patent must contain a full disclosure of the details of the invention’s design, a complete description of its features, a disclosure of what distinguishes it from any relevant prior art — there is even a requirement that the patent disclose the best method of manufacturing the invention. When the patent is granted, the patent document is released into the public domain and may be copied and disseminated without limits.
So not only is there no right to a “flow of information”, there is nothing about IP that restricts such a flow. Your argument makes no sense.
Published: January 17, 2009 9:07 AM
I don’t understand this notion.
1) In the first place, what is more “scarce” than a new design I just conceived and put on paper? Prior to my effort, it did not exist at all; now that I’ve brought it into existence, it constitutes a single new innovation. Why is that not “scarce”.
2) More importantly, why do only “scarce” items qualify as property? What is your definition of “scarce”?
Published: January 17, 2009 9:21 AM
I am sure the original socialists were as baffled as these IP socialists are. They had no answer back then, they have no answer right now.
Published: January 17, 2009 9:58 AM
To the extent state policies–both IP itself and the others that reduce wealth–impede innovation, this, too slows the development and progress of new ideas, recipes, technical information, scientific discoveries.
“In the third place, in the case of patents, you are not permitted to restrict any knowledge about the invention. To the contrary, the patent must contain a full disclosure of the details of the invention’s design, a complete description of its features, a disclosure of what distinguishes it from any relevant prior art — there is even a requirement that the patent disclose the best method of manufacturing the invention. When the patent is granted, the patent document is released into the public domain and may be copied and disseminated without limits.”
Sure, but many companies do not even attempt to innovate in some fields, because they are afraid they can’t sell the products they develop because of patent problems. So the engineers don’t have an incentive to read up on the literature, to innovate, etc.
Published: January 17, 2009 10:00 AM
“What aspect of selecting an inventor would be impossible if “IP” laws were eliminated?”If you eliminate IP as worthless you will eliminate all the reference related to IP (Patents). Currently, patents serve also as a measure to rank inventors, too. Without them, at a job appication, you have resumes without references.
Again, back to Silas question translated for you: how do you expect an entrepreneur to rank and select an inventor from the inventor pool?
Published: January 17, 2009 10:57 AM
So, with those thoughts in mind, I scrolled down to add my own thoughts to the preceding mix. And, lo and behold, the very final one (by Michael Smith) ably presents the very crux of the argument I should have made if he hadn’t beaten me to it. So, I shall restrict my further comments to some less-important (but variously germane). They are not organized into a “case” ; they’re just observations.
This is a “Misesian” site, i.e., one intended to provide a forum for questions and discussion particularly economic and particularly informed by our Austrian view, especially as propounded by Mises. But Mises himself is neutral on the subject. But, even in describing the matter as controversial, he insists (in considering “the external economies of intellectual creation”) that such controversy is not of catallactic significance. At this point (and in light of the foregoing), it thus seems to me to be somewhat of an “impropriety” to make the Mises site not only the place for frequent pieces devoted to the single, not-specifically-Misesian subject but, additionally, the seeming or apparent ‘sponsor” for one particular “side” or view of the matter. A visitor not particularly Misesian in view or knowledge might very well conclude that the anti-patent-and-IP view of Mr. Kinsella were specifically those of Mises and the Austrian School. In this wise, such articles render a distinctly negative (marginalizing) service to the site that it doesn’t need, no matter how well done are the pieces themselves. I would actually wonder why such pieces are carried on this site rather than on the LewRockwell.com site (as I note the usual, in all other regards, rather scrupulous separation on the basis of content).
Mr. Kinsella has (at many times and in many pieces) noted that the patent office seems inclined to superfluity in such awards; indeed, that very many are not only, on their face, impossible of practical realization but even eminently mockable. But here a point is missed (and it is an eminently Misesian point, at that). And that is that, at all times, there exist (whether the subject of patents or not is not at issue) a (“invisible mountain, reaching to the stratosphere,” the quoted expression being from somewhere I forget) plethora of as-yet-impracticable ideas available for the progress of civilization awaiting only some as-yet-unrealized event (as momentous as another enabling discovery or as prosaic as a change in price structure) for their practical (profitable) realization. With that understanding, it can be seen that many of the “far-fetched” patents are less unreasonably granted; they, too, add to the store of such ideas available to the future (and the very unlikelihood of their actually underpinning an exercised “monopoly” in the succeeding 20-year patent period ought to elicit some of Mr. Kinsella’s approval, rather than his scorn).
In closing, I would expand somewhat on another point made by Mr. Smith. The library of patents issued is a technical resource in and of itself. Whether or not its maintenance is a proper function of government or whether the costs of its operation are justifiable is not my subject; merely that the existence of the resource is an organized technical aid addressable not only by those seeking to learn whether a particular idea is liable to be patentable but also as a source for the enlargement or improvement of existing ideas (and whether already embodied in products and processes or not). Thus, it makes eminent sense for many already in business to periodically review such data; not only is it possible, thereby, to discover novelties of some potential value with respects to one’s own products, it is even within reasonable conjecture to find sales opportunites for one’s own products within the material (or process) requirements of someone else’s.
I don’t think I’ll find much disagreement in naming Ben Franklin an outstanding inventor and a true philanthropist and humanitarian. Bifocals are still in use
as was, until relatively recently, the “grabber” thingamajig he cobbled together to get books down from high shelves (and was ubiquitous in grocery stores), and the ideas of lending libraries, adult evening schools, and volunteer fire departments are only a few credited to him. Franklin was anxious not to delay public benefit from his innovations and so did not bother with seeking patents for them. That was, indeed, generous of spirit of him. However, we also shouldn’t overlook that ol’ Ben was a great believer in the efficacy of a paper money system, even relishing the fact that he was “in the business” of doing the printing on contract with the government. Nobody sees everything clearly. In the case at hand, I suggest that Mr. Kinsella (and others against patents and IP) have not much more than imagination to reveal what would occur were those institutions to be dismantled.
Published: January 17, 2009 11:03 AM
Economists like Mike Masnick have already covered this ad nasuem.
The pro-ip crowd choose to not see what can already be seen. It is a level of ignorance above “the seen and the unseen”.
Published: January 17, 2009 11:53 AM
Actually, though, my major point is in my own 4th paragraph. It seems as though what appears to have been intended as and is represented as a Misesian site is constantly subject to attempts at “takeover” by those militating against IP and by those nearest the extreme libertarian end of the
authoritarian-freedom spectrum. Nor even have I paid enough attention to knwo whether there’s any relationship between those two groups or whether they’re just two separate sets of opinions each intent on grinding their own axes.
I don’t have any well-formed opposition to either of these groups other than the constant intrusion of what seem to me to be partisan matters where they (in my own opinion) don’t belong. I cannot see either of those positions as following with any logical necessity from economic knowledge. And, as expressed in my comment to Mr. Smith, I view such intrusion as quite liable to mark (to visitors, especially those actuall interested in economic matters) the site as dominate, if not owned, by proponents, not of Austrian School views but by poartisan supporters of these two essentially political planks.
Published: January 17, 2009 11:53 AM
(The shortest and most comprehensive, if those are available together.)
Published: January 17, 2009 11:59 AM
Published: January 17, 2009 12:04 PM
Published: January 17, 2009 12:14 PM
Quite honestly, I find people like you who take a pro-IP stance to be pro-state, anti-freedom, and anti-free market.
LvMI is merely taking the reasonable ideological stance on this issue.
Published: January 17, 2009 12:30 PM
All property rights are a “restriction” on the property in question and all of them constitute the acknowledgement and enforcement of a monopoly — specifically, the acknowledgement and enforcement of the owner’s monopoly on the exclusive right to the use and disposal of the property in question.
And yes, property rights make property more expensive — having to earn money and pay for property is more expensive than simply seizing it. Kroger certainly increases the cost of food by putting their profit margin on every item they sell.
So “restrictiveness” and “increased expense” cannot be grounds for excluding the recognition of IP — not unless you are going to exclude the recognition of all other property rights as well.
Published: January 17, 2009 3:07 PM
The rest of your point is a non-sequitur. From the fact that there is demand for goods related to intellectual works, it does not follow that the demand reflects the value of the intellectual work. Among other ways to prove this, imagine downloading data. In the absence of IP, it costs just the same to download a song as to download a randomized stream of bits. But who would claim that people are indifferent between artists a) producing recognizable music, and b) producing random bitstreams?
All such related goods have the same problem: you needn’t be the one that produced the intellectual work, or have any contractual relationship therewith, in order to produce them. So the price of them *can’t* reflect demand for the knew knowledge, no matter how big such demand is.
@gene_berman: Thanks for the feedback, I hope you take the time to read the main post and the discussion in the link I gave.
Published: January 17, 2009 3:15 PM
I’ll repeat two points and questions I asked of Inquisitor earlier:
1) In the first place, what is more “scarce” than a new design I just conceived and developed? Prior to my effort, it did not exist at all; now that I’ve brought it into existence, it constitutes a completely new innovation. Why is that not “scarce”?
2) More importantly, why do only “scarce” items qualify as property? What is your definition of “scarce”?
Published: January 17, 2009 3:17 PM
@Inquisitor: Now, when are you going to actually demonstrate ideas are scarce, i.e. economic goods?
As I said above, I don’t designate ideas (once widely known) as scarce, or as economic goods. However,
a) The *rights* to *exclusive* use of an idea are certainly scarce.
b) It doesn’t matter if ideas are scarce or if they’re “economic goods”; as long as people spend scarce goods to produce them, the lack of property rights in ideas creates calculational chaos when entrepreneurs decide whether they will produce ideas or physical goods.
BTW, there’s no “right” to have property rights enforced… it’s up to the parties involved to secure them. So if they want to protect “their” IP (the same is true of their actual property), they can do so with their own money and time and stop wasting everyone else’s.
Yes, it’s certainly wrong to make third parties pay such costs. However. all that proves is that the costs should be shifted to the rights violators, not that the rights should simply not exist! It’s a red herring that IP opponents would spot in any other context.
Published: January 17, 2009 3:54 PM
Remove my labor and capital from the equation and not only does the first copy of my work cease to exist; ALL other subsequent copies also cease to exist!
It is by that definition that I insist that I own the product of my work, that I retain rights in all copies. When I sell someone the right to possess a copy of my work, I sell them some rights, I do not sell all rights. I sell to them the right to possess my work themselves, to avail themselves of it, even to display it to their friends and family. I even assert that they have the right to make copies of my work for different media, so long as the use of that work remain in their possession and not passed on to others. I do not however sell to them the right to profit from my work nor to give away copies of my work to other people.
Published: January 17, 2009 5:13 PM
Published: January 17, 2009 5:40 PM
How do you feel about use restrictions on IP? If the idea is sold, who then owns it, and can choose what to do with it?
Physical property theory has a “clear” system of determining ownership and transfer rights. Likewise, if I buy a pair of shoes, I get to determine where I walk in them. Do you posit that IP creates a new class of ownership rights, allowing rights and restrictions beyond those offered to physical property owners?
Physical property ownership, as proposed by Rothbard, is perpetual. Physical property does not transfer between classes or owners other than by the voluntary action of the owner. If an idea can be property, it doesn’t seem like it would ever be a work under that sort of property theory.
Published: January 17, 2009 7:36 PM
as regards “scarcity”, kiba has provided a useful link. once your idea has passed into the public domain, there is no limit to the number of people who can store and use that concept. by contrast, even abundant physical substances may be situationally scarce (ie sand at the north pole, water in the desert etc).absent ip, you would have to resort to private accords in order to maintain the scarcity value of your idea. over time, it’s difficult to imagine you being able to monopolize this know-how privately, but short-term it may be doable.
Published: January 17, 2009 10:28 PM
when i sell you a hammer, i hope you use it to hit nails, but i cannot compel you not to use it to hit your neighbour on the head. selling implies cessation of all ownership and associated rights. if i find you’ve been buying my hammers with violent acts in mind, the best i can do is to cease dealing with you.
Published: January 17, 2009 10:36 PM
As for the other questions: it’s kind of interesting how anti-IP libertarians shift their standards when the topic changes to something they don’t like. I don’t know if that describes you, or if you’re just asking a clarify question, but that’s been sadly common in discussions on IP here that I’ve joined.
Yes, the state can and has dictated intellectual property rights. It’s done the same for physical property rights. Just the same, physical property rights can arise without the state, through convention and recognitions within private legal systems. And so too, I claim, can intellectual property rights.
Published: January 17, 2009 10:38 PM
The problem with this reasoning is that (real) property rights predate the state and are not dependent on it; we libertarians can easily describe what we are in favor of. But IP exists only because of the state. Patent and copyright are legislated, positive-law grants of monopoly privilege. You fair-weather IP advocates back off of every jagged edge we point out, till we reasonably start to wonder what in the world you guys really favor, if you will agree with all of our critiques’ of manifest absurdities and injustices. You can’t just kick the can down the road and say, “let the courts figure it out,” like Congress enacting an Americans with Disabilities Requirement with an amorphous “reasonable accommodation” requirement; or Congress adding “privileges or immunities”, or “the general welfare,” or “necessary and proper,” etc. etc., to the Constitution, expecting later generations to figure out what the hell these positive law assertions mean in practice.
As I explained here:
Published: January 17, 2009 11:21 PM
It has nothing to do with my business and entrepneurship stance.
Published: January 17, 2009 11:24 PM
Published: January 18, 2009 8:26 AM
Published: January 18, 2009 8:38 AM
Published: January 18, 2009 12:32 PM
Yes there is a concept called “renting” which I guess Newson is not familiar with. So this argument is only a matter of semantics.
Published: January 18, 2009 1:48 PM
Published: January 18, 2009 3:12 PM
Published: January 18, 2009 4:04 PM
Published: January 18, 2009 4:42 PM
Copying is not quoting. No one here is defending theft.
Published: January 18, 2009 6:17 PM
Published: January 18, 2009 6:17 PM
To me, the answer is obvious: no. The only difficult situation is if the way Bob acquired the intellectual work involved some illegal means.
If Joe breaks into Coca-Cola and steals their secret formula, and then he writes it down on paper and gives that paper to Bob (assume Bob had no prior contact with Joe), is Bob allowed to use it as he wishes?
This is kind of a difficult question, and it’s related to questions about all stolen property. If B steals something from A and randomly passes it onto C (C had no prior contact with either B or A), can A demand it back from C? What if C has demolished it, taken it apart? Is C required to pay for damaging A’s property? What if C has traded it to D, who has traded it to E, and so on?
I’m thinking there are two possible solutions.
1. Once B steals something, it becomes his property. While A does have the right to demand some form of restitution from him for the act of stealing–and this restitution may include returning the stolen property if B still has it in good condition (by the way, I think punishment is a difficult and perhaps a necessarily ad hoc issue)–the stolen property is B’s from the moment he takes it. Therefore, if B sells it to C, or breaks it up and sells the parts to D through J, then A cannot demand his property back from the others.
2. When B steals something, it remains A’s property. Then, if B sells it to C, C does not really own the property; B is guilty of fraud in addition to theft, and A has the right to demand it back from C. And if C sold it to anyone else, he is guilty of unintentional fraud as well; and if he broke the property up and built other things out of it and sold them, then the situation is really messy, because all those pieces still belong to A, but now it’s nigh impossible to get them out…
I don’t like 2; 1 seems pretty elegant, and a lot more workable. Ok, I have now decided that, when you steal something, it becomes your property. (I repeat: the act of stealing it is a punishable crime, and if it’s in pretty unchanged condition, I would consider it a reasonable punishment for the previous owner to demand that you return it, plus possibly some other penalties. However, it remains the thief’s property until such punishment is exacted; you would be free to sell or break or otherwise mess with it in the meantime.)
I therefore conclude, in parallel: Suppose B does something illegal to obtain the information required to reproduce A’s intellectual work. Then, on the one hand, A does have a property-rights violation claim against B, and it might be a just punishment for B to be forcibly prevented from distributing copies of this information if he has not done so already. However, if B has already distributed copies of this information to C, D, and E, or if he does so in the future, then A cannot demand that C, D, and E refrain from using or redistributing more copies of this information. (A could say “Pretty please” and pay hush money to C, D, and E to hopefully persuade them to shut up, but A could not use force on them.)
To all of you who claim that zero intellectual property rights imply that the cost for copying someone’s intellectual work is zero… you’re wrong. For one thing, it is extremely easy to copy such things these days (e.g. patents) because those who have copyrights or patents on them post them freely on the internet, which they do because of currently existing IP laws. If those laws didn’t exist, the producers of such works would not post them on the internet, or at least they would require you to verify your identity and then sign a contract that said you would not copy it, before they let you load the page. (Perhaps you cannot imagine an efficient solution like that. Perhaps your imagination will be far outstripped by that of the free market.)
It’s like issues with free speech. There are certain kinds of speech that I find extremely unpleasant to listen to. So, are my rights being violated when others say extremely unpleasant things to me? Answer: Where are they saying these things? It has to be somewhere. If they’re magnifying their voices with big speakers and aiming them at my window, I might consider that a property-rights violation. If I’m at their house by their invitation, then my rights are certainly not being violated, unless they agreed to not say such things while I was there. If I’m at work with them, then it’s the responsibility of whoever owns the workplace to decide what behavior is allowed there and what isn’t.
People who don’t think about this, who don’t realize that offensive or hurtful speech has to occur someplace and that the rules can be whatever the owner of the place sets them to be, who think that laws about speech have to be the same everywhere, are forced to come up with a ridiculous ad hoc mishmash of an ethical system. (“Well, I support free speech in general, but surely kids shouldn’t have to put up with racial insults in school, and surely one shouldn’t have to hear loud profanity and insults on the street, although it’s certainly ok for people to use swearwords in normal conversation, and …, but …”)
Likewise, people who don’t think about where you would have to be in order to make a copy of an intellectual work (how do you, say, acquire a copy of a book without buying it or borrowing it from the library, both of whom could easily stipulate–some of which, today, stipulate–that you may not copy it? How do you copy the design of a machine without standing in a place owned by the person who owns the machine?) are forced to this ridiculous conclusion: if there isn’t an aggressively imposed law preventing people from copying certain things in certain situations, then there will be nothing preventing people from copying those things in those situations. This rests on the same line of reasoning as the idea that, if there isn’t an aggressively imposed law preventing people from saying certain things in certain situations, then there will be nothing preventing people from saying those things in those situations; it is just as fallacious.
Published: January 18, 2009 10:25 PM
1. Once B steals something, it becomes his property…
2. When B steals something, it remains A’s property…”
You then conclude that it is possibility number 1 that you find more workable and elegant and base the rest of your though upon that conclusion.
However actual law reaches conclusion number 2. If B steals something from A, and sells the stolen thing to C, The thing remains the property of A. If everyone is found out, A may demand the thing back from C and C’s only recourse is to sue B for restitution.
Published: January 18, 2009 10:51 PM
Actually, after thinking about it for a while, I thought that perhaps it’s not the act of stealing something, but rather the act of destroying its original form, that makes the result into the thief’s property. That ethical system is functionally very similar to the system I stated as solution 1, where stealing something turns it into your property.
(Of course, the point where the original form can be said to be destroyed is kind of arbitrary–if all you do is paint it green, is it still the original owner’s property? What if you break it in half? What if you break it in half again? What if you glue one small piece of it onto something else? And what if you sell it to someone else? Etc. I think it’s cleaner if you simply say that the stolen property becomes the thief’s, and then the owner, in deciding on a punishment, can decide for himself whether he wants his stuff back or some other form of compensation. That would be kind of messy in some cases, though… as I mentioned, I suspect that proper punishments cannot be figured out a priori.)
Consider the situation where B sold the stolen property to C, who sold it to D, who sold it to E. E has made an agreement with D, paid money, and gotten something from D’s possession and put it into E’s own possession. Does E nevertheless not own this thing? I would hate to say no, although I could understand the response that E should have made sure that what he bought was not a stolen good (and ditto for C and D). There is cultural precedent for A having to buy it back from E, but… Meh, it’s hard to figure out, and the decision between these two ethical systems is not relevant here.
Regardless of whether B owns the property he just stole, he certainly owns the paper on which he writes down a copy of the information needed to produce an “intellectual work” like what he has just stolen. (You must either admit that or assert that, by stealing an intellectual work, B partially loses ownership of all of his property that could be used to copy what he just stole. I think that is kind of ridiculous, though I’m not absolutely eliminating the possibility.) If B owns whatever property he uses to make a copy of this information (including his brain and vocal cords), then he is perfectly within his rights to pass the information on to C through J, and each of them is perfectly free to pass it on to anyone else; the figurative cat is out of the bag.
Something else suddenly occurs to me. Just what do IP laws forbid you to do? You are allowed to memorize the contents of a book, presumably, but you are not allowed to make copies and sell them. Are you allowed to make a copy and not sell it? How about a partial copy? (See “fair use.”) It’s pretty arbitrary. I consider arbitrariness in the fundamentals of an ethical system–numbers or concepts that do not come from anyone or anything in the given situation–to be a damning flaw. So let’s see if the arbitrariness really is fundamental to the system of IP rights.
Is it arbitrary because the maker of the intellectual work has the right to prevent you from doing any kind of copying, but they voluntarily choose to waive most of that right? Could an author, in theory, decide that, for her next book, she is not going to waive her right to prevent you from mentioning any aspect of the plot to your friends? (Without that being stipulated as a condition of buying the book. Remember, once again, the IP rights that we’re arguing about is those that are not created by contract; I think everyone agrees that contractually created copy-protection is fine.) Could I decide, even though I have chosen to put this post where anyone with an internet connection can read it, to not waive my right to prevent you, the reader, from quoting any part of this post anywhere? Did Watt have the right to never allow anyone to duplicate his steam engine?
No. That’s absurd. Therefore, I think the theory of IP rights must rest on either some ridiculous empirical, ad hoc ethical system (“It is morally wrong to reverse-engineer and duplicate a machine you own, unless the design is 17 years old”), which I have already rejected out of hand, or on… utilitarianism. Hey, someone said that earlier. (“Utilitarianism” being the system where you assume that everyone’s happiness is a scalar quantity, and then you decide that anything that increases the sum of everyone’s happiness is morally allowed.) I reject utilitarianism, too. So I can’t see how one can ethically argue for IP.
Let me condense that into a question, then, to IP supporters: Suppose you say that IP is a natural form of property right, one that gives the creator of an intellectual work the absolute right to control the use of the information required to produce this intellectual work (even if the creator carelessly allows the information to spread around the world). How do you avoid the conclusion that anyone who gets a patent (or whatever form of IP-law protection), such as James Watt, would have the right to keep the IP rights for as long as he wants, and to pass them onto his children and basically have a perpetual, hereditary monopoly on this particular invention? How can you possibly justify giving them the monopoly, but only for X amount of time, with a natural-property-rights argument?
(It occurs to me that most of the second half of this post may have already been said in this thread. Which might be why this second half suddenly occurred to me. Oh well.)
Published: January 19, 2009 5:15 AM
IP Socialists would claim otherwise because all they argue for is that they are entitled to other people’s fruit of labor.
Published: January 19, 2009 8:05 AM
Published: January 19, 2009 11:08 AM
Published: January 19, 2009 11:23 AM
Published: January 19, 2009 11:40 AM
I’ll run with that argument here and appreciate replies to this question:
What becomes of the overall profit motive for creators in the absence of intellectual property rights?Again, to further this point of view and open it for rebuttal:
An inventor may invent, an author or musician may write, and a pharmaceutical company may develop- as a farmer may grow food- just for the love of bettering society. If not all primarily for the benefit of making money, though, certainly most people labor under the gamble that they may recoup their sometimes enormous expenses.
Profit is certainly the gamble entrepreneurs make when investing in creations.
Watt wanted fortune and fame. So did his competitors. Waiting was one of the costs of meeting their demands. Perhaps better to have their inventions later than never?
If “society” wants their fruits, “society” needs to offer them an agreeable benefit (such as money, or fame, or acknowledgement of ” their IP”).
Thanks in advance for your responses!
Published: January 19, 2009 1:07 PM
Absent IP rights, the profit motive disappears, ‘entirely’! I am out of business. Everything I have created for the last twelve years is for all intents, worthless, as it is available all over the place for free to anyone unscrupulous enough to not care that they are pirating. Absent IP rights, and the enforcement of those rights, there will soon be NO profit motive for any creative work that can be easily copied in an electronic medium.
This is the end of Hollywood, the end of HBO, the end of anything other than the most mediocre ‘reality’ tv. We are entering an age where all creative work will either be old, or amateur. And I am not exaggerating in the slightest.
Of course people will demand that the government do something about the deplorable state of art, and so the government will dutifully step in and levy taxes with which to ‘publicly finance’ government approved art.
Published: January 19, 2009 3:10 PM
By that, I mean objectively identify a logical, concrete boundary (as opposed to establishing an arbitrary or utilitarian boundary) between the circumstance of IP existence and nonexistence. Criteria for a patent’s expiration certainly is arbitrary. So, if IP exists, how to go about discovering what is a logical, observable, objectively reasonable limit to the nature of IP rights as opposed to the natural limits of physical property?
And to anyone who concludes that there is no IP, please demonstrate why there isn’t.
It isn’t because logical, observable, objectively reasonable limits to it’s nature haven’t been found (ad ignorantium).
It isn’t because the implications lead to a slippery slope of ridiculous obstacles as the undeveloped notion of IP rights snowballs into a freeze of technological progress (utility).
I’m not giving anyone a hard time here. This is very interesting to me and in many years of the topic coming up, I’ve not thought about it before as much as I would like.
Published: January 19, 2009 4:27 PM
It seems to me that Peter Cohen has the firmest grasp of this issue here.
There are simple observations that hold true hear regardless of the complications that arise from acknowledging them.
IP is as natural and real as physical property. It’s natural limits seem to be what is really in dispute.
The problems with IP seem to stem from it’s limits so far being established and dictated, rather than observed.
Published: January 20, 2009 1:45 PM
like so many other government initiatives, failure merely invites calls to redouble efforts, not to evaluate the actual viability of the scheme.
Published: January 20, 2009 9:33 PM
“IP is as natural and real as physical property.”except you can’t touch it, see it, smell it, taste it..
not to worry, some god at the patents office can divine its true nature and origin. that’s reassuring.
Published: January 20, 2009 9:44 PM
I, “jimmy” rogers, repeat: “It’s natural limits seem to be what is really in dispute. The problems with IP seem to stem from it’s limits so far being established and dictated [as perhaps by “some god at the patents office”], rather than observed.”
I asked for anyone to demonstrate that there is such thing as IP by objectively identify a logical, concrete boundary (as opposed to establishing an arbitrary or utilitarian boundary) between the circumstance of IP existence and nonexistence.
Fair enough?
Published: January 21, 2009 10:57 AM
What do you think?
Published: January 31, 2009 7:57 PM