Moral Panics and the Copyright Wars, by copyright lawyer William Patry (see his related blog), is forthcoming next month. Currently Senior Copyright Counsel at Google, Inc., Patry had a well-known copyright law blog, which he terminated last year, because he found the current state of copyright law too depressing to blog abou (as I posted about previously). So one might hope for a decent take on the copyright issue, especially given this comment on Amazon by the heroic IP foe Mike Masnick of TechDirt:
Patry’s insight into copyright law itself has long been established, but with this book he takes us deep into how the debate surrounding copyright law has been twisted and distorted. This is a must-read for anyone looking to understand the real issues in the copyright debate, both from the business-model and policy perspectives.
Alas, from the summary alone one can tell it will be a disappointment:
A centrist and believer in appropriately balanced copyright laws, Patry concludes that calls for strong copyright laws, just like calls for weak copyright laws, miss the point entirely: the only laws we need are effective laws, laws that further the purpose of encouraging the creation of new works and learning. Our current regime, unfortunately, creates too many bad incentives, leading to bad conduct. Just as President Obama has called for re-tooling and re-imagining the auto industry, Patry calls for a remaking of our copyright laws so that they may once again be respected.
Terrible. Sure, he’s right that, as the Amazon description indicates, “copyright is a utilitarian government program–not a property or moral right.” But why does he think that copyright is not a natural or moral right? Because the Supreme Court has said so! As he wrote here, “In the United States, copyright is not a natural right, since the Supreme Court has said so twice, first in 1834 in Wheaton v. Peters, and then in 1932 in Fox Film Corp. v. Doyal”; see criticism here. Just another legal positivist. So he of course would think that, “As a government program, copyright must be regulated and held accountable to ensure it is serving its public purpose.” Whatever.
Update: I got the book (the book’s publisher, Oxford, is also mine and so sent me a copy gratis). It looks like a carefully done and well written work. It looks like it provides lots of ammo for our side–pointing out problems, excesses, abuses, fallacious pro-copyright arguments, and showing how it does not accomplish the goals set.
But it is a bit meandering, not grounded in any coherent or fundamental principles; it accepts too many positivist and statist bromides; and worst, it accepts the basic legitimacy of the state’s encouraging innovation by such tricks. On the other hand, it at least argues that the test should be whether it does create the extra wealth it claims to, and that the burden is on those who advocate copyright; so in a way it leaves the door open to total abolition (I think; haven’t read the whole thing).
[Against Monopoly cross-post]
Update: see my comment on Mises Blog here:
William Patry:
Stephan, I had tried to post on your previous review of the book on the other blog you post on, but you rejected it; so much for intelligent and civil comments I guess. I hope you will post this.
Bill, as discussed privately with you, I didn’t block you (and indeed don’t have such authority on the Against Monopoly blog which had the post you refer to. I do not think David Levine, proprietor of that site, would block your comment either. There must be a technical problem; my apologies for the impression this apparently made on you regarding my posture toward you and your book.
Let me make some preliminary comments before replying to some of your particular points. First, as I noted, your book looks to be a “carefully done and well written work. It looks like it provides lots of ammo for our side–pointing out problems, excesses, abuses, fallacious pro-copyright arguments, and showing how it does not accomplish the goals set.”
For this I am grateful and hopeful, and this is the reason it is on my reading shelf right now. I hope to extract useful arguments from it.
(By the way, I can understand your having no use for my own IP work which is based on libertarian principles you probably don’t share, but I am a bit surprised you did not so much as cite any of Levine and Boldrin’s work which is the seminal work in this field on utilitarian and practical aspects of IP; the online version was online as of Jan. 2008 and preliminary versions years before that.)
Second, I was clear that I had not read your book yet, and indeed was initially hopeful based on the endorsement of Mike Masnick who is himself heroic and very principled, clear-headed, and even radical on the IP issue. But, as I noted, it appeared from quotes from the book that your case is weaker than it could be due to acceptance of too many flawed mainstream assumptions. Again, I have not completed your book and hope to be proven wrong.
The main problem with copyright is a principled one. Copyright violates property rights. It is really that simple. Further, it is nothing but a grant of privilege from a criminal state–the handing out of favors by the mafia in charge to preferred recipients at the expense of others. Third, the utilitarian, wealth-maximizing case made for copyright is flawed ethically and economically; it is impossible to justify copyright on utilitarian grounds, no matter what the evidence. Finally, as a decidedly secondary or maybe even tertiary mark against copyright, one can note that–even if we turn a blind eye to the violation of property rights, the criminality of the state and all state legislation, to the moral and other problems with the wealth-maximization basis for copyright–the advocates of copyright have not shown that the benefit outweights the cost.
Now, I am all in favor of incrementalism. I don’t mind even focusing on a tertiary issue like this (I do this in my There’s No Such Thing as a Free Patent). I wouldn’t even mind simply using this focus to argue that at the very least the copyright term should be reduced, as I do in a forthcoming article on how to improve the IP system. But in doing so one does not need to grant the validity of their utilitarian case; and one does not need to admit that some copyright term, some copyright law, is obviously needed–even if it’s radically reduced from what we have now. It concedes too much. In fact, if you concede that any copyright law or term at all is legitimate and “needed,” you have lost your case, in my view: because it throws the principled approach out the window; and it grants the validity of the wealth-maximization approach. Once you do this, all bets are off, because there really are methodological problems with utilitarianism. (See Rothbard’s Toward a Reconstruction of Utility and Welfare Economics.) Only a clear, principled approach with awareness of the ethical issues involved and the key fallacies used repeatedly by those pushing IP propaganda can avoid their traps. The only solution is to make it clear that the burden of proof is on them. Now the truth is they can never satisfy it–they can never show that there is some net benefit to society. All methods of estimating this are systematically flawed (value is not cardinal, it is ordinal; and it cannot be interpersonally compared much less measured and summed up in cardinal terms). (And even if they could somehow “show” this, it’s still irrelevant, as it’s still immoral.) But as long as the burden of proof is on them, it doesn’t matter if they can’t prove their case because all the studies happen to be against them, or because any study has inherent flaws.
But back to incrementalism: if someone just avoided the whole issue and said, “look, let’s approach the state’s law on its own terms: even assuming its goals are valid, does it achieve them?”, etc., this is fine. I do the same in my writing. But I never admit their assumptions are correct. I’m just saying even if you accept their utilitarian rationale, where’s the proof? And note that this means that even accepting the wealth-maximization rationale for copyright, the default presumption is no copyright, zero years–unless and until the advocates of copyright can show decisively that a given proposed system would clearly produce a signficant “net gain”. Until they have done so, the default position even for the incrementalist has to be no copyright. If, instead, you say, “well, let’s have a more reasonable system–say, 10 years–one that works; of course we need some copyright system”–if you grant this, even when there is no evidence even for this truncated copyright system, then you have lost because you are admitting that “copyright system X” is justifiable based on intuitions, hunches, and feelings of “reasonableness.” And if you grant this, you have no ground to challenge their view that a 100 year term is “reasonable.”
Further, given that I’m a libertarian–and I’m a libertarian for a reason–of course I cannot help but see any approach to this issue as helpless confused or unprincipled if it is not based on libertarian principles… unless it is very narrow and does not concede ground to the enemy.
So, when you say:
I reject your conclusion that the book “is a bit meandering, not grounded in any coherent or fundamental principles; it accepts too many positivist and statist bromides; and worst, it accepts the basic legitimacy of the state’s encouraging innovation by such tricks.”
What you really mean is that I don’t have the same view of copyright as you do. My views are clear and coherent, you just don’t like them.
Well, true–I don’t like them because they are based on the wrong principles (in my view). Despite your protestations I do not see that your thesis is grounded in fundamental principles–and by this of course I mean normative principles, since you are in fact making a normative criticism, not merely engaging in positive law discourse.
You write,
My view is that copyright in common law countries is entirely positive law and was created in order to further socially useful goals. My view is in fact correct, as a matter of law. There is zero doubt about this.
Actually I disagree with you. It was not created to further “socially useful goals.” In fact, no state law is. Now sure, there is a stated purpose of copyright law. That does not mean it is its real purpose. Likewise, the stated purpose of the “Protect America Act” is, well, to protect America. But of course that is not its real purpose. We must be careful not to conflate the window-dressing the state puts on its laws to obtain the silent acquiescence of the sheeple with the truth. That said, I agree that we can use the stated objectives of legislation rhetorically against the state to try to hold them to the lip service they give to the law.
You don’t like that the law is as it is.
This is correct; and neither do you, apparently–and good for you. You appear to be better than 99% of our IP attorney colleagues. I am very glad you are arguing from an informed position to radically reduce copyright term.
I am perfectly fine with that; dissent and loyal opposition are noble callings, and I am a dissenter and opposition on a number of issues. But you have to be honest and accept that your view is contrary to what the law is.
Of course. I have always accepted the idea that positive law and justified or libertarian law are not the same thing.
Don’t criticize me for accurately stating the current state of affairs.
I am not, in the slightest. My understanding is that you are in favor of having a copyright system. This is a normative position. It goes beyond merely recognizing that we have copyright law. As the blurb for your book states, “Patry concludes that calls for strong copyright laws, just like calls for weak copyright laws, miss the point entirely: the only laws we need are effective laws, laws that further the purpose of encouraging the creation of new works and learning. … Patry calls for a remaking of our copyright laws so that they may once again be respected.”
Now, if this is inaccurate–fine. But if it’s not, you oppose calls to weaken copyright law. Why? It is not justified, even on utilitarian grounds. No one has shown that even a 10 year copyright term generates net wealth. Do you disagree? If not, can you produce the proof or study? And if you can’t, why wouldn’t you agree that the default position is then that we should have no copyright law (and one way to get there is to make it weaker), at least until someone can show that a truncated or minimalist copyright system is justified? Why would you oppose weakening it?
Further, I disagree with your wanting copyright law to “be respected.” Why would anyone want this unless he admitted the basic normative legitimacy of the criminal state and its edicts including copyright legislation? If copyright law in its current form is unjust, as you seem to think it is, one way to reduce this unjustness is to persuade the evil congresscritters who enacted it in the first place to “do the right thing” and adopt a good law–a pipe dream, of course. They are not interested in justice. Anyway, this is one approach–a futile one, in some ways, but I’m glad some of us are obstinate enough to keep fighting anyway. But a second approach would be to urge disrespect for the law and the state. The more people see that the emperor is naked, the less able is the state to trample our rights–yes, in the name of the abomination that is copyright law.
We share a view that copyright should be means tested, and only differ in my view that copyright can in some cases meet such a test.
To my knowledge there is no study demonstrating this (see Yet Another Study Finds Patents Do Not Encourage Innovation). Maybe you do one in your book, but I haven’t found it yet, if so. Maybe you cite one in your book that I’m unaware of. If so, maybe you can point it out here.
Let me reiterate that no disrespect is intended by my (admittedly blunt–but honest and sincere) comments. I do respect your work and your pushing in the right (as I see it) direction, even if I do disagree with you on some aspects of this issue and think your argument could be strengthened by taking into account some of the concerns such as I have pointed out above and in other writing. I look forward to seeing what you produce and what effects your book has, and welcome any further dialogue with you. In particular, I have tried as best I can to concisely set out the essence of the libertarian perspective on IP in The Case Against IP: A Concise Guide. If you are interested in what we think about his and how our very principled, pro-individualism, pro-freedom, pro-property rights, informed-by-sound-economics and informed-by-sober-assessment-of-politics bears on this issue, I urge you to take a look at this, and again, would welcome your feedback and discussion.
***
Addendum: In case you missed it, I had an extended comment about this on my blog, which I reproduce below:
Someone wrote me that my comments on Patry’s book are premature, that the description is misleading and that I will like and agree with most of it. My edited comments:
***
You are right, I haven’t read it. But I saw enough red flags for grave concern.
You say that I might not agree with all of Patry’s book–I don’t have a problem with not agreeing. It’s that the approach most people take is bankrupt. Unless you have clear property rights principles–i.e. are basically a libertarian–there is no way to be very good on this. Only a few utilitarians are good–like Boldrin and Levine. Any honest, intelligent, informed utilitarian would be against copyright, not want to “improve” it.
I realize his book focuses on how copyright holders have twisted the law in their own interest. But look: I am an anarchist. I think the whole system is corrupt. I am not surprised that people “twist” it. That’s part of the system. People who expect it not to be twisted are naive. In fact it’s twisted by virtue of being state law. It’s impossible not to be twisted; it’s impossible for people to ignore incentives to twist it even further. As Mises wrote in Human Action, “No socialist author ever gave a thought to the possibility that the abstract entity which he wants to vest with unlimited power—whether it is called humanity, society, nation, state, or government—could act in a way of which he himself disapproves.”
In my view talk about how the system has been “abused” only serves to reinforce the state propaganda that the state is basically legitimate, that the basic system is “good” but has been corrupted. This is all nonsense. It just serves to keep the state in power and to perpetuate the myth that the system is basically legitimate and fair. It’s not. The state is quite literally just a mafia gang–the only difference being that it is largely perceived (falsely) as legitimate, partly because the people are so stupid and have been bamboozled by state propaganda–so the state cloaks its criminal actions with just enough of a veneer of legitimacy to keep up the pretense, to go on deluding the stupid populace that it’s really “their agent” and there for “their good.” It’s all just a big scheme.
The problem is not that copyright holders have twisted the law. The basic system, even without “ridiculous” twisting, violates individual rights.
You claim that the description on Amazon is misleading, that the book is all about how copyright law is consistently and repeatedly abused. Well, I hope so. I agree that pointing out abuses and excesses of the system is worthwhile. And if he calls for a shorter copyright term (say), that is an improvement, though in doing so he undercuts the principled case against it.
But the blurb does say he’s a centrist. That he is a “believer in appropriately balanced copyright laws”. Unless this is flat out mistaken, I believe it’s impossible for him to have a sound critique–given such a confused, unprincipled view (though yes, he could be good enough to point out bad consequences of the current system, as a reporter).
The blurb says: “Patry concludes that calls for strong copyright laws, just like calls for weak copyright laws, miss the point entirely”
If this is true, he’s against weak copyright law. This is terrible. The copyright law should be weaker. Even someone merely chronicling its abuses should see that this is an obvious response to that abuse.
“the only laws we need are effective laws, laws that further the purpose of encouraging the creation of new works and learning”
This seems to buy into the false notion that utilitarian concerns are what should drive law. It buys into the Constitution as legitimate and sensible. It’s neither.
“Our current regime, unfortunately, creates too many bad incentives, leading to bad conduct.”
If he is, as appears, just a mainstream statist (supporter of the state and our democratic-welfarist-socialist system), such critiques sound hollow. It’s like Bush or Obama talking about saving a million dollars in a pork bill, in the midst of trillion dollar boondoggles. It avoids making a radical critique of the regime per se.
“Patry calls for a remaking of our copyright laws so that they may once again be respected”
I do not want our copyright laws to be respected. I want them to be ridiculed and seen as what they are: illegitimate, arbitrary decrees by a criminal gang, issued at the behest of special interest lobbying groups. I realize that the criminal state survives on the false perception of legitimacy: I want this illusion to be burst. I don’t want the state or its laws to be respected. The only way civilization will advance is to throw off the shackles of its pathetic allegiance to the state–the entity that harms them most. We have a societal case of Stockholm syndrome.
Anyway–I’ll read the book and gladly print a retraction in the happy event that I’m wrong.
It’s a tragedy Rothbard died in 1995, before he could finish his History of Economic Thought series. At the time of his death, he had only published volumes I and II (epub and PDF files available here; Mises catalog). However, as noted in the Mises store entry for Vol. III, The History of Economic Thought: From Marx to Hayek, although he “died before he could write his third volume of his famous History of Economic Thought that would cover the birth and development of the Austrian School, through the Keynesian Revolution and Chicago School,” “he had already mapped out the entire project.” And, it turns out: it’s on tape! “Fortunately, the Mises Institute had Rothbard lecture on his discoveries and analysis of this period while he was researching the topic. The tapes were only recently discovered. We re-mastered them, and put them on a single MP3-CD: nearly seven hours of lectures.”
Just another idea to throw into the mix, from a minarchist.
Published: August 9, 2009 8:34 PM
Just another idea to throw into the mix, from a minarchist.
Published: August 9, 2009 8:35 PM
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Published: August 9, 2009 9:33 PM
Sunday, August 9, 2009Property Rights For The Tangible And The Intangible!In a classical liberalism society the continual refinement of property rights would be one of the most exhilarating and important jobs performed.In our hampered economy, infested with ego-driven interventionists, it is one of the most frustrating tasks but nevertheless it is ever so important!To everyone engaged in this work – God bless you always and in all ways!
Published: August 9, 2009 9:41 PM
Published: August 9, 2009 9:43 PM
So throw out the rulebook on what should be regulated and what shouldn’t. Rethink completely the role of the Federal Communications Commission in deciding who gets allocated what. If Reed is right, nearly a century of government policy on how to best administer the airwaves needs to be reconfigured, from the bottom up.
Cognitive radio – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Cognitive radio is a paradigm for wireless communication in which either a network or a wireless node changes its transmission or reception parameters to communicate efficiently avoiding interference with licensed or unlicensed users. This alteration of parameters is based on the active monitoring of several factors in the external and internal radio environment, such as radio frequency spectrum, user behaviour and network state.
Open spectrum – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Open spectrum (also known as free spectrum) is a movement to get the Federal Communications Commission to provide more unlicensed, radio frequency spectrum that is available for use by all. Proponents of the “commons model” of open spectrum advocate a future where all the spectrum is shared, and in which people use Internet protocols to communicate with each other, and smart devices, which would find the most effective energy level, frequency, and mechanism. Previous government-imposed limits on who can have stations and who can’t would be removed, and everyone would be given equal opportunity to use the airwaves for their own radio station, television station, or even broadcast their own website. A notable advocate for Open Spectrum is Lawrence Lessig.
National governments currently allocate bands of spectrum (sometimes based on guidelines from the ITU) for use by anyone so long as they respect certain technical limits, most notably, a limit on total transmission power. Unlicensed spectrum is decentralized: there are no license payments or central control for users. However, sharing spectrum between unlicensed equipment requires that mitigation techniques (e.g.: power limitation, duty cycle, dynamic frequency selection) are imposed to ensure that these devices operate without interference.
Traditional users of unlicensed spectrum include cordless telephones, and baby monitors. A collection of new technologies are taking advantage of unlicensed spectrum including Wi-Fi, Ultra Wideband, spread spectrum, software defined radio, cognitive radio, and mesh networks.
Published: August 9, 2009 10:01 PM
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1st, when it comes to how you treat things, there is no effective difference between radio emissions or any other type of light emissions:
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Well, imagine that you were communicating with blue flash lights, but then you made the frequency a little lower, and used green flash lights, but then you made the frequency a little lower, and used red ones, and a little lower, and used infra red flash lights, and then a little lower and lower and lower, ….. well eventually those light emissions will be in a very very low frequency range, called radio.If you think of RF like light and color, you can’t go wrong, because that’s what they are – except that our eyes can not see light frequencies that low, but radios can. But most radios use simple technology which causes the signal to look “blurry”, but that’s not the senders fault. That’s just the radios abilities.
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Second, natural law outcomes seem to be voting against homesteading …..
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lets say I created “green light radio”, and it was basically a big green light bulb on top of my roof that flickered, and people had decoders that could convert that to sounds. Well, now does that mean I have the right to forbid people from putting up green Christmas lights? What if an advertizer nearby wants to put up a green neon sign? And lets say someone else puts a big green light bulb on top of their roof too, well – I could either sue the crap out of them and drag it thru the courts for years, or people could cut out a piece of construction paper and block out the neighbours light just like one might put up their hand to block out the glare of the sun in their eyes so that they could see everything else. Or they could put up a lenz to focus only on my green light, just like you might focus your eyes to look at or look thru your screen door.The latter way seems a lot less intrusive and more natural than the former of trying to control every one and their mother from using green lighting. It also requires a lot less government and legal enforcement. That seems like natural law’s way of telling me, “sort it out with technology, not with homesteading”. In addition, when you look at the areas of the spectrum that are totally 100% no rules, is that the section that nobody wants to use because it is too chaotic and unworkable? No, in fact, that is the area of the spectrum where all the innovation and progress are happening. 80211b, chord less phones, wireless sensors, and all sorts of other stuff. That also seems like natural law’s way of saying “work it out with technology, not with homesteading”. In addition, we all know how much evil false property rights can cause. The fact that it seems that people can work it out without any formal homesteading rules at all also seems like a big natural law indicator “work it out with technology, not with homesteading”. Finally, in the real world, my neighbour would likely NOT put up a green light on his roof, because unlike with physical property, he gains nothing by creating interference with me. He has as much incentive to avoid interference to reach the max number of people as I do. Once again, that is natural laws way of saying “let technology sort it out, not homesteading”. Finally, just the elementary school physics of it. Anybody can hold up two flash lights, criss cross their paths and clearly see that the light going to left side is not going to block the other light from going to the right side. This also implies by natural law, “you don’t need homesteading to work it out” because emissions can share the same space yet be distinct.
Published: August 9, 2009 10:36 PM
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Again, everyone’s (inherited) use of the pretty much the entire EM spectrum predates any industrial use. Auctioning of EM spectrum rights is one of the few sensible ways for our joint agent (the theoretical minarchist government) to fund itself without coercive measures. We do *too* own it. All of us.
Published: August 10, 2009 12:29 AM
Published: August 10, 2009 12:49 AM
Published: August 10, 2009 1:05 AM
Published: August 10, 2009 1:27 AM
This is where Public Intellectual Property could resolve the issue, since only counties would enforce it, within their own counties!
Published: August 10, 2009 1:28 AM
This is where Public Intellectual Property could resolve the issue, since only counties would enforce it, within their own counties!
Published: August 10, 2009 1:28 AM
Published: August 10, 2009 1:49 AM
Published: August 10, 2009 1:50 AM
That is it.
It has nothing to do with usage. Surely most people exclude others from their property in order to use the property in some subjective way but because the concept of “use” subjective you can not base an ethical principle on it.
If property rights are based on the ability to use, or consume in some way, even physical property would cease to be private property when its supply exceeds the ability of that person to consume or use. In other words, if scarcity is the sole prerequisite of ownership then abundance ends the ownership.
If you follow this logic to its conclusion, no single individual could own anything more than he/she can individually use, or consume.
But then we come the the definition of use.
What if the richest person “uses” all the excess wealth to feel good about himself. Isn’t “feeling good” a form of using property?
The simple fact is if you can not define the concept of “use” for each and every human, which you can not, you can not base a rule or a right on that undefinable concept.
The only concept that we have left is “the right to exclude” other humans, which is a very objective and clear cut right.
And it covers most of the package called IP.
It covers the authors right to exclude others from his novel, it covers the programmer right to exclude others from his software.
But it doesn’t cover independent discovery, thus most of the patents. An inventor has a right to exclude others of his invention, but someone else’s independent discovery has nothing to do with this process.
Published: August 10, 2009 5:42 AM
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[citation needed]
Published: August 10, 2009 8:40 AM
You’re always looking for the magical source of non-coercive funding for your supposed agent, but in the end it always boils down to some form of extortion.
Published: August 10, 2009 9:07 AM
Published: August 10, 2009 9:11 AM
For non-rival goods, there is no such necessity. For them, the right to exclude has no basis on the real world. The only explanation I can offer for its existence is the attempt to stretch the legal system because their proponents don’t like the real world.
Have a nice day,
Peter
Published: August 10, 2009 9:51 AM
Published: August 10, 2009 1:27 PM
So ultimately, “the EM spectrum is scarce” is just a cleverly disguised way of saying, “I would much prefer it if there were exclusive rights in frequencies, because that permits the use of the EM spectrum for transmitting information, which I like.” Ah, but when *that’s* your justification for exclusive spectrum rights, you’re making the same argument that people do for IP.
None of the citations Stephan_Kinsella listed addresses this problem. In his zeal to always document the lineage of his arguments, Stephan_Kinsella seems to have forgotten that it’s not enough to have citations; they have to be relevant too. And to the issue I’ve raised, they’re simply not. Rather, they ignore the fundamental distinction between broadcasting waves and information. If that weren’t the case, Stephan_Kinsella could quote the analysis that directly addresses my argument, yet there is none.
With that in mind:
My response, in brief, is:
a) If your position implies that people should be free to broadcast over each other, that’s strong evidence you made a mistake somewhere.
b) See above about waves vs. information.
c) Then the libertarian case for property *in general* is not settled or very developed yet. The issues are not independent, you know.
And I must object to this:
Can we please drop this? IP is not a “right to greater profit”, any more than physical property is a “right to greater profit”. They’re both rights to exclusivity, full stop. Profit is merely something that emerges from the right to exclusivity, as long as other conditions are met, and so is something usually strived for. But someone can value having IP rights for non-monetary reasons, just as someone can value having property rights for non-monetary reasons.
Give. It. Up.
Published: August 10, 2009 1:54 PM
Published: August 10, 2009 2:11 PM
I agree with Brian. You can broadcast all the information you want on F0 regardless of any competing broadcast. My F0 broadcast could interfere with your audience receiving the information, but not with your transmission.Regarding this…
…I don’t follow. You seem to be saying that people should not be free to broadcast over one another. How is this different than someone talking over another? Such rude behavior typically interferes with communication, but I wouldn’t want to disallow someone from talking.
Good point about exclusivity vs. profit. Seems like profit, even if it’s the motive, is not the issue. Does this have any effect other than clarity on Stephan’s position?
Published: August 10, 2009 2:46 PM
“Good point about exclusivity vs. profit. Seems like profit, even if it’s the motive, is not the issue. Does this have any effect other than clarity on Stephan’s position?”it’s not my position; it’s the implicit view of Silas in his fumbling attempt to justify IP.
Published: August 10, 2009 3:08 PM
Published: August 10, 2009 3:50 PM
My apologies; I read a bit too quickly. In any case, the point is (interesting to me, but) trivial.Care to comment on the distinction between talking over another person and broadcasting over another…um…broadcaster? I can’t see the difference, and therefore tend to disagree with the homesteading of frequencies. However, is there a point (volume, perhaps?) at which I would violate someone’s right to speech by talking over them? Do we have a right to speak, or a right to be heard?
Published: August 10, 2009 4:12 PM
frequency, and the physical factors of production needed to perform that
transmission. The latter are scarce, and thus homesteadable, the former are not.
If I am the first to assemble some factors that broadcast at a particular frequency,
then subsequent broadcasters at that frequency (using different factors of production)
thereby violate my ownership rights in the original transmitting factors (because
they interfere with or jam my transmitting factors). Ownership
of a particular frequency, if that’s the expression to be used, is not ownership of
information transmitted at that frequency, but a proxy term for ownership of the
particular, scare factors of production needed to carry that broadcasting (at that
particular signal).
Published: August 10, 2009 4:19 PM
Published: August 10, 2009 4:27 PM
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Published: August 10, 2009 6:08 PM
What makes information information, beyond other things, that you receive what was intended to be received. Without this the waves are just noise even if they were intended as information at the broadcast.
I am sure you would not need this basic explanation had you wanted to understand what Silas had clearly said.
Stop blasting, Start listening.
Published: August 10, 2009 6:33 PM
Who decides for the public? I would hope that Local Government would decide, being composed of volunteer citizens, who chose to pay to become citizens. Local government would then become a specialised company dealing in roads in one locality, being able to make rules for it’s property in the same way that companies make rules for their properties. Money could come from fees for citizenship, or from issuing licences to vehicles to use your ‘public’ lands and roads, etc. (This is where traditional Anarcho-Capitalism fails- someone will end up owning the roads. So why not just transform what is already there, local government, and give the job to it, with all who want able to become citizens?)
Published: August 10, 2009 10:09 PM
Published: August 10, 2009 11:50 PM
Published: August 11, 2009 12:28 AM
This is in no way different than stealing 100 dollars from Bill Gates and claiming that Gates didn’t lose his ability to use his money in general because he has so much money he couldn’t have used that 100 dollars even if he tried.
If you claim the authors exclusion is not dictated by “reality” but just the whim of the author then you must also claim Gates’ exclusion of 90% of his wealth is pure whim since only 10% is enough for a very lavish life for Gates and his family.
Published: August 11, 2009 5:58 AM
>The right to use or trade is implied and derived from the
> right to exclude which is the main right.
I fail to see the logical steps necessary to make this conclusion. If you have the right to exclude (only), it only allows you to enjoy a subset of the other two rights. In other words, it isn’t the right to exclude that is the superset, but the right to use. Even if you insist on making the unified right to exclude (both rival and non-rival goods) a superset and redesign the diagram, there would be parts of rights to use/trade that are outside of that set.To put this into an example, if you only had the right to exclude, you would be able to prevent others from eating your food and drinking your drinks, but you wouldn’t have the right to consume them yourself. It would rot away and you’d die. Eating and drinking is not exercising your exclusion right. Such a right on its own is obviously a very useless right.If you disagree, provide me an example where an infringement on the right to exclude (rival goods) doesn’t infringe on the right to use or the right to trade. Unless you can do it, you logically need to admit that right to exclude cannot be the superset.> It is argued by IP socialists that, since the owner doesn’t
> lose his ability to use the original after copying, it is
> ethically ok to copy.
A simplification, but let’s assume that it’s correct (ignoring the repetitive “IP socialist” ad hominem).> This is in no way different than stealing 100 dollars from
> Bill Gates and claiming that Gates didn’t lose his ability
> to use his money in general because he has so much
> money he couldn’t have used that 100 dollars even if he
> tried.
I fail to see the logic in this argument. Indeed, you are not only misrepresenting the right to use, but creating arbitrary valuations. It is not my or your call to value 100 dollars or 10% of Bill Gates’ money. Before, he had X dollars, now he has X-100. He cannot use the 100 anymore, therefore his right to use is infringed. He cannot trade them, therefore his right to trade was infringed. It doesn’t matter what he wanted to do with them.Now, let’s say that I copy MS Windows. Before, Microsoft had X copies of windows, now they have X too. They can still install them or sell them or shred them. I don’t see any stealing happening. In certain cases (regardless of IP), copying might result in a contract violation, but that’s a separate thing.
What a lot of IP proponents argue however is that because copying (sometimes) decreases the demand for their products and they have to lower the price, that means it’s stealing. That’s a modified version of the labour theory of value (which was refuted by early Austrians). There are an infinite number of activities that decrease the demand for your goods and lower their market price. For example, the car decreased the demand for horses. Does it mean the cars’ manufacturers stole the horse breeders’ property? Desktop PCs decreased the demand for mainframes. Internet decreased the demand for print media. And so on.
> If you claim the authors exclusion is not dictated
> by “reality” but just the whim of the author …
Let’s assume that’s correct.
> … then you must also claim Gates’ exclusion of 90% of
> his wealth is pure whim …
Again, yet another wild jump. You confuse what people want with what the nature dictates. The nature dictates that rival goods cannot be consumed simultaneously, and non-rival can. This is not influenced by people’s wishes or the ideologies they adhere to. Both a socialist and a capitalist need to deal with the first (otherwise they die), but there is no such imperative with the second. There is, evidently, a social pressure to put rules around the second, but from logical point of view it isn’t necessary.
To summarise: you are making arbitrary jumps in the flow of your arguments and breaking the value-free methodology of the Austrian economic school.
You are losing your ground and presenting sillier and sillier arguments.
Cheers,
Peter
Published: August 11, 2009 10:29 AM
Published: August 11, 2009 2:05 PM
“Even if you insist on making the unified right to exclude (both rival and non-rival goods) a superset and redesign the diagram, there would be parts of rights to use/trade that are outside of that set.”
No.
Right to use or trade are natural outcome. When an individual has the right to exclude others, he is left with the property or reality as you will. He may do anything he wants with it, and it all depends on his ability. There are no conditions put by other humans on his right to property. He is Robinson Crusoe. He has the absolute liberty. He might not have all the might, the know how and such but he has the liberty.
That is why property rights are the basis of liberty because it brings the right to exclude other humans.
Liberty is the condition that no other human may restrict and/or cause harm to one individual. This depends on having the right to exclude other humans. On ones own body, mind and earthly possessions.
If you think an author doesn’t have the right to exclude others from his novel, you are defending a parasitic relationship where the host has no say over his body and mind (since the book is the product of his body and mind).
“I fail to see the logic in this argument. Indeed, you are not only misrepresenting the right to use, but creating arbitrary valuations. It is not my or your call to value 100 dollars or 10% of Bill Gates’ money. Before, he had X dollars, now he has X-100. He cannot use the 100 anymore, therefore his right to use is infringed. He cannot trade them, therefore his right to trade was infringed. It doesn’t matter what he wanted to do with them.”
You are the one that is making arbitrary valuations.
You think Gates’ wealth – 100 dollars is meaningful, but authors novel – the exclusivity is not.
If the exclusivity of the novel is meaningful to the author who are you to say that it is not, or it is not in the same league as 100 dollars. And not everything is about money. The author may want exclusivity for profit or he may want it just for sentimental value.
Do you think if someone found and copied your personal diary, and exposed it, it would be ok when they pointed out to you that you still have you diary?
Published: August 12, 2009 5:15 AM
You are increasingly making less sense.> No. Right to use, or right to trade (the right to exclude),
> are derivative rights.
If a right B is a derivative right of a right A, it means right A is a superset. Logic dictates that the right to exclude is not a superset.> If you have right to use but not a right to exclude,
> abundance will cause problems as I tried to show
> above.
Unfortunately, you have not demonstrated anything. You have yet to show me an example of a violation of right to exclude (non-rival) that at the same time doesn’t also violate the right to use or right to trade. Unless you do it, you can’t claim that these rights are derivative.On the other hand, opposite examples are easy. Say a government forbids you to sell bananas that are not curved properly (happened in the EU once). This way, your right to trade is violated, you cannot trade your bananas as you want. However, your right to exclude is not impacted. That would be impacted if the government forced you to sell the bananas to people you don’t want to sell it to. Also, your right to use (the narrower one) isn’t impacted, that would be impacted if the government forbade you to eat them yourself.> Your (not exclusively yours of course) problem is, you
> are twisting the derivative right to use, and shaping it to
> a right derived from the ability to use.
Logic dictates that my approach with sets is the only correct one. Each of the possible activities can be properly assigned to a set, a subset or an intersection thereof. See the picture that I posted. It is independent of ethics, a proper value-free approach.You are trying to twist the logic so that your precious dogma is uphold. I personally don’t really care whether IP is real property or not or what the ethical implications are. However, logic dictates it isn’t so I have to follow. I used to be an IP proponent once, but found my position intellectually unsustainable.
> Liberty is the condition that no other human may restrict
> and/or cause harm to one individual. This depends on
> having the right to exclude other humans.
Just another confusion. If you’d abstract your claims into a set theory, you would immediately recognise the flaws therein. Basically, you are claiming identity of different parts of the diagram.
> If you think an author doesn’t have the right to exclude
> others from his novel, you are defending a parasitic
> relationship …
Once again, you are weering off the main course of discussion. Whether IP is ethical or not is irrelevant. It is not property, and it is not in any way deducible from “nature”. You can, in theory, make a utilitarian (which B&L; refute), a social or a historical argument for IP. But logic, Austrian economics and natural science do not support it.
> You are the one that is making arbitrary valuations.
I most definitely am not.
> You think Gates’ wealth – 100 dollars is meaningful, but
> authors novel – the exclusivity is not.
You are confusing the use of word “wealth” as nominal units of currency in once case and market value in another. The first one is an objective measure, the second one not. There is no claim to market value, that’s just the labour theory of value rehashed.
> If the exclusivity of the novel is meaningful to the author
> who are you to say that it is not, or it is not in the same
> league as 100 dollars.
It is irrelevant whether it is “meaningful”. What counts is whether it can be assessed in an objective, value-free approach.
> Do you think if someone found and copied your personal
> diary, and exposed it, it would be ok when they pointed
> out to you that you still have you diary?
Obviously, it would depend on whether that person in the course of the copying:
– violated some of my real property (e.g. breaking & entering, getting a physical hold of my diary without permission)
– violated any contracts
Depending on what exactly they did, their activities would overlap with one or more parts of the diagram that I posted earlier. If it only intersected with the set I labelled “IP”, then logically I don’t see anything to claim from them. If it intersected with the left part of my diagram, I would have a claim against them. Current law might see it differently though. What I would do in reality would depend on my assessment of the situation and the comparison of opportunity costs of various actions. Making a claim might seem like a more prudent approach from short term point of view, but could also cause negative PR which might outweight the gain. But this is an empirical question.
Diagram URL: http://shurdeek.shurdix.org/tmp/ip2.png
I am sorry, but you need to make a decision here. Either you’ll continue pulling out random claims out of nowhere, or you stop and re-assess your arguments logically.
Have a nice day,
Peter
Published: August 12, 2009 6:42 AM
Person A approaches person B who is at that moment standing on a field,
Person A, “I want to work the field”
Person B, “No I am sorry. I am using this piece of land and since two of us can not use it at the same time I must exclude you”
Person A, “So if you weren’t using this land, I could have used it but since you are already using it I can not?
Person B, “That is right”
Person A, “Do you mind telling me what exactly are you doing to the field when you say using it.”
Person B, “I am just standing on the field looking around.”
Person A, “Can you think of any other activity regarding the field, that can be considered “not using” the field.”
Person B, “Not really”.
Person A, “So it is not that you are using the property in some objectively defined way but you are here first and you are using your right to exclude anyone else according to your whims.”
Person B, “I guess”
Published: August 12, 2009 8:09 AM
> claim the right to use is the superset.
> Please define “use” as an obejctive concept.
I define the “use” from an economic perspective as any sort of consumption. In the narrower meaning, it only includes self-consumption, in the broader one, also allowing other people to consume it (trade).> To own a property means having the right to exclude
> others from it.
Again, [citation needed]. Logically, it doesn’t follow.> Only and only after this fact may come the acts of use
> or trade.
The right to exclude is not sufficient to utilise the right to trade. It merely means that you have a right to refuse a trade you don’t want, but the (positive) right to sell to those you want is missing. You can clearly see that from my diagram. Because of this, the right to exclude cannot be a superset. This is simple logic.On the other hand, the (broader) right to use is very much sufficient for either trade or to exclude third parties (the latter only for rival goods of course). Therefore, it is the superset for (classical) property and a disjunct set with IP.> The owner may
> choose not to use or trade the property in question.
Yes. Choose.
> Person A, “So it is not that you are using the property in
> some objectively defined way but you are here first and
> you are using your right to exclude anyone else
> according to your whims.”
You are confusing the rights with actual activities. These are two separate things. The right to use means that you can consume the property if you so desire. There is no imperative to actually consume anything. Similarly, the right to exclude is not equivalent with actually excluding anyone. If in your case person B permitted person A to use the field, it wouldn’t mean that he didn’t have the right to exclude, but that he chose not to exercise it.
Hope that clears it up for you.
Cheers,
Peter
Published: August 12, 2009 8:43 AM
Published: August 12, 2009 2:53 PM