[From my Webnote series]
[See also IP and Aggression as Limits on Property Rights: How They Differ; and Stephan Kinsella, Legal Foundations of a Free Society (Houston, Texas: Papinian Press, 2023): ch. 15, “Against Intellectual Property After Twenty Years: Looking Back and Looking Forward,” Part IV.H, ch. 2, “What Libertarianism Is,” the section at n.52, “Property as a Right to Exclude”; also ch. 8, “Causation and Aggression,” text at n.3.]
Update: Adapted from a note to friends:
Property Rights as Limits on Actions, Individuals are Responsible for Actions, not “for Their Property”; Property rights are not obligations or responsibilities
- KOL418 | Corporations, Limited Liability, and the Title Transfer Theory of Contract, with Jeff Barr: Part II
- KOL414 | Corporations, Limited Liability, and the Title Transfer Theory of Contract, with Jeff Barr: Part I
- Corporate Personhood, Limited Liability, and Double Taxation
- “Classificationism, Legislation, Copyright”
- The Non-Aggression Principle as a Limit on Action, Not on Property Rights, StephanKinsella.com (Jan. 22, 2010)
- IP and Aggression as Limits on Property Rights: How They Differ, StephanKinsella.com (Jan. 22, 2010)
- Legal Foundations of a Free Society (Houston, Texas: Papinian Press, 2023): ch. 15, “Against Intellectual Property After Twenty Years: Looking Back and Looking Forward,” Part IV.H, ch. 2, “What Libertarianism Is,” the section at n.52, “Property as a Right to Exclude”; also ch. 8, “Causation and Aggression,” text at n.3
- Causation and Aggression
- The Libertarian Approach to Negligence, Tort, and Strict Liability: Wergeld and Partial Wergeld
- Libertarian Answer Man: Intent in Action, Strict Liability
- Libertarian Answer Man: Libertarian Liability Theory, Behavior, and Intentional Action
- On “Unowned” State Property, Legal Positivism, Ownership vs. Possession, Immigration, Public Roads, and the Bum in the Library
- Selling Does Not Imply Ownership, and Vice-Versa: A Dissection, in LFFS
- Libertarian Answer Man: Self-ownership for slaves and Crusoe; and Yiannopoulos on Accurate Analysis and the term “Property”; Mises distinguishing between juristic and economic categories of “ownership”
- On Property Rights in Superabundant Bananas and Property Rights as Normative Support for Possession
- The “Ontology” Mistake of Libertarian Creationists
[Re limited liability. See on this KOL418 | Corporations, Limited Liability, and the Title Transfer Theory of Contract, with Jeff Barr: Part II; KOL414 | Corporations, Limited Liability, and the Title Transfer Theory of Contract, with Jeff Barr: Part I; Corporate Personhood, Limited Liability, and Double Taxation] I see two mistakes in your reasoning. First, you are accepting the relevance of the state’s arbitrary classification scheme–calling someone an “owner” or not, an employee or not.
The state calls people employees or shareholders etc. as part of its excuse to regulate and control. Economically there is no fundamental difference between a contract worker and an employee. They are all just actors exchanging goods and services.
Second, you are assuming ownership has responsibilities; that liability comes from ownership. That it matters whether you “are” or “are not” “an owner” (a “shareholder” or “stock holder”). The bottom line is we are responsible for our actions not for our ownerhship. The libertarian knee-jerk assumptions about strict liability are marred by taking too much for granted. Ownership is a right not a responsibiltiy. To say that with rights come resposibilities is a lazy and cheap slogan and a moral point at best not one that gets to the nature and function and purpose of property rights. One is responsibel for one’s actions not for one’s rights. If you steal my knife and kill someone with it you are responsible for the action, I am not responsible b/c I own the knife. Responsibility has nothing to do with ownership but with action; it has to with possession (since all action employs means that are possessed).
Every “employee” or other agent or actor of the corporation or firm is responsible for his own actions. If a truck driver commits a negligent tort, he is primarily responsible. Whether anyone else is secondarily liable depends on notions of causation and responsibility. Rothbard, Pilon, and Hessen questioned the entire notion of respondeat superior, which is one such theory. But even if you overlook this critique and hold managers and even directors liable vicariously for the torts of employees they direct, this does not mean that this causal nexus would extend to others, such as passive shareholders, bondholders, customers, vendors and suppliers, or co-employees or their unions.
All these things tie into each other. One reason people believe in IP is they conflate economic with legal categories. They think if you sell something you must own it; thus you can own information and ideas (because you can “sell it”); thus, IP. A different mistake is the view that if you own something, you have the right to sell it. That is also wrong. It also is why they believe in strict liability, and why they are not bothered with the observation that IP rights are nonconsensual negative servitudes that limit property rights: they think that property rights are limited by other property rights, so what’s the big deal? But property rights are not limits on or limited by other property rights; property rights are limits on action. Property is not a responsibility; it is a right: it is not even a right to use the resource; it is only a legal right to exclude, to prevent others from using it. It is not use of a owned resource that violates rights; it is any action and any use of any causally efficacious scarce means that invades the integrity or borders of another’s owned resource (that is, a causal use of another’s owned resource without his consent); yes, all action involves the use of means but this is possession, a descriptive, economic category; it has nothing to do with the ownership status of the means used. The thing used may be owned or unowned; it may be owned by the user, or by another. If I hit you in the head with a rock that nobody owns, it is aggression. If I own the rock, it is aggression. If I stole the rock from someone else, it is still aggression. And the owner of the rock is not (necessarily) responsible since owning is not an action nor a responsibility.
See:
“Against Intellectual Property After Twenty Years: Looking Back and Looking Forward,” Part IV.H, in Legal Foundations of a Free Society:
H. All Property Rights Are Limited
One final argument may be addressed, which is touched on in some of the above sections.[70] When explaining why IP rights violate property rights, we IP opponents explain that the grant of an IP right is tantamount to a nonconsensual negative easement on someone else’s property—it limits what the owner of a resource may do with the resource.[71] Or, as Roderick Long would say, “Owning Ideas Means Owning People.”[72]
A common response runs something like this:
Yes, IP rights limit what you can do with your own property. But this is true of all property rights. My ownership of a home, or my body, means you can’t shoot your gun at it. So my property rights limit your property rights. Therefore, just because intellectual property rights limit your property rights doesn’t mean they are illegitimate any more than my self-ownership limits your property rights in your gun.
There are many problems with this argument, as I have detailed elsewhere.[73] First, even if we grant that in some cases property rights can be limited, it does not imply that just any limit is legitimate. If a woman objects to being raped, it will not do to say “stop complaining that we are violating your property right in your own body; after all, all property rights are limited.” You would need to articulate why it’s justified to limit property rights. In the examples given by IP proponents, someone’s property rights are limited as needed to keep them from exercising those rights to commit aggression against others’ property rights. But IP rights limit the owner’s property rights (again, in the form of a negative servitude), even though the owner, in rearranging his own resources in a certain way, does not invade the borders of the inventor’s or author’s property. In response to this, the IP proponent will say, “Yes, by making a copy of the author/inventor’s creation, the copier is infringing the author/inventor’s property rights.” But this is question-begging. It presupposes that there are rights to universals, when this is the issue under dispute.
Second, it is simply not true that property rights limit other property rights. Rather, property rights limit actions. If A owns his body, then B may not shoot it with a gun, whether he owns the gun or not. The point is that B may not use or invade the borders of A’s body—his owned resource—with any means at all, whether it be the use of B’s hands, or some other means such as a gun, even if he stole the gun from C and is not its owner. People are responsible for their actions, and actions always employ some means to achieve the end. The means may be simply the actor’s own body, or it may be some external object, one that may be owned by the actor, or not.[74]
Therefore, it is a valid criticism of IP that it unjustly limits others’ use of their own resources.
[70] See, e.g., the discussion in Part IV.F, above.
[71] See Part IV.B, above.
[72] See Long, “Owning Ideas Means Owning People.”
[73] See Kinsella, “The Non-Aggression Principle as a Limit on Action, Not on Property Rights”; idem, “IP and Aggression as Limits on Property Rights: How They Differ”; and “Selling Does Not Imply Ownership, and Vice-Versa: A Dissection” (ch. 11), n.11 and accompanying text.
[74] Likewise, many libertarians, having in mind some form of “strict liability,” advance the confused idea that we are responsible for harms done with property (resources) that we own. This is incorrect. We are responsible only for our actions, not for uses to which inanimate objects are put. If I possess a stolen knife, I am liable if I stab an innocent person with it, even though I don’t own the knife, since it is my actions that I am responsible for. And if some thief steals a knife and uses it to harm an innocent victim, it is the thief that is responsible, not the owner of the knife. One common confusion held even by many libertarians is the idea (which underlies many assertions about “strict liability”) that ownership implies responsibility (some have even confusingly said that you “own your actions,” which is incoherent). It does not. Ownership means the right to control (or, more precisely: the right to exclude others from controlling) a given resource; it does not imply responsibility. We are responsible only for our actions, regardless of whatever means are employed by the actor to achieve the illicit end. It is misleading and confusing for libertarians to carelessly use expressions such as “I own that action” to mean “I am responsible for harm I cause.” The term ownership should be restricted to property rights in conflictable resources—and should be used as a synonym for possession, either, as I point out in “Selling Does Not Imply Ownership, and Vice-Versa: A Dissection” (ch. 11), the sections “External Resources” and “Economic vs. Normative Realms of Analysis: Ownership vs. Possession.”
On negligence and strict liability, see Kinsella, “The Libertarian Approach to Negligence, Tort, and Strict Liability: Wergeld and Partial Wergeld,” Mises Economics Blog (Sep. 1, 2009); “A Libertarian Theory of Punishment and Rights” (ch. 5), at n.78; “Causation and Aggression” (ch. 8), at n.60; and “A Libertarian Theory of Contract: Title Transfer, Binding Promises, and Inalienability” (ch. 9), n.6.
“What Libertarianism Is,” the section at n.52, “Property as a Right to Exclude”, , in Legal Foundations of a Free Society:
Property as a Right to Exclude
Technically speaking, a property right is not a right to control a resource but a right to exclude others from using the resource. Ironically, this is how patent rights work, although most non-specialists have trouble understanding this; having a patent on an invention does not allow the inventor to make or use it, but only to prevent others from doing so.[51]
I have explained elsewhere why property rights do not give the owner a right to control or use the resource.[52] However, for our purposes in this chapter, this distinction is not particularly germane.
[51] See 35 U.S.C. §271, https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/35/271; Connell v. Sears, Roebuck Co., 722 F.2d 1542, 1547 (Fed. Cir. 1983; https://casetext.com/case/connell-v-sears-roebuck-co) (“the right to exclude recognized in a patent is but the essence of the concept of property”), citing Schenck v. Nortron Corp., 713 F.2d 782 (Fed. Cir. 1983; https://casetext.com/case/carl-schenck-ag-v-nortron-corp); Bitlaw, “Rights Granted Under U.S. Patent Law,” https://www.bitlaw.com/patent/rights.html; see also Thomas W. Merrill, “Property and the Right to Exclude,” Neb. L. Rev. 77 (1998; https://scholarship.law.columbia.edu/faculty_scholarship/3553): 730–55, p. 749 and n.10 and related text, in particular; Harris, Property and Justice; James Y. Stern, “The Essential Structure of Property Law,” Mich. L. Rev. 115, no. 7 (May 2017; https://repository.law.umich.edu/mlr/vol115/iss7/2/): 1167–1212, p. 1171 n.15, referencing and comparing Bloomer v. McQuewan, 55 U.S. 539, 549 (1852) (“The franchise which the patent grants, consists altogether in the right to exclude every one from making, using, or vending the thing patented, without the permission of the patentee. This is all that he obtains by the patent.”), Robert Patrick Merges & John Fitzgerald Duffy, Patent Law and Policy: Cases and Materials (6th ed. 2013), p. 49 (“Unlike other forms of property, however, a patent includes only the right to exclude and nothing else.” (emphasis omitted), and Frank H. Easterbrook, “Intellectual Property Is Still Property,” Harv. J.L. & Pub. Pol’y 13, no. 1 (Winter 1990; https://chicagounbound.uchicago.edu/journal_articles/309/): 108–118, p. 112 (“[A] right to exclude in intellectual property is no different in principle from the right to exclude in physical property.”).
[52] See “Against Intellectual Property After Twenty Years” (ch. 15), n.62 and Part IV.H et pass. See also Kinsella, “The Non-Aggression Principle as a Limit on Action, Not on Property Rights,” StephanKinsella.com (Jan. 22, 2010) and idem, “IP and Aggression as Limits on Property Rights: How They Differ,” StephanKinsella.com (Jan. 22, 2010).
“Causation and Aggression,” text at n.3, in , in Legal Foundations of a Free Society:
PRAXEOLOGY AND LEGAL ANALYSIS:
ACTION VS. BEHAVIOR
For libertarians, the purpose of a legal system is to establish and enforce rules that facilitate and support peaceful, conflict-free interaction between individuals, i.e., property rights. In short, the law should prohibit aggression—the unconsented-to use of someone’s owned resources, or “property”—by identifying and protecting private property rights.[1] Because aggression is a particular kind of human action—action that intentionally violates or threatens to violate the physical integrity of another person or another person’s property without that person’s consent[2]—it can be successfully prohibited only if the law is based on a sound understanding of the nature of human action more generally.[3]
[1] See generally “What Libertarianism Is” (ch. 2) and Kinsella, “How To Think About Property (2019),” StephanKinsella.com (April 25, 2021); and Hans-Hermann Hoppe, Economy, Society, and History (Auburn, Ala.: Mises Institute, 2021; https://www.hanshoppe.com/esh/), pp. 2, 10–12, et pass. See also “What Libertarianism Is” (ch. 2), Appendix I (regarding the use of the term property to refer to the rights actors have with regard to resources, instead of the resources themselves, and also regarding the nature of a property right as a right to exclude, not a right to use).
[2] For discussion of the distinction between an action’s intentionality or purposiveness (thus distinguishing it from mere behavior, such as a reflexive or involuntary response), which factors into responsibility and liability, and its motive or actual purpose, which factors into the appropriate punishment, see Kinsella, “Hate Crime—Intentional Action and Motivations,” StephanKinsella.com (July 9, 2009). See also text at note 8, below.
[3] As described elsewhere in this book, aggression means nonconsensual use of another’s owned resources, so is dependent upon the prior and more fundamental concept of property rights. In other words, to determine what actions constitution aggression, one must first know who owns what. See “What Libertarianism Is” (ch. 2), at notes 6, 9, 11, and accompanying text et pass.; also Kinsella, “How To Think About Property (2019)”; idem, “Aggression and Property Rights Plank in the Libertarian Party Platform,” StephanKinsella.com (May 30, 2022). In any case, aggression is always an action, and thus in order to identify and analyze property rights violations, an analysis of action is necessary. See idem, “The Non-Aggression Principle as a Limit on Action, Not on Property Rights,” StephanKinsella.com (Jan. 22, 2010) and idem, “IP and Aggression as Limits on Property Rights: How They Differ,” StephanKinsella.com (Jan. 22, 2010).
***
[Update: “The actions of some, not their preferences, are what interfere with the ability of others to pursue happiness ….” Randy E. Barnett, The Structure of Liberty, discussed in Knowledge, Calculation, Conflict, and Law, at n.46.
[Update: see also Tom G. Palmer, “Are Patents and Copyrights Morally Justified? The Philosophy of Property Rights and Ideal Objects,” Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy 13, no. 3 (Summer 1990), available at tomgpalmer.com, pp. 830–31:
To those who might argue that any form of property limits liberty in some way, Jan Narveson responds:
This is to talk as though the ‘restrictions’ involved in ownership were nothing but that. But that’s absurd! The essence of my having an Apple Macintosh is that I have one, at my disposal when and as I wish, which latter of course requires that you not be able simply to use it any time you like; it’s not that you can’t have one unless I say so. [Quoting Jan Narveson, The Libertarian Idea (Temple University Press, 1988) at 77]
J.C. Lester, who pretends to be a libertarian anarchist yet supports intellectual property, makes the same argument criticized in this post. In Escape from Leviathan, he writes:
Intellectual property, we are told (281) [by Tom Palmer], conflicts with physical property and self-ownership. However, all forms of ownership constrain other forms of ownership. It is no more a valid argument against intellectual property that it restricts some things one can do with one’s person and physical property than it is that physical property limits what we can do with our bodies. If I may not walk onto your land without your permission, for instance, that does not mean that I do not own my body. Neither does it if I cannot play your music without your permission.]
From a discussion with “Russ”:
If IP really were a valid right, then a person would have “a right to use force against another to prevent them from using their own property to reproduce the aforementioned creator’s work”. That’s what the word “property” implies! For instance, let’s say that you own a gun. Let’s say that I own a dog. By virtue of my ownership of the dog, I do have the right to use force against you to prevent you from using your own property (your gun) in any way you might wish (e.g. if you wish to shoot my dog with your gun). Similarly, any property right implies the right to use force to limit what another can do with their own property.
Sure. And if chattel slavery were valid, the whipping of one’s slave would not be aggression. And if pigs had wings they could fly. But chattel slavery is not valid, and pigs do not have wings—and IP is also not valid.
Your mistake seems to be the assumption that property rights give you the right to do anything whatsoever with your property.
No, the assumption is only that you may engage in whatever action you wish, except those that invade the borders of others’ property—where “property” is conceived of in the Lockean sense of scarce resources homesteaded by appropriation, based on the first-comer has better title than the latecomer principle.
The fact that some actions are impermissible because they are invasions of others’ property rights has nothing to do with any “limitation” on one’s own property. You may not commit murder, whatever the means—whether it’s your gun or not. The limitation on action is not a limitation on property rights. In fact actions are limited because of others’ property rights!
They don’t. The right to swing your baseball bat ends where my front window begins. Similar, if IP rights were valid, your right to use your computer would end where my IP rights begin. Your argument just says that IP rights are invalid, because the limitations they necessarily impose on others’ property are invalid. But the limitations that IP rights impose are no different than the limitations that classical property rights impose.
Wrong. The limitations you are speaking of are not a property rights limitation but rather a limitation on one’s actions.
If these limitations are wrong, and invalidate IP, they also invalidate classical property rights.
If you want to keep classical property rights, which it seems you do, you need to come up with another reason why IP rights are invalid. I prefer an argument that is based on the fact that material objects are scarce goods, while patterns of ones and zeroes are not.
Because the question always comes down to: who owns this scarce resource–e.g., in a typical IP case, the IP “owner” claims the right to prevent A from using a scarce resource A himself homesteaded or acquired contractually from a homesteader. He claims the right to prevent this use even though A’s use—his action—does not invade any borders of A’s property. It is very different than your typical prohibition on murder etc.’
Update: for an example of this confusion, see the comments here (duplicated here), where one “ABR” disagrees with my view that we are self-owners. He writes:
Kinsella writes earlier: “The libertarian view is that each person completely owns his own body—at least initially, until something changes this, such as if he commits some crime by which he forfeits or loses some of his rights.” This statement is misleading. Under libertarianism, a person is not allowed to strike another person aggressively. Nor is a person allowed to trespass on another person’s land. Effectively, others are constraining the behaviour of each person. A person does not completely own his own body.
I.e. the fact that you cannot use your body to invade another’s body (because he owns it) somehow means you do not own your body. Not so. The action of invading another’s body is prohibited because he does own his body; his body-ownership is a limit on what actions I can take; it is not a limit on my property rights in my body; in fact my property rights in my body mean that this other person also may not invade the borders of my body without my consent. I explain this in my reply here, which reads in pertinent part:
Saying I don’t completely own my body because I may not murder other people is ridiculous. If I own my body, it implies others similar situated also own their bodies; so the impermissibility of my using my owned body to harm someone else’s own body is an implication of my own self-ownership, it does not undercut it! (I am reminded here of Rand’s attack on (the idealistic version of) Kant who said reason was inefficacious because it had a certain nature! how absurd).
…
But B is already being told what he can and cannot do with his property. He cannot launch rockets against his neighbour. He cannot start fires on his property that spread to his neighbours’ property. A restriction on B not to print Atlas Shrugged is merely one of many restrictions he faces.
The prohibition on B harming A’s property has nothing to do with B’s property. It is not a limitation on B’s property rights. B may not invade A’s property borders with any means, whether they are owned by B or not. And the reason he may not, is because of property rights—A’s property rights. But if A has them, so does B.
The reason, however, that B may not invade A’s land is because it is A’s property. You cannot just say that this means it’s okay to prevent B from using his own property in certain peaceful ways, unless you show that it violates A’s property rights. To say that it does in the case of B just using his property according to a certain pattern or recipe, is to presuppose that A has a property right in patterns. Which begs the question.
Update: The Economist on the American Patent System: Comment from “Tomkow May 9, 2011 at 12:32 am”: “Any system of property “constrains the liberty” of non-property holders against using that property.”
Update: Elsewhere I point out that “a property right is not a right to use a resource, but a right to exclude others from using a resource. In practical terms this gives the owner the ability to use it as he sees fit so long as he is not using trespassing on others’ property rights.”
Interestingly, George Mavrodes writes:
I propose to say that a certain agent owns a certain object if and only if he has the right to decide upon the disposition to be made of that object. And I will say that the owner’s having such a right entails at least two things: (1) the fact that the owner has disposed of the object in a way contrary to some other human agent’s preference is not, per se, evidence that the owner has done something which he ought not, and (2) the fact that some other human agent has disposed of the object in a way contrary to the owner’s preference is, per se, evidence that this other agent has done what he ought not.
This way of putting it is compatible with my approach here. The second part refers to the owner’s right to exclude others. The first implies that the owner using his property is not per se a violation of others’ rights (this is why ownership of a resource and the right and ability to exclude others implies, in most cases, the practical ability or capacity to use the resource), but it does not rule out that the use of the owned resource, by the owner, might in some cases be wrong. That is, merely owning a resource does not give the owner a blanket right to use it, since some uses violate others’ property rights. Keeping this in mind helps one from being lulled by the false formulation that property rights are limited by other property rights—and, thus, if IP rights limits normal property rights, that doesn’t show that IP rights are illegitimate; after all, all property rights limit other property rights! Or so the “reasoning” goes. But property rights do not limit other property rights; property rights limit others actions (and thus, do not directly give one a right to use one’s property as one sees fit; it simply prevents others from using it, without one’s permission). This is a subtle point and for some people, initially hard to grasp; but it is profoundly important.
***
Published: December 30, 2009 3:20 AM
Gil: “If I can’t spray a hail of bullets into a crowd of innocent people then I don’t fully own my machine gun.”
No. The prohibition on your shooting bullets is not a limitation on your ownership of your gun. It’s a limitation on what action you can perform–whether the action uses your own gun and bullets or those of another person. Ownership has nothing to do with hit. (See my comments here.) The reason I may not shoot people (with whatever gun) is just a specific application of the general notion that I may not act so as to cause the invasion of the borders of another’s property; I may not invade their property borders; I may not interfere with the physical integrity of their property; I may not use their property without their consent. I may not trespass. All these things are actions that employ some means, of course, but the means need not be owned by me, and it is irrelevant whether they are (see also Intellectual Property and the Structure of Human Action). So the prohibition on my action is a result of presupposing the validity of property rights in scarce resources.
For you to make an analogous case about IP, to argue that my putting a pattern on my own DVD may also be prohibited, you have to argue that the action itself is trespass. That is, that my impatterning my own DVD somehow invades the borders of someone else’s property right.There are only two ways this is so. First, if the DVD is not my property. But this is false, per assumption. The other way is if my action somehow invades the borders of some other scarce resource that another person owns. But clearly it does not. I am not interfering whatsoever in your ability to use your own body and resources.
The only remaining way out of this is to say well, it doesn’t trespass against any physical property you own, but it does trespass against your property in a certain idea, since it prevents you from using and exploiting that abstract, disembodied idea as you see fit—it uses the idea without your permission. And this is true. It does use the idea without your permission. But this is only trespass if you own the idea. Which is the question under consideration when IP rights is debated: so it’s merely a circular, question-begging assumption. It is a totally invalid argument.
Published: January 21, 2010 2:59 PM
- Silas Barta
The prohibition on your shooting bullets is not a limitation on your ownership of your gun. It’s a limitation on what action you can perform–whether the action uses your own gun and bullets or those of another person …
Any argument that merely involves relabeling things is an automatic fail.
(Which includes the quoted one above)
If I can’t do X with my machine gun, that is a limitation on my right to use the machine gun. It doesn’t matter if it arises from someone else’s rights, or the lack of a specific right to do X.
If you want to make a crucial, insightful argument, these relabeling tricks just don’t work.
Published: January 21, 2010 3:16 PM
- Stephan Kinsella
Person,
If I can’t do X with my machine gun, that is a limitation on my right to use the machine gun. It doesn’t matter if it arises from someone else’s rights, or the lack of a specific right to do X.
If you want to make a crucial, insightful argument, these relabeling tricks just don’t work.
Silas, the trick is in people who say that there is nothing wrong with IP’s infringement of property rights since after all, your property rights are limited in all sorts of ways. This is a common argument; and it is wrong.
The reason I am not able to use my bullets to kill you is because using them in this manner invades the borders of your own property–your body. Using my blank DVD to impattern it in a certain way, however, does not use your body or other scarce resources, so you can’t say the two limitations are analogous. To make them analogous you have to presuppose that you own the pattern itself, which is question-begging.
Now do you get it?
Published: January 21, 2010 3:50 PM
Grudgingly, I have to agree with Silas. The argument presented this way is circular. It might be in future possible for me or someone else to “fix” this problem, however so far the approach has failed.
There is a slightly similar issue however, one that Silas has failed to address. The only way to conclude that trespass in IP occurred is to observe the trespasser. With rival goods, including EM transmissions, this is not necessary, because a trespass on those leads to an observable change occurring at objects in the rightful owners’ possession or at their premises. For example, a stolen car is observable by the lack of the car in the parking space. EM interference is observable by receiving a different wave than the one expected.
Besides the practical question of how to monitor everyone, there is a more fundamental problem. If the only way to conclude trespass is that the trespasser performs a certain action (regardless of his location), any action whatsoever can be claimed to be a trespass. Why is “copying” singled out as the only action that leads to such conclusion? Why not any writing? Why not any attempt to create a machine, or a drug? Why not laying on one’s bed? Or blowing one’s nose?
Published: January 21, 2010 3:59 PM
Surda, what argument is circular? I disagree, if you are talking about mine about action etc. To say an action (or use of property, whatever) is prohibited because it infringes on the property of others, in typical cases such as trespass, does indeed presuppose the validity of property rights in scarce resources. It presupposes only that invasion of the borders of others’ owned scarce resources, is prohibited. Thus, if we assume both sides to the debate accept this, it does not follow that we have to accept that it’s okay to prohibit a use of property that does NOT amount to such trespass. This argument is not circular in the slightest. The argument simply points out that B does not follow from A.
Published: January 21, 2010 4:28 PM
See also Lamont Rodgers, Self-Ownership and Justice in Acquisition, Reason Papers:
Thus, Mack writes, “The existence of this constraint against Harry’s inserting his knife into Sally’s chest does not at all show that Harry has anything less than full ownership of his knife.”32 This is because the property right is itself constrained by the self-ownership of others. So the owner of the water hole owns it, even though he cannot preclude the travelers from drinking from it. The owner may well have a right to demand compensation for the access, but he cannot fully exercise his right to exclude people from the hole.
I agree with Mack here, but disagree that it has anything to do with Harry’s ownership of “his knife”; the constraint against Harry is not against inserting “his” knife into Sally’s chest without her consent, but against inserting any such object, whether owned or not, much less by Harry, into Sally’s body without her consent.
[Update: for a somewhat similar point by Rothbard, see “‘Human Rights’ As Property Rights,” in The Ethics of Liberty (New York: New York University Press, 1998), p. 114 (reference omitted):
couching the analysis in terms of a “right to free speech” instead of property rights leads to confusion and the weakening of the very concept of rights. The most famous example is Justice Holmes’s contention that no one has the right to shout “Fire” falsely in a crowded theater, and therefore that the right to freedom of speech cannot be absolute, but must be weakened and tempered by considerations of “public policy.” And yet, if we analyze the problem in terms of property rights we will see that no weakening of the absoluteness of rights is necessary.
For, logically, the shouter is either a patron or the theater owner. If he is the theater owner, he is violating the property rights of the patrons in quiet enjoyment of the performance, for which he took their money in the first place. If he is another patron, then he is violating both the property right of the patrons to watching the performance and the property right of the owner, for he is violating the terms of his being there. For those terms surely include not violating the owner’s property by disrupting the performance he is putting on. In either case, he may be prosecuted as a violator of property rights; therefore, when we concentrate on the property rights involved, we see that the Holmes case implies no need for the law to weaken the absolute nature of rights.
[And see also the comments by Mavrodes, above]
Mark Hubbard
Reputation rights are not usually classified as IP rights, but they are similarly unjust
So we’re not really talking about IP, but we’ll skew the argument to fit the agenda anyway?
And that aside, again the argument seems to be, a single lawyer – who you admit is incompetent – is being sued unjustly, so we must ditch the whole body of laws, and the concept of property?
(Even I know numerous people, including solicitors, who have been unjustly sued, and none of them regarding IP, but no one used this to raise an argument to abolish the various areas of law concerned. Twenty first century business is complex.)
But I’m more interested in our unfinished business from the South Butt thread, I would especially be interested in your impressions on my latter comment regarding your illogical IP/Welfare comparison.
Kinsella said:
Creation is not an independent source of rights, becuase it leads to the notion that any THING you can think of can be owned;
You forget chronology: you have to prove you had the thought first. After that, I have no problem with this as a starting position. At least it doesn’t mean throwing away the notion of property rights in the entirety, and with it, liberty. Your argument often seems to be, ‘oh, this is rent with complexity’, therefore lets just do away with the notion of property ownership, per se. And I guess you’re right, if you don’t own anything, you cannot have it stolen. But you won’t find freedom in that.
Yes, there will be ludicrous cases, but that’s why we have law courts. In New Zealand I believe there has been a case where a company attempted IP over a colour: they didn’t win. Of course the problem in an anarchist society is that you’ve done away with the rule of law, and hence, law courts (have you?)
I asked another poster on another thread how could two ‘voluntaryists’, as he called them, enforce a contract: I never received an answer.
but it cannot; this inflation of rights destroys real rights (as Rand realized regarding positive welfare rights).
Wrong.
Welfare is to claim an entitlement to that which is owned by others, and for which they had worked for, and is reprehensible because of that. It is State sanctioned theft, an example of modern Statism out of control.
However, IP is a claim of ownership of the ‘products of mans mind’, an entirely different proposition. Whereas, I would like to point out, the view that the IP creator must sustain the whole cost of production, but then be left to see it being squandered by others taking the benefits, is a concept solely belonging to a welfare ethic.
The anti-IP argument is always thusly socialist and falsely philanthropic.
Published: January 26, 2010 10:15 PM
Stephan Kinsella
Hubbard, I’ve long maintained that defamation law is a species of IP law; and of course, the Objectivists support reputation rights on the same grounds that they support IP rights, so this is no surprise.
I never said Quinn is an incompetent attorney; I suspect he is competent. He is very bad at arguing philosophically in defense of his favored policy.
Published: January 26, 2010 11:01 PM
Mark Hubbard
But just because he is being sued unjustly, why use that as an argument against IP (that is, property rights)?
If a bunch of anarchists decide to set me up, steal a car and park it in my garage so I get unjustly prosecuted and even convicted of theft, do we then advocate for car theft to be not against the law?
Arguing for just that seems to be your rationale here.
Published: January 26, 2010 11:19 PM
Stephan Kinsella
Hubbard, This is an illustration of a lawsuit based on an unjust law. It’s just ironic and interesting that it’s used against someone who is in favor of such laws. (I doubt Quinn is even opposed to reputation rights or lawsuits based on “unfair competition” like the suit against him. Good for him!)
Published: January 26, 2010 11:33 PM
Cosmin
Mark Hubbard, you’re so pathetic it’s funny. You talk about unfinished business? You ran away from this thread: http://blog.mises.org/archives/011521.asp like a coward. I answered your claims and asked you many questions and you didn’t have a rebuttal for a single one of them.
Published: January 26, 2010 11:42 PM
Mark Hubbard
Cosmin, I answered to your questions here, as it happens:
http://www.solopassion.com/node/7285#comment-83773
You just have to consider chronology.
Kinsella: no, more than just ‘ironic and interesting’ you posted as part of an agenda. That ‘unjust law’.
Published: January 26, 2010 11:51 PM
Russ
Mark,
Two questions.
1) I assume that you are not a utilitarian. Is this true?
2) Do you believe that people have a duty to support businessmen who come up with unprofitable business plans?
Published: January 26, 2010 11:56 PM
Mark Hubbard
Definitely not utilitarian (unlike the anti-IP promoters).
No, people have no duty whatsoever to support businessmen who come up with unprofitable business plans.
Nothing to do with IP though.
Published: January 27, 2010 12:07 AM
Cosmin
Mark Hubbard, for someone so hung up on chronology, you seem to have problems with dates and time. The comment you point to was written on Sat, 2010-01-23 06:32
I debunked it in a post written on January 25, 2010 3:16 AM
You have no rebuttal.
There’s also your assertion that gang would run riot in anarchy that I’ve discredited, as well as your claim that anti-IPers believe in a hive mind (which is actually what you endorse).
Published: January 27, 2010 12:12 AM
Russ
Mark Hubbard wrote:
“Definitely not utilitarian (unlike the anti-IP promoters).
No, people have no duty whatsoever to support businessmen who come up with unprofitable business plans.
Nothing to do with IP though.”
I think it does. I see two main arguments for IP. Those are the utilitarian argument, and the deontological argument or argument from duty.
The utilitarian argument says that we should consider IP property because without it, the IP that “we” (a collective) “need” (a subjective assessment) won’t get made. Obviously, I think a utilitarian argument poses problems for an Objectivist.
(Note that even arguments for normal property that supposedly are based on metaphysics, such as theories based on scarcity, are utilitarian at root, because they assume that a system that works is better than one that doesn’t.)
The deontological argument says that patterns or ideas should be considered property (and thus should be bought from their creators) because the people who benefit have a duty or obligation to reward the people who create it. So, even though a business plan involving selling something that is easily copyable is pretty obviously not a very good business plan, those who benefit from the patterns/ideas are obligated to prop up the business plan. Those who don’t are unethical. A duty-based theory should also pose problems for an Objectivist.
Your post seem to indicate that your idea of IP is part utilitarian (we won’t have the IP we need/want without it) and part deontological (we owe it to the creators to pay them for their ideas, even though it’s not our fault that their business plans are stupidly based on the idea of selling easily copyable things).
As for your “causality” argument, it seems to be: patterns exist do to a person causing them to exist, therefore we owe it to those people to reward them if we benefit from their creations. This is 1) a non sequitur, and 2) deontological.
What say ye?
Published: January 27, 2010 12:38 AM
Russ
“…patterns exist *do* to a person causing them to exist…”
Should be “due”, not “do”. Doh!
Published: January 27, 2010 12:47 AM
Silas Barta
@Mark_Hubbard:
LOL … you’re new here, aren’t you? This is pretty much par for the course in terms of IP posts on the Mises blog. “Oh, look at this absurd application of IP law. Obviously IP is *inherently* unjust.”
You could just as easily say, “Oh, look at this case where a court ruled that farmers have the right to gun down aircraft flying over their land, obviously property in land is stupid and unjust.” But then it would be obvious how poor the argument is.
People do, of course, make good arguments against IP here, but a lot of their anti-IP friends refuse to call them on it. (Russ and Peter_Surda are notable in criticizing bad arguments against IP, despite being against it themselves. Stephan_Kinsella, not so much.)
Published: January 27, 2010 11:53 AM
Peter Surda
Thank you for your kind words Silas. My only goal in the participation in IP debates is to find the truth (or, as close as a falsificationist can get to the truth). A very difficult endeavour indeed. I don’t particularly care, on personal level, if IP is valid or not, as long as I don’t get sued for writing software, so I dislike software patents and anti-circumvention provisions. But at least I don’t think any libertarian, pro or anti-IP, supports the latter, and the former don’t exist in EU.
Published: January 27, 2010 12:22 PM
ABR
On the term ‘utilitarian’:
As I understand it, a utilitarian wants the State to act in ways that favour the greater good. Mises and Hayek have demonstrated why this approach backfires economically. Ethically, this system is utterly bankrupt.
Now let’s move away from the State to voluntary agreements. If I and five others wish to enact some sort of IP agreement between us, we might be acting according to some ethical approach, but more likely we’re acting out of self-interest.
Is this agreement utilitarian? I don’t think so.
If I and five other neighbours agree that we each own the land we’ve homesteaded, we might be acting according to some ethical approach, but more likely we’re acting out of self-interest.
Is this agreement utilitarian? I don’t think so.
Published: January 27, 2010 12:57 PM
Mark Hubbard
Your post seem to indicate that your idea of IP is part utilitarian (we won’t have the IP we need/want without it)
No Russ. Yes, that will happen, but I work solely on the principle that IP is property, and there will be no freedom possible, where there are no property rights, or where same have been destroyed.
And I see many arguments against IP here made on the ground that the abolishment of IP would lead to constant innovation and the advancement of man – I call it the Marxist Fantasist Anarchist Gang.
Published: January 27, 2010 1:19 PM
Stephan Kinsella
Surda
“Thank you for your kind words Silas. My only goal in the participation in IP debates is to find the truth (or, as close as a falsificationist can get to the truth). A very difficult endeavour indeed. I don’t particularly care, on personal level, if IP is valid or not, as long as I don’t get sued for writing software, so I dislike software patents and anti-circumvention provisions.”
My own interest is even less than neutral: I have an intrest in arguing for IP. I even started out trying this. I finally conceded it couldn’t be done after trying to find a way around this.
Published: January 27, 2010 2:35 PM
Jay Lakner
Mark Hubbard wrote:
“I work solely on the principle that IP is property”
But this is exactly what most anti-IP people are disputing You have not demonstrated why patterns and ideas should be considered a form of property in the first place.
“Chronology” is not a sufficient justification for IP. This point has been refuted over and over again in the past. Causality alone is not a sufficient requirement for property. If it was, then absurd conclusions abound. To use a couple of recent examples, parents would own their children and the Soviet Union would co-own Atlas Shrugged.
Going back to my Harry Potter example, JK Rowling would co-own everything I do that has any link to the novel. For example, if the novel inspires me to write my own novel or compose a piece of music or draw a painting, then JK Rowling now co-owns these things.
Using causality as the only measure of “property” leads to a highly dysfunctional society. Clearly there is more to “property” than just causality (or chronology as you put it).
Mark Hubbard, ask yourself this:
What is the purpose of us even having the concept of “property” in the first place?
Published: January 27, 2010 2:46 PM
Mark Hubbard
Jay, the first part of your post is an absurdity, like the Dr Who’ish discussion you’re wanting to have on SOLO. But:
What is the purpose of us even having the concept of “property” in the first place?
I’m still trying to figure out what, if anything, you do believe in as far as philosophy goes: I just assume people on this site, including Kinsella, are freedom lovers, and property rights are a-priori to freedom being had – I believe the anarchists are wholly incapable of achieving same, the defining difference between them and myself (objectivist) is that I believe in a place for government, whereas Kinsella believes all governments are aggressors – but, for you to even ask this, I’m now far more interested in your answer to this question – and you know what mine is?
Or is this another exercise in intellectual striptease?
Published: January 27, 2010 3:14 PM
Seattle
Hubbard, you still haven’t answered Mr. Kinsella’s question: Does this “Small State” of yours have the ability to deny others from also carrying out justice? If it does, then it is very clearly an aggressor. If not, then you’re not talking about what we commonly call a “State” here, you’re just talking about a PDA.
Published: January 27, 2010 3:50 PM
Jay Lakner
Mark Hubbard wrote:
“property rights are a-priori to freedom being had”
This is, in a way, correct.
Property rights are required in order for freedom to work. So why is it then that ideas and patterns need to be considered a form of property?
It is very easy to show why tangible materials need to be considered property … because no two individuals can alter the integrity (via consumption or general use) of the same tangible item at the same time.
But, if we are going to consider patterns and ideas to be property also, we would need to show why this is a requirement for freedom of action.
Anti-IP people argue that this has never been done. Anti-IP people argue that, since multiple ideas and patterns can be employed simultaneously, then they do not need to be considered forms of property.
Furthermore they demonstrate that, if ideas and patterns are considered property, the conclusions lead to less freedom. And therefore conclude that ideas and patterns should not be considered forms of property.
Published: January 27, 2010 4:16 PM
Mark Hubbard
Haven’t we done this?
The city of Seattle said: Does this “Small State” of yours have the ability to deny others from also carrying out justice? If it does, then it is very clearly an aggressor. If not, then you’re not talking about what we commonly call a “State” here, you’re just talking about a PDA.
I’ve got this feeling what you call a PDA (?) is probably just a minarchist state – if you had any sense, that’s what it would be. But to ignore that and answer your question, reposting myself from another thread, what I mean by legitimate government is this:
Note this bit: … and their vote should be restricted to conferring a mandate to uphold freedom, not extended to a mandate to deny it
The financing of this government is voluntary, not taxation. What holds a government to the mandate of freedom, a non-aggressor, is a constitution, such as the constitution for New Freeland (try actually reading it):
http://www.freeradical.co.nz/content/constitution/index.php
And yes, when the state goes beyond that mandate, then revolution is proper – I’m sure you know Thomas Jefferson’s quotation after Shay’s rebellion:
‘God forbid we should ever be twenty years without such a rebellion. What country can preserve its liberties if their rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take up arms. What signify a few lives lost in a century or two? The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure.'”
According to this it is self-evidently obvious all of our western democratic states are way, way beyond their mandate, and we are well past the time for a Second Declaration of Independence – here it is:
http://www.solopassion.com/node/7231
Quote:
How can I be more specific than this. There is still a necessity for government to fulfill the mandate of my first quotation, including protecting property rights, and IP: the alternative is lawlessness and gang rule.
Now, speaking of unanswered questions, I have asked twice now, but still no one has answered for me, how do two ‘voluntaryists’ enforce contract with each other?
[By the way, unrelated to anything on this thread or any other, did anybody here ever use to follow the blog of a US libertarian called Claire Woolfe? She’s been offline now for about two years.]
Published: January 27, 2010 4:36 PM
Mark Hubbard
Jay, for the reasons given on SOLO I do not hold with the scarcity argument. It is ‘after the event’, the IP has already been created.
Other than that, your ‘action’ argument is splitting definitional hairs which at this stage I’m not interested in.
Published: January 27, 2010 4:43 PM
Jay Lakner
Mark Hubbard wrote:
“how do two ‘voluntaryists’ enforce contract with each other?”
In an anarchy, each one would likely be members of a PDA. If one of them breaks contract, the other consults their PDA who will act on the matter. A possible solution could be the following:
The PDA will contact the PDA of the offender and they will sort it out. The case may need to go to an arbiter to make a decision. The arbiter, of course, is a private arbitration firm whom the two PDAs have agreed to abide by the decision of.
It might not be much different than the current system except that both the police and the courts are private businesses rather than a state-run monopolies.
I am not the best one to explain all this though. There is plenty of literature on the subject on this very site. (The Private Production of Defense is one book I know of) Have a look around and read up on it.
Published: January 27, 2010 4:51 PM
Michael A. Clem
Of course the problem in an anarchist society is that you’ve done away with the rule of law, and hence, law courts (have you?)
Not true–anarchism simply does away with government courts and legislation. Many blog posts and arguments have been presented that talk about law and legal systems in anarchism, with reference to common law, customary law, and polycentric law. I believe that Stephan himself has written some material on the subject.
Published: January 27, 2010 4:55 PM
Mark Hubbard
The PDA sounds like a bureaucratic nightmare!
Why not just use a properly mandated minarchist government as I have posted on above?
Published: January 27, 2010 4:56 PM
Michael A. Clem
Arguments against minarchism have been extensive on other posts–do you really want to clutter this thread with tangential or even irrelevant posts? PDA’s, by the way, are only one possible model of an anarchistic legal system, and are, to my mind, the term is simply a shortcut to “the market for law and justice”, since the market can provide a wide variety of solutions and means, and not just one particular business model.
Published: January 27, 2010 5:07 PM
Mark Hubbard
Michael: my post above regarding the mandate of a government in a minarchy. What issues would you have with such?
Published: January 27, 2010 5:08 PM
newson
The PDA sounds like a bureaucratic nightmare!
yep. better the one-world homogeneous legal regime! oh, but the good one, of course, with the nice leaders who read von mises and rand. i have a dream…
Published: January 27, 2010 5:12 PM
mpolzkill
Michael,
Yes he probably really does want to clutter every forum. “Proceeding boldly against evil”, don’t cha know. Got to hand it to you, you guys really are patient with this braying….I don’t know how you do it.
Published: January 27, 2010 5:14 PM
Mark Hubbard
newson, read my post here, actually read it:
http://blog.mises.org/archives/011544.asp#c657548
Now tell me exactly what problem you have with that?
And you do know, as an anarchist in Anarchy Land, with no objective law, and PDA’s, that the time you’re not serving the local militia, by the look of things, you’re going to be wrapped up in an interminable round of committees.
In fact, taking the lead from the argument in this header post, I can hypothesise the argument of Allesnik in Anarchy Land:
‘Oh look, PDA John has filed this suite against PDA Amy, but there’s a counterclaim from PDA Tom, pending the suite against PDA Elizabeth, what, John’s just been shot by Tom’s militia.
Jeez, this is all so complex, I think we ought’a chuck this whole PDA nightmare out and get back to a sensible minarchy, bounded by a mandate of freedom.’
Published: January 27, 2010 5:21 PM
Jay Lakner
Mark Hubbard wrote:
“Jay, for the reasons given on SOLO I do not hold with the scarcity argument. It is ‘after the event’, the IP has already been created.”
How do I explain this to you?
“Scarcity” is the condition which decides what can and cannot be considered to be property in the first place.
It is not “after the fact”. Scarcity is a fundamental attribute of tangible materials.
When you say “the IP has already been created”, what you are really saying is that a possible way in which tangible materials can be arranged has been discovered.
Now, how do we decide if this “possible arrangement” should be considered property or not?
We need to look at man’s freedom of action.
If it was an orange then there would be no question. One man eating that orange prevents all others eating it. Eating the orange therefore negatively interferes with the actions of other men … it deprives them of the chance of eating that orange. Therefore, in order to allow peaceful cooperation and freedom of action, we would need to consider that orange to be a form of property.
But this is not a tangible good that we are dealing with. We are dealing with a possible arrangement that tangible goods can take. Does one man configuring their tangible materials into this possible arrangement interfere with the ability of other men to configure their tangible materials into that possible arrangement? No. The freedom of action of other men has not been hindered one single bit. Therefore ideas and patterns do not need to be considered a form of “property”.
Remember, it was you that said “property rights are a-priori to freedom being had”.
“Other than that, your ‘action’ argument is splitting definitional hairs which at this stage I’m not interested in.”
It’s not an “action argument”. I am working from Ayn Rand’s own premises and trying to conclude whether patterns and ideas can be considered property or not. It’s called inductive reasoning. Your reaction to all of it (including Bala’s reasoning) demonstrates that you don’t yet understand the fundamentals of Objectivism. You seem to agree with many of their conclusions but you don’t understand the axioms and the chain of reasoning that lead to those conclusions. If you understood this, you would realise the importance of what I’m doing in that thread. I have not even revealed the argument against IP in that thread yet – we haven’t gotten to it yet. Care to answer my questions in that thread and hurry the process along a bit?
Published: January 27, 2010 5:24 PM
Michael A. Clem
Seriously? Really, this has been covered extensively, and with an Objectivist arguing the point, as well.
A government, even a minarchist government limited exclusively to the protection of rights (no public education, welfare, government healthcare and other such nonsense), would still require a monopoly on such protection of rights, and thus would require involuntary payments (taxation) to support the system. Without such a monopoly, I fail to see how it could be considered a “government”, without a broad reinterpretation of the term.
Monopolies in an industry and involuntary taxation call for the initiation of force, thus making even the minarchist government a protection racket of sorts–violating rights in order to protect rights.
Secondary arguments include such things as the corruption and abuse of power, due to lack of competition, and the flawed concept that there must be some “Final Authority” on all matters legal, which is just another way of saying that some person or persons have an absolute authority over others.
This abuse of power extends not only to the misapplication of law by law enforcement agents, but also to the creation of the laws themselves. It is my contention that proper and just laws are discovered, as it was in common law, and not legislated.
Even if the Objectivists manage to discover truly objective principles to base Objective laws upon (a dubious prospect at this point in time), such laws must win out on the marketplace, not be imposed upon by coercion.
Published: January 27, 2010 5:26 PM
Jay Lakner
Mark Hubbard wrote:
“The PDA sounds like a bureaucratic nightmare!”
Actually, it doesn’t. Remember, there would be many PDAs competing for customers. Highly inefficient PDAs would not get customers and go bankrupt. It is in the PDA’s best interest to solve problems as quickly and efficiently as possible.
Protection is a form of insurance. It stands to reason that it will be the big insurance companies that become the leading PDAs. Business will most likely go along similar lines to how insurance companies deal with each other at present. The process will be much quicker and cheaper than the current police/courts system as it is in everyone’s best interest to clear up conflicts as quickly as possible.
Once again, I am not the best person to be explaining all this. Find some books on the private production of defense and do some reading. They will answer all your questions. If you find problems and contradictions during your personal research, only then come on here an voice them.
Published: January 27, 2010 5:37 PM
mpolzkill
Mr. Libertarian here, Mr. Free-Markets. Always the same song from everyone who can’t understand how markets work. You need libertarian kindergarden, Hubbard, but your ego probably won’t allow it. Try reading “I Pencil”. And try to find the proper forum for whatever question you have.
Published: January 27, 2010 5:47 PM
Russ
Mark Hubbard wrote:
“Russ wrote: “Your post seem to indicate that your idea of IP is part utilitarian (we won’t have the IP we need/want without it).”
No Russ. Yes, that will happen, but I work solely on the principle that IP is property, and there will be no freedom possible, where there are no property rights, or where same have been destroyed.”
Saying that we need IP because without it we won’t have freedom is still a utilitarian argument.
I agree that property rights are needed for freedom. So does everybody else here, AFAICT. Who here is opposed to *all* property rights? Nobody that I know of. Some of us just don’t believe that patterns or ideas qualify as property.
So you work from the principle that IP is property? How do you justify that? Causality isn’t enough; property does not obviously follow from causality, so harping about causality is just a non sequitur. And freedom and physical property can still exist without IP, so that idea doesn’t work. Do you expect people to simply accept IP as an axiom?
“And I see many arguments against IP here made on the ground that the abolishment of IP would lead to constant innovation and the advancement of man – I call it the Marxist Fantasist Anarchist Gang.”
Yes, some of us use utilitarian arguments. But we aren’t Objectivists.
Published: January 27, 2010 6:36 PM
newson
mark hubbard says:
“The financing of this government is voluntary, not taxation…”
…and then has the gall to call anarchists utopian dreamers!
Published: January 27, 2010 8:27 PM
Peter
I work solely on the principle that IP is property, and there will be no freedom possible, where there are no property rights, or where same have been destroyed.
But not just _any_ property. Once upon a time, certain people were regarded as property. The world is better off not having that “property”, don’t you agree?
Published: January 28, 2010 12:52 AM
Mark Hubbard
So owning my IP is the same as owning a black slave?
Jeez. As I said, fantasist. Not only absurd, but if I didn’t have such a thick skin, that was probably offensive.
By the way, lack of IP turns the creator into a slave. The creator has to take on the whole cost of production, only to see this squandered as every second-hander gets to take the benefits.
Don’t you agree Peter?
Published: January 28, 2010 2:41 AM
newson
creativity in finding ways to get paid for creativity, now that’s an idea.
if the “creator” has so little nous to turn this enormous latent ability into fame, dollars, peer recognition, altruism (randian-baiting), or to engage someone who can, why should the taxpayers get slugged?
Published: January 28, 2010 3:15 AM
Peter Surda
Dear Stephan,
I did not mean to imply that you have a hidden agenda or are not being honest. I apologise if it sounded that way. However, in my humble opinion, some of your arguments have holes in it. That does not necessarily mean that the conclusions are incorrect (they probably aren’t), but it gives the IP proponents ammunition and shifts the focus of the argument into areas that are, in my opinion, irrelevant.
Published: January 28, 2010 3:37 AM
Peter Surda
Dear Jay,
> JK Rowling would co-own everything I do that has
> any link to the novel.
Actually, that is not even the final result. In the next causality iteration, Harry Potter is a “ripoff” of Ender’s Game (which predates HP by some 10 years), so, according to the causality theory, the money should go to Card and not to Rowling. There’s no obvious way to stop the causality, infinite iterations would cause a web of links that is impossible to follow.
Published: January 28, 2010 3:43 AM
Peter Surda
Dear Mark,
> Jay, the first part of your post is an absurdity,
Yet, it is the logical conclusion of your claims.
Published: January 28, 2010 3:46 AM
Peter Surda
Dear Mark,
> If freedom is the absence of compulsion, then a
> free society must have laws ….
But why do these laws need to be provided by a monopolist?
> It should be chosen and financed by the citizens …
So what if they choose a different provider? Either the “state” can’t deny this new provider from offering services too, and then it wouldn’t be a state but a PDA (Private Defence Agency). If it denies, it’s an agressor and contradicts the definition.
Published: January 28, 2010 4:16 AM
Peter
So owning my IP is the same as owning a black slave?
The slave owner might have said “so owning my slave is the same as owning an idea?” The first thing a responder has to question is: what do you mean “your” slave? Phrasing it that way assumes your side of the argument. He’s not “your slave” at all; he’s a free person; people aren’t legitimate property, and you only “own” him, so-called, because you coerce him. Which is wrong.
Yes; same argument applies to “your IP”. (Stop coercing people, Mark!)
By the way, lack of IP turns the creator into a slave. The creator has to take on the whole cost of production, only to see this squandered as every second-hander gets to take the benefits.
Don’t you agree Peter?
No, not at all. Why does the creator “have to” do that? Who’s got a gun to his head?
Published: January 28, 2010 4:23 AM
Mark Hubbard
Who’s got a gun to his head?
The first consumer, for example in the case of copyright, to buy the physical book, scan it, upload to bittorrent.
That’s a gun to the head of the writer. Forget objectivism, forget anarchism, forget all the isms: people who don’t understand that are missing something basic in their make-ups: what our grandfathers would have called moral fibre.
Published: January 28, 2010 1:04 PM
mpolzkill
Hubbard, words strings of words aren’t random sounds that vaguely mean “good” or “bad”. “Gun to the head” means that there will be a bullet in your head (or something equally severe) if you don’t do what you are told, literally. No one could be this incredibly idiotic and still get on a computer and type. You are a crass and (fortunately) totally incompetent propagandist. “You are awarded no points, and may god have mercy on your soul.”
Published: January 28, 2010 1:21 PM
mpolzkill
“Words, AND strings of words”
Published: January 28, 2010 1:24 PM
Mark Hubbard
“Words, AND strings of words”
Yeah, I know, the Post-Modern Anarchist gang rules, language has no meaning for in Anarchy Land there is neither ownership nor meaning … the position of those madmen, Lacan, Foucault and Derrida.
It’s rot, of course, mossykill, the fact we are communicating here so well proves it. What’s it like living with such a nihilistic view of existence?
Published: January 28, 2010 1:38 PM
mpolzkill
I stand corrected.
Published: January 28, 2010 1:47 PM
Jay Lakner
Mark Hubbard,
It is one thing if you think copying is immoral. But that does not mean that we should necessarily impose laws against it.
Most people think lying is immoral. I assume you do too. So why are you not asking for laws to ban lying?
It’s exactly this sort of thinking that resulted in the anti-drug laws, blackmail laws, minimum wage laws, anti-prostitution laws, anti-gambling laws, and all other manner of illogical restrictions on the freedom of the individual.
Every law comes under the following three categories:
1. Laws that prohibit actions that violate the right to life.
2. Laws that, due to their prohibition of actions, violate the right to life.
3. Nonsensical laws.
Category 1 laws are the sort of laws we want. They lead to the peaceful cooperation of society.
Category 2 laws are the sort of laws we need to prevent. They are an attack on the freedom of individuals.
Category 3 can be ignored. It is reserved for laws that are internally contradictory, have no effect, or are simply nonsensical. Obviously we have no need for laws of this kind.
To determine whether a law is category 1 or category 2, we need to logically demonstrate why the prohibited action violates the right to life.
It has been shown many times that destruction of property and theft are violations of an individual’s right to life. But it has never been demonstrated that copying is a violation of a person’s right to life.
In fact, using Objectivist premises, it can be demonstrated that PREVENTING copying is a violation of another’s right to life (both myself and Bala did this on that SOLO site). Hence, laws against copying are category 2 laws.
Therefore, however immoral you or anyone else may personally believe it to be, society should not enact laws to prevent copying.
Published: January 28, 2010 2:07 PM
Mark Hubbard
You don’t speak to the issue Jay. As you know, there is a much more fundamental issue here, being, that the anti-IP lobby are seeking to destroy the notion of property. Nothing less.
A freedom movement has nowhere to go from that point.
Published: January 28, 2010 2:20 PM
Jay Lakner
Mark Hubbard,
I stand corrected. You’ve clearly shown that you don’t believe lying to be immoral. My bad.
Published: January 28, 2010 2:34 PM
Mark Hubbard
And now you turn as slippery as Kinsella. You seem to want to imply from time to time you have no real agenda – nor philosophy – but an agenda you surely do.
Yes, lying is immoral, as is file sharing, as is advocacy of no-IP.
Published: January 28, 2010 2:54 PM
Jay Lakner
Mark Hubbard wrote:
“As you know, there is a much more fundamental issue here, being, that the anti-IP lobby are seeking to destroy the notion of property. Nothing less.”
This is a lie. And you know it. You know very well that the anti-IP lobby are not seeking to destroy the notion of property. The anti-IP lobby are simply questioning the legitimacy of patterns and ideas as a form of property. But everyone here in the anti-IP camp are in full support of property. You know that.
You make a statement you know not to be true and then say you believe lying to be immoral.
Own up to the fact that the anti-IP crowd are not the group of immoral thieves you first thought them to be. They are making logical arguments.
I don’t make wild accusations of the pro-IP camp being in some conspiracy to promote facism. I have sort to understand their opinion and I respect their attempts to logically demonstrate it. I disagree with them, but I understand how and why they came to their conclusions.
It would be far more intellectually constructive for all parties if you shared the same attitude.
p.s. The lie comment was actually an attempt at humor. I guess it failed miserably.
p.p.s. Yes I do have an agenda. No it is not world domination. I am simply seeking the truth.
Published: January 28, 2010 3:22 PM
antiip
@Mark Hubbard:
Please think about the following situation:
Person P lives alone on an island (island 1). There are some objects on this island. Person P owns them.
These are:
A piece of paper
A pencil
some wood
some metal
some tools
Person X lives on another island (island 2), on which there live many more people. There also does exist some kind of minarchist government (including a patent office and laws regulating copyright).
Person X writes a novel and invents a new gimmick, which consists of metal and wood. He gets a patent for the from the patent office.
What about person P now?
1) Did he lose some rights to his property because person X got a patent on island 2? Isn’t he allowed to combine the objects he has on any possible and imaginable way anymore?
2) Isn’t he allowed anymore to write anything down on his piece of paper that he wants?
3) Do you really think that property rights are not absolute, even if someone lived on an island alone?
Please answer those questions. Please do not try to circumvent them. Lying is not moral.
Published: January 29, 2010 6:57 AM