Intellectual Property same as Material Property
darwinist
someone breaks into your house and takes it and now your books are all
over the floor.
Material Property: You invent a better bookshelf and it works well,
but someone sees it and starts making their own and now your books are
all over the floor.
Material Property: Someone takes a camera from your store, that you'd
made accessible to browsers, and walks out without paying. Later on
that day you notice it's missing.
Intellectual Property: Someone downloads a bunch of photos that you
made accessible to web-browsers. Later that day you notice the files
are missing from your computer.
Material Property: A trespasser promises not to touch anything, so you
let them stay. Then more come with the same excuse until you can't get
around your own land without strangers blocking your path.
Intellectual Property: A stranger promises not to harm your movie, so
you let them make a copy. Then they let others copy from their copy,
until you can't watch it anymore without strangers' eyes getting in
the way.
Material Property: You lend a friend your bike but it gets broken from
their recklessly fast riding, so you can't ride to the shops like you
were planning.
Intellectual Property: You share a song you wrote with a friend over
the internet but it gets distorted from their recklessly fast
downloading, so you can't listen to it while you're riding to the
shops like you were planning.
etc.
Intellectual property laws need to be respected, otherwise your photos
would vanish, your books would be all over the floor, your view would
be blocked by other people and your songs would be unlistenable.
Take heed before its too late and we devolve into informational
anarchy. No one will be able to create or communicate anything,
society will crumble.
We must:
- Jail mp3-sharers for life
- Recall computers that don't have copy-protection
- Make buskers pay royalties.
- Remove the internet from college campuses
Publius
@p77g2000hsh.googlegroups.com:
> Intellectual property laws need to be respected, otherwise your photos
> would vanish, your books would be all over the floor, your view would
> be blocked by other people and your songs would be unlistenable.
Nope. That is not the problem. You see, the producers of the movies and
software did not produce them for their own use or amusement. They produced
them for sale. So it is completely irrelevant that others' uses do not
interfere their own uses. The problem is that the benefits they expected to
realize from those products --- which is the reason they were produced in the
first place --- are being stolen from them by moochers.
It is rather like a movie theater. The owner does not build it in order to
provide a place where he can watch movies. He builds it to sell tickets. The
software moocher is freeloader who sneaks in the back door during
intermission. Like the sneak thief at the movie theater, the IP moochers
should be thrown out on their ears, and none too gently. If that doesn't
work, and they can't learn to keep their hands off other people's property,
then there is no alternative but to lock them up in cages.
g28401
> darwinist <darwin...@gmail.com> wrote in news:1179467885.008858.209810
The fact is, as long as the internet exists, people will share mp3's,
although record companies and the RIAA overreact. Most people will
buy the CD, if they find they like the music. *sigh* silly RIAA...
J. Horikx
>Intellectual property laws need to be respected, otherwise your photos
>would vanish, your books would be all over the floor, your view would
>be blocked by other people and your songs would be unlistenable.
??
There has always been music (these are archeological findings in
China: http://www.bnl.gov/bnlweb/pubaf/photos/FLUTES.jpg ) What is
relatively new is the rise not of the music-industry but of the dis-
tribution-industry. (This came more or less parallel with the phono-
graph c.q. turntable and the radio).
But nowadays we dont need these apparatus anymore. If I had some
musical talent I could play the piano (or whatever) and place my
mp3-files directly on the Net, if I wanted to. The (old) Chinese
didn't have this choice, but appearently they made music and probably
they still do (with or without the Internet).
So what is your problem?
JH
Immortalist
> On 17 May 2007 22:58:05 -0700, darwinist <darwin...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> >Intellectual property laws need to be respected, otherwise your photos
> >would vanish, your books would be all over the floor, your view would
> >be blocked by other people and your songs would be unlistenable.
>
> ??
>
> There has always been music (these are archeological findings in
> relatively new is the rise not of the music-industry but of the dis-
> tribution-industry. (This came more or less parallel with the phono-
> graph c.q. turntable and the radio).
>
> But nowadays we dont need these apparatus anymore. If I had some
> musical talent I could play the piano (or whatever) and place my
> mp3-files directly on the Net, if I wanted to. The (old) Chinese
> didn't have this choice, but appearently they made music and probably
> they still do (with or without the Internet).
>
> So what is your problem?
>
> JH
The little problem of some hardwired neural structures that probably
promote some imprintable degree of "fairness" called Reciprocal
altruism upon their structures.
In evolutionary biology, reciprocal altruism is a form of altruism in
which one organism provides a benefit to another in the expectation of
future reciprocation. This is equivalent to the Tit for tat strategy
in game theory. It would only be expected to evolve in the presence of
a mechanism to identify and punish "cheaters". An example of
reciprocal altruism is blood-sharing in the vampire bat, in which bats
feed regurgitated blood to those who have not collected much blood
themselves knowing that they themselves may someday benefit from this
same donation; cheaters are remembered by the colony and ousted from
this collaboration.
In a series of ground-breaking contributions to biology in the early
1970s Robert Trivers introduced the theories of reciprocal altruism
(1971), parental investment (1972), and parent-offspring conflict
(1974). Trivers' paper "The Evolution of Reciprocal Altruism" (1971)
elaborates the mathematics of reciprocal altruism and includes human
reciprocal altruism as one of the three examples used to illustrate
the model, arguing that "it can be shown that the details of the
psychological system that regulates this altruism can be explained by
this model." In particular, Trivers argues for the following
characteristics as functional processes subserving reciprocal
altruism:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reciprocal_altruism
...we must distinguish two basic forms of cooperative behavior. The
altruistic impulse can be irrational and unilaterally directed at
others; the bestower expresses no desire for equal return and performs
no unconscious actions leading to the same end. I have called this
form of behavior "hard-core"altruism, a set of responses relatively
unaffected by social reward or punishment beyond childhood. Where such
behavior exists, it is likely to have evolved through kin selection or
natural selection operating on entire, competing family or tribal
units. We would expect hard-core altruism to serve the altruist's
closest relatives and to decline steeply in frequency and intensity as
relationship becomes more distant "Soft-core altruism, in contrast, is
ultimately selfish. The "altruist" expects reciprocation from society
for himself or his closest relatives. His good behavior is
calculating, often in a wholly conscious way, and his maneuvers are
orchestrated by the excruciatingly intricate sanctions and demands of
society. The capacity for soft-core altruism can be expected to have
evolved primarily by selection of individuals and to be deeply
influenced by the vagaries of cultural evolution. Its psychological
vehicles are lying, pretense, and deceit, including self-deceit,
because the actor is most convincing who believes that his performance
is real...
...But in human beings soft-core altruism has been carried to
elaborate extremes. Reciprocation among distantly related or unrelated
individuals is the key to human society. The perfection of the social
contract has broken the ancient vertebrate constraints imposed by
rigid kin selection. Through the convention of reciprocation, combined
with a flexible, endlessly productive language and a genius for verbal
classification, human beings fashion long-remembered agreements upon
which cultures and civilizations can be built.
..it is a remarkable fact that all human altruism is shaped by
powerful emotional controls of the kind intuitively expected to occur
in its hardest forms. Moral aggression is most intensely expressed in
the enforcement of reciprocation. The cheat, the turncoat, the
apostate, and the traitor are objects of universal hatred. Honor and
loyalty are reinforced by the stiffest codes. It seems probable that
learning rules, based on innate, primary reinforcement, lead human
beings to acquire these values and not others with reference to
members of their own group. The rules are the symmetrical counterparts
to the canalized development of territoriality and xenophobia, which
are the equally emotional attitudes directed toward members of other
groups.
I will go further to speculate that the deep structure of altruistic
behavior, based on learning rules and emotional safeguards, is rigid
and universal. It generates a set of predictable group responses...
On Human Nature - Edward O. Wilson 1978
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/067463442X/
In economics, collective bargaining, and political science, free
riders are actors who consume more than their fair share of a
resource, or shoulder less than a fair share of the costs of its
production. The free rider problem is the question of how to prevent
free riding from taking place, or at least limit its negative effects.
Because the notion of 'fairness' is controversial, free riding is
usually only considered to be an economic "problem" when it leads to
the non-production or under-production of a public good, and thus to
Pareto inefficiency, or when it leads to the excessive use of a common
property resource.
A common example of a free rider problem is defense spending: no
person can be excluded from being defended by a state's military
forces, and thus free riders may refuse or avoid paying for being
defended, even though they are still as well guarded as those who
contribute to the state's efforts. Therefore, it is usual for the
government to avoid relying on volunteer donations, using taxes and
conscription instead.
In the labor union context, a free rider is an employee who pays no
union dues or agency shop fees, but nonetheless receives the same
benefits of union representation as dues-payers. Under U.S. law,
unions owe a duty of fair representation to all workers they
represent, regardless of whether they pay dues. Some jurists,
including Antonin Scalia have questioned the fairness, if not the
legality, of this practice.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_rider_problem
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ostracism
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shunning
Remember all this applies to anyone moving outside of the locally
imprinted instincts as for what is considered a fair deal there.
Wordsmith
Artists, of course, should be reasonably compensated for their
efforts, but their
fans shouldn't be gouged, either. There's a growing trend toward ala
carte, pick-and-
choose-the-specific-track-you-want buying which, as far as I can see,
is good.
W : )
ro...@telus.net
<m.pu...@nospam.comcast.net> wrote:
>darwinist <darw...@gmail.com> wrote in news:1179467885.008858.209810
>@p77g2000hsh.googlegroups.com:
>
>> Intellectual property laws need to be respected, otherwise your photos
>> would vanish, your books would be all over the floor, your view would
>> be blocked by other people and your songs would be unlistenable.
>
>Nope. That is not the problem. You see, the producers of the movies and
>software did not produce them for their own use or amusement. They produced
>them for sale. So it is completely irrelevant that others' uses do not
>interfere their own uses. The problem is that the benefits they expected to
>realize from those products --- which is the reason they were produced in the
>first place --- are being stolen from them by moochers.
I see. So, if I buy a taxi medallion or a sugar quota in the
expectation of being able to pocket some economic rent, that
extinguishes everyohne else's rights to provide taxi service or import
sugar, and even obliges government to maintain the medallion and quota
systems as long as anyone has expended any effort or invested any
money in the expectation of profiting by them?
<sigh> At least you're consistent, Puby -- a consistent enemy of
freedom, justice and truth, that is.
>It is rather like a movie theater. The owner does not build it in order to
>provide a place where he can watch movies. He builds it to sell tickets. The
>software moocher is freeloader who sneaks in the back door during
>intermission.
Ah, no, actually. The movie theater's owner has created a building
that he rightly owns, and can therefore rightly deprive others of
access to without depriving them of anything they would otherwise have
had access to (assuming he is appropriately compensating the community
for depriving others of access to the land, of course).
The IP rent seeker, by contrast, is more like the proprietor of a
drive-in movie theater who demands that government force anyone who
can see the show from the hills above his establishment to pay him the
full admission fee he charges those who choose to patronize it, and to
throw into prison any of them who decline to be thus robbed.
>Like the sneak thief at the movie theater, the IP moochers
>should be thrown out on their ears, and none too gently.
And the people living in the hills above the drive-in who decline to
comply with the drive-in owner's exactions should likewise be thrown
out of their homes with sufficient judicious brutality to teach them a
good lesson -- the lesson that they have no rights that might conflict
with the sacrament of Property?
And when you say, "none too gently," do you mean that those people
should be beaten with clubs so that they have some broken bones to
remind them that the financial interests of the owners of Property
take priority over what they so naively thought were their human
rights? Or are you saying that they should merely be publicly
stripped, fastened to a post by the wrists, and flogged until they
either faint with pain or the drive-in owner is satisfied with the
volume of their screams and blood?
>If that doesn't
>work, and they can't learn to keep their hands off other people's property,
>then there is no alternative but to lock them up in cages.
Oh, I don't know. A nice, secure, barbed-wire enclosure with machine
gun towers should do the job well enough. There could be a factory
where sinners against the great god Property would work off their
debts to the drive-in's owner (but really, why pretend it would ever
be possible for them to "work off" their property-less and thus
right-less condition? They will owe everything they produce to the
camp's owner, in rent...). The cost of their re-education could be
recouped by making them available to pharmaceutical companies for
medical experiments (have to keep those drug patents coming, after
all). When they have no more use for their skin, it could be made
into lampshades, any remaining adipose tissue into soap, etc....
Too bad you couldn't quite contain the naked lust for power over
others that lies behind all your high-falutin' propertarian rhetoric,
Puby.
-- Roy L
Publius
>>Nope. That is not the problem. You see, the producers of the movies and
>>software did not produce them for their own use or amusement. They
>>produced them for sale. So it is completely irrelevant that others' uses
>>do not interfere their own uses. The problem is that the benefits they
>>expected to realize from those products --- which is the reason they
>>were produced in the first place --- are being stolen from them by
>>moochers.
> I see. So, if I buy a taxi medallion or a sugar quota in the
> expectation of being able to pocket some economic rent, that
> extinguishes everyohne else's rights to provide taxi service or import
> sugar, and even obliges government to maintain the medallion and quota
> systems as long as anyone has expended any effort or invested any
> money in the expectation of profiting by them?
Well, no. But I can see why you are confused, given your basic
misconceptions regarding the nature of property, rights, value, subsidy,
monopoly, etc. You've managed to redefine all those terms into a texture of
nonsense it will probably take you some time to unravel and re-weave. No
doubt some Newspeak definition of "quota" has a thread in that fabric
somewhere.
The government doesn't set any "quotas" on software or inventions. You may
bring any software to market you like, as long as it is not someone else's
software. Your confusion on this point is due, of course, to your contrived
definition of "property" --- you have redefined that term so that only
configurations of matter with spatiotemporal locations can be property,
hence the only "property" one could possibly have in a computer program is
the CD on which it is recorded, i.e., a material embodiment of that
software.
Once you figure out what "property" is --- that it is a moral term having
only moral and no physical parameters --- then your pseudo-theory will
begin to unravel. But I'm sure you'll struggle mightily to darn the holes,
lest the fabric fail to cloak your efforts to steal some "free" software to
use on your "free" land.
>>It is rather like a movie theater. The owner does not build it in order
>>to provide a place where he can watch movies. He builds it to sell
>>tickets. The software moocher is freeloader who sneaks in the back door
>>during intermission.
>
> Ah, no, actually. The movie theater's owner has created a building
> that he rightly owns, and can therefore rightly deprive others of
> access to without depriving them of anything they would otherwise have
> had access to (assuming he is appropriately compensating the community
> for depriving others of access to the land, of course).
Hmm. There is that incoherent "otherwise would have had" phrase again.
Would software moochers "otherwise" have had DOOM if John Carmack had not
written it? We'll pass over the "compensation" business, resting as it does
on the fanciful "primordial common ownership" dogma.
> The IP rent seeker, by contrast, is more like the proprietor of a
> drive-in movie theater who demands that government force anyone who
> can see the show from the hills above his establishment to pay him the
> full admission fee he charges those who choose to patronize it, and to
> throw into prison any of them who decline to be thus robbed.
Oh, no. Roy. If Warner Bros. beams "300" into my living room I shall
certainly be free to watch it. But if I buy a ticket to the movie, then
surrepititiously tape the movie and peddle it on the Net, I would expect
the studio to object. Were the company owned by Muslims they might cut off
my hands.
>> If that doesn't
>> work, and they can't learn to keep their hands off other people's
>> property, then there is no alternative but to lock them up in cages.
>
> Oh, I don't know. A nice, secure, barbed-wire enclosure with machine
> gun towers should do the job well enough.
Yes, that should work too.
ro...@telus.net
<m.pu...@nospam.comcast.net> wrote:
>ro...@telus.net wrote in news:464db282...@news.telus.net:
>
>>>Nope. That is not the problem. You see, the producers of the movies and
>>>software did not produce them for their own use or amusement. They
>>>produced them for sale. So it is completely irrelevant that others' uses
>>>do not interfere their own uses. The problem is that the benefits they
>>>expected to realize from those products --- which is the reason they
>>>were produced in the first place --- are being stolen from them by
>>>moochers.
>
>> I see. So, if I buy a taxi medallion or a sugar quota in the
>> expectation of being able to pocket some economic rent, that
>> extinguishes everyohne else's rights to provide taxi service or import
>> sugar, and even obliges government to maintain the medallion and quota
>> systems as long as anyone has expended any effort or invested any
>> money in the expectation of profiting by them?
>
>Well, no. But I can see why you are confused,
I'm not confused, pal. I'm identifying the inescapable logical
implications of your own brain-dead claims.
>given your basic
>misconceptions regarding the nature of property, rights, value, subsidy,
>monopoly, etc.
<yawn> You have a long way to go before you will be able to hold your
own in a discussion of any of those subjects with me, champ.
>You've managed to redefine all those terms into a texture of
>nonsense it will probably take you some time to unravel and re-weave.
I haven't redefined them. _You_ have. I'm using the standard
dictionary definitions. _You_ are the one who has to constantly
redefine terms to suit your false, bizarre, and evil beliefs.
>No
>doubt some Newspeak definition of "quota" has a thread in that fabric
>somewhere.
Wrong again.
>The government doesn't set any "quotas" on software or inventions.
<yawn> Nice attempt to divert attention from the subject at hand with
a strawman. The government stops people from competing in use of
publicly available information the same as it stops competition with
medallion taxis or quota sugar importers.
>You may
>bring any software to market you like, as long as it is not someone else's
>software.
Lie. Software patents prevent you from marketing your _own_ software
if it performs actions that have been made into somebody's property by
government fiat. Furthermore, you are begging the question: what
makes you think that something I have copied is not mine (other than
an equivocation on the term, "mine," that is)? If I go into a museum
and copy an old master, is the copy not mine?
>Your confusion on this point is due, of course, to your contrived
>definition of "property"
Contrived... by the dictionary?
ROTFL!!
Ah, no.
It is _your_ propertarian propaganda definition that is contrived.
>you have redefined that term so that only
>configurations of matter with spatiotemporal locations can be property,
>hence the only "property" one could possibly have in a computer program is
>the CD on which it is recorded, i.e., a material embodiment of that
>software.
_Private_ information can be property, but not information in the
public domain.
>Once you figure out what "property" is --- that it is a moral term having
>only moral and no physical parameters
Property is a societal construct. Learn it, or continue to talk
nonsense on the subject permanently. "X is P's property" means that
society recognizes and will secure P's power to possess, control,
benefit from and transfer X.
>then your pseudo-theory will begin to unravel.
In your dreams, sunshine.
>But I'm sure you'll struggle mightily to darn the holes,
>lest the fabric fail to cloak your efforts to steal some "free" software
Copying isn't stealing, liar, as I already proved to you, above, by
the example of copying a painting. You are just lying again.
>to use on your "free" land.
<yawn> Simple question, liar: did land all start out free or not?
Yes or no?
And another simple question: do I have a right to watch the drive-in
movie from outside the premises or not? Yes or no?
>>>It is rather like a movie theater. The owner does not build it in order
>>>to provide a place where he can watch movies. He builds it to sell
>>>tickets. The software moocher is freeloader who sneaks in the back door
>>>during intermission.
>>
>> Ah, no, actually. The movie theater's owner has created a building
>> that he rightly owns, and can therefore rightly deprive others of
>> access to without depriving them of anything they would otherwise have
>> had access to (assuming he is appropriately compensating the community
>> for depriving others of access to the land, of course).
>
>Hmm. There is that incoherent "otherwise would have had" phrase again.
It is of course not incoherent in the least. You just refuse to know
the facts it identifies, because they disprove your false beliefs.
>Would software moochers "otherwise" have had DOOM if John Carmack had not
>written it?
His _writing_ of it is not the point, because writing it does not make
it available to others. IOW, if he just _writes_ it, they would not
otherwise have had access to it. Once he releases it into the public
domain by selling it, however, the situation has changed: it is no
longer private but public. The retroactive _privatization_ of it
_after_ its release to the public is the point. If he wanted to keep
it private, he should not have released it into the public domain,
like the drive-in owner.
>We'll pass over the "compensation" business, resting as it does
>on the fanciful "primordial common ownership" dogma.
<yawn> Same old lie.
>> The IP rent seeker, by contrast, is more like the proprietor of a
>> drive-in movie theater who demands that government force anyone who
>> can see the show from the hills above his establishment to pay him the
>> full admission fee he charges those who choose to patronize it, and to
>> throw into prison any of them who decline to be thus robbed.
>
>Oh, no. Roy.
Oh, _YES_, Puby.
>If Warner Bros. beams "300" into my living room I shall
>certainly be free to watch it.
Likewise if it places it in the public domain by releasing it in a
form that is easily copied.
>But if I buy a ticket to the movie, then
>surrepititiously tape the movie and peddle it on the Net, I would expect
>the studio to object.
If the studio objects, they can take it up with you. It's none of
government's damn business.
>Were the company owned by Muslims they might cut off my hands.
And I realize you have a lot of sympathy with that approach, but
civilized, rational people do things somewhat differently.
>>> If that doesn't
>>> work, and they can't learn to keep their hands off other people's
>>> property, then there is no alternative but to lock them up in cages.
>>
>> Oh, I don't know. A nice, secure, barbed-wire enclosure with machine
>> gun towers should do the job well enough.
>
>Yes, that should work too.
Thank you for confirming that you are evil.
-- Roy L
darwinist
> darwinist <darwin...@gmail.com> wrote in news:1179467885.008858.209810
> @p77g2000hsh.googlegroups.com:
>
> > Intellectual property laws need to be respected, otherwise your photos
> > would vanish, your books would be all over the floor, your view would
> > be blocked by other people and your songs would be unlistenable.
>
> Nope. That is not the problem. You see, the producers of the movies and
> software did not produce them for their own use or amusement. They produced
> them for sale. So it is completely irrelevant that others' uses do not
> interfere their own uses. The problem is that the benefits they expected to
> realize from those products --- which is the reason they were produced in the
> first place --- are being stolen from them by moochers.
Any law, fair or not, just or not, creates an expectation for people
living under it. Expectation of this kind does not mean the law is
practical or fair. If there was a law against listening to broadcast
radio without paying each station directly for every song you heard,
then the broadcasters would be expecting (at least some of) this
payment when they invested in their broadcast equipment/licence. This
expectation is present if the law is present, and absent if the law is
absent. The expectation is valid (realistic) if the law exists, but
whether the law is valid is another question.
> It is rather like a movie theater. The owner does not build it in order to
> provide a place where he can watch movies. He builds it to sell tickets. The
> software moocher is freeloader who sneaks in the back door during
> intermission.
As with the trespassing example I gave, your movie theatre analogy is
just plain wrong. My analogy was wrong on purpose to point out how
ludicrous it is, but I think you probably meant it, so allow me to
elaborate:
Copying a movie is like magically enlarging the movie theatre,
creating enough space to fit another seat, bringing your own seat, and
sitting on it, all without interrupting the adjacent land around the
theatre, or the other patrons in the theatre. If you could enlarge
property without interrupting adjacent property or the occupants of
the existing property, our land-laws would be substantially different.
More realistically, as another posted as pointed out, it's like seeing
a drive-in movie for free from a hill, or your own roof.
> Like the sneak thief at the movie theater, the IP moochers
> should be thrown out on their ears, and none too gently.
Thrown out of where?
> If that doesn't
> work, and they can't learn to keep their hands off other people's property,
> then there is no alternative but to lock them up in cages.
What percentage of file-sharers do you think, say, the united-states
could actually lock-up, given its world-leading prison-population?
Release the non-violent drug-offenders maybe and declare a war on
copying.
darwinist
> On 17 May 2007 22:58:05 -0700, darwinist <darwin...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> >Intellectual property laws need to be respected, otherwise your photos
> >would vanish, your books would be all over the floor, your view would
> >be blocked by other people and your songs would be unlistenable.
>
> ??
>
> There has always been music (these are archeological findings in
> relatively new is the rise not of the music-industry but of the dis-
> tribution-industry. (This came more or less parallel with the phono-
> graph c.q. turntable and the radio).
>
> But nowadays we dont need these apparatus anymore. If I had some
> musical talent I could play the piano (or whatever) and place my
> mp3-files directly on the Net, if I wanted to. The (old) Chinese
> didn't have this choice, but appearently they made music and probably
> they still do (with or without the Internet).
>
> So what is your problem?
I was joking. Have a look at the examples I gave, they are not even
remotely realistic.
> JH
Publius
news:1179708889.4...@r3g2000prh.googlegroups.com:
>> Nope. That is not the problem. You see, the producers of the movies and
>> software did not produce them for their own use or amusement. They
>> produced them for sale. So it is completely irrelevant that others'
>> uses do not interfere their own uses. The problem is that the benefits
>> they expected to realize from those products --- which is the reason
>> they were produced in the first place --- are being stolen from them by
>> moochers.
> Any law, fair or not, just or not, creates an expectation for people
> living under it.
Perfectly true, provided the law is more-or-less effectively enforced. The
expectation here, however, is primarily moral, not legal. It is the same
expecation I have that if I park my car on a public street it will not be
stolen by the first passerby while I'm busy shopping. Or that if I display
my wares in a public market, they will not be pilfered by every passerby.
It is the basic expectation of everyone who lives in a social setting that
others can recognize what is and what is not their property, and will
respect those limits.
It is also the expectation that agreements, once made, will be kept. E.g.,
Hertz's expectation that if they rent you a car to be returned at a certain
time, that you will not drive it to Mexico and sell it, or Microsoft's that
if they license Windows to you "for personal use only," that you will not
copy and sell their software. Laws are enacted to enforce those pre-
existing expectations; they do not create them.
> If there was a law against listening to broadcast
> radio without paying each station directly for every song you heard,
> then the broadcasters would be expecting (at least some of) this
> payment when they invested in their broadcast equipment/licence.
If the station makes its product publicly available for public use under
certain conditions, then the public is obligated to respect those
conditions, else forego using the product. It would probably not be cost-
effective to try enforcing a law in that case, however. That is a different
issue (see below).
>> It is rather like a movie theater. The owner does not build it in order
>> to provide a place where he can watch movies. He builds it to sell
>> tickets. The software moocher is freeloader who sneaks in the back door
>> during intermission.
> Copying a movie is like magically enlarging the movie theatre,
> creating enough space to fit another seat, bringing your own seat, and
> sitting on it, all without interrupting the adjacent land around the
> theatre, or the other patrons in the theatre. If you could enlarge
> property without interrupting adjacent property or the occupants of
> the existing property, our land-laws would be substantially different.
The underlying premise there is that IP consists of non-rivalrous goods ---
that anyone can use them without depriving others of use or imposing
additional production costs on the producers. Which is irrelevant. The
movie is produced for the benefit of its producers, not the public. It is
produced to earn revenue for the producers, not to confer benefits on the
public. So the fact that more of the public can receive benefits without
further *cost* to the producers is beside the point. The only relevant
question is, Are others receiving benefits from the product without paying
for them? If so, then those others are stealing, because the only persons
entitled to *any* benefit from that property, as with all property, are its
owners. Any benefits going to others absent the permission of the owner are
stolen goods.
The movie theater too, BTW, is a non-rivalrous good, up to its seating
capacity. It becomes rivalrous only at that limit. Most theaters, for most
showings, are not filled to capacity. So per your theory, whenever there
are unsold seats in the theater, free-lunchers should feel free to sneak
in. After all, it will cost the owner no more to show the movie for 400
people than 200, and none of the free-lunchers will displace a paying
patron.
> More realistically, as another posted as pointed out, it's like seeing
> a drive-in movie for free from a hill, or your own roof.
That is an entirely different story. This theater owner is delivering his
product to my doorstep, without any invitation from me or contract with me.
I need not go to extraordinary lengths to *avoid* benefits the owner is
conferring indiscriminately.
> What percentage of file-sharers do you think, say, the united-states
> could actually lock-up, given its world-leading prison-population?
> Release the non-violent drug-offenders maybe and declare a war on
> copying.
The practicality of enforcement of IP laws is a separate question from the
morality of IP theft. It is not clear to what extent the financial burden
of enforcing those laws should be borne by the public. Perhaps a rule-of-
thumb might be, the public should incur no greater expense in enforcing IP
laws than it does for protecting other classes of property, proportionate
to the value of the property.
I suspect a small group of Justice Department hackers and investigators
could probably shut down virtually all "commercial" IP pirating in the US
(pirating undertaken for profit). Those guys get prison terms. Actions
against casual pirating for personal use should probably be left to the
property owners, via civil proceedings or by forwarding investigative
results to local prosecutors and filing misdemeanor theft complaints.
The moral issue, though, is as simple as it can be: Is Alfie deriving some
benefit from a good he did not discover or produce, without the permission
of the person who *did* discover or produce that good? If so, then Alfie is
a thief. That precept is of course anathema to free-lunchers.
darwinist
> darwinist <darwin...@gmail.com> wrote innews:1179708889.4...@r3g2000prh.googlegroups.com:
>
> >> Nope. That is not the problem. You see, the producers of the movies and
> >> software did not produce them for their own use or amusement. They
> >> produced them for sale. So it is completely irrelevant that others'
> >> uses do not interfere their own uses. The problem is that the benefits
> >> they expected to realize from those products --- which is the reason
> >> they were produced in the first place --- are being stolen from them by
> >> moochers.
> > Any law, fair or not, just or not, creates an expectation for people
> > living under it.
>
> Perfectly true, provided the law is more-or-less effectively enforced. The
> expectation here, however, is primarily moral, not legal. It is the same
> expecation I have that if I park my car on a public street it will not be
> stolen by the first passerby while I'm busy shopping. Or that if I display
> my wares in a public market, they will not be pilfered by every passerby.
> It is the basic expectation of everyone who lives in a social setting that
> others can recognize what is and what is not their property, and will
> respect those limits.
If such a basic expectation exists for "everyone who lives in a social
setting", if people could agree on and abide by a working definition
of property, then the laws wouldn't be necessary. Property laws differ
from one social-setting to the next precisely because there is no such
basic expectation, but rather it's a matter of local/regional
convention.
> It is also the expectation that agreements, once made, will be kept. E.g.,
> Hertz's expectation that if they rent you a car to be returned at a certain
> time, that you will not drive it to Mexico and sell it, or Microsoft's that
> if they license Windows to you "for personal use only," that you will not
> copy and sell their software. Laws are enacted to enforce those pre-
> existing expectations; they do not create them.
Copyrights and patents, for example, still apply in the absence of any
contract or agreement with the consumer, and therefore many goods
covered by these laws don't include such an agreement. Non-disclosure
contracts are not what we're talking about.
> > If there was a law against listening to broadcast
> > radio without paying each station directly for every song you heard,
> > then the broadcasters would be expecting (at least some of) this
> > payment when they invested in their broadcast equipment/licence.
>
> If the station makes its product publicly available for public use under
> certain conditions, then the public is obligated to respect those
> conditions, else forego using the product.
In the absence such law, the public is not obligated to abide by such
conditions that the station may wish to impose. If a radio station
says "anyone who's not in postcode 1234 is not allowed to listen to
this" or "anyone who is listening send me five dollars or turn off
your radio", they would not be taken seriously, and for good reason.
That's not a realistic rule for property. There are always
uncontrollable benefits which the owner is not entitled to precisely
because they're not controllable. Broadcasters might not want people
to record a show for watching later, but they can't expect to stop
them and in many places aren't allowed to try. A new shop might
increase traffic for other shops in the area, which is clearly a
benefit for the other shop owners but the owner of the popular shop
can't charge them for the extra traffic. When someone exhales some
unused oxygen it's not up to them who breathes it in. There's are
certain publicly accessible benefits that no one can expect to
control. Property laws need to take such pragmatics into account.
> The movie theater too, BTW, is a non-rivalrous good, up to its seating
> capacity. It becomes rivalrous only at that limit. Most theaters, for most
> showings, are not filled to capacity. So per your theory, whenever there
> are unsold seats in the theater, free-lunchers should feel free to sneak
> in. After all, it will cost the owner no more to show the movie for 400
> people than 200, and none of the free-lunchers will displace a paying
> patron.
If sneaking in were not illegal then there would be nothing to stop
the sneaks going in over-capacity, so the aisles would be clogged, not
to mention the theatre lobby. For all kinds of trespassing laws,
theatre or otherwise, this is the main justification, that in the
absence of the rule, land is very quickly a rivalrous good.
> > More realistically, as another posted as pointed out, it's like seeing
> > a drive-in movie for free from a hill, or your own roof.
>
> That is an entirely different story. This theater owner is delivering his
> product to my doorstep, without any invitation from me or contract with me.
> I need not go to extraordinary lengths to *avoid* benefits the owner is
> conferring indiscriminately.
It's indiscriminate in practice but so are free-to-air tv channels,
web-pages, and, as long as you've got the purchase price, most
published media.
> > What percentage of file-sharers do you think, say, the united-states
> > could actually lock-up, given its world-leading prison-population?
> > Release the non-violent drug-offenders maybe and declare a war on
> > copying.
>
> The practicality of enforcement of IP laws is a separate question from the
> morality of IP theft. It is not clear to what extent the financial burden
> of enforcing those laws should be borne by the public. Perhaps a rule-of-
> thumb might be, the public should incur no greater expense in enforcing IP
> laws than it does for protecting other classes of property, proportionate
> to the value of the property.
>
> I suspect a small group of Justice Department hackers and investigators
> could probably shut down virtually all "commercial" IP pirating in the US
> (pirating undertaken for profit). Those guys get prison terms. Actions
> against casual pirating for personal use should probably be left to the
> property owners, via civil proceedings or by forwarding investigative
> results to local prosecutors and filing misdemeanor theft complaints.
>
> The moral issue, though, is as simple as it can be: Is Alfie deriving some
> benefit from a good he did not discover or produce, without the permission
> of the person who *did* discover or produce that good? If so, then Alfie is
> a thief. That precept is of course anathema to free-lunchers.
That's not a realistic rule. When a producer sells a product, there is
rarely an agreement as to what benefits the buyer might derive from
it. In the absence of a specific agreement, the question of which
benefits might be derived is left up to the buyer.
ro...@telus.net
<m.pu...@nospam.comcast.net> wrote:
>darwinist <darw...@gmail.com> wrote in
>news:1179708889.4...@r3g2000prh.googlegroups.com:
>
>>> Nope. That is not the problem. You see, the producers of the movies and
>>> software did not produce them for their own use or amusement. They
>>> produced them for sale. So it is completely irrelevant that others'
>>> uses do not interfere their own uses. The problem is that the benefits
>>> they expected to realize from those products --- which is the reason
>>> they were produced in the first place --- are being stolen from them by
>>> moochers.
>
>> Any law, fair or not, just or not, creates an expectation for people
>> living under it.
>
>Perfectly true, provided the law is more-or-less effectively enforced. The
>expectation here, however, is primarily moral, not legal. It is the same
>expecation I have that if I park my car on a public street it will not be
>stolen by the first passerby while I'm busy shopping.
That analogy is of course just wrong and stupid. Watching the
drive-in from the hill does not deprive the owner of anything he would
otherwise have had. Copying is not stealing. Every time you try to
pretend it is, you just prove that you have no honest argument.
>Or that if I display
>my wares in a public market, they will not be pilfered by every passerby.
>It is the basic expectation of everyone who lives in a social setting that
>others can recognize what is and what is not their property, and will
>respect those limits.
Uh, stupid? If I copy a painting in a public gallery, the copy is my
property, not the gallery's and not the original artist's. Sorry.
>It is also the expectation that agreements, once made, will be kept. E.g.,
>Hertz's expectation that if they rent you a car to be returned at a certain
>time, that you will not drive it to Mexico and sell it, or Microsoft's that
>if they license Windows to you "for personal use only," that you will not
>copy and sell their software.
The people who did not enter into any such agreement are not bound by
it. Sorry.
>Laws are enacted to enforce those pre-
>existing expectations; they do not create them.
Garbage. In what sense does a taxi medallion law or sugar quota law
enforce pre-existing expectations? You are just spouting more of your
usual stupid garbage again.
>> If there was a law against listening to broadcast
>> radio without paying each station directly for every song you heard,
>> then the broadcasters would be expecting (at least some of) this
>> payment when they invested in their broadcast equipment/licence.
>
>If the station makes its product publicly available for public use under
>certain conditions, then the public is obligated to respect those
>conditions, else forego using the product.
No, stupid, it just flat-out _isn't_. If a girl dresses up in her
hottest outfit and walks down the street under the condition that any
man who enjoys looking at her owes her $20, no one, repeat, _NO_ONE_
is under _any_obligation_whatsoever_ to pay her a damn cent.
Learn it, Puby, or condemn yourself to talk nonsense on this subject
permanently.
>>> It is rather like a movie theater. The owner does not build it in order
>>> to provide a place where he can watch movies. He builds it to sell
>>> tickets. The software moocher is freeloader who sneaks in the back door
>>> during intermission.
>
>> Copying a movie is like magically enlarging the movie theatre,
>> creating enough space to fit another seat, bringing your own seat, and
>> sitting on it, all without interrupting the adjacent land around the
>> theatre, or the other patrons in the theatre. If you could enlarge
>> property without interrupting adjacent property or the occupants of
>> the existing property, our land-laws would be substantially different.
>
>The underlying premise there is that IP consists of non-rivalrous goods ---
>that anyone can use them without depriving others of use or imposing
>additional production costs on the producers. Which is irrelevant.
No, it is central.
>The movie is produced for the benefit of its producers, not the public.
<yawn> The girl in the hot outfit also did it for herself, not the
men.
Stupid.
>It is
>produced to earn revenue for the producers, not to confer benefits on the
>public.
Likewise the girl's appearance.
Stupid.
>So the fact that more of the public can receive benefits without
>further *cost* to the producers is beside the point.
No, stupid, it is not, as the case of the girl in the hot outfit just
flat-out _proves_.
Learn it, or condemn yourself to contiinue talking nonsense on this
subject permanently.
>The only relevant
>question is, Are others receiving benefits from the product without paying
>for them?
<yawn> The girl, Puby, the girl. _GET_IT_??
>If so, then those others are stealing,
?? ROTFL!!! Try not to be quite so stupid, stupid. Are the men who
look at the girl stealing? Don't be so stupid and dishonest, stupid,
evil liar.
>because the only persons
>entitled to *any* benefit from that property, as with all property, are its
>owners.
<yawn> Like the girl owns her body and her clothes, so no one is
entitled to enjoy looking at her as she walks down the steet without
paying her?
_Man_, are you stupid.
>Any benefits going to others absent the permission of the owner are
>stolen goods.
ROTFL!! If a girl on the street doesn't want me to enjoy looking at
her, I'm _stealing_ from her if I do???
Congrats on proving that you are a stupid, lying lunatic.
>The movie theater too, BTW, is a non-rivalrous good, up to its seating
>capacity. It becomes rivalrous only at that limit.
No, stupid, because there are good seats and bad seats, and people
prefer not to have others in the seats all around them.
>Most theaters, for most
>showings, are not filled to capacity. So per your theory, whenever there
>are unsold seats in the theater, free-lunchers should feel free to sneak
>in.
Strawman. Inevitably.
>After all, it will cost the owner no more to show the movie for 400
>people than 200, and none of the free-lunchers will displace a paying
>patron.
The movie theater is a private space. Information that has been
released to the public is in the public domain, just like the girl
walking down the street.
>> More realistically, as another posted as pointed out, it's like seeing
>> a drive-in movie for free from a hill, or your own roof.
>
>That is an entirely different story.
Oh, no, it ain't, Puby baby.
>This theater owner is delivering his
>product to my doorstep, without any invitation from me or contract with me.
Like the writer, movie producer, software company, etc. who release
their products to the public.
>I need not go to extraordinary lengths to *avoid* benefits the owner is
>conferring indiscriminately.
Or any lengths at all. In fact, you are free to enjoy those products
all you like, just as you are free to look at the girl on the street
without paying her. Just not legally.
>> What percentage of file-sharers do you think, say, the united-states
>> could actually lock-up, given its world-leading prison-population?
>> Release the non-violent drug-offenders maybe and declare a war on
>> copying.
>
>The practicality of enforcement of IP laws is a separate question from the
>morality of IP theft.
There is no such thing as IP theft, and the fact that IP laws are not
enforceable is very good evidence that they are unjust.
>It is not clear to what extent the financial burden
>of enforcing those laws should be borne by the public.
It is clear that the laws should not exist in the first place.
>Perhaps a rule-of-
>thumb might be, the public should incur no greater expense in enforcing IP
>laws than it does for protecting other classes of property, proportionate
>to the value of the property.
How about the rule of thumb that if you want your information to be
your private property, you don't release it to the public?
>I suspect a small group of Justice Department hackers and investigators
>could probably shut down virtually all "commercial" IP pirating in the US
>(pirating undertaken for profit). Those guys get prison terms.
<yawn> For looking at the girl on the street without paying her?
>The moral issue, though, is as simple as it can be: Is Alfie deriving some
>benefit from a good he did not discover or produce, without the permission
>of the person who *did* discover or produce that good? If so, then Alfie is
>a thief. That precept is of course anathema to free-lunchers.
<yawn> Oh, don't be so stupid. Have you never enjoyed looking at a
girl without her permission? Never whistled a tune you heard on the
radio without paying the composer a royalty?
Your propertarian dystopia is based on self-evidently false and absurd
claims.
-- Roy L
J. Horikx
>I was joking. Have a look at the examples I gave, they are not even
>remotely realistic.
Sure, but the different degrees of "realism" are not shared by
everyone. Is is not always immediately clear whether a person
is a complete fool, or whether he just has an opiniun that is not
shared by you or other sound people (especially not if your rea-
ding another language, not your first language)
In one of your examples or statements you said something like:
"Intellectual property laws need to be respected ... otherwise your
view would be blocked by other people". There are elements in that
that I've heard earlier elsewhere. It is a well known "meme", so to
say.
Now read this: http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=39728
Is that a joke too? Are they kidding me? How could I know?
JH
Sammybaby
>
> Nope. That is not the problem. You see, the producers of the movies and
> software did not produce them for their own use or amusement. They produced
> them for sale. So it is completely irrelevant that others' uses do not
> interfere their own uses. The problem is that the benefits they expected to
> realize from those products --- which is the reason they were produced in the
> first place --- are being stolen from them by moochers.
I agree completely with your point here but wuold like to changeö the
scenario. In the past in the United States, as a generalized pattern,
a worker who performed well and loyally at a company could expect to
stay employed at that company unless the company had financial
problems. There was a generally unstated understanding about this.
This sense of company loyalty shifted and workers are now much more
interchangeable parts.
How is this relevent to intellectual rights?
Generally workers who came up with ideas that improved the functioning
of their companies were not directly compensated for these ideas:
though, of course, certain ideas earned bonuses and creativity could
in more vague ways lead to promotions and raises. In that situation,
however variable the guidelines of this relationship, what might be
considered intellectual property (of the worker) can be seen as
compensated. (I am thinking here especially of ideas that cannot be
simply expected under the job description of the employee in question:
for example ideas that affect other departments, or ideas that would
really fall under managerial responsibilities but were thought of and
proposed by staff).
But there has been a shift and this flow of intellectual ideas, some
of which became, literallly, the intellectual property of certain
companies, should be more carefully guarded by workers who should
start to see themselves more as consultants and, in many cases,
withhold certain ideas until such time they know that these ideas will
be officially recognized as 'theirs' and also are compensated.
'Mercenary' as an adjective must cut both ways.
Munzerr
that I don't distribute it without the studio's consent.
If I download a copy of a film from the internet, I have no such
contract with the studio. The copy belonged to someone else on the
internet, and my copy varies enough from the original product that I
can say it is not the property of the studio any more. ie. There is no
packaging, DVD menu, comparable quality, special features, etc.
Demanding that I comply with a contract I never entered into is
ludicrous.
Publius
@x35g2000prf.googlegroups.com:
> If I buy a DVD, printed on the DVD are conditions of my ownership -
> that I don't distribute it without the studio's consent.
>
> If I download a copy of a film from the internet, I have no such
> contract with the studio.
Ah. So if you buy a stolen car from the thief, you are OK, since you didn't
steal it yourself?
> The copy belonged to someone else on the
> internet, and my copy varies enough from the original product that I
> can say it is not the property of the studio any more. ie. There is no
> packaging, DVD menu, comparable quality, special features, etc.
Ah. So if you buy only the engine and transmission from the stolen car, you
are OK, since you don't have the whole thing PLUS you didn't steal the car
yourself?
Guess what --- you're in possession of stolen property, in both cases.
Publius
news:1179727169.2...@x35g2000prf.googlegroups.com:
>> Perfectly true, provided the law is more-or-less effectively enforced.
>> The expectation here, however, is primarily moral, not legal. It is the
>> same expecation I have that if I park my car on a public street it will
>> not be stolen by the first passerby while I'm busy shopping. Or that if
>> I display my wares in a public market, they will not be pilfered by
>> every passerby. It is the basic expectation of everyone who lives in a
>> social setting that others can recognize what is and what is not their
>> property, and will respect those limits.
> If such a basic expectation exists for "everyone who lives in a social
> setting", if people could agree on and abide by a working definition
> of property, then the laws wouldn't be necessary. Property laws differ
> from one social-setting to the next precisely because there is no such
> basic expectation, but rather it's a matter of local/regional
> convention.
Actually, property laws (and the common understanding of what defines
"property") vary very little from one region to the next. In general,
one's *property* will be anything which one deems valuable, which may be
taken from one by others, and which one has acquired without injury to
others, whatever its nature in other respects. That is the fundamental
basis for property, in all cultures. What is *counted* as property varies
somewhat, due to the varying importance of different goods in different
economies.
IP is recognized as property by all developed legal systems, and has been
since the invention of the printing press. Laws protecting it developed
simultaneously with the need for them --- with the upsurge in invention as
Europe emerged from the Dark Ages, and with the possibility of wide
dissemination of creative works made possible by Gutenberg's invention.
Arguments about what is and what is not property are not regional; they're
ideological. Every ideology depends for its appeal on a promise of a free
lunch of some kind --- the beguiling prospect of getting something for
nothing. A favorite strategy is to concoct specious arguments for excluding
this or that type of good from being counted as property, so as to evade
the moral proscriptions against seizing others' property. Those arguments
all have the same form --- "X cannot be property because it lacks property
Z." The only thing that differs is what is substituted for Z.
For Georgists, land cannot be property because it was not produced by
labor; being produced by labor is Property Z. For anti-IP ideologues,
creative works cannot be property because only configurations of matter
having unitary spatiotemporal locations can be property; being a physical
object is Property Z. For Marxists, like Georgists, only products of labor
can be property, and thus any property claimed by capitalists can only have
been stolen from labor.
All free lunchers seek to redefine "property" in terms of some morally
irrelevant feature of some particular class of property, in order to
rationalize appropriation of something they value, but hope to avoid paying
for.
> Copyrights and patents, for example, still apply in the absence of any
> contract or agreement with the consumer, and therefore many goods
> covered by these laws don't include such an agreement. Non-disclosure
> contracts are not what we're talking about.
We're talking about both. You may not derive benefits from goods produced
by others without the permission of their producers. And if you have
permission to derive a certain benefit, set forth in a license agreement,
then you are not entitled to any other benefits.
>> > If there was a law against listening to broadcast
>> > radio without paying each station directly for every song you heard,
>> > then the broadcasters would be expecting (at least some of) this
>> > payment when they invested in their broadcast equipment/licence.
>> If the station makes its product publicly available for public use
>> under certain conditions, then the public is obligated to respect those
>> conditions, else forego using the product.
> In the absence such law, the public is not obligated to abide by such
> conditions that the station may wish to impose.
That is like saying unless there is a law, no one is obligated to return
Hertz's car once it is in their hands. Suppose someone places a lawnmower
in their front yard with a sign reading, "Feel free to use this to mow your
lawn. Please return in good condition before dark." Is the kid across the
street free to take it, remove and keep the engine to power his go-cart?
Sell it at the nearest pawn shop? If a radio station says, "Enjoy this
music. Feel free to record the music for later enjoyment, but please do not
make dubs for sale." No one has any duty to heed such admonitions absent a
law?
> If a radio station
> says "anyone who's not in postcode 1234 is not allowed to listen to
> this" or "anyone who is listening send me five dollars or turn off
> your radio", they would not be taken seriously, and for good reason.
Yes, indeed. They would not be taken seriously because their trust of the
public is laughably naive.
>> The only relevant question is, Are others receiving benefits
>> from the product without paying for them? If so, then those others are
>> stealing, because the only persons entitled to *any* benefit from that
>> property, as with all property, are its owners. Any benefits going to
>> others absent the permission of the owner are stolen goods.
>
> That's not a realistic rule for property. There are always
> uncontrollable benefits which the owner is not entitled to precisely
> because they're not controllable. Broadcasters might not want people
> to record a show for watching later, but they can't expect to stop
> them and in many places aren't allowed to try. A new shop might
> increase traffic for other shops in the area, which is clearly a
> benefit for the other shop owners but the owner of the popular shop
> can't charge them for the extra traffic. When someone exhales some
> unused oxygen it's not up to them who breathes it in. There's are
> certain publicly accessible benefits that no one can expect to
> control. Property laws need to take such pragmatics into account.
Those are called "neighborhood effects." Neighborhood effects are benefits
to third parties conferred incidentally to some other activity. Their
beneficiaries have no obligation to pay for them because they were
conferred unilaterally by the benefactor; they were unsolicited and not
contracted for. The beneficiaries may treat them as gifts. Pirated software
is not a neighborhood effect; it is not a gift. If you have it, you have it
only because you or someone else obtained it by stealth, force, or in
violation of a license agreement. It is stolen property.
>> The movie theater too, BTW, is a non-rivalrous good, up to its seating
>> capacity. It becomes rivalrous only at that limit. Most theaters, for
>> most showings, are not filled to capacity. So per your theory, whenever
>> there are unsold seats in the theater, free-lunchers should feel free
>> to sneak in. After all, it will cost the owner no more to show the
>> movie for 400 people than 200, and none of the free-lunchers will
>> displace a paying patron.
> If sneaking in were not illegal then there would be nothing to stop
> the sneaks going in over-capacity, so the aisles would be clogged, not
> to mention the theatre lobby. For all kinds of trespassing laws,
> theatre or otherwise, this is the main justification, that in the
> absence of the rule, land is very quickly a rivalrous good.
All you can justify by that argument is blocking access after all seats are
filled. It doesn't justify blocking access for the 200 free lunchers.
>> The moral issue, though, is as simple as it can be: Is Alfie deriving
>> some benefit from a good he did not discover or produce, without the
>> permission of the person who *did* discover or produce that good? If
>> so, then Alfie is a thief. That precept is of course anathema to
>> free-lunchers.
> That's not a realistic rule. When a producer sells a product, there is
> rarely an agreement as to what benefits the buyer might derive from
> it. In the absence of a specific agreement, the question of which
> benefits might be derived is left up to the buyer.
That's entirely true. If there is no agreement, express or implied, then
the sale is unconditional; you have a fee simple title to the good and may
do whatever you wish with it. That is not the case with software, books,
music, etc.
Those who deny that IP can be property indulge in egregious hypocrisy. They
agree that software, artworks, etc., have value; if they did not they would
not be interested in stealing them. And the fact that they has value is the
very fact that qualifies them as property; any other properties they may
have are immaterial to that status. The only question remaining is, "Whose
property is it"?
darwinist
> darwinist <darwin...@gmail.com> wrote innews:1179727169.2...@x35g2000prf.googlegroups.com:
>
> >> Perfectly true, provided the law is more-or-less effectively enforced.
> >> The expectation here, however, is primarily moral, not legal. It is the
> >> same expecation I have that if I park my car on a public street it will
> >> not be stolen by the first passerby while I'm busy shopping. Or that if
> >> I display my wares in a public market, they will not be pilfered by
> >> every passerby. It is the basic expectation of everyone who lives in a
> >> social setting that others can recognize what is and what is not their
> >> property, and will respect those limits.
> > If such a basic expectation exists for "everyone who lives in a social
> > setting", if people could agree on and abide by a working definition
> > of property, then the laws wouldn't be necessary. Property laws differ
> > from one social-setting to the next precisely because there is no such
> > basic expectation, but rather it's a matter of local/regional
> > convention.
>
> Actually, property laws (and the common understanding of what defines
> "property") vary very little from one region to the next. In general,
> one's *property* will be anything which one deems valuable, which may be
> taken from one by others, and which one has acquired without injury to
> others, whatever its nature in other respects.
That disqualifies most inhabited land, which was taken by force at
some time or another. This would mean that the natural resources on
that land, and anything made from them are disqualified as well.
It doesn't work for copyright either, since copying something doesn't
require taking it, unless you mean "taking" as in when someone decides
to have the same thing as me for lunch they are "taking" my idea. The
latter sense of taking, however, is is clearly not stealing, even if I
value my idea for lunch. To keep it for myself I'd have to keep it to
myself.
Most things don't come with explicit permission of any kind,
nonetheless many are still covered by copyright or patent laws
restricting the benefits people can derive from them.
> >> > If there was a law against listening to broadcast
> >> > radio without paying each station directly for every song you heard,
> >> > then the broadcasters would be expecting (at least some of) this
> >> > payment when they invested in their broadcast equipment/licence.
> >> If the station makes its product publicly available for public use
> >> under certain conditions, then the public is obligated to respect those
> >> conditions, else forego using the product.
> > In the absence such law, the public is not obligated to abide by such
> > conditions that the station may wish to impose.
>
> That is like saying unless there is a law, no one is obligated to return
> Hertz's car once it is in their hands.
Well no, in the case of hertz you have an agreement. In the case of a
broadcast you don't.
> Suppose someone places a lawnmower
> in their front yard with a sign reading, "Feel free to use this to mow your
> lawn. Please return in good condition before dark." Is the kid across the
> street free to take it, remove and keep the engine to power his go-cart?
> Sell it at the nearest pawn shop? If a radio station says, "Enjoy this
> music. Feel free to record the music for later enjoyment, but please do not
> make dubs for sale." No one has any duty to heed such admonitions absent a
> law?
With the lawnmower you are depriving the owner of their property, also
entering their land (implicitly on their conditions) in order to take
it. With the broadcast you are copying the music in your own home.
They are not the same. I think you know what my answers would be to
each.
> > If a radio station
> > says "anyone who's not in postcode 1234 is not allowed to listen to
> > this" or "anyone who is listening send me five dollars or turn off
> > your radio", they would not be taken seriously, and for good reason.
>
> Yes, indeed. They would not be taken seriously because their trust of the
> public is laughably naive.
It's not only naive but unreasonable to demand, without agreement or
law, that people control things you can't control, for your profit.
> >> The only relevant question is, Are others receiving benefits
> >> from the product without paying for them? If so, then those others are
> >> stealing, because the only persons entitled to *any* benefit from that
> >> property, as with all property, are its owners. Any benefits going to
> >> others absent the permission of the owner are stolen goods.
>
> > That's not a realistic rule for property. There are always
> > uncontrollable benefits which the owner is not entitled to precisely
> > because they're not controllable. Broadcasters might not want people
> > to record a show for watching later, but they can't expect to stop
> > them and in many places aren't allowed to try. A new shop might
> > increase traffic for other shops in the area, which is clearly a
> > benefit for the other shop owners but the owner of the popular shop
> > can't charge them for the extra traffic. When someone exhales some
> > unused oxygen it's not up to them who breathes it in. There's are
> > certain publicly accessible benefits that no one can expect to
> > control. Property laws need to take such pragmatics into account.
>
> Those are called "neighborhood effects." Neighborhood effects are benefits
> to third parties conferred incidentally to some other activity. Their
> beneficiaries have no obligation to pay for them because they were
> conferred unilaterally by the benefactor; they were unsolicited and not
> contracted for. The beneficiaries may treat them as gifts. Pirated software
> is not a neighborhood effect; it is not a gift. If you have it, you have it
> only because you or someone else obtained it by stealth, force, or in
> violation of a license agreement. It is stolen property.
Leaving aside the question of whether an un-transmitted button-click
constitutes an "agreement", the fact is that copyright and patent laws
don't require agreements with the customer, implicit or otherwise, in
order to apply. In most cases, buying a copy of some such good, you
neither solicit the creator (they've already created it), nor agree to
anything. In many cases you aren't even asked to pay, such as reading
something on a website, or picking up a broadcast.
> >> The movie theater too, BTW, is a non-rivalrous good, up to its seating
> >> capacity. It becomes rivalrous only at that limit. Most theaters, for
> >> most showings, are not filled to capacity. So per your theory, whenever
> >> there are unsold seats in the theater, free-lunchers should feel free
> >> to sneak in. After all, it will cost the owner no more to show the
> >> movie for 400 people than 200, and none of the free-lunchers will
> >> displace a paying patron.
> > If sneaking in were not illegal then there would be nothing to stop
> > the sneaks going in over-capacity, so the aisles would be clogged, not
> > to mention the theatre lobby. For all kinds of trespassing laws,
> > theatre or otherwise, this is the main justification, that in the
> > absence of the rule, land is very quickly a rivalrous good.
>
> All you can justify by that argument is blocking access after all seats are
> filled. It doesn't justify blocking access for the 200 free lunchers.
It justifies being allowed to choose who gets in and who doesn't. You
could make specific trespassing rules for every kind of establishment,
or you could say that the owner sets the rules. Either way, rules are
needed because land is a rivalrous good, and our convention tends to
be the latter, that the owner sets the conditions - and therefore the
price.
Having specific rules catered to every business-model would be
expensive and difficult to enforce, so leaving it up to the owners
makes sense.
> >> The moral issue, though, is as simple as it can be: Is Alfie deriving
> >> some benefit from a good he did not discover or produce, without the
> >> permission of the person who *did* discover or produce that good? If
> >> so, then Alfie is a thief. That precept is of course anathema to
> >> free-lunchers.
> > That's not a realistic rule. When a producer sells a product, there is
> > rarely an agreement as to what benefits the buyer might derive from
> > it. In the absence of a specific agreement, the question of which
> > benefits might be derived is left up to the buyer.
>
> That's entirely true. If there is no agreement, express or implied, then
> the sale is unconditional; you have a fee simple title to the good and may
> do whatever you wish with it. That is not the case with software, books,
> music, etc.
Often there is in fact no agreement, and agreements aren't required
for copyrights or patents to apply.
> Those who deny that IP can be property indulge in egregious hypocrisy. They
> agree that software, artworks, etc., have value; if they did not they would
> not be interested in stealing them. And the fact that they has value is the
> very fact that qualifies them as property; any other properties they may
> have are immaterial to that status. The only question remaining is, "Whose
> property is it"?
Lots of things have value and aren't someone's property. Secondly,
lots of things exist as multiple instances or copies where each
instance belongs to someone else.
ro...@telus.net
<m.pu...@nospam.comcast.net> wrote:
>darwinist <darw...@gmail.com> wrote in
>news:1179727169.2...@x35g2000prf.googlegroups.com:
>
>>> Perfectly true, provided the law is more-or-less effectively enforced.
>>> The expectation here, however, is primarily moral, not legal. It is the
>>> same expecation I have that if I park my car on a public street it will
>>> not be stolen by the first passerby while I'm busy shopping. Or that if
>>> I display my wares in a public market, they will not be pilfered by
>>> every passerby. It is the basic expectation of everyone who lives in a
>>> social setting that others can recognize what is and what is not their
>>> property, and will respect those limits.
>
>> If such a basic expectation exists for "everyone who lives in a social
>> setting", if people could agree on and abide by a working definition
>> of property, then the laws wouldn't be necessary. Property laws differ
>> from one social-setting to the next precisely because there is no such
>> basic expectation, but rather it's a matter of local/regional
>> convention.
>
>IP is recognized as property by all developed legal systems, and has been
>since the invention of the printing press.
Wrong. IP antedates Gutenberg by several decades, and originated with
patents, not copyrights, which were not invented until centuries later
with the Statute of Anne.
>Laws protecting it developed
>simultaneously with the need for them --- with the upsurge in invention as
>Europe emerged from the Dark Ages, and with the possibility of wide
>dissemination of creative works made possible by Gutenberg's invention.
Wrong again. When IP monopoly privileges were first being developed
in Europe, China was well ahead of Europe in technology, and had no IP
laws. The enormously greater intellectual output of the ancient
Greeks in both technology and art saw the creation of zero (0) IP law.
You are just makin' $#!+ up again.
>Arguments about what is and what is not property are not regional; they're
>ideological. Every ideology depends for its appeal on a promise of a free
>lunch of some kind --- the beguiling prospect of getting something for
>nothing.
The propertarian ideology is a good case in point, but it seems to me
you have come up with this idea purely on the grounds of
introspection....
>A favorite strategy is to concoct specious arguments for excluding
>this or that type of good from being counted as property, so as to evade
>the moral proscriptions against seizing others' property.
ROTFL!! But an even more favored strategy is to concoct specious
arguments for making this or that unjust privilege of violating
others' rights into "property," in order to invest the depredations of
wealthy, idle parasites with a certain legitimacy, even dignity: the
conquering thug's grandson becomes the "laird"; one touches one's
forelock; another century or two and there is a mansion full of
servants bowing and scraping -- and all without the distasteful
necessity of doing any actual productive work.
>Those arguments
>all have the same form --- "X cannot be property because it lacks property
>Z." The only thing that differs is what is substituted for Z.
>
>For Georgists, land cannot be property because it was not produced by
>labor; being produced by labor is Property Z.
The fact that land cannot validly become private property was known
for eons before Henry George came along, and is mentioned in the
Bible, in the Analects, and in other ancient philosophical and
religious texts.
>For anti-IP ideologues,
>creative works cannot be property because only configurations of matter
>having unitary spatiotemporal locations can be property; being a physical
>object is Property Z.
No, that is of course a lie. Those who recognize the illegitimacy of
IP monopoly privileges do not hold that people are rightful property
just because they are physical products of labor.
>For Marxists, like Georgists, only products of labor
>can be property, and thus any property claimed by capitalists can only have
>been stolen from labor.
As usual, your claims are all false. Marx advocated abolition of
private property, not its restriction to products of labor.
>All free lunchers seek to redefine "property" in terms of some morally
>irrelevant feature of some particular class of property,
Like "first possession," for example.
>in order to
>rationalize appropriation of something they value, but hope to avoid paying
>for.
Right, and the most consistent example of this policy is propertarian
free lunchers, who seek to appropriate everything of value that others
produce while paying nothing, by dint of owning the opportunities
others need access to in order to produce the means of their survival.
>> Copyrights and patents, for example, still apply in the absence of any
>> contract or agreement with the consumer, and therefore many goods
>> covered by these laws don't include such an agreement. Non-disclosure
>> contracts are not what we're talking about.
>
>We're talking about both. You may not derive benefits from goods produced
>by others without the permission of their producers.
Such claims are self-evidently false and idiotic. Everyone has a
perfect right to benefit all they wish from what others produce, just
not to _deprive_ them of those goods.
>And if you have
>permission to derive a certain benefit, set forth in a license agreement,
>then you are not entitled to any other benefits.
Claim lacking any factual, logical or moral support.
>>> > If there was a law against listening to broadcast
>>> > radio without paying each station directly for every song you heard,
>>> > then the broadcasters would be expecting (at least some of) this
>>> > payment when they invested in their broadcast equipment/licence.
>
>>> If the station makes its product publicly available for public use
>>> under certain conditions, then the public is obligated to respect those
>>> conditions, else forego using the product.
>
>> In the absence such law, the public is not obligated to abide by such
>> conditions that the station may wish to impose.
>
>That is like saying unless there is a law, no one is obligated to return
>Hertz's car once it is in their hands.
No, it is not. You are just lying again.
>Suppose someone places a lawnmower
>in their front yard with a sign reading, "Feel free to use this to mow your
>lawn. Please return in good condition before dark." Is the kid across the
>street free to take it, remove and keep the engine to power his go-cart?
>Sell it at the nearest pawn shop?
No, because that deprives the owner of his lawnmower without his
consent.
>If a radio station says, "Enjoy this
>music. Feel free to record the music for later enjoyment, but please do not
>make dubs for sale." No one has any duty to heed such admonitions absent a
>law?
Nope. No deprivation.
Capisci?
>> If a radio station
>> says "anyone who's not in postcode 1234 is not allowed to listen to
>> this" or "anyone who is listening send me five dollars or turn off
>> your radio", they would not be taken seriously, and for good reason.
>
>Yes, indeed. They would not be taken seriously because their trust of the
>public is laughably naive.
No, they would not be taken seriously because they have no grounds to
make such demands.
>>> The only relevant question is, Are others receiving benefits
>>> from the product without paying for them? If so, then those others are
>>> stealing, because the only persons entitled to *any* benefit from that
>>> property, as with all property, are its owners. Any benefits going to
>>> others absent the permission of the owner are stolen goods.
>>
>> That's not a realistic rule for property. There are always
>> uncontrollable benefits which the owner is not entitled to precisely
>> because they're not controllable. Broadcasters might not want people
>> to record a show for watching later, but they can't expect to stop
>> them and in many places aren't allowed to try. A new shop might
>> increase traffic for other shops in the area, which is clearly a
>> benefit for the other shop owners but the owner of the popular shop
>> can't charge them for the extra traffic. When someone exhales some
>> unused oxygen it's not up to them who breathes it in. There's are
>> certain publicly accessible benefits that no one can expect to
>> control. Property laws need to take such pragmatics into account.
>
>Those are called "neighborhood effects." Neighborhood effects are benefits
>to third parties conferred incidentally to some other activity.
No, those are actually called, "externalities."
>Their
>beneficiaries have no obligation to pay for them because they were
>conferred unilaterally by the benefactor; they were unsolicited and not
>contracted for. The beneficiaries may treat them as gifts. Pirated software
>is not a neighborhood effect; it is not a gift.
Yes, actually, it is.
>If you have it, you have it
>only because you or someone else obtained it by stealth, force, or in
>violation of a license agreement.
Nonsense.
>It is stolen property.
No, it is most certainly not.
>>> The movie theater too, BTW, is a non-rivalrous good, up to its seating
>>> capacity. It becomes rivalrous only at that limit. Most theaters, for
>>> most showings, are not filled to capacity. So per your theory, whenever
>>> there are unsold seats in the theater, free-lunchers should feel free
>>> to sneak in. After all, it will cost the owner no more to show the
>>> movie for 400 people than 200, and none of the free-lunchers will
>>> displace a paying patron.
>
>> If sneaking in were not illegal then there would be nothing to stop
>> the sneaks going in over-capacity, so the aisles would be clogged, not
>> to mention the theatre lobby. For all kinds of trespassing laws,
>> theatre or otherwise, this is the main justification, that in the
>> absence of the rule, land is very quickly a rivalrous good.
>
>All you can justify by that argument is blocking access after all seats are
>filled. It doesn't justify blocking access for the 200 free lunchers.
I agree his argument missed the point.
>>> The moral issue, though, is as simple as it can be: Is Alfie deriving
>>> some benefit from a good he did not discover or produce, without the
>>> permission of the person who *did* discover or produce that good? If
>>> so, then Alfie is a thief. That precept is of course anathema to
>>> free-lunchers.
>
>> That's not a realistic rule. When a producer sells a product, there is
>> rarely an agreement as to what benefits the buyer might derive from
>> it. In the absence of a specific agreement, the question of which
>> benefits might be derived is left up to the buyer.
>
>That's entirely true. If there is no agreement, express or implied, then
>the sale is unconditional; you have a fee simple title to the good and may
>do whatever you wish with it. That is not the case with software, books,
>music, etc.
>
>Those who deny that IP can be property indulge in egregious hypocrisy.
While you just flat-out lie...
>They
>agree that software, artworks, etc., have value; if they did not they would
>not be interested in stealing them.
Copying is not stealing, liar. And something that is not scarce does
not have any value. Utility, yes; value, no.
>And the fact that they has value is the
>very fact that qualifies them as property;
Garbage. The fact they are not scarce and thus have no value unless
government _makes_ them scarce is what qualifies them as _not_ rightly
property.
>any other properties they may
>have are immaterial to that status. The only question remaining is, "Whose
>property is it"?
<yawn> GArbage. The English language has a lot more "value" (in your
sense) than any software or artwork. Whose property is it?
-- Roy L
Publius
news:1179798811.2...@36g2000prm.googlegroups.com:
>> Actually, property laws (and the common understanding of what defines
>> "property") vary very little from one region to the next. In general,
>> one's *property* will be anything which one deems valuable, which may
>> be taken from one by others, and which one has acquired without injury
>> to others, whatever its nature in other respects.
> That disqualifies most inhabited land, which was taken by force at
> some time or another. This would mean that the natural resources on
> that land, and anything made from them are disqualified as well.
Er, no. That a parcel of land may have been taken by force "at one time or
another" does not invalidate anyone's title. It only invalidates it if the
person from whom it was taken steps forward and can produce evidence to
that effect. Only the victim of an unlawful taking, or at least his known
heirs, have a better claim to the land than the current possessor. No one
else has any claim at all, including "the public."
> It doesn't work for copyright either, since copying something doesn't
> require taking it, unless you mean "taking" as in when someone decides
> to have the same thing as me for lunch they are "taking" my idea.
You are still assuming that a theft can only occur if the owner is denied
personal use of the property. A theft occurs if the owner is denied *any*
benefit derivable from the property, and personal use is not the only
benefit an owner may derive from property. All commercial goods are
produced for sale; not for the personal use of the owner. Stealing such
goods deprives the owner of the revenue from the sale; not of personal use.
Anyone who is using (say) MS-Word without the owner's permission is
enjoying a benefit to which he is not entitled, and is taking revenue from
Microsoft.
>> We're talking about both. You may not derive benefits from goods
>> produced by others without the permission of their producers. And if
>> you have permission to derive a certain benefit, set forth in a license
>> agreement, then you are not entitled to any other benefits.
> Most things don't come with explicit permission of any kind,
> nonetheless many are still covered by copyright or patent laws
> restricting the benefits people can derive from them.
That's incorrect. Most copyrighted materials carry a copyright notice,
which invokes the limits on use spelled out in the copyright laws, which
the public (being wise and informed citizens) are presumed to understand.
When a work carries that notice, the user is informed of the restrictions
on his use. If you go to Borders and look at a book, see the copyright
notice, you're perfectly free to decide the restrictions thus imposed on
your use of that book are too burdensome; you may put the book back on the
shelf and do without it. If you buy the book you also buy the limitations
on use. By placing that notice the publisher is telling you what he is
selling; you cannot buy something he is not selling.
The *laws* are not imposing any restrictions on the use of copyrighted
materials; the owners are. Any owner of any property may impose whatever
restrictions on its use he wishes. The laws merely declare that they will
enforce that *explicit* contract. The publisher of a book may instead place
a notice reading, "This work is hereby donated to the public domain." Then
you may do what you wish with the book, and disregard copyright laws.
> Well no, in the case of hertz you have an agreement. In the case of a
> broadcast you don't.
You do if the material is copyrighted and you know, or *should know*, that
it is.
>> Suppose someone places a lawnmower
>> in their front yard with a sign reading, "Feel free to use this to mow
>> your lawn. Please return in good condition before dark." Is the kid
>> across the street free to take it, remove and keep the engine to power
>> his go-cart? Sell it at the nearest pawn shop? If a radio station says,
>> "Enjoy this music. Feel free to record the music for later enjoyment,
>> but please do not make dubs for sale." No one has any duty to heed such
>> admonitions absent a law?
> With the lawnmower you are depriving the owner of their property, also
> entering their land (implicitly on their conditions) in order to take
> it.
Would it make a difference if the lawnmowever were placed on the parking
strip (which is usually city property)? And what could possibly make the
trespass on the lawnmower owner's land *verboten*, if misuse of the
lawnmower itself is not? If I may use the lawnmower in ways the owner has
not authorized, then surely I can use his land also, by the same argument.
And I may not be depriving the owner of the lawnmower of his personal use
of the machine. Perhaps he does not use that machine himself; he has
donated it for neighborhood use, subject to the conditions he set. I am, of
course, denying him the use he *intended* for it. So does a software
pirate, by denying the publisher the revenue for which it was produced and
made available to the public.
> With the broadcast you are copying the music in your own home.
So what? May I dismantle Hertz's car, provided I do it in my own garage?
You are tossing out physical details which are completely irrelevant to the
moral issue --- which is, Are you entitled to use others' property in ways
contrary to their express wishes? If so, on what grounds? Whether the theft
is committed in your own home or on a public sidewalk makes utterly no
difference.
>> Those are called "neighborhood effects." Neighborhood effects are
>> benefits to third parties conferred incidentally to some other
>> activity. Their beneficiaries have no obligation to pay for them
>> because they were conferred unilaterally by the benefactor; they were
>> unsolicited and not contracted for. The beneficiaries may treat them as
>> gifts. Pirated software is not a neighborhood effect; it is not a gift.
>> If you have it, you have it only because you or someone else obtained
>> it by stealth, force, or in violation of a license agreement. It is
>> stolen property.
> Leaving aside the question of whether an un-transmitted button-click
> constitutes an "agreement", the fact is that copyright and patent laws
> don't require agreements with the customer, implicit or otherwise, in
> order to apply. In most cases, buying a copy of some such good, you
> neither solicit the creator (they've already created it), nor agree to
> anything.
See above.
In many cases you aren't even asked to pay, such as reading
> something on a website, or picking up a broadcast.
Nothing wrong with that. If the owner wishes to permit certain uses of his
property without payment, he is perfectly free to do that. He has gifted
those benefits to you. But he may not have gifted other benefits.
> It justifies being allowed to choose who gets in and who doesn't. You
> could make specific trespassing rules for every kind of establishment,
> or you could say that the owner sets the rules. Either way, rules are
> needed because land is a rivalrous good, and our convention tends to
> be the latter, that the owner sets the conditions - and therefore the
> price.
No. Rules are not needed because land is a rivalrous good. They are needed
to secure the benefits derivable from property --- any property --- to the
owner. The fact that some goods are rivalrous and others not is irrelevant
--- it is another Property Z, lacking any moral significance.
>> Those who deny that IP can be property indulge in egregious hypocrisy.
>> They agree that software, artworks, etc., have value; if they did not
>> they would not be interested in stealing them. And the fact that they
>> has value is the very fact that qualifies them as property; any other
>> properties they may have are immaterial to that status. The only
>> question remaining is, "Whose property is it"?
> Lots of things have value and aren't someone's property.
That's true. But many other valuable things *are* someone's property.
Anything of value can qualify as property, but if there is no determinate
owner, then they may be assumed to be in the public domain, i.e., public
property. The question remains, "Whose property is it"?
> Secondly,
> lots of things exist as multiple instances or copies where each
> instance belongs to someone else.
The material embodiments of such things may belong to different people. But
the material embodiments and the information structure embodied are two
different things, logically and conceptually.
Ceil
missing from your computer. You're confusing "sharing" (where the
original and a copy both exist) with "stealing" (where the original is
now in the hands of the other person and you have nothing).
And you're fucking stupid with that "Jail mp3-sharers for life". That's
more ignorant than people getting locked up for smoking (not dealing,
not sharing with minors; just an adult smoking with adult friends)
marijuana. It costs money to keep people incarcerated, you know. And I'd
rather not have my tax dollars spent on a six-figure number to keep
someone locked up for sharing a few songs.
And are you a Microsoft employee? You want to take back computers that
don't have that little *Treacherous Computing* (
http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/can-you-trust.html ) so 'you' can keep an
eye on every move 'your' users make? I'm the only one that owns my
computer; not Microsoft (especially as I don't have a Microsoft OS on
it), not Dell, and certainly not the MPAA/RIAA.
And remove the Internet from college campuses? That's just fucking
stupid. I oughtn't need to go into detail of just how moronic that idea
really is.
-C
darwinist
> eye on every move 'your' users make? I'm the only one that owns my
> computer; not Microsoft (especially as I don't have a Microsoft OS on
> it), not Dell, and certainly not the MPAA/RIAA.
>
> And remove the Internet from college campuses? That's just fucking
> stupid. I oughtn't need to go into detail of just how moronic that idea
> really is.
>
> -C
Exactly. The whole idea of so called intellectual property being the
same as material property is a joke. It doesn't work the same, and the
extremes you'd have to go to in order to enforce it properly, would be
damaging and costly to pretty much everyone.
darwinist
> darwinist <darwin...@gmail.com> wrote innews:1179798811.2...@36g2000prm.googlegroups.com:
>
> >> Actually, property laws (and the common understanding of what defines
> >> "property") vary very little from one region to the next. In general,
> >> one's *property* will be anything which one deems valuable, which may
> >> be taken from one by others, and which one has acquired without injury
> >> to others, whatever its nature in other respects.
> > That disqualifies most inhabited land, which was taken by force at
> > some time or another. This would mean that the natural resources on
> > that land, and anything made from them are disqualified as well.
>
> Er, no. That a parcel of land may have been taken by force "at one time or
> another" does not invalidate anyone's title.
No, but it does invalidate the idea that property is generally
"acquired without injury to others". Most land and therefore raw
materials and products of them, break the rule. If the rule were to
apply then everyone since the last violent takeover, has been
receiving stolen goods.
> It only invalidates it if the
> person from whom it was taken steps forward and can produce evidence to
> that effect. Only the victim of an unlawful taking, or at least his known
> heirs, have a better claim to the land than the current possessor. No one
> else has any claim at all, including "the public."
What if the person from whom it was taken was killed? That is a common
way land is taken, and they can hardly step forward in that case.
> > It doesn't work for copyright either, since copying something doesn't
> > require taking it, unless you mean "taking" as in when someone decides
> > to have the same thing as me for lunch they are "taking" my idea.
>
> You are still assuming that a theft can only occur if the owner is denied
> personal use of the property. A theft occurs if the owner is denied *any*
> benefit derivable from the property, and personal use is not the only
> benefit an owner may derive from property. All commercial goods are
> produced for sale; not for the personal use of the owner. Stealing such
> goods deprives the owner of the revenue from the sale; not of personal use.
> Anyone who is using (say) MS-Word without the owner's permission is
> enjoying a benefit to which he is not entitled, and is taking revenue from
> Microsoft.
So then is it stealing when someone takes my idea for lunch?
> >> We're talking about both. You may not derive benefits from goods
> >> produced by others without the permission of their producers. And if
> >> you have permission to derive a certain benefit, set forth in a license
> >> agreement, then you are not entitled to any other benefits.
> > Most things don't come with explicit permission of any kind,
> > nonetheless many are still covered by copyright or patent laws
> > restricting the benefits people can derive from them.
>
> That's incorrect. Most copyrighted materials carry a copyright notice,
> which invokes the limits on use spelled out in the copyright laws, which
> the public (being wise and informed citizens) are presumed to understand.
> When a work carries that notice, the user is informed of the restrictions
> on his use. If you go to Borders and look at a book, see the copyright
> notice, you're perfectly free to decide the restrictions thus imposed on
> your use of that book are too burdensome; you may put the book back on the
> shelf and do without it. If you buy the book you also buy the limitations
> on use. By placing that notice the publisher is telling you what he is
> selling; you cannot buy something he is not selling.
>
> The *laws* are not imposing any restrictions on the use of copyrighted
> materials; the owners are. Any owner of any property may impose whatever
> restrictions on its use he wishes. The laws merely declare that they will
> enforce that *explicit* contract. The publisher of a book may instead place
> a notice reading, "This work is hereby donated to the public domain." Then
> you may do what you wish with the book, and disregard copyright laws.
Without explicit permission from the authors, the law forbids others
to make copies. Previous to such laws it was widespread and accepted
to copy a published work, without any feeling that it was in fact
stealing from the original author.
> > Well no, in the case of hertz you have an agreement. In the case of a
> > broadcast you don't.
>
> You do if the material is copyrighted and you know, or *should know*, that
> it is.
For any law, you could argue that knowing about the law equates to an
implicit agreement on your part, to follow that law. This is very
different to saying that you have actually entered a contractual
agreement with someone, or that the the law is a good one.
> >> Suppose someone places a lawnmower
> >> in their front yard with a sign reading, "Feel free to use this to mow
> >> your lawn. Please return in good condition before dark." Is the kid
> >> across the street free to take it, remove and keep the engine to power
> >> his go-cart? Sell it at the nearest pawn shop? If a radio station says,
> >> "Enjoy this music. Feel free to record the music for later enjoyment,
> >> but please do not make dubs for sale." No one has any duty to heed such
> >> admonitions absent a law?
> > With the lawnmower you are depriving the owner of their property, also
> > entering their land (implicitly on their conditions) in order to take
> > it.
>
> Would it make a difference if the lawnmowever were placed on the parking
> strip (which is usually city property)? And what could possibly make the
> trespass on the lawnmower owner's land *verboten*, if misuse of the
> lawnmower itself is not?
Rivalry and deprivation, as with all trespassing. See below regarding
the cinema.
> If I may use the lawnmower in ways the owner has
> not authorized, then surely I can use his land also, by the same argument.
>
> And I may not be depriving the owner of the lawnmower of his personal use
> of the machine. Perhaps he does not use that machine himself; he has
> donated it for neighborhood use, subject to the conditions he set.
I think in that case - no contract, no transfer of ownership, no
desire for further personal use - it's pretty clear that the lawnmower
would soon be misappropriated. It's like squatters rights, in each
case the owner has relinquished their claim by a sufficient amount of
neglect.
> I am, of
> course, denying him the use he *intended* for it. So does a software
> pirate, by denying the publisher the revenue for which it was produced and
> made available to the public.
>
> > With the broadcast you are copying the music in your own home.
>
> So what? May I dismantle Hertz's car, provided I do it in my own garage?
No, that would deprive hertz of their car.
> You are tossing out physical details which are completely irrelevant to the
> moral issue --- which is, Are you entitled to use others' property in ways
> contrary to their express wishes?
The question as I see it is whether it's realistic to consider it (the
pattern of emr waves in your house) as their property.
> If so, on what grounds? Whether the theft
> is committed in your own home or on a public sidewalk makes utterly no
> difference.
>
> >> Those are called "neighborhood effects." Neighborhood effects are
> >> benefits to third parties conferred incidentally to some other
> >> activity. Their beneficiaries have no obligation to pay for them
> >> because they were conferred unilaterally by the benefactor; they were
> >> unsolicited and not contracted for. The beneficiaries may treat them as
> >> gifts. Pirated software is not a neighborhood effect; it is not a gift.
> >> If you have it, you have it only because you or someone else obtained
> >> it by stealth, force, or in violation of a license agreement. It is
> >> stolen property.
> > Leaving aside the question of whether an un-transmitted button-click
> > constitutes an "agreement", the fact is that copyright and patent laws
> > don't require agreements with the customer, implicit or otherwise, in
> > order to apply. In most cases, buying a copy of some such good, you
> > neither solicit the creator (they've already created it), nor agree to
> > anything.
>
> See above.
>
> In many cases you aren't even asked to pay, such as reading
>
> > something on a website, or picking up a broadcast.
>
> Nothing wrong with that. If the owner wishes to permit certain uses of his
> property without payment, he is perfectly free to do that. He has gifted
> those benefits to you. But he may not have gifted other benefits.
The point is though, that there is no solicitation or agreement on the
part of the consumer. There is no stealth, force, or violation of
contract. So why is it different to a "neighbourhood effect"?
> > It justifies being allowed to choose who gets in and who doesn't. You
> > could make specific trespassing rules for every kind of establishment,
> > or you could say that the owner sets the rules. Either way, rules are
> > needed because land is a rivalrous good, and our convention tends to
> > be the latter, that the owner sets the conditions - and therefore the
> > price.
>
> No. Rules are not needed because land is a rivalrous good. They are needed
> to secure the benefits derivable from property --- any property --- to the
> owner. The fact that some goods are rivalrous and others not is irrelevant
> --- it is another Property Z, lacking any moral significance.
I disagree, most property conventions are based on a rivalry. This is
practical, since we can't just treat everything with value as private
goods.
> >> Those who deny that IP can be property indulge in egregious hypocrisy.
> >> They agree that software, artworks, etc., have value; if they did not
> >> they would not be interested in stealing them. And the fact that they
> >> has value is the very fact that qualifies them as property; any other
> >> properties they may have are immaterial to that status. The only
> >> question remaining is, "Whose property is it"?
> > Lots of things have value and aren't someone's property.
>
> That's true. But many other valuable things *are* someone's property.
> Anything of value can qualify as property, but if there is no determinate
> owner, then they may be assumed to be in the public domain, i.e., public
> property. The question remains, "Whose property is it"?
Lots of things of value can't qualify as property, even if the creator
is known. A name (for a person), a recipe, any useful theory
(scientific or otherwise). These things can be "taken" without
restriction.
> > Secondly,
> > lots of things exist as multiple instances or copies where each
> > instance belongs to someone else.
>
> The material embodiments of such things may belong to different people. But
> the material embodiments and the information structure embodied are two
> different things, logically and conceptually.
You can't possess one without possessing the other, nor use one
without using the other, nor restrict the use of one without
restricting the use of the other, so they are not entirely distinct.
This is one reason that intellectual-property is a flawed concept
alongside material property.
ro...@telus.net
Um, darwinist's post was a _parody_ of brain-dead IP advocates...
-- Roy L
ro...@telus.net
<m.pu...@nospam.comcast.net> wrote:
>darwinist <darw...@gmail.com> wrote in
>news:1179798811.2...@36g2000prm.googlegroups.com:
>
>>> Actually, property laws (and the common understanding of what defines
>>> "property") vary very little from one region to the next. In general,
>>> one's *property* will be anything which one deems valuable, which may
>>> be taken from one by others, and which one has acquired without injury
>>> to others, whatever its nature in other respects.
>
>> That disqualifies most inhabited land, which was taken by force at
>> some time or another. This would mean that the natural resources on
>> that land, and anything made from them are disqualified as well.
>
>Er, no.
Er, ah, erm, you know, actually, __**YES**_.
>That a parcel of land may have been taken by force "at one time or
>another" does not invalidate anyone's title.
True, because the title is invalid whether or not the land was ever
taken by force.
>It only invalidates it if the
>person from whom it was taken steps forward and can produce evidence to
>that effect.
Garbage.
>Only the victim of an unlawful taking, or at least his known
>heirs, have a better claim to the land than the current possessor.
No, _everyone_in_the_world_ has a better claim to it than someone who
took it by force, because allowing the thief to keep it rewards crime
and violence.
Puby, you have not learned a simple lesson my kids all learned before
they were four years old: you don't get something good for doing
something bad.
>No one else has any claim at all, including "the public."
Sorry, sunshine, but you're just chanting the same old mantra. In
fact, _everyone_ has a claim to that land: their natural liberty to
use it.
>> It doesn't work for copyright either, since copying something doesn't
>> require taking it, unless you mean "taking" as in when someone decides
>> to have the same thing as me for lunch they are "taking" my idea.
>
>You are still assuming that a theft can only occur if the owner is denied
>personal use of the property.
You are of course lying, as usual. Theft occurs when the _rightful_
owner of comething is deprived of possession without his consent.
Personal use has absolutely nothing to do with it.
>A theft occurs if the owner is denied *any*
>benefit derivable from the property, and personal use is not the only
>benefit an owner may derive from property.
That is of course just flat false and stupid, just like all your other
brain-dead claims.
Because you are stupid, ignorant and dishonest, you are now claiming
that if a drunk driver loses his license, the police have stolen his
car.
You are claiming that if an art expert determines that a painting is a
fake, he has stolen the painting from the owner.
You are claiming that cell phone providers have stolen from land line
providers.
You are claiming that if a city decides to scrap its taxi medallion
system, it is stealing the medallions from their owners.
You are claiming that if government abolishes sugar import quotas, it
is stealing from the quota owners.
You just keep spewing ridiculous, moronic claims like there's no one
here who is enough smarter than you to see through your nonsense, when
in fact we are _all_ that much smarter than you.
>All commercial goods are
>produced for sale; not for the personal use of the owner. Stealing such
>goods deprives the owner of the revenue from the sale; not of personal use.
No, stealing them deprives the owner of _possession_ of the goods.
The revenue is irrelevant. The owner might not have been able to sell
the goods, or may have intended to give them away. It's still theft.
You continue to be reliably, provably, and spectacularly wrong, in
every substantive claim you make.
>Anyone who is using (say) MS-Word without the owner's permission is
>enjoying a benefit to which he is not entitled, and is taking revenue from
>Microsoft.
Such claims are just asinine, though very commonplace from
propertarian apologists for unjust privilege.
>>> We're talking about both. You may not derive benefits from goods
>>> produced by others without the permission of their producers. And if
>>> you have permission to derive a certain benefit, set forth in a license
>>> agreement, then you are not entitled to any other benefits.
>
>> Most things don't come with explicit permission of any kind,
>> nonetheless many are still covered by copyright or patent laws
>> restricting the benefits people can derive from them.
>
>That's incorrect.
No, it is perfectly correct, and you are just flat wrong. As usual.
> Most copyrighted materials carry a copyright notice,
>which invokes the limits on use spelled out in the copyright laws, which
>the public (being wise and informed citizens) are presumed to understand.
<yawn> Sorry, champ, but a notice is not an agreement. Good try,
though.
>When a work carries that notice, the user is informed of the restrictions
>on his use.
Self-evidently false and idiotic.
>If you go to Borders and look at a book, see the copyright
>notice, you're perfectly free to decide the restrictions thus imposed on
>your use of that book are too burdensome; you may put the book back on the
>shelf and do without it. If you buy the book you also buy the limitations
>on use.
More garbage.
>By placing that notice the publisher is telling you what he is
>selling; you cannot buy something he is not selling.
Hehe. And he cannot extinguish my liberty by putting a notice in a
book.
>The *laws* are not imposing any restrictions on the use of copyrighted
>materials; the owners are.
Nope. When I buy something, _I_ am the owner.
>Any owner of any property may impose whatever
>restrictions on its use he wishes.
Sure, but once he sells the book to me, he's not the owner any more.
>The laws merely declare that they will
>enforce that *explicit* contract.
You are again just lying. There is self-evidently no such contract.
>The publisher of a book may instead place
>a notice reading, "This work is hereby donated to the public domain." Then
>you may do what you wish with the book, and disregard copyright laws.
I can disregard them in any case. They have no more moral legitimacy
than taxi medallion laws or sugar quotas.
>> Well no, in the case of hertz you have an agreement. In the case of a
>> broadcast you don't.
>
>You do if the material is copyrighted and you know, or *should know*, that
>it is.
?? ROTFL!! So, your whole theory is that other people "should know"
what you think their liberty consists of? ROTFL!
>>> Suppose someone places a lawnmower
>>> in their front yard with a sign reading, "Feel free to use this to mow
>>> your lawn. Please return in good condition before dark." Is the kid
>>> across the street free to take it, remove and keep the engine to power
>>> his go-cart? Sell it at the nearest pawn shop? If a radio station says,
>>> "Enjoy this music. Feel free to record the music for later enjoyment,
>>> but please do not make dubs for sale." No one has any duty to heed such
>>> admonitions absent a law?
>
>> With the lawnmower you are depriving the owner of their property, also
>> entering their land (implicitly on their conditions) in order to take
>> it.
>
>Would it make a difference if the lawnmowever were placed on the parking
>strip (which is usually city property)? And what could possibly make the
>trespass on the lawnmower owner's land *verboten*, if misuse of the
>lawnmower itself is not? If I may use the lawnmower in ways the owner has
>not authorized, then surely I can use his land also, by the same argument.
>
>And I may not be depriving the owner of the lawnmower of his personal use
>of the machine. Perhaps he does not use that machine himself; he has
>donated it for neighborhood use, subject to the conditions he set. I am, of
>course, denying him the use he *intended* for it. So does a software
>pirate, by denying the publisher the revenue for which it was produced and
>made available to the public.
Absolute hogwash. The seller is deprived of nothing whatever that he
would otherwise have had. He is only deprived of something he
_wished_he had. Aww, poor baby. <snif> You cain't always git wut you
wa-ant....
>> With the broadcast you are copying the music in your own home.
>
>So what? May I dismantle Hertz's car, provided I do it in my own garage?
Dismantling the car deprives Hertz of it. Copying the music does not
deprive the broadcaster of it.
All your nonsense is designed to help you prevent yourself from
knowing that simple, obvious, self-evident and indisputable fact.
>You are tossing out physical details which are completely irrelevant to the
>moral issue --- which is, Are you entitled to use others' property in ways
>contrary to their express wishes?
IP is only their property legally, like a slave was legally property
in what you no doubt think of as the good old propertarian days.
>If so, on what grounds? Whether the theft
>is committed in your own home or on a public sidewalk makes utterly no
>difference.
There is no theft in copying, no matter hw many times you claim there
is.
> In many cases you aren't even asked to pay, such as reading
>> something on a website, or picking up a broadcast.
>
>Nothing wrong with that. If the owner wishes to permit certain uses of his
>property without payment, he is perfectly free to do that. He has gifted
>those benefits to you. But he may not have gifted other benefits.
And it is up to him not to _give_ any benefits he does not intend to
give. It is not up to me to refrain from getting the benefits I can
get without depriving him of anything he would otherwise have had.
>> It justifies being allowed to choose who gets in and who doesn't. You
>> could make specific trespassing rules for every kind of establishment,
>> or you could say that the owner sets the rules. Either way, rules are
>> needed because land is a rivalrous good, and our convention tends to
>> be the latter, that the owner sets the conditions - and therefore the
>> price.
>
>No. Rules are not needed because land is a rivalrous good. They are needed
>to secure the benefits derivable from property --- any property --- to the
>owner.
You still refuse to think about _why_ we think property rights should
be secured. When a property right defeats the purpose of rights, it
means it is not a valid right.
>> Secondly,
>> lots of things exist as multiple instances or copies where each
>> instance belongs to someone else.
>
>The material embodiments of such things may belong to different people. But
>the material embodiments and the information structure embodied are two
>different things, logically and conceptually.
Right. And published information is not property, because absent
government-issued monopoly privileges, it is not scarce.
-- Roy L
Ceil
I knew it was only a matter of time before I made an ass of myself in a
newsgroup :( I deal with too many genuinely stupid people to recognise
sarcasm anymore, it seems.
Ceil
>> eye on every move 'your' users make? I'm the only one that owns my
>> computer; not Microsoft (especially as I don't have a Microsoft OS on
>> it), not Dell, and certainly not the MPAA/RIAA.
>>
>> And remove the Internet from college campuses? That's just fucking
>> stupid. I oughtn't need to go into detail of just how moronic that idea
>> really is.
>>
>
> Exactly. The whole idea of so called intellectual property being the
> same as material property is a joke. It doesn't work the same, and the
> extremes you'd have to go to in order to enforce it properly, would be
> damaging and costly to pretty much everyone.
>
broken :x Sorrie 'bout that.
Publius
news:1179883381.7...@q69g2000hsb.googlegroups.com:
>> It only invalidates it if the
>> person from whom it was taken steps forward and can produce evidence to
>> that effect. Only the victim of an unlawful taking, or at least his
>> known heirs, have a better claim to the land than the current
>> possessor. No one else has any claim at all, including "the public."
> What if the person from whom it was taken was killed? That is a common
> way land is taken, and they can hardly step forward in that case.
Then the heirs may. If there is no plaintiff there is no complaint.
Title disputes are always between current claimants. If one of the
claimants can produce a title chain going back only two links, and the
other can produce no title chain at all, then the first claim trumps the
second.
> So then is it stealing when someone takes my idea for lunch?
No. Ideas are not patentable. Furthermore, your idea for lunch has no
market value and so no one deprives you of anything by adopting it.
>> The *laws* are not imposing any restrictions on the use of copyrighted
>> materials; the owners are. Any owner of any property may impose
>> whatever restrictions on its use he wishes. The laws merely declare
>> that they will enforce that *explicit* contract. The publisher of a
>> book may instead place a notice reading, "This work is hereby donated
>> to the public domain." Then you may do what you wish with the book, and
>> disregard copyright laws.
> Without explicit permission from the authors, the law forbids others
> to make copies. Previous to such laws it was widespread and accepted
> to copy a published work, without any feeling that it was in fact
> stealing from the original author.
There most certainly was such a feeling, else those laws would not have
been urged and adopted. Written works acquired capital value with the
invention of the printing press. Copyright laws followed soon after.
> For any law, you could argue that knowing about the law equates to an
> implicit agreement on your part, to follow that law. This is very
> different to saying that you have actually entered a contractual
> agreement with someone, or that the the law is a good one.
No. Merely knowing the law creates no contract and no obligation. There is
no contract until you *accept possession* of a copyrighted work, knowing it
is copyrighted. By including a copyright notice the publisher advises you
as to the restrictions on use applicable to that work. You can avoid those
restrictions by declining to take possession of the work.
> I think in that case - no contract, no transfer of ownership, no
> desire for further personal use - it's pretty clear that the lawnmower
> would soon be misappropriated. It's like squatters rights, in each
> case the owner has relinquished their claim by a sufficient amount of
> neglect.
Oh, no. The owner is not neglecting the lawnmower. He may sharpen the blade
and change the oil every month or so. There would be no "squatter's
rights." There would certainly be thieves, however. I agree the mower would
not last long.
Back in the 60s or 70s a couple of cities adopted "free" bicycle programs.
They bought hundreds of bicycles, placed them in racks in various parts of
town with signs reading "Use freely, please place in an official rack when
when finished." The idea was to reduce auto use. Of course, all the
bicycles were stolen within a month.
> The question as I see it is whether it's realistic to consider it (the
> pattern of emr waves in your house) as their property.
Of course they are the station's property. Perhaps you have bought into the
myth of the "public airwaves." There is no such thing as a "public
airwave." Such a thing is unknown to physics. It is a fictitious substance
contrived by gummint to justify regulation of broadcasting.
What does exist are electromagnetic signals, and those don't exist until
the owner of a transmitter flips the switch.
>> Nothing wrong with that. If the owner wishes to permit certain uses of
>> his property without payment, he is perfectly free to do that. He has
>> gifted those benefits to you. But he may not have gifted other
>> benefits.
> The point is though, that there is no solicitation or agreement on the
> part of the consumer. There is no stealth, force, or violation of
> contract. So why is it different to a "neighbourhood effect"?
The radio station is delivering its signal intentionally and conditionally;
it is not a by-product of something else it is doing. And you *do* solicit
that signal by buying a radio and tuning to that station.
BTW, in the cases of both neighbohood effects and radio signals, and in
fact all property, their *value* is not produced by the creators of that
property. It is created by prospective consumers of that property. All
property has value only because someone desires to have it, for whatever
reason, and will give up something, if necessary, to obtain it. What they
are willing to give up is its *value* to them. With neighborhood effects
that value attaches to your property, not to the property produced by the
"benefactor." With the radio signal, it attaches to the content of that
signal.
>> No. Rules are not needed because land is a rivalrous good. They are
>> needed to secure the benefits derivable from property --- any property
>> --- to the owner. The fact that some goods are rivalrous and others
>> not is irrelevant --- it is another Property Z, lacking any moral
>> significance.
> I disagree, most property conventions are based on a rivalry. This is
> practical, since we can't just treat everything with value as private
> goods.
We can in every case where a private producer of a valued thing is
identifiable, and the value quantifiable. If you think not, why not?
> Lots of things of value can't qualify as property, even if the creator
> is known. A name (for a person), a recipe, any useful theory
> (scientific or otherwise). These things can be "taken" without
> restriction.
Recipes are patentable, in principle. In practice it is difficult to
surmount the "non-obvious" requirements with recipes. They are also
copyrightable, e.g., as in a cookbook.
Scientific theories are not valuable (economically speaking) until they are
embodied in some process or device which yields a "useful, concrete,
tangible result." Such devices or processes may be patented. A publication
expressing a scientific theory may be copyrighted, however.
>> The material embodiments of such things may belong to different people.
>> But the material embodiments and the information structure embodied are
>> two different things, logically and conceptually.
> You can't possess one without possessing the other, nor use one
> without using the other, nor restrict the use of one without
> restricting the use of the other, so they are not entirely distinct.
> This is one reason that intellectual-property is a flawed concept
> alongside material property.
Oh, no. A data structure requires a physical embodiment, but not vice-
versa. One may own a floppy disk with no data on it. That allows the values
of the unrecorded floppy the recorded one to be compared, and thus
separated. There is no difficulty there at all.
It is true, of course, that if you combine your floppy disk with someone
else's data structure, then you impose restrictions on the use of that
disk. That occurs whenever you combine someone else's property with yours
--- they acquire a "say" in what you may do with the combined property. If
I borrow your tire chains to use on my car for a drive into the mountains,
you may tell me, "Keep it under 40. The chains can't handle high speeds."
Thus I'm now limited in what I can do with my car.
But I can always avoid that restriction by removing your chains.
ro...@telus.net
<m.pu...@nospam.comcast.net> wrote:
>darwinist <darw...@gmail.com> wrote in
>news:1179883381.7...@q69g2000hsb.googlegroups.com:
>
>> Without explicit permission from the authors, the law forbids others
>> to make copies. Previous to such laws it was widespread and accepted
>> to copy a published work, without any feeling that it was in fact
>> stealing from the original author.
>
>There most certainly was such a feeling, else those laws would not have
>been urged and adopted.
Oh, garbage. There was such a feeling on the part of _publishers_,
who had an uncomplicated desire to avoid risk and pocket some economic
rent.
>Written works acquired capital value with the
>invention of the printing press.
No, of course they didn't. Their scarcity and thus their value
actually declined with the abundance of copies. It was only with the
restoration of scarcity by the concoction of copyrght monopolies that
written works aquired capital value.
>Copyright laws followed soon after.
Wrong. Copyright laws essentially date from the Statute of Anne,
which was hundreds of years after the printing press. The printing
press was actually invented in Korea or China centuries before
Gutenberg, and there was no copyright law there until they got the
monopoly privilege idea from Europeans.
>> For any law, you could argue that knowing about the law equates to an
>> implicit agreement on your part, to follow that law. This is very
>> different to saying that you have actually entered a contractual
>> agreement with someone, or that the the law is a good one.
>
>No. Merely knowing the law creates no contract and no obligation. There is
>no contract until you *accept possession* of a copyrighted work, knowing it
>is copyrighted.
Nope. That is not a contract.
>By including a copyright notice the publisher advises you
>as to the restrictions on use applicable to that work. You can avoid those
>restrictions by declining to take possession of the work.
I can avoid those restrictions by ignoring them.
>> The question as I see it is whether it's realistic to consider it (the
>> pattern of emr waves in your house) as their property.
>
>Of course they are the station's property.
Of course they are not.
>Perhaps you have bought into the myth of the "public airwaves."
No, but you have bought into the idolatry of Property.
>There is no such thing as a "public airwave."
Wrong. A public airwave is electromagnetic spectrum administered in
trust for the public by government.
>Such a thing is unknown to physics.
No, it is only unknown to _you_. Physicists are well aware of the
electromagnetic spectrum and the reasons for its public
administration.
>It is a fictitious substance
>contrived by gummint to justify regulation of broadcasting.
As you know nothing of physics as well as of economics, you are
unaware of the little matter of interference.
>>> Nothing wrong with that. If the owner wishes to permit certain uses of
>>> his property without payment, he is perfectly free to do that. He has
>>> gifted those benefits to you. But he may not have gifted other
>>> benefits.
>
>> The point is though, that there is no solicitation or agreement on the
>> part of the consumer. There is no stealth, force, or violation of
>> contract. So why is it different to a "neighbourhood effect"?
>
>The radio station is delivering its signal intentionally and conditionally;
Nope. There is no condition.
>it is not a by-product of something else it is doing. And you *do* solicit
>that signal by buying a radio and tuning to that station.
Absolute garbage. Tuning in a broadcast station merely accepts a gift
with zero (0) strings attached.
>BTW, in the cases of both neighbohood effects and radio signals, and in
>fact all property, their *value* is not produced by the creators of that
>property.
Yes, stupid, of course it is.
>It is created by prospective consumers of that property.
No, stupid, they only _decide_ its value. I have already proved that
to you by the analogy of the long jumper. It is not the guy with the
measuring tape who creates the length of the jump. It's the jumper.
Learn it, or continue to spew nonsense permanently.
>All
>property has value only because someone desires to have it, for whatever
>reason, and will give up something, if necessary, to obtain it.
No, that is what value _is_, not where it comes from.
>What they are willing to give up is its *value* to them.
But that is not value. It is utility.
>With neighborhood effects
>that value attaches to your property, not to the property produced by the
>"benefactor." With the radio signal, it attaches to the content of that
>signal.
Nope. The signal is not scarce and thus has no value.
>> Lots of things of value can't qualify as property, even if the creator
>> is known. A name (for a person), a recipe, any useful theory
>> (scientific or otherwise). These things can be "taken" without
>> restriction.
>
>Recipes are patentable, in principle. In practice it is difficult to
>surmount the "non-obvious" requirements with recipes. They are also
>copyrightable, e.g., as in a cookbook.
Yes, well, before the egregious expansion of copyright to cover pretty
much the entirety of the public domain, instructions were not
copyrightable.
>Scientific theories are not valuable (economically speaking)
?? ROTFL!! Funny how you suddenly understand what economic value is
when it suits you....
>until they are
>embodied in some process or device which yields a "useful, concrete,
>tangible result." Such devices or processes may be patented.
Because the law says so, and for no other reason.
>A publication
>expressing a scientific theory may be copyrighted, however.
?? And you think that's why scientific discoveries have value?
Because the paper is copyrighted?
>>> The material embodiments of such things may belong to different people.
>>> But the material embodiments and the information structure embodied are
>>> two different things, logically and conceptually.
>
>> You can't possess one without possessing the other, nor use one
>> without using the other, nor restrict the use of one without
>> restricting the use of the other, so they are not entirely distinct.
>> This is one reason that intellectual-property is a flawed concept
>> alongside material property.
>
>Oh, no. A data structure requires a physical embodiment, but not vice-
>versa.
Nope. Every physical embodiment has a structure with information
content.
>One may own a floppy disk with no data on it.
The nature of the disk itself embodies the data that describe it.
>That allows the values
>of the unrecorded floppy the recorded one to be compared, and thus
>separated. There is no difficulty there at all.
<yawn> Yet somehow, it is impossible to separate the value of land
from the value of the fixed improvements to it....
-- Roy L
Publius
> Oh, garbage. There was such a feeling on the part of _publishers_,
> who had an uncomplicated desire to avoid risk and pocket some economic
> rent.
Nothing wrong with that. Of course (for the benefit of readers), "pocket
some economic rent" is your Newspeak euphemism for, "authors and publishers
wished to capture the economic value of their work." Or, "boot the
free-lunchers out of the dining hall."
>> No. Merely knowing the law creates no contract and no obligation. There
>> is no contract until you *accept possession* of a copyrighted work,
>> knowing it is copyrighted.
>
> Nope. That is not a contract.
Well, you need to bone up on some contract law. A contract consists of an
offer and an acceptance. A publisher offers you use of a book under certain
conditions, for a certain price. If you pay the price and take delivery of
the book, you have accepted that offer, with its conditions.
No whimsical Newspeak definitions today, Roy. No free lunches either.
>> By including a copyright notice the publisher advises you
>> as to the restrictions on use applicable to that work. You can avoid
>> those restrictions by declining to take possession of the work.
> I can avoid those restrictions by ignoring them.
Of course. That is the habit of all thieves, confidence men, and deadbeats.
"Whaddya mean, pay you back? I needed the money, you handed it over.
Whatever conditions you may have thought you were attaching are passe. I
ignored them then and I'm ignoring them now."
>>There is no such thing as a "public airwave."
> Wrong. A public airwave is electromagnetic spectrum administered in
> trust for the public by government.
Hm. How did the public, or the gummint, acquire title to this spectrum? In
fact, how can anyone acquire title to a property of an EM signal? Could it
perhaps claim title to the optical spectrum also, and require a license to,
say, shine a flashlight?
Perhaps the gummint could claim title to other abstract physical properties
also, say, mass. Then it could charge rent on anything with mass.
>>Such a thing is unknown to physics.
>
> No, it is only unknown to _you_. Physicists are well aware of the
> electromagnetic spectrum and the reasons for its public
> administration.
Odd, I have several physics texts around, and there is no mention of a
"public airwave" in any of them.
Spectra don't exist until EM signals exist; a frequency is a property of a
signal. Signals don't exist until the owner of a transmitter switches it on.
That signal, and all of its properties, are the property of the owner of the
transmitter. Any gummint pontificating to the contrary is absurd pretense.
>> It is a fictitious substance
>> contrived by gummint to justify regulation of broadcasting.
> As you know nothing of physics as well as of economics, you are
> unaware of the little matter of interference.
Au contraire. The first broadcaster on a frequency is its owner, within the
range of his transmitter, until he abandons it. Someone who interferes with
that signal is a trespasser, and dealt with as any other trespasser. The
possibility of interference furnishes no ground for creating gratuitous
claims of public ownership to fictitious property.
> Absolute garbage. Tuning in a broadcast station merely accepts a gift
> with zero (0) strings attached.
Sorry, Roy. The strings don't disappear because you choose to ignore them.
>> BTW, in the cases of both neighbohood effects and radio signals, and in
>> fact all property, their *value* is not produced by the creators of that
>> property.
>
> Yes, stupid, of course it is.
>
>>It is created by prospective consumers of that property.
>
> No, stupid, they only _decide_ its value. I have already proved that
> to you by the analogy of the long jumper. It is not the guy with the
> measuring tape who creates the length of the jump. It's the jumper.
> Learn it, or continue to spew nonsense permanently.
Heh. Another of Roy's uniquely-defined "proofs." I've covered this in some
detail in another post some days ago, which you may not have seen. Briefly,
until you can produce the tape measure for measuring value, your analogy
misses the mark. Each person who measures the value of a good brings his own
tape measure, of his own invention, which he has calibrated himself. The
value he assigns to the good represents nothing more than the rank he
assigns it in his own hierarchy of values.
You really need to give up this notion that values are "in things," Roy, and
that they come to be in things by labor. Those assumptions do not permit you
to account for or estimate the value of anything. The "neighborhood effects"
case is a good example: if Walmart builds a store across the road from my
land, its value will likely rise. Where did that added value come from? From
labor? Neither Walmart or anyone else exerted any labor on my land. And how
do I determine the magnitude of this difference in value --- what tape
measure do I take to the land, and what do I measure once I'm there?
>> All
>> property has value only because someone desires to have it, for whatever
>> reason, and will give up something, if necessary, to obtain it.
>
> No, that is what value _is_, not where it comes from.
Where did the increased value of my land across from Walmart come from? What
it is and where it comes from are the same thing. It "comes from" the fact
the someone is willing to give up something for it, and nowhere else. If
that willingness ends, so does the value, regardless of the labor invested
in it.
>> What they are willing to give up is its *value* to them.
> But that is not value. It is utility.
No. What they are willing to give up is some exchangable good which has a
price in the market. That price is is its *value* in a money economy.
Outside such an economy, its value would be the good given up itself. Values
(in a money economy) can be expressed in dollar terms; utility cannot. There
is another post with a lengthy discussion of value and utility. It may clear
up some of your misconceptions on those topics.
>> With neighborhood effects
>> that value attaches to your property, not to the property produced by
>> the "benefactor." With the radio signal, it attaches to the content of
>> that signal.
>
> Nope. The signal is not scarce and thus has no value.
Scarcity has nothing to do with value. It only has something to do with
price.
> Yes, well, before the egregious expansion of copyright to cover pretty
> much the entirety of the public domain, instructions were not
> copyrightable.
That is another topic where you are confused, i.e., what is the "public
domain." You seem to think any good made publicly accessible is in the
public domain. No good enters the public domain until its owner places it
there, expressly or by abandonment, regardless of how publicly accessible it
is.
>> That allows the values
>> of the unrecorded floppy the recorded one to be compared, and thus
>> separated. There is no difficulty there at all.
>
> <yawn> Yet somehow, it is impossible to separate the value of land
> from the value of the fixed improvements to it....
Where did I claim that? Assessors and appraisers do that all the time.
darwinist
> darwinist <darwin...@gmail.com> wrote innews:1179883381.7...@q69g2000hsb.googlegroups.com:
>
> >> It only invalidates it if the
> >> person from whom it was taken steps forward and can produce evidence to
> >> that effect. Only the victim of an unlawful taking, or at least his
> >> known heirs, have a better claim to the land than the current
> >> possessor. No one else has any claim at all, including "the public."
> > What if the person from whom it was taken was killed? That is a common
> > way land is taken, and they can hardly step forward in that case.
>
> Then the heirs may. If there is no plaintiff there is no complaint.
>
> Title disputes are always between current claimants. If one of the
> claimants can produce a title chain going back only two links, and the
> other can produce no title chain at all, then the first claim trumps the
> second.
Indeed it does, but that changes the condition that property is
"acquired without violence" to the condition that it's "acquired
without violence to anyone who survives that violence (or whose heirs
survive)".
> > So then is it stealing when someone takes my idea for lunch?
>
> No. Ideas are not patentable. Furthermore, your idea for lunch has no
> market value and so no one deprives you of anything by adopting it.
No, ideas are not patentable, but we're not talking about the law,
we're talking about your stipulated moral conditions for owning
property. I created the idea, it has value to me and someone can take
it. They're deriving benefits without my permission. Whether it has
market value is debatable, who is to say that someone wouldn't be
eccentric enough to buy an idea for what to have for lunch? Maybe I
have really good ideas on this topic.
> >> The *laws* are not imposing any restrictions on the use of copyrighted
> >> materials; the owners are. Any owner of any property may impose
> >> whatever restrictions on its use he wishes. The laws merely declare
> >> that they will enforce that *explicit* contract. The publisher of a
> >> book may instead place a notice reading, "This work is hereby donated
> >> to the public domain." Then you may do what you wish with the book, and
> >> disregard copyright laws.
> > Without explicit permission from the authors, the law forbids others
> > to make copies. Previous to such laws it was widespread and accepted
> > to copy a published work, without any feeling that it was in fact
> > stealing from the original author.
>
> There most certainly was such a feeling, else those laws would not have
> been urged and adopted. Written works acquired capital value with the
> invention of the printing press. Copyright laws followed soon after.
For any market, especially a new market, there will be people wishing
to monopolise it, but nonethless copying published works without
considering it stealing, was widespread. Indeed it's still widespread
in the form of email forwards.
> > For any law, you could argue that knowing about the law equates to an
> > implicit agreement on your part, to follow that law. This is very
> > different to saying that you have actually entered a contractual
> > agreement with someone, or that the the law is a good one.
>
> No. Merely knowing the law creates no contract and no obligation. There is
> no contract until you *accept possession* of a copyrighted work, knowing it
> is copyrighted. By including a copyright notice the publisher advises you
> as to the restrictions on use applicable to that work. You can avoid those
> restrictions by declining to take possession of the work.
Accepting posession in and of itself, is an agreement only to possess
the thing, unless you've stated otherwise. Accepting income is equally
an agreement to pay the relevant income tax, but only because it's the
law, there's no contractual agreement taking place, but there is an
assumed and enforceable obligation, based solely on the fact that it's
the law.
> > I think in that case - no contract, no transfer of ownership, no
> > desire for further personal use - it's pretty clear that the lawnmower
> > would soon be misappropriated. It's like squatters rights, in each
> > case the owner has relinquished their claim by a sufficient amount of
> > neglect.
>
> Oh, no. The owner is not neglecting the lawnmower. He may sharpen the blade
> and change the oil every month or so. There would be no "squatter's
> rights." There would certainly be thieves, however. I agree the mower would
> not last long.
However misguided we may think he is, maintenance is a way of using
the mower, if the owner feels any reward from doing so. This use he
would be denied should it be taken, so the deprivation rule then
applies. In any case I don't know what the adverse posession laws are
with regards to lawnmowers, but leaving them on public land for weeks
at a time would be pushing it, in my opinion. I doubt the cops would
investigate too heavily if (when) it was stolen.
> Back in the 60s or 70s a couple of cities adopted "free" bicycle programs.
> They bought hundreds of bicycles, placed them in racks in various parts of
> town with signs reading "Use freely, please place in an official rack when
> when finished." The idea was to reduce auto use. Of course, all the
> bicycles were stolen within a month.
>
> > The question as I see it is whether it's realistic to consider it (the
> > pattern of emr waves in your house) as their property.
>
> Of course they are the station's property. Perhaps you have bought into the
> myth of the "public airwaves." There is no such thing as a "public
> airwave." Such a thing is unknown to physics. It is a fictitious substance
> contrived by gummint to justify regulation of broadcasting.
Frequencies are rivalrous though, and their use by anyone extends into
peoples land without permission, so there has to be some control of
them. Freely competing to use 101.5fm would be impractical.
> What does exist are electromagnetic signals, and those don't exist until
> the owner of a transmitter flips the switch.
True but they are then broadcast into my home without any request or
agreement on my part. Similar to if a band were playing in the street
outside my house, or if I could see a drive-in movie screen from my
kitchen window.
> >> Nothing wrong with that. If the owner wishes to permit certain uses of
> >> his property without payment, he is perfectly free to do that. He has
> >> gifted those benefits to you. But he may not have gifted other
> >> benefits.
> > The point is though, that there is no solicitation or agreement on the
> > part of the consumer. There is no stealth, force, or violation of
> > contract. So why is it different to a "neighbourhood effect"?
>
> The radio station is delivering its signal intentionally and conditionally;
> it is not a by-product of something else it is doing. And you *do* solicit
> that signal by buying a radio and tuning to that station.
Tuning into a radio station is accepting something after the fact
without request or agreement, it's not solicitation any more than
using a foreign-language dictionary to decipher some graffiti, is
soliciting the graffiti artist. I'll bet they would love to be paid
for their graffiti, but it's not my problem if the signal is in a
public place, or if I can receive it from my house.
> BTW, in the cases of both neighbohood effects and radio signals, and in
> fact all property, their *value* is not produced by the creators of that
> property. It is created by prospective consumers of that property. All
> property has value only because someone desires to have it, for whatever
> reason, and will give up something, if necessary, to obtain it. What they
> are willing to give up is its *value* to them. With neighborhood effects
> that value attaches to your property, not to the property produced by the
> "benefactor." With the radio signal, it attaches to the content of that
> signal.
>
> >> No. Rules are not needed because land is a rivalrous good. They are
> >> needed to secure the benefits derivable from property --- any property
> >> --- to the owner. The fact that some goods are rivalrous and others
> >> not is irrelevant --- it is another Property Z, lacking any moral
> >> significance.
> > I disagree, most property conventions are based on a rivalry. This is
> > practical, since we can't just treat everything with value as private
> > goods.
>
> We can in every case where a private producer of a valued thing is
> identifiable, and the value quantifiable. If you think not, why not?
Differences in cost, benefit and ease of enforceability. This why
obvious things aren't patentable and copyrights run out, why fair use
and parody are permitted and why you have to enforce your patents for
them to maintain their validity. Published works are cheap to
reproduce and do not deprive owners of existing copies, and for this
reason it seems impractical to treat them as any one person's
property.
> > Lots of things of value can't qualify as property, even if the creator
> > is known. A name (for a person), a recipe, any useful theory
> > (scientific or otherwise). These things can be "taken" without
> > restriction.
>
> Recipes are patentable, in principle. In practice it is difficult to
> surmount the "non-obvious" requirements with recipes. They are also
> copyrightable, e.g., as in a cookbook.
Not without substantial literary expression. The basic recipe itself,
or any basic list, is not subject to copyright.
> Scientific theories are not valuable (economically speaking) until they are
> embodied in some process or device which yields a "useful, concrete,
> tangible result." Such devices or processes may be patented. A publication
> expressing a scientific theory may be copyrighted, however.
But unlike characters and storylines, someone could write the same
theory but express it in a different way, and not be subject to
copyright infringement. Likewise "derivative works" of a theory are
not subject to copyright.
> >> The material embodiments of such things may belong to different people.
> >> But the material embodiments and the information structure embodied are
> >> two different things, logically and conceptually.
> > You can't possess one without possessing the other, nor use one
> > without using the other, nor restrict the use of one without
> > restricting the use of the other, so they are not entirely distinct.
> > This is one reason that intellectual-property is a flawed concept
> > alongside material property.
>
> Oh, no. A data structure requires a physical embodiment, but not vice-
> versa. One may own a floppy disk with no data on it. That allows the values
> of the unrecorded floppy the recorded one to be compared, and thus
> separated. There is no difficulty there at all.
That's not separation, it's modifying one and destroying the other.
You can separate nutrition from an apple by burning the apple, but
then it's not much of an apple anymore and the nutrition has not been
moved away, it's been destroyed. You might say the data structure
still exists but that's only true if there are other copies that have
not be "separated".
> It is true, of course, that if you combine your floppy disk with someone
> else's data structure, then you impose restrictions on the use of that
> disk. That occurs whenever you combine someone else's property with yours
> --- they acquire a "say" in what you may do with the combined property. If
> I borrow your tire chains to use on my car for a drive into the mountains,
> you may tell me, "Keep it under 40. The chains can't handle high speeds."
> Thus I'm now limited in what I can do with my car.
>
> But I can always avoid that restriction by removing your chains.
Whether the chains are their property is a different question, because
to use the chains is to temporarily deprive the lender of their use,
and to ruin them by driving too fast is to permanently deprive them of
their use.
ro...@telus.net
<m.pu...@nospam.comcast.net> wrote:
><ro...@telus.net> wrote in message news:46550790...@news.telus.net...
>
>> Oh, garbage. There was such a feeling on the part of _publishers_,
>> who had an uncomplicated desire to avoid risk and pocket some economic
>> rent.
>
>Nothing wrong with that.
Actually, there is. Desire for more than one needs or deserves is
greed, the root of all evil (unfortunately mistranslated as, "love of
money").
>Of course (for the benefit of readers), "pocket
>some economic rent" is your Newspeak euphemism for, "authors and publishers
>wished to capture the economic value of their work."
No, that is of course another lie. Information in the public domain
is not scarce, and therefore has no economic value to capture unless
government reprivatizes it to _make_ it scarce, such as by granting IP
monopoly privileges.
>Or, "boot the free-lunchers out of the dining hall."
No, you are still just lying about virtually every sentence I write.
There is no "dining hall." The public domain is freely available to
all. The free lunchers are those who seek to sell information to the
public, but still keep it private.
>>> No. Merely knowing the law creates no contract and no obligation. There
>>> is no contract until you *accept possession* of a copyrighted work,
>>> knowing it is copyrighted.
>>
>> Nope. That is not a contract.
>
>Well, you need to bone up on some contract law.
No, stupid liar, I do not. You do.
>A contract consists of an
>offer and an acceptance. A publisher offers you use of a book under certain
>conditions, for a certain price.
The conditions do not include whatever he has in mind but does not
share with the buyer. Sorry to pop your little bubble.
>If you pay the price and take delivery of
>the book, you have accepted that offer, with its conditions.
No, you are just lying again. You accept only the conditions
explicitly stated prior to the sale.
>No whimsical Newspeak definitions today, Roy. No free lunches either.
<yawn> Right back atcha, Puby.
>>> By including a copyright notice the publisher advises you
>>> as to the restrictions on use applicable to that work. You can avoid
>>> those restrictions by declining to take possession of the work.
>
>> I can avoid those restrictions by ignoring them.
>
>Of course. That is the habit of all thieves, confidence men, and deadbeats.
No, liar, it is the habit of free men who decline to be deprived of
their liberty without just compensation. The beneficiaries of unjust
privileges and their paid lackeys (mirror time) always call those who
resist their depredations "thieves" and "pirates": taxi medallion
owners call non-medallion cabs "pirates," just as IP owners and their
lackeys call those who decline to kneel to unjust IP laws "pirates."
The real pirates and thieves, of course, are those who seek to profit
by the violation of others' rights.
>"Whaddya mean, pay you back? I needed the money, you handed it over.
>Whatever conditions you may have thought you were attaching are passe. I
>ignored them then and I'm ignoring them now."
That's exactly the point: conditions he _thought_ he was attaching are
completely irrelevant. Only conditions that were explicitly stated
and agreed to form a contract, and a copyright notice doesn't do that.
The copyright owner who claims to have a contract with the buyer that
includes provisions the buyer never agreed to is exactly like the loan
shark who informs a debtor after the fact that he didn't really want
the money back at all, he wanted the debtor's daughter instead.
>>>There is no such thing as a "public airwave."
>
>> Wrong. A public airwave is electromagnetic spectrum administered in
>> trust for the public by government.
>
>Hm. How did the public, or the gummint, acquire title to this spectrum?
There is no valid title to natural resources, neither private nor
public. The government simply administers possession and use of them
as a public trust.
>In fact, how can anyone acquire title to a property of an EM signal?
Good question. Too bad the absence of an answer refutes your whole
theory.
>Could it
>perhaps claim title to the optical spectrum also, and require a license to,
>say, shine a flashlight?
A flashlight does not interfere with others' use of the optical
spectrum, stupid, just as a microwave oven does not interfere with
others' use of microwaves, so you don't need a license to operate one.
Government _does_ regulate use of high-powered optical spectrum
devices such as searchlights, because of the potential for violation
of others' rights by shining them into people's windows, dazzling
drivers, etc. And it is perfectly justified in doing so.
How many times will I have to prove you wrong before you will become
willing to consider the possibility that you actually _are_ wrong?
>Perhaps the gummint could claim title to other abstract physical properties
>also, say, mass. Then it could charge rent on anything with mass.
Thank you for proving again that you are deeply dishonest, and have no
arguments that address anything I have actually said.
>>>Such a thing is unknown to physics.
>>
>> No, it is only unknown to _you_. Physicists are well aware of the
>> electromagnetic spectrum and the reasons for its public
>> administration.
>
>Odd, I have several physics texts around, and there is no mention of a
>"public airwave" in any of them.
Too bad you haven't read any of them on the subject of EM
interference...
>Spectra don't exist until EM signals exist; a frequency is a property of a
>signal. Signals don't exist until the owner of a transmitter switches it on.
>That signal, and all of its properties, are the property of the owner of the
>transmitter.
?? Broadcast on 100MHz and you own 100MHz?
ROTFL!! What next? Be the first to write 4,989,872,345,967 and you
own that, too?
>Any gummint pontificating to the contrary is absurd pretense.
The real absurd pretense is your claim that broadcasting a signal
gives one ownership of its frequency.
>>> It is a fictitious substance
>>> contrived by gummint to justify regulation of broadcasting.
>
>> As you know nothing of physics as well as of economics, you are
>> unaware of the little matter of interference.
>
>Au contraire. The first broadcaster on a frequency is its owner, within the
>range of his transmitter, until he abandons it.
In your dream world, that is.
>Someone who interferes with
>that signal is a trespasser, and dealt with as any other trespasser.
No, such claims are just false and absurd, with no more logic in them
than a claim that the first pretty girl to walk down a street owns the
attention of all the men who look at her, and no other girls are
allowed to trespass on her property. It's just stupid, insane, and
evil propertarian bull$#!+.
>The
>possibility of interference furnishes no ground for creating gratuitous
>claims of public ownership to fictitious property.
?? ROTFL!! Says Puby, gibbering his gratuitous claims of private
ownership of the same fictitious property...
>> Absolute garbage. Tuning in a broadcast station merely accepts a gift
>> with zero (0) strings attached.
>
>Sorry, Roy. The strings don't disappear because you choose to ignore them.
<yawn> Sorry, Puby. The strings don't exist just because your
brain-dead propertarian dystopia relies on their existence.
>>> BTW, in the cases of both neighbohood effects and radio signals, and in
>>> fact all property, their *value* is not produced by the creators of that
>>> property.
>>
>> Yes, stupid, of course it is.
>>
>>>It is created by prospective consumers of that property.
>>
>> No, stupid, they only _decide_ its value. I have already proved that
>> to you by the analogy of the long jumper. It is not the guy with the
>> measuring tape who creates the length of the jump. It's the jumper.
>> Learn it, or continue to spew nonsense permanently.
>
>Heh. Another of Roy's uniquely-defined "proofs." I've covered this in some
>detail in another post some days ago, which you may not have seen.
And it was all garbage, like everything else you post.
>Briefly,
>until you can produce the tape measure for measuring value, your analogy
>misses the mark.
<yawn> Price is a measure of value, stupid. Learn it, or continue to
talk nonsense on the subject permanently.
>Each person who measures the value of a good brings his own
>tape measure, of his own invention, which he has calibrated himself.
No, that is utility, as I have already explained to you multiple
times.
>The
>value he assigns to the good represents nothing more than the rank he
>assigns it in his own hierarchy of values.
<yawn> Google "utility" and "value," and get back to me when you have
learned something.
>You really need to give up this notion that values are "in things," Roy, and
>that they come to be in things by labor.
<sigh> You really need to give up this incessant fabrication of
strawmen, Puby, and lying about what I have plainly written.
Value is the price a thing would trade for in an ideal market with
zero transaction cost, perfect information, no barriers to entry, etc.
In places with reasonably free markets, value is usually close to
price, which is an objective fact and often (though not always) a good
measure of value.
Value is not "in things," any more than a girl's popularity is "in"
her. Like the value of a thing that can be traded, her popularity can
be measured (the number of friends she speaks to at least once a
month, etc.). Just as the source of a product's value is its
identity, which comes from its producer's labor, the source of a
girl's popularity is her identity, which comes from her genes, her
environment, her behavior, etc. -- i.e., everything that makes her
what she is. The fact that she has a lot of friends is not the
_reason_ she has a lot of friends, just as people's willingness to pay
for a product is not the _reason_ why they are willing to pay for it.
Such claims are self-evidently circular. You will never understand
any economics as long as you remain married to your circular fallacy
of regarding the _fact_ that people want something as the _reason_
they want it.
>Those assumptions do not permit you
>to account for or estimate the value of anything.
Your strawmen don't. Right. But see above for what I actually said
on the subject.
>The "neighborhood effects"
>case is a good example: if Walmart builds a store across the road from my
>land, its value will likely rise. Where did that added value come from? From
>labor?
Yep.
>Neither Walmart or anyone else exerted any labor on my land.
?? So what? The increment of value to your land comes from the labor
exerted on Wal-Mart's land, just as the labor exerted to build a road
through a neighbor's land will usually increase the value of your
land. Duh.
You of course refuse to know all such facts, because they disprove
your false beliefs.
>And how
>do I determine the magnitude of this difference in value --- what tape
>measure do I take to the land, and what do I measure once I'm there?
Any competent appraiser could tell you how much value Wal-Mart is
adding to your land by comparing its size, location, slope, etc. to
those of comparable plots near other Wal-Marts whose prices are known.
Again, you simply refuse to know all such facts because they disprove
your false beliefs.
>>> All
>>> property has value only because someone desires to have it, for whatever
>>> reason, and will give up something, if necessary, to obtain it.
>>
>> No, that is what value _is_, not where it comes from.
>
>Where did the increased value of my land across from Walmart come from?
?? From the increased economic advantage to a user of your land
associated with the flow of potential customers attracted by the
Wal-Mart. Hello?
Given your obviously complete ignorance of such matters, it would
probably be better if you stopped publicly embarrassing yourself on
this topic, and confined yourself to asking polite, respectful
questions of those who do understand it, until you have acquired at
least a minimal grasp of basic economics.
>What it is and where it comes from are the same thing.
Self-evidently circular.
>It "comes from" the fact
>the someone is willing to give up something for it, and nowhere else.
Uh, stupid?
_Why_ are they willing to give up something for it?
Blank out.
>If
>that willingness ends, so does the value, regardless of the labor invested
>in it.
Nope. If one person dies, their willingness to give something for it
ends, but its value is typically unaffected.
>>> What they are willing to give up is its *value* to them.
>
>> But that is not value. It is utility.
>
>No.
Yes. Read and learn, ignoramus:
>What they are willing to give up is some exchangable good which has a
>price in the market.
Price in the market. Bingo. Not subjective personal opinion.
>That price is is its *value* in a money economy.
?? ROTFL!!
Now you turn around and redefine value as market price!
>Outside such an economy, its value would be the good given up itself.
You mean all the different goods everyone who might want it might be
willing to give up.
Now _there's_ a useful scientific concept.
Not.
>Values
>(in a money economy) can be expressed in dollar terms; utility cannot.
?? Of course it can.
>There
>is another post with a lengthy discussion of value and utility. It may clear
>up some of your misconceptions on those topics.
No, it only showed how hopelessly confused you are on the subject. I
may have time at some point to try to educate you, but the extremely
remote likelihood that it will do you any good is not very motivating.
>>> With neighborhood effects
>>> that value attaches to your property, not to the property produced by
>>> the "benefactor." With the radio signal, it attaches to the content of
>>> that signal.
>>
>> Nope. The signal is not scarce and thus has no value.
>
>Scarcity has nothing to do with value. It only has something to do with
>price.
<yawn> Which you defined above as value....
>> Yes, well, before the egregious expansion of copyright to cover pretty
>> much the entirety of the public domain, instructions were not
>> copyrightable.
>
>That is another topic where you are confused, i.e., what is the "public
>domain." You seem to think any good made publicly accessible is in the
>public domain.
It is.
>No good enters the public domain until its owner places it
>there, expressly or by abandonment, regardless of how publicly accessible it
>is.
No, you are simply begging the question again. The public domain
includes everything that is available to the public. Period. The
function of IP laws is to _reprivatize_, by government force, what has
already entered the public domain.
>>> That allows the values
>>> of the unrecorded floppy the recorded one to be compared, and thus
>>> separated. There is no difficulty there at all.
>>
>> <yawn> Yet somehow, it is impossible to separate the value of land
>> from the value of the fixed improvements to it....
>
>Where did I claim that? Assessors and appraisers do that all the time.
Uh, that's what I had to inform _you_ of, sunshine. See above.
-- Roy L