NationStates Jolt Archive

Personally, as a Rothbardian libertarian and a laissez-faire Capitalist, I am opposed to so-called "intellectual property" because it isn't property, but rather "intellectual protectionism." I am much in agreement with Stephen Kinsella (http://blog.mises.org/archives/007058.asp), who has repeatedly criticized the patent system as being incompatible with Capitalism. For example, patents originated in England, being referred to as "patents of monopoly" and granted nepotistically by Queen Elizabeth I and King James I (you know, the King James whom the most popular version of the Bible is named after). Because IP is nothing more than a monopoly grant and monopolies are incompatible with Capitalism (which is based upon the ideal of a unrestricted free market in which everybody is free to compete), like nearly all Rothbardians, I support the file sharers and I think that the music companies are stupid for attempting to enforce unenforceable laws and that their actions against their customers, not the file sharing, are the cause of the low music sales.

What do you think? Is so-called Intellectual Property compatible with laissez-faire Capitalism or is it properly termed Intellectual Protectionism and therefore only compatible with Mercantilism?

No reason to innovate if as soon as you do someone with more resources than you is just going to copy it, mass produce it, and crush you. Rather enforces monopolies that already exist to prevent limited monopolies.

Of course. I own my ideas, and they should be treated like any other kind of property or asset and granted the same protection. Intellectual property is just a new dimension of the overall right to own property. A person should not be allowed steal my land or my house or any other asset, so they shouldn't be permitted to steal the thoughts, inventions, and ideas I've developed either.

Property is property, and the state has a duty to protect that asset in order to ensure a free society. I give you consent to use my ideas, and anything else really is nothing more than theft.

Not in the most literal understanding of laissez-faire.

If people invent something really cool but expensive, and someone nicks the blueprints and makes a cheaper but comparably good product from it, then the first company goes bankrupt of its own doing, and that's How It Should Be, as far as laissez-faire capitalism goes.

Abolishing patents and intellectual property means that the only way to get ahead is to work harder, not smarter, unless you can keep your smarter development a secret while you use it.

We all benefit from patents.

And I don't see them as incompatible with a free market, because a free market requires well-defined property rights. Why can't ideas be property?

Abolishing patents and intellectual property means that the only way to get ahead is to work harder, not smarter, unless you can keep your smarter development a secret while you use it.
Or you put effort into making a high-quality product that you can produce and sell for a cheap price, which takes some thinking, as well as a bit of hard work.

Or you put effort into making a high-quality product that you can produce and sell for a cheap price, which takes some thinking, as well as a bit of hard work.

And is nothing against something with more resources and production than you as a small timer can hope to create.

The deck is already stacked in favor of the haves, this just gives the whole game over to them.

Or you put effort into making a high-quality product that you can produce and sell for a cheap price, which takes some thinking, as well as a bit of hard work.
You spend a bunch of time and effort innovating the production of this product, and then someone else steals your idea.

All your effort was for nothing.

Intellectual property rights promote innovation.

I think so. After all, you can restrict access to your apartment building and make people pay a fee to live there. Why not the same to access your idea?

I think so. After all, you can restrict access to your apartment building and make people pay a fee to live there. Why not the same to access your idea?
Listen to what the werewolf says...;p

Listen to what the werewolf says...;pI'm not the werewolf, but you'll see that eventually anyway. :)

The reason I think this raises concerns is because people can protect their property without the aid of government (by force). But they cannot defend their ideas in the same way.

Well, first, I don't think "intellectual property" has any meaning, for two reasons. The first reason is that it encompass a whole range of things (copyright, patents and trademark, mostly) which are all governed by very different rules, and which have all very different consequences, so trying to speak of all of them in one word is broken. The second reason is that since, inherently, "intellectual" and "material" stuff are governed by totally different fundamental laws, it's just stupid to use the same concepts on both. The most fundamental difference being that if I give you an idea, if still have it, while if I give you a piece of bread, I don't have it anymore. That doesn't mean in itself there should be no protection, but that using the same concept and the same word for both is just a fallacy intended to make you not see the fundamental difference.

Then, to answer the question, I do not think that a "laissez-faire" capitalism system can survive well without some form of "IP". But this is a reason more for me to oppose capitalism - a system that requires to artificially create scarcity where there could be abundance is a system which is definitely broken, in my mind. If for the same cost of producing one cake you could produce a cake for every citizen of the world who would like one, it would be just stupid to prevent that by law and make people starve. But capitalism works this way, it can only give value to where there is scarcity, so it needs to artificially produce scarcity.

Yes, because if people live in your apartment building, then you have less space to live in it. And because the number of people who can live it is strictly limited.

While for your ideas, when you "give" them, you still have the same amount of them - and some times even more, because the one to whom you gave it will do a comment, or another kind of feedback. And the whole world can have your idea without you losing even the smallest amount of it.

Quite different, isn't it ?
You lose your ability to profit from it, and the space only has value because you can profit from it, so they're not so different after all.

I think so. After all, you can restrict access to your apartment building and make people pay a fee to live there. Why not the same to access your idea?

Yes, because if people live in your apartment building, then you have less space to live in it. And because the number of people who can live it is strictly limited.

While for your ideas, when you "give" them, you still have the same amount of them - and some times even more, because the one to whom you gave it will do a comment, or another kind of feedback. And the whole world can have your idea without you losing even the smallest amount of it.

Quite different, isn't it ?

How can you explain then why Free Software is usually more innovative that proprietary software ?

Demonstrate your thesis.

No reason to innovate if as soon as you do someone with more resources than you is just going to copy it, mass produce it, and crush you.

How can you explain then why Free Software is usually more innovative that proprietary software ?

Laissez faire isn't an ideal system so it doesn't mean anything but no, government granted monopolies for the ones who where first to offer a product does not belong in a truly free and competitive market.

Trademarks are necessary. Without them there is no point in doing a good job. If you make the best product on the market then others producing cheap junk will put your brand on their stuff and nobody will buy your brand because they often end up with cheap junk. A trademark is the identity and reputation of a company or product, it is just as important in the market as individuals' personal identities.

Patents is another matter though, in reply to those who say that patents are necessary for invention. Some invention would still happen without patents, it happened before there was patents and it happens in fields that are not patentable. It would be less profitable without the benefit of a government granted monopoly but it would still be somewhat profitable for various reasons, I'll mention a few examples.

When the inventor is done developing manufacturing and distributing the invention and it becomes available in stores then you can buy it and start reverse engineering. It's expensive and time consuming to reverse engineer modern complex inventions like for example synthetic materials or digital devices. By the time you have figured out how it works and how it is produced, have manufactured your copies and distributed them to stores the inventor has already had time to make some money and get ahead of you. And the inventor will keep making money even when there is some competition, just less of it.

Even if you can't break even before the competitors figure out your invention it's still beneficial. Inventing something gives reputation, your product is the original while the others are cheap clones. You are the best in the field, the company that started it all or the company that came up with the most of the recent improvement.

Some inventions benefit a whole field of business. Like flat hd TVs, a lot of people throw out their old fully functional TVs to buy a flat HD TV. Or fueling engines with ethanol made from corn, that drives the overall corn price up. It boosts sales across the field and that is good for you even if it helps the competitors too.

Some inventions can be kept secret, like a cheaper manufacturing process or the recipe of a fizzy drink.

You lose your ability to profit from it, and the space only has value because you can profit from it, so they're not so different after all.

If by "profit" you mean make money from it, then yes you partly lose it. If it means using it, you don't. But then, the reason for which you can charge money if someone use your room, is because you cannot use it while they do. And because you're taking the risk they'll damage it. That's the justification, in my opinion, for being allowed to charge money for it. Not the mere fact of having it.

Intellectual property isn't so black and white. Mainly because the idea is copied and not transferred.

For instance, if person A chops down some of the trees on his land a builds a house on it.

Person B notices this, copies the idea, and does the whole process on this own land with his own property.

Person A claims B has stolen from him, but how. Person B has not stolen the wood to build the house, nor the land on which is house is built. In addition to his Person A has not forgotten his idea of building a house. In fact there is no difference in his situation before or after Person B built his house. Nothing has been stolen.

IP revolves the claim that A should be compensated because B is in a better off position than he would have otherwise been. Therefore the claim to what has been stolen is the profit that A could have made by selling his idea to B.

Since IP revolves wholly around profit I believe it should only apply to individuals and organisations that wish to make a profit. Ergo, governments, individuals and charities should not be subject to IP law.

Medecins Sans Frontieres should be able to manufacture medicines or purchase them off another charity. Neither should be subject to IP law.

An individual who want to make his own Dyson for personal use should not be subject to IP law.

IP should last a maximum of 30 years and should not be able to be inherited.

You lose your ability to profit from it, and the space only has value because you can profit from it, so they're not so different after all.

And of course I forgot the most important: under capitalism, you can't profit from it if it's freely usable. But that doesn't mean that it's case under every economical system. You can very easily create a socialised system of idea/content creation, in which you are paid by the society for giving to the society. The amount of money you earn may even be computed from the number of downloads, but without preventing anyone from accessing the content.

In fact, it's partly what is done by some corporations, offering "unlimited" access to (a selected part of) music for a fixed monthly fee. Such a system, to be handled locally, requires a huge overhead, especially the very intrusive DRM which prevent you from using the music player of your choice, but it could be done globally, at society ("state") level very easily, with no drawback or overhead.

Artists/inventors would still receive money based on how successful their ideas/songs/books/whatever are. For the same amount of total spent money, artists would receive even more money each because a lot of money actually is wasted in the process of enforcing "intellectual property" and of publishing the content, and the users would be able to access all the content, without any limit. Every would mean, except of course the publishers who become as useless in such a system as copyist became once the printing press was invented.

And such a system could be made more fair towards small artists/inventors/..., with a non-linear scale and a very lower entrance barrier.

Demonstrate your thesis.

GNU/Linux or FreeBSD are undoubtedly much more robust, secure and efficient than any Windows ever was. Even than MacOS X is, and MacOS X heavily uses Free Software code, with all its lower level being composed of Mach and of FreeBSD. Even Windows use FreeBSD code in its TCP-IP stack, because it's just better than what MS ever was able to write. They are also much more scalable (suitable from watches to supercomputers, from livecd to disc install, ...). Commercial Unixes are better in some, very specific parts (such as CPU hotplug, or massively multi-CPU scheduling), but it's so widely known that GNU provides much more powerful and robust userland tools that even Solaris or AIX are using more and more GNU tools.

The same apply to Firefox compared to Internet Explorer, to gcc compared to commercial compilers (yes, Intel icc is slighty faster on Intel CPUs, but gcc compiles many languages to many CPUs, which make it a much power tool than icc), to openssh compared to commercial ssh client/server, to Apache compared to commercial webservers, to cyrus/postfix/sendmail compared to commercial mail servers, ...

It's the case everywhere and everytime, but the vast amount of cases in which it's true shows the absurdity of the "you need money incentive to produce things". Even in a society based upon money and egoism, it's not true. How much not true would it be if the values of the society itself were the ones of cooperation and altruism ?

The same apply to Firefox compared to Internet Explorer,

Who wants to post the study that demonstrated that Firefox had far more vulnerabilities than IE?

GNU/Linux or FreeBSD are undoubtedly much more robust, secure and efficient than any Windows ever was. Even than MacOS X is, and MacOS X heavily uses Free Software code, with all its lower level being composed of Mach and of FreeBSD. Even Windows use FreeBSD code in its TCP-IP stack, because it's just better than what MS ever was able to write. They are also much more scalable (suitable from watches to supercomputers, from livecd to disc install, ...). Commercial Unixes are better in some, very specific parts (such as CPU hotplug, or massively multi-CPU scheduling), but it's so widely known that GNU provides much more powerful and robust userland tools that even Solaris or AIX are using more and more GNU tools.
I'm no computer guy, but I would say that this is at least a little debatable and thus not as clear a demonstration as you want it to be. I use OSX because it fits my needs better than Linux and serves me more directly. Linux might be the better mousetrap for some, but it is not for all.

The same apply to Firefox compared to Internet Explorer, to gcc compared to commercial compilers (yes, Intel icc is slighty faster on Intel CPUs, but gcc compiles many languages to many CPUs, which make it a much power tool than icc), to openssh compared to commercial ssh client/server, to Apache compared to commercial webservers, to cyrus/postfix/sendmail compared to commercial mail servers, ...
I'll only address Firefox because the rest of it is so much gibberish to me.

Strictly speaking Firefox isn't neccisarly free. They make money of that little tool bar search engine, they are still making money off their idea, just through a different venue. Just like a radio lets you listen to music for free by getting the money from advertisers.

It's the case everywhere and everytime, but the vast amount of cases in which it's true shows the absurdity of the "you need money incentive to produce things". Even in a society based upon money and egoism, it's not true. How much not true would it be if the values of the society itself were the ones of cooperation and altruism ?
I'll give you the benefit of the doubt from the sentence structure that you meant to say "It isn't the case" and while I accept that in some cases it is in fact true that financial incentive isn't neccisary (was it Ben Franklin that refused to patent? One of them did...) I would argue that the decision should be left in the hands of the creator.

As to the last sentence, I would agree, but society itself would have to change much further down the stream to achieve that goal-letting peoples ideas be poached by larger conglomerates would bring you further away from it, not closer.

It is important to understand that I don't see this as a black and white/all or nothing proposal and as such addressing it as such doesn't really get anywhere.

Of course. I own my ideas, and they should be treated like any other kind of property or asset and granted the same protection. Intellectual property is just a new dimension of the overall right to own property. A person should not be allowed steal my land or my house or any other asset, so they shouldn't be permitted to steal the thoughts, inventions, and ideas I've developed either.

Property is property, and the state has a duty to protect that asset in order to ensure a free society. I give you consent to use my ideas, and anything else really is nothing more than theft.

Ideas are a rather general concept... Any two people can have the exact same idea.

Demonstrate your thesis.
Firefox vs IE6.

I'm no computer guy, but I would say that this is at least a little debatable and thus not as clear a demonstration as you want it to be. I use OSX because it fits my needs better than Linux and serves me more directly. Linux might be the better mousetrap for some, but it is not for all.

Well, as I said, OSX itself uses massively Free Software, and wouldn't exist without it. It has a Mach microkernel, a BSD kernel and userland, is compiled with the GNU C Compiler, Safari is made from KDE's KHTML rendering engine, and so on.

Strictly speaking Firefox isn't neccisarly free. They make money of that little tool bar search engine, they are still making money off their idea, just through a different venue. Just like a radio lets you listen to music for free by getting the money from advertisers.

Well, we were speaking of "intellectual property". In this regard, Firefox is "free", because you can copy it, change it, distribute modified versions, ... without Firefox writers having any right to say you "no". They make a version with a tool bar that I don't know much about, because I use the version in the Debian distribution, which is without this toolbar.

Most of their money is made through gifts, and merchandising from enthusiast supporters. Well, that's a part of "IP" that I don't oppose (trademark/logo protection), and that's why I started by saying I don't like the "IP" concept at all - I do support trademark/logo protection, and very limited form of copyright (such as the right to have your name always attached to your work), and no patents at all.

It is important to understand that I don't see this as a black and white/all or nothing proposal and as such addressing it as such doesn't really get anywhere.

I perfectly understand that, that's partly why I oppose "IP" because it attempts to make one single thing of an issue which is much more complex and compound than that.

Is so-called Intellectual Property compatible with laissez-faire Capitalism

Since rent, profit, and interest are... yes.

Firefox vs IE6.

I already pointed out that Firefox makes money, just not (directly) off you. The integrated google search bar makes them money.

The reason for protection of intellectual property is to allow inventors and innovators a means to recoup the cost of invention.

Pharmaceuticals are a great example of this – they cost millions just to get through the current regulatory framework (which could be substantially reduced) much less the money actually spent on laboratory research. Were generic drug manufacturers able to produce a drug as soon as it passed through the regulatory system, there would be massive competition for that drug and profits will drop to levels which will not begin to repay the sunk cost of research and testing.

Patent protection allows those that made the massive investment to recover the cost and to encourage greater investment in pursuing new drugs. Without patent protection, that pharmaceutical company would have less than a year to make hundreds of millions in profit – with Patents they have 17 years.


When filing for a patent, you explain exactly what your invention is and everyone can examine it. This allows for others to build off of your invention.

Were I to invent some new piece of factory equipment without any IP protection, I would probably keep it very secret. This would be a loss to society as nobody else would be able to benefit from the invention. With IP protection, I could license it to others and inspire others to build off of my novel ideas. This fosters creativity and the spread of ideas.

I oppose IP because I would suffer financially from it, while me not having access to what I would have access to without IP would not in the slightest damage the profits of the inventors. Was that a tricky sentence?

Not in the most literal understanding of laissez-faire.

If people invent something really cool but expensive, and someone nicks the blueprints and makes a cheaper but comparably good product from it, then the first company goes bankrupt of its own doing, and that's How It Should Be, as far as laissez-faire capitalism goes.

No, that's a stupid way of looking at it, abstract definitions aside. The first company has many unrecoverable costs for development of the product that the copy cat company can avoid.

Listen to what the werewolf says...;p

I'm not the werewolf, but you'll see that eventually anyway. :)

Children, let's not carry over accusations from GM into NSG :).

And no, I'm not telling either way.



If my Freshman Economics class was any indication (yes you can stop laughing now) capitalism relies on private property rights in order to function. It allows for the accumulation and utilization of capital for production. Intellectual property, as a form of capital, must be protected as thoroughly as physical property for the system to work.

Personally, as a Rothbardian libertarian and a laissez-faire Capitalist, I am opposed to so-called "intellectual property" because it isn't property, but rather "intellectual protectionism." I am much in agreement with Stephen Kinsella (http://blog.mises.org/archives/007058.asp), who has repeatedly criticized the patent system as being incompatible with Capitalism. For example, patents originated in England, being referred to as "patents of monopoly" and granted nepotistically by Queen Elizabeth I and King James I (you know, the King James whom the most popular version of the Bible is named after). Because IP is nothing more than a monopoly grant and monopolies are incompatible with Capitalism (which is based upon the ideal of a unrestricted free market in which everybody is free to compete), like nearly all Rothbardians, I support the file sharers and I think that the music companies are stupid for attempting to enforce unenforceable laws and that their actions against their customers, not the file sharing, are the cause of the low music sales.

What do you think? Is so-called Intellectual Property compatible with laissez-faire Capitalism or is it properly termed Intellectual Protectionism and therefore only compatible with Mercantilism?

Well, the majority of the people on this forum do not believe in intellectual property rights. That's not because they are "Rothbardian libertarians". For the most part, this forum has a significant population of far leftists and radical leftists, like me.

Pharmaceuticals are a great example of this

Pharmaceuticals are a great example of how inefficient the whole IP-free market system is. I've the figures for the USA pharmaceutical industry in 2000 :

- mass production, shipping, handling of drugs: 27 billions of dollars ;

- research and tests on new drugs: 19 billions of dollars ;

- profits of stock holders: 19 billions of dollars ;

- marketing, advertising: 41 billions of dollars.

That's how inefficient the free market system is. Add to that, of course, all the costs of duplicated research because two firms will not share their secrets, and the enormous human cost of drugs not completed because one firm would have a part of process and another firm the other part.

While if drug research was paid for by the state, in public research labs, cooperating worldwide, working together with universities, that would lead to much, much more drugs, cheaper and more efficient.

And don't tell me that the scientists who discover the drugs do it for the profit - most of them are paid on wages, not depending on how successful they are, and most of them are motivated with helping people, not with making money (of course, they need money to eat and to pay for their equipment, but that's not the issue, the state could very easily provide this).

[Ideas] ... should be treated like any other kind of property or asset and granted the same protection. ...Property is property.


Ah, "A is A." Unfortunately, Rand was an idiot and clearly "intellectual property" is not like any other kind of property or asset. :)

"Intellectual property" exists in the condition of the abstract or intangible good. As such, it falls outside the normal constraints of supply as associated with tangible goods. It can be reproduced continuously without exhaustion. I can make as many copies as I like of an idea, a piece of digitized music, or the contents of a book and spread these copies out to the ends of the earth. But this consumption does not prevent the equal consumption of anyone else. The intangible good never runs out.

That's the key. Property is simply a rationing mechanism that allows for the distribution of tangible resources, exactly because those tangible resources can be used up to exhaustion. Not everybody can take equal possession and control of a loaf of bread, for instance, because that loaf will be exhausted long before so many people can make use of it. Thus the granting of exclusive possession of a given loaf to an individual or a relatively small group there of; this exclusive possession helps to guarantee access to the loaf. Someone who violates the rationing by taking possession of the loaf outside of normal/accepted practice, of course, commits theft.

Obviously, for the reasons explained above, intangible goods have no need for such a rationing mechanism, because they cannot be exhausted. Such intangible goods, therefore, cannot be stolen; one cannot unjustly remove access to the good if one cannot remove access to the good to begin with.

The only way to make the rationing mechanism work in the case of intangible goods is to manipulate the natural state of intangible goods by instituting an artificial scarcity. Thus, "intellectual property" via the institution of law, or the active intervention of the state/government/etc. Such law does not "protect" said property; in their natural state, intangible goods are not and cannot be property so there isn't anything to "protect."

So, without the active intervention of the government/state/etc., "intellectual property" has no point, purpose, or existence. To the extent that "lassiez-faire" capitalist ideology seeks to reduce or eliminate government intervention in the economic process, and holds that property exists before and independently of the law/state/government/etc., "intellectual property" and lassiez-faire capitalism are not compatible.

In fact, I would assume that a "lassiez-faire" capitalist should condemn the "we can't profit from our labor without intellectual property" argument as just more rationalization of the welfare state. Since when is it the purpose of the state to guarantee you an income? Why is such considered "evil socialism" when aimed at the single widow with 6 children on food stamps, but "free enterprise" when aimed at the inventor or business person?

I'm more inclined to believe it's that hypocritical contradiction that's really at the heart of the concept of "intellectual property." All that jazz about "property" and "innovation" is just a nice cover story from some desperate and rather convoluted rationalization mixed in with some good old fashioned class warfare.

If Desperately Poor Widow has to pull herself up by her own bootstraps, so can Mr. Inventor.

So, without the active intervention of the government/state/etc., "intellectual property" has no point, purpose, or existence. To the extent that "lassiez-faire" capitalist ideology seeks to reduce or eliminate government intervention in the economic process, and holds that property exists before and independently of the law/state/government/etc., "intellectual property" and lassiez-faire capitalism are not compatible.

I agree with most of your post, but not of this part. My understanding of "laissez-faire capitalism" is that there is one fundamental right that can be uphold by force (by the state if needed), in addition to property law: contracts. If you sign a contract with someone, then you can be forced to fullfill it, and compensate for it.

That can be used to enforce some part of "IP", and that's how it is done with "EULA". "I give you this song, but in exchange, you agree to give money and to not duplicate", that's a contract. Of course, it doesn't cover everything, it will not prevent me from having the same idea, or if I hear the song by ear-dropping, I'm not bound by any contract. But it would still enforce most of "IP".

I agree with most of your post, but not of this part. My understanding of "laissez-faire capitalism" is that there is one fundamental right that can be uphold by force (by the state if needed), in addition to property law: contracts. If you sign a contract with someone, then you can be forced to fullfill it, and compensate for it.


The reality of the matter is that there isn't any "laissez-faire" anything. It all amounts to rationalizations for using force to make others comply with the way one wants things done. I suppose this is a larger point related to my own.

So long as Mr. Inventor's interests are relatively secure, he is perfectly happy with the "laissez-faire" myth. As soon as his personal interests are not secure, all that goes out the window and he starts talking like a socialist. Rinse and repeat for essentially every political ideology any time and every where.

At any rate, it has been my personal experience that the "laissez-faire" types like to bitch and moan about "welfare" while active intervention by the state in favor of the capitalist is either not recognized, purposefully ignored, or rationalized away with some convoluted excuse.


That can be used to enforce some part of "IP", and that's how it is done with "EULA". "I give you this song, but in exchange, you agree to give money and to not duplicate", that's a contract. Of course, it doesn't cover everything, it will not prevent me from having the same idea, or if I hear the song by ear-dropping, I'm not bound by any contract. But it would still enforce most of "IP".

Ah, but your contract only applies to you and the song provider. I am an uninvolved third party who has nothing to do with your "contract" as I never agreed to its terms. Thus, if I happen upon a copy of that song, I am free to do as I please.

The only way to make what you describe work is to use the state/government/law to force my compliance to your terms. I should think that an (edit: involuntary) contract is no contract at all.

That's how inefficient the free market system is. Add to that, of course, all the costs of duplicated research because two firms will not share their secrets, and the enormous human cost of drugs not completed because one firm would have a part of process and another firm the other part.


That's not inefficiency. That's design with a purpose.

Artificial scarcity (like "intellectual property") is a key element in any effort to keep prices artificially high.

EDIT: The "intellectual property" capitalist seems to understand this concept when it comes to prohibition or rent control. Personal profit, however, gets a free ride.

I already pointed out that Firefox makes money, just not (directly) off you. The integrated google search bar makes them money.
How is that relevant? It is still freeware. They arn't charging anyone to use the software.x

And it's a generic integrated search bar, you can add anything to it that has the code for the search. I fail to see why Google being one of the options makes a difference.

We protect property because of the benefit that we derive from our own personal ownership of it, not merely for the sake of our own personal ownership of it. For, without the derived value of the property, the property is worthless. That is why we protect intellectual property rights.

Intellectual property is exactly like any other type of productive property or asset in the fact that it's value is derived from the fact that it is used to benefit its creator. It is not like personal property (the pair of pants I am wearing right now, for instance), that is for certain, instead it is, as I have stated already, productive property, from which individuals derive benefit from others by providing them with their creation, be it physical or an idea.

In depriving an individual of the due benefit of their creation, you might as well be depriving an individual of the creation itself.

As to another element of the argument, the reason why we protect intellectual property rights is because the idea in itself is a productive element benefits the creator. Access to the idea is not so important as access to the benefits of the idea.The due benefit is the reason the idea was created, that is wherein the value lies. Much as the benefit I derive from the bookshelf derives its value from its ability to hold books, an idea derives its value to produce revenue.

In this matter, unlimited distribution of an idea harms the original creator of the idea by the fact that it denies them the full potential benefit of the idea.

No, that's a stupid way of looking at it, abstract definitions aside. The first company has many unrecoverable costs for development of the product that the copy cat company can avoid.

This is one of the reasons why strict Laissez-Faire doesn't work. Even the US, during it's Laissez-Faire period (roughly 1880 - New Deal) didn't go that far - and yes, a number of "economic philosophers" of the time were quite critical of that.

The most extreme versions of Capitalist Theory (who frankly make Ayn Rand and company look middle of the road) see IP laws as functionally identical to government granted monopolies. Mind you, these are also the people who oppose the existence of the FDA, as they feel that quality assurance should also be left to the market. In their view, the company developing a new drug will have the advantage of being the only seller of that drug until someone else tools up a line to compete, and that is the only advantage they should get (never mind the fact that it takes roughly one week for a pharmaceutical line to be switched to a completely different drug - and most of that is cleaning to prevent cross-contamination).

All of this ignores, of course, the fact that Laissez-Faire Capitalism encourages the growth of monopolies and trusts, reduces competition and destroys consumer confidence. I'd rather live in a world where IP is overused (as it is today, with the idiotic "patenting" of cell lines and genes) than one where it didn't exist.

GNU/Linux or FreeBSD are undoubtedly much more robust, secure and efficient than any Windows ever was. Even than MacOS X is, and MacOS X heavily uses Free Software code, with all its lower level being composed of Mach and of FreeBSD. Even Windows use FreeBSD code in its TCP-IP stack, because it's just better than what MS ever was able to write. They are also much more scalable (suitable from watches to supercomputers, from livecd to disc install, ...). Commercial Unixes are better in some, very specific parts (such as CPU hotplug, or massively multi-CPU scheduling), but it's so widely known that GNU provides much more powerful and robust userland tools that even Solaris or AIX are using more and more GNU tools.

The same apply to Firefox compared to Internet Explorer, to gcc compared to commercial compilers (yes, Intel icc is slighty faster on Intel CPUs, but gcc compiles many languages to many CPUs, which make it a much power tool than icc), to openssh compared to commercial ssh client/server, to Apache compared to commercial webservers, to cyrus/postfix/sendmail compared to commercial mail servers, ...

It's the case everywhere and everytime, but the vast amount of cases in which it's true shows the absurdity of the "you need money incentive to produce things". Even in a society based upon money and egoism, it's not true. How much not true would it be if the values of the society itself were the ones of cooperation and altruism ?

All you've demonstrated here is that Windows doesn't do all things better than everyone else. So what?

Clearly users prefer Windows because they use it so much more. Perhaps they like how easy it is to use. That's a feature, and you didn't address it.

In fact, for your comparison to be valid you would need an exhaustive list of all OS features. All you've done is pulled out a few anecdotes that agree with your position.

If it matters, measure it. You've made no attempt.

All of this ignores, of course, the fact that Laissez-Faire Capitalism encourages the growth of monopolies and trusts, reduces competition and destroys consumer confidence. I'd rather live in a world where IP is overused (as it is today, with the idiotic "patenting" of cell lines and genes) than one where it didn't exist.
Libertarians like Myrmi pretend those are good things, or at the least, don't exist.

That's how inefficient the free market system is. Add to that, of course, all the costs of duplicated research because two firms will not share their secrets, and the enormous human cost of drugs not completed because one firm would have a part of process and another firm the other part.

Hardly, the costs of duplicated research are minimized by the benefits of competition, in that competition forces firms into an evolutionary Red Queen scenario, in which they must run as fast as they can to stay in exactly the same place, forcing them to advance or fail. Their very existence relies on the ability to produce newer and better drugs, certainly a powerful motivator.

While if drug research was paid for by the state, in public research labs, cooperating worldwide, working together with universities, that would lead to much, much more drugs, cheaper and more efficient.
A fully unproven philosophical assertion, lacking any empirical data either way.

And don't tell me that the scientists who discover the drugs do it for the profit - most of them are paid on wages, not depending on how successful they are, and most of them are motivated with helping people, not with making money (of course, they need money to eat and to pay for their equipment, but that's not the issue, the state could very easily provide this).

That's relying on the argument that the state automatically knows what the appropriate wage to pay is.

Hardly, the costs of duplicated research are minimized by the benefits of competition,

Real, proven, heavy irreducible costs compared to benefits that are mostly a myth. Benefits of competition may exist in some cases, but asserting they exist, and are high, in all cases is nothing more than faith or religion. Especially in the R&D field. It was even proven that too strong pressure through money, on intellectual tasks, lead to lower success rate, because the stress generated (which is very, very bad for intellectual activity) outweighs the "gain" of motivation, which usually is very small, because to be successful in the scientific field, you need to be passionate about your field anyway.

in that competition forces firms into an evolutionary Red Queen scenario, in which they must run as fast as they can to stay in exactly the same place, forcing them to advance or fail. Their very existence relies on the ability to produce newer and better drugs, certainly a powerful motivator.

Motivator for who ? That's a question rarely asked by supporters of the free market model. Motivators for the stock holders, sure. But for the scientists ? Definitely not, they are not directly concerned by the commercial results of the company. As for the newer and better drugs, if you would read a bit about recent drugs, you'll see that most of them are not "better" than the previous ones, they are even sometimes less good, but through heavy marketing and half-veiled corruption (did you ever wondered why pharmaceutics labs love to invite doctors in 4-stars hostels in pretty islands for "conferences" ?), they manage to make people use them.

A fully unproven philosophical assertion, lacking any empirical data either way.

Well, more than 50% of the costs (advertising, paying stock holders) would just disappear, without any other effort. Then, add the huge effect of duplication/non sharing of research effort (and that's not a small thing at all). And also a better choice of priorities, by speaking to biologists, I heard dozens of horror stories of promising research on very bad disease, like Alzeihemr, behind discarded in favour of doing research on very stupid, but commercially more important things, like hair loss.

The facts also proven than many governmental agencies, or non-profit private agencies (such as the Institut Pasteur) are very able, with much less founding, to make very important discoveries (for example, only two entities managed to made vaccines able to vaccinate for 5 diseases at once, something critical in third world countries where logistic is a very important issue: the Cuban public research agency, and the Institut Pasteur, which is a non-profit NGO).

That's relying on the argument that the state automatically knows what the appropriate wage to pay is.

The wage is not directly related to the outcome of research. But yes, the state usually knows much more fairly which wage is appropriate than the market, which tend to give very high wages to people who have little positive effect on the overall society like marketing teams, and much less to those who really do productive stuff, like factory workers, researchers, teachers, ... I see it daily in the computer science world, with a few exceptions, the people of marketing, management, or other "useless" departments have usually much higher wages than the engineer who do the real work - and that's not unskilled work, but very skilled one. The same holds for scientists, usually the ones who do the most promising research and invest a lot of personal energies in their work don't earn much.

Another point is that the state, at least in a democratic system, answers to... the population ! While in a corporation, they only answer to stock holders, that is, to people who already have money and just want to earn more, without caring for anything else.

While if drug research was paid for by the state, in public research labs, cooperating worldwide, working together with universities, that would lead to much, much more drugs, cheaper and more efficient.
How many people do you know who work their hardest even when there's absolutely no incentive for them to do so?

Like everything related to libertarianism, it really doesn't matter. At all.

Another point is that the state, at least in a democratic system, answers to... the population ! While in a corporation, they only answer to stock holders, that is, to people who already have money and just want to earn more, without caring for anything else.
So if the people chose to focus their efforts on drugs that treated hair loss rather than Alzheimer's, you'd be okay with that?

Because that's already happened. There reason those hair loss drugs are more commercially important is because more people want them. By appealing to demoncracy, you've just done exactly what the market already does, which is cater the the most popular answer, regardless of how dumb it is.

So if the people chose to focus their efforts on drugs that treated hair loss rather than Alzheimer's, you'd be okay with that?

Because that's already happened. There reason those hair loss drugs are more commercially important is because more people want them. By appealing to demoncracy, you've just done exactly what the market already does, which is cater the the most popular answer, regardless of how dumb it is.

There is a difference between market priorities and people priorities. All the market cares is which one will yield a higher rate of return and thus more profit for the shareholders. Consumers never got the choice "do we want Alheimer's research or do we want pills that will make us harder than Chinese Algaebra." That decision was made purely on the basis that the market for Viagra, or hair loss treatment is larger than the one for Alzheimer's.

If you asked people to vote on their priorities, most would pick Alzheimer's over Viagra or hair loss.

How many people do you know who work their hardest even when there's absolutely no incentive for them to do so?

But that is ALREADY the case ! There is no incentive for the scientists working in private labs to work more, except the incentive of the love of science and the will to be useful, which are much stronger incentive that money can be. You can't be great in science or art if you do it mostly for money, you need to be passionate about it.

And if it's really your problem, you can have easily prices, like nobel price and such, which are not incompatible with a socialised research system, but even those are rarely motivators, but mostly rewards.

So if the people chose to focus their efforts on drugs that treated hair loss rather than Alzheimer's, you'd be okay with that?

If it really happened, yes.

Because that's already happened. There reason those hair loss drugs are more commercially important is because more people want them. By appealing to demoncracy, you've just done exactly what the market already does, which is cater the the most popular answer, regardless of how dumb it is.

No, not at all. First, the market only consider people who have enough money; and the more money you have, the more "votes" you have.

But the worst part is that the market only considers the present time and needs. People who don't have Alzeihmer won't buy a drug for it. But that doesn't mean they don't want to be ready for if they have the disease later on. That's the huge difference between both. Try around you. Ask people "if asked in referendum, would you say the priority is Alzeihmer or hair loss ?" and then ask "will you buy Alzeihmer drug or hair loss drug ?" the answer will be totally different.

At last issue, not in this case, but very important for example for the amount of money to allocate to drug resources, is the Nash equilibrium, and people "know" it. When you take a decision by voting, you're aware you take a collective decision, that'll effect everyone, so you'll vote differently than how you buy.

Consider a simple situations: you've two models of cars. Model A costs 1000$, model B costs 1100$. But model A pollutes much more than model B. Pollution has a cost, in increased healthcare, increased cleaning, ... Using a model A car will cost 1 cent more to every citizen of the city. The city has 100 000 inhabitants. If everyone chose model A, it'll cost everyone 1000$ of the car, + 100 000/100 = 1000$ of pollution, so 2000$ for everyone. If everyone chose the model B, it'll cost everyone 1100$.

But what if everyone can chose its model ? Well, for YOU, buying the model A will costs you 1000$ + .01$ in pollution. So, when you chose in a market system, you'll be incited to chose model A, which will cost in the end 2000$ for everyone. While when you chose in a democratic system, doing a collective decisions, you'll be incited to chose model B, saving 900$ to everyone.

This reasoning applies a lot in the drug industry, when it applied to how much money should be invested, or what should be the priorities. It proves (well, Nash proved it) than in many cases the market decision model is inefficient, leading to the "lowest equilibrium", while collective decision leads to "highest equilibrium".

Of course, collective decisions taking has other drawbacks, and tend to reduce freedom of choice. But yelling "free market is efficient" like it was a piece of religion is just insane, market, often, is not efficient. It is, sometimes, but far from always, and on each subject, you've to consider how much good it brings, and what the drawbacks are.

In the pharmaceutics industry, it brings a lot of drawbacks, and very, very few good, if any (since no one ever proved it brings any good at all in this specific case).

But that is ALREADY the case ! There is no incentive for the scientists working in private labs to work more, except the incentive of the love of science and the will to be useful, which are much stronger incentive that money can be. You can't be great in science or art if you do it mostly for money, you need to be passionate about it.

And if it's really your problem, you can have easily prices, like nobel price and such, which are not incompatible with a socialised research system, but even those are rarely motivators, but mostly rewards.

No, that isn't the case right now.

While it's true that most corporate scientists work for a salary, many companies (and, surprise surprise, most of the ones that bring out new products a lot, like Bayer) have reward systems, such as stock in the company or employee bonuses for new product development. In addition, it's standard policy to allow the breakthrough-making lab to publish it's findings in the journals, thus following the "publish-or-perish" protocols most scientists live under.

And then there's the question of contracts. If a top researcher comes out of contract with one Pharmaceutical company, there can be an out-and-out bidding war for his/her services. I have a cousin who surfed that wave in aeronautical engineering - he retired at 35, because he had more money than he could ever use. Now he's a semi-pro golfer.

There are a LOT of incentives in the current system. Money up front just isn't a common one.

We protect property because of the benefit that we derive from our own personal ownership of it, not merely for the sake of our own personal ownership of it. For, without the derived value of the property, the property is worthless. That is why we protect intellectual property rights.

We protect property because usually one's consumption of a good precludes others' consumption of the good. Two people can't eat the same hamburger. Also property rights create material incentives to improve upon one's property and the productivity of society as a whole. Tragedy of the commons and all that.

Intellectual property is exactly like any other type of productive property or asset in the fact that it's value is derived from the fact that it is used to benefit its creator. It is not like personal property (the pair of pants I am wearing right now, for instance), that is for certain, instead it is, as I have stated already, productive property, from which individuals derive benefit from others by providing them with their creation, be it physical or an idea.

Intellectually property is different from other property. No ones use of information lessens the use of it by others. In fact

In depriving an individual of the due benefit of their creation, you might as well be depriving an individual of the creation itself.

Are you saying that good old William Shakespeare's works should have had an indefinite copyright, and to uses thewm one has to pay his estate? If you don't then he isn't getting his full benefits of his creation in the form of his legacy.


As to another element of the argument, the reason why we protect intellectual property rights is because the idea in itself is a productive element benefits the creator. Access to the idea is not so important as access to the benefits of the idea.The due benefit is the reason the idea was created, that is wherein the value lies. Much as the benefit I derive from the bookshelf derives its value from its ability to hold books, an idea derives its value to produce revenue.

In this matter, unlimited distribution of an idea harms the original creator of the idea by the fact that it denies them the full potential benefit of the idea.

The reasons we protect intellectual copyright is because it creates incentives to produce useful knowledge and ultimately enrich the public domain which allows everyone to benfit from increased knowledge.

I'm Schumpeterian when it comes to innovation and entrepreneurship. But I think that requires some initial protection of new ideas, though perhaps a time limit is the best way of handling it. Not too long, because it might slow creative destruction (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creative_destruction) down but not too short either, because then an entrepreneur might not be able to profit from his idea.

I'm Schumpeterian when it comes to innovation and entrepreneurship. But I think that requires some initial protection of new ideas, though perhaps a time limit is the best way of handling it. Not too long, because it might slow creative destruction (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creative_destruction) down but not too short either, because then an entrepreneur might not be able to profit from his idea.

This is true, but its not exactly laissez-faire now is it?

"Intellectual property" exists in the condition of the abstract or intangible good. As such, it falls outside the normal constraints of supply as associated with tangible goods. It can be reproduced continuously without exhaustion. I can make as many copies as I like of an idea, a piece of digitized music, or the contents of a book and spread these copies out to the ends of the earth. But this consumption does not prevent the equal consumption of anyone else. The intangible good never runs out.

No, it does run out. The supply in question is not determined by the ability to produce and distribute the idea, it's the willingness of individuals and companies to develop them. If anyone who wants to can copy my ideas without protection or compensation, what incentive do I have to develop new ones? What incentive is there to make the kind of investments necessary to produce new technologies and products? Some people might, out of a desire to learn more, but that's nowhere near enough to drive large-scale advances.

The end result would be slowing and eventual stagnation of technological innovation, and the end result of that would be massive economic loss and eventual collapse. The only real exception to this is open-source, and the only reason that works is because it is profitable.

That's the key. Property is simply a rationing mechanism that allows for the distribution of tangible resources, exactly because those tangible resources can be used up to exhaustion. Not everybody can take equal possession and control of a loaf of bread, for instance, because that loaf will be exhausted long before so many people can make use of it. Thus the granting of exclusive possession of a given loaf to an individual or a relatively small group there of; this exclusive possession helps to guarantee access to the loaf. Someone who violates the rationing by taking possession of the loaf outside of normal/accepted practice, of course, commits theft.

Again, it's the same issue: it's not the idea itself, it's the person or company behind the idea that is the supply. Their decision to research or develop new things is motivated by the idea

Getting rid of IP protections allows others to take advantage of someone else's work and money, depriving them of the revenue they rightly deserve for the investment needed to produce it. When an individual or company takes that idea without permission or compensation, they are stealing.

Obviously, for the reasons explained above, intangible goods have no need for such a rationing mechanism, because they cannot be exhausted. Such intangible goods, therefore, cannot be stolen; one cannot unjustly remove access to the good if one cannot remove access to the good to begin with.

Again, yes, they can be exhausted: I'll simply stop developing new intellectual property. Remove my incentive to develop new things, and you stop the development of new supply. There's no reason for me to develop new drugs or electronics if another company can simply ride on my resources and steal it as soon as it is ready.

It's just like any other good: if the price is too low or the cost too high, the good is not produced.

The only way to make the rationing mechanism work in the case of intangible goods is to manipulate the natural state of intangible goods by instituting an artificial scarcity. Thus, "intellectual property" via the institution of law, or the active intervention of the state/government/etc. Such law does not "protect" said property; in their natural state, intangible goods are not and cannot be property so there isn't anything to "protect."

Artificial scarcity? There's real scarcity: you destroy any and all incentive to produce new concepts by allowing every other person in the economy to free-ride on my work...you destroy my idea generation. Again, why should I spend the time and money to develop something when someone else who has done nothing to help in that process can just walk up and steal it when it is commercially viable?

This is why so few scientific discoveries come from China. IP laws are so lax there that any major discovery could be stolen and used without compensation. As a result, Chinese companies perform their research in countries where property laws are upheld.

So, without the active intervention of the government/state/etc., "intellectual property" has no point, purpose, or existence. To the extent that "lassiez-faire" capitalist ideology seeks to reduce or eliminate government intervention in the economic process, and holds that property exists before and independently of the law/state/government/etc., "intellectual property" and lassiez-faire capitalism are not compatible.

Only if you mistakenly assume that intellectual property is not property, when it most certainly is. If I think of something, I own it.

In fact, I would assume that a "lassiez-faire" capitalist should condemn the "we can't profit from our labor without intellectual property" argument as just more rationalization of the welfare state. Since when is it the purpose of the state to guarantee you an income? Why is such considered "evil socialism" when aimed at the single widow with 6 children on food stamps, but "free enterprise" when aimed at the inventor or business person?

That's an invalid comparison. Intellectual property protections are the equivalent of protections against any other kind of theft; laws protecting the safety and property of individuals is no more socialism than any other kind of law. They are necessary for a functioning society.

Socialism would be the government setting fixed prices for the licensing of technology or mandating a set fee for the use of intellectual property.

I'm more inclined to believe it's that hypocritical contradiction that's really at the heart of the concept of "intellectual property." All that jazz about "property" and "innovation" is just a nice cover story from some desperate and rather convoluted rationalization mixed in with some good old fashioned class warfare.

To repeat what I mentioned earlier: Why should someone else be allowed to use my ideas without doing any work developing them? This is no different from a person stealing water, or power, or food, or any other good.

If Desperately Poor Widow has to pull herself up by her own bootstraps, so can Mr. Inventor.

They do. That's why they invent. Just like the widow doesn't need muggers or thieves stealing her money and trashing her home, the inventor doesn't need thieves stealing his ideas, in which he invested a significant amount of time and money.

But that is ALREADY the case ! There is no incentive for the scientists working in private labs to work more, except the incentive of the love of science and the will to be useful, which are much stronger incentive that money can be. You can't be great in science or art if you do it mostly for money, you need to be passionate about it.p
You have data to support that?

To repeat what I mentioned earlier: Why should someone else be allowed to use my ideas without doing any work developing them? This is no different from a person stealing water, or power, or food, or any other good.
It's like digging a well.

If I dig a well to reach a very large aquifer - so large that my community is in no danger of exhausting it - then I've created a situation analogous to intellectual property. I put in the work to reach the water, so now I can eitehr have exclusive use of the well and sell the water (thus paying me for my efforts in digging the well), or the well can be open to everyone, thus meaning that I really had no reason to dig the well in the first place, so I probably didn't do it, so in this community there is no well.

Real, proven, heavy irreducible costs compared to benefits that are mostly a myth. Benefits of competition may exist in some cases, but asserting they exist, and are high, in all cases is nothing more than faith or religion. Especially in the R&D field. It was even proven that too strong pressure through money, on intellectual tasks, lead to lower success rate, because the stress generated (which is very, very bad for intellectual activity) outweighs the "gain" of motivation, which usually is very small, because to be successful in the scientific field, you need to be passionate about your field anyway.

A result that was obtained in one study, yet has not been duplicated, and has been contradicted by several other studies.

Motivator for who ? That's a question rarely asked by supporters of the free market model. Motivators for the stock holders, sure. But for the scientists ? Definitely not, they are not directly concerned by the commercial results of the company. As for the newer and better drugs, if you would read a bit about recent drugs, you'll see that most of them are not "better" than the previous ones, they are even sometimes less good, but through heavy marketing and half-veiled corruption (did you ever wondered why pharmaceutics labs love to invite doctors in 4-stars hostels in pretty islands for "conferences" ?), they manage to make people use them.

You are obviously ill informed on the nature of the culture of the biotechnology revolution, which was extremely, extremely competitive amongst researchers, who were paid vast sums, and heavily punished for failure.

Furthermore, your assertion that most drugs are not better is patently false. There have been constant improvements in the drugs available to the public, in countless fields.



Well, more than 50% of the costs (advertising, paying stock holders) would just disappear, without any other effort. Then, add the huge effect of duplication/non sharing of research effort (and that's not a small thing at all).

Your assumption that revenue would remain unchanged is questionable.

And also a better choice of priorities, by speaking to biologists, I heard dozens of horror stories of promising research on very bad disease, like Alzeihemr, behind discarded in favour of doing research on very stupid, but commercially more important things, like hair loss.

Except that's not necessarily the case. Look at firms such as Genentech, and the drugs that they have produced.

The facts also proven than many governmental agencies, or non-profit private agencies (such as the Institut Pasteur) are very able, with much less founding, to make very important discoveries (for example, only two entities managed to made vaccines able to vaccinate for 5 diseases at once, something critical in third world countries where logistic is a very important issue: the Cuban public research agency, and the Institut Pasteur, which is a non-profit NGO).

Highly related to the academic world, the demand to publish or perish and prestige in the field, which in turn is highly related to the profit motive.

Furthermore, the Institut Pasteur is not quite the purely non-profit NGO that you might claim that it is. It is closely intertwined with Sanofi-Aventis, who handles the costs of marketing and testing.

At the same time, firms such as Merck have fielded vaccines such as ProQuad, which are designed for use with four diseases, and are far more effective at counteracting each individual disease than a vaccine for each alone. The potential complications of a five-disease vaccine are phenomenal, and the threat of lawsuit would also be phenomenal.



The wage is not directly related to the outcome of research. But yes, the state usually knows much more fairly which wage is appropriate than the market, which tend to give very high wages to people who have little positive effect on the overall society like marketing teams, and much less to those who really do productive stuff, like factory workers, researchers, teachers, ... I see it daily in the computer science world, with a few exceptions, the people of marketing, management, or other "useless" departments have usually much higher wages than the engineer who do the real work - and that's not unskilled work, but very skilled one. The same holds for scientists, usually the ones who do the most promising research and invest a lot of personal energies in their work don't earn much.

Once again, you assume that revenue remains the same. As it stands, management and marketing are vitally important to a firm in that they guarantee the continued revenue of the firm.

Another point is that the state, at least in a democratic system, answers to... the population ! While in a corporation, they only answer to stock holders, that is, to people who already have money and just want to earn more, without caring for anything else.

The state is only partially democratic, and we all know that. Every state, everywhere is primarily bureaucratic, an fundamentally conservative institution that has evolved to become a self-perpetuating creature.

in their natural state, intangible goods are not and cannot be property so there isn't anything to "protect."

This applies to a wide variety of the goods considered "property" under "laissez-faire" capitalism, not just intangible property.

The economic argument for intellectual property is more or less equivalent to the economic argument for private ownership of all kinds of productive property, and it is difficult for me to see grounds under which a person could oppose one and not the other.

The state is only partially democratic, and we all know that. Every state, everywhere is primarily bureaucratic, an fundamentally conservative institution that has evolved to become a self-perpetuating creature.

That applies to most (big) corporations too. Except that they are not democratic at all, but they are victim of bureaucracy too (working with IBM regularly, I can tell you they are at least as bureaucratic as the french government is, and my working with other big corporations show the same), and they tend to become self-perpetuating creatures who have only one purpose: survive and grow, whatever it means.

States, at least, when they are democratic, even imperfectly, have a control from the population. Corporations don't.

Consider a simple situations: you've two models of cars. Model A costs 1000$, model B costs 1100$. But model A pollutes much more than model B. Pollution has a cost, in increased healthcare, increased cleaning, ... Using a model A car will cost 1 cent more to every citizen of the city. The city has 100 000 inhabitants. If everyone chose model A, it'll cost everyone 1000$ of the car, + 100 000/100 = 1000$ of pollution, so 2000$ for everyone. If everyone chose the model B, it'll cost everyone 1100$.

But what if everyone can chose its model ? Well, for YOU, buying the model A will costs you 1000$ + .01$ in pollution. So, when you chose in a market system, you'll be incited to chose model A, which will cost in the end 2000$ for everyone. While when you chose in a democratic system, doing a collective decisions, you'll be incited to chose model B, saving 900$ to everyone.
Why are we all sharing those environmental costs?

This is true, but its not exactly laissez-faire now is it?
It's as laissez-faire as it is to protect physical things from being stolen. One puts one's time and effort into coming up with a new idea, just as one does to make a widget. We protect the widget from just being taken away, it only makes sense to protect the idea.

Granted, the idea is non-exclusive in the sense that others copying your stuff doesn't take it away from you, but it still stops you from enjoying the benefits you worked for.

By the way, in Germany's there's a big fight going on at the moment about whether or not some Chinese companies should be able to show their cars at the IAA. Daimler, BMW and co. accuse them of just copying designs and threaten to sue them if they show up (pictures (http://www.spiegel.de/fotostrecke/0,5538,24278,00.html)).

States, at least, when they are democratic, even imperfectly, have a control from the population. Corporations don't.
Now you can explain why one is better than the other.

Why are we all sharing those environmental costs?

Because they apply to all of them. When you use the car, the pollute the air, and costs a little (of money, life expectancy, ...) to everyone living nearby. That's called "externality", and that's something capitalism handles very, very badly (that's why pro-capitalism economists usually ignore them...).

Those are negative externalities, which harm everyone. But there are also positive externalities, like most research/knowledge stuff.

Capitalism was proven (like I did, but with much more complex and detailed reasoning) to produce a lot of negative ones, and very few positives ones (while socialized systems tend to do the opposite).

Consider a simple situations: you've two models of cars. Model A costs 1000$, model B costs 1100$. But model A pollutes much more than model B. Pollution has a cost, in increased healthcare, increased cleaning, ... Using a model A car will cost 1 cent more to every citizen of the city. The city has 100 000 inhabitants. If everyone chose model A, it'll cost everyone 1000$ of the car, + 100 000/100 = 1000$ of pollution, so 2000$ for everyone. If everyone chose the model B, it'll cost everyone 1100$.

But what if everyone can chose its model ? Well, for YOU, buying the model A will costs you 1000$ + .01$ in pollution. So, when you chose in a market system, you'll be incited to chose model A, which will cost in the end 2000$ for everyone. While when you chose in a democratic system, doing a collective decisions, you'll be incited to chose model B, saving 900$ to everyone.
It's also interesting to note that your "laissez-faire" example allows me to harm others with my externalities.

That $0.01 I force everyone to pay is me harming them. What free market allows me to do that? Those people I harm should be allowed to sue me for that $0.01.

Which means, that if I'm willing to cover everyone's costs (pay the full $2000 up front to cover my externalities), I should be allowed to buy the polluting car.

(that's why pro-capitalism economists usually ignore them...).

Um, not exactly.

But there are also positive externalities, like most research/knowledge stuff.

Intellectual property rights are intended precisely to eliminate these positive externalities, by making people who benefit from the use of the idea compensate the owner.

To get rid of intellectual property--without replacing it with a socialized system--would make the situation with respect to positive externalities much worse.

If I dig a well to reach a very large aquifer - so large that my community is in no danger of exhausting it - then I've created a situation analogous to intellectual property. I put in the work to reach the water, so now I can eitehr have exclusive use of the well and sell the water (thus paying me for my efforts in digging the well), or the well can be open to everyone, thus meaning that I really had no reason to dig the well in the first place, so I probably didn't do it, so in this community there is no well.

Exactly. The kind of work and capital needed to develop major advances is extremely high and there has to be an incentive to do it in a timely fashion. Technology will advance on its own through individuals' love of learning, but there's a world of difference in both economic and social costs between developing a new drug every year and a new one every 5 or 10 years.

If I think of something, I own it.

You've said this twice now, and didn't respond when someone challenged this.

Let me try: Say that person A has an idea and that later (or perhaps at exactly the same time) person B comes up with the same idea. Who would own it? Both? Or only person A, despite that person B came up with it on his own?

But for all your know, person X already thought of it 50 years ago. That would make them both thieves, and owing all profit to person X (or his children, if he's dead). Because IP really is exactly like property, right? Right?

Capitalism was proven (like I did, but with much more complex and detailed reasoning) to produce a lot of negative ones, and very few positives ones (while socialized systems tend to do the opposite).
The first point is arguably true, in that an unregulated market can lead to an overproduction of things that have negative externalities associated with them. Hence pollution permit trading and the like.

The second point is pure speculation. Socialised systems are distortions, which means the entire market is transformed. People who wouldn't have needed things go and get them anyways because now other people pay for them; even the suppliers no longer act according to logic because they don't need to minimise costs. So some random amount of the good or service is provided. Regardless of where the externalities come out, the fact of the matter is that the "social benefit" (on which the idea of externalities is based) is itself based on the knowledge (brought about by the welfare theorems) that the market equilibrium is the best allocation - externalities modify the position of the equilibrium relative to the hypothetical optimum, hence they're bad.

Socialised systems basically do away with the working market, so whatever new equilibrium is reached will have an infinitesmally small probability of being socially optimal. And the probability of it being better than the failing market is directly related to the skill and focus of the government, which historically hasn't exactly been apparent. Even if government economists were to work out a socialised system that provides better outcomes than the previous markets politicians never keep their hands off it and start using it to buy votes and lobby group support.

So what do we do when we have intellectual property rights that are routinely violated and seemingly unenforceable... like with music in the world of the Internet?

It's as laissez-faire as it is to protect physical things from being stolen. One puts one's time and effort into coming up with a new idea, just as one does to make a widget. We protect the widget from just being taken away, it only makes sense to protect the idea.

Granted, the idea is non-exclusive in the sense that others copying your stuff doesn't take it away from you, but it still stops you from enjoying the benefits you worked for.

By the way, in Germany's there's a big fight going on at the moment about whether or not some Chinese companies should be able to show their cars at the IAA. Daimler, BMW and co. accuse them of just copying designs and threaten to sue them if they show up (pictures (http://www.spiegel.de/fotostrecke/0,5538,24278,00.html)).

No IP system I know allows for all benefits to be captured by the creator. If an institution builds a particle accelerator and discovers physical laws of the universe whose practical use could be astronomical should those who use these physical principles have to get the instituttions permission? Would that be laissez-faire?

Exactly. The kind of work and capital needed to develop major advances is extremely high and there has to be an incentive to do it in a timely fashion. Technology will advance on its own through individuals' love of learning, but there's a world of difference in both economic and social costs between developing a new drug every year and a new one every 5 or 10 years.

Basically you're argueing for utilitarian justifications of IP. However how long should patents and copyrights last? Forever? Should physical laws like superstring theory be patentable? If proven and unpatentable one is denying the discovererand or the theorists the benefits of his labor and the incentive to discove/theorize in the first place.

So what do we do when we have intellectual property rights that are routinely violated and seemingly unenforceable... like with music in the world of the Internet?
Scratch our heads and try to look smart while doing it.

I guess there's no way the state can enforce such property rights, so it's probably up to the music companies to try and develop better protections on their CDs. It costs them money but I guess such is the nature of the environment they're in.

No IP system I know allows for all benefits to be captured by the creator.
The same could be said for any other form of property. It's just that externalities are perhaps smaller and less immediately obvious with physical than intellectual property.

If an institution builds a particle accelerator and discovers physical laws of the universe whose practical use could be astronomical should those who use these physical principles have to get the instituttions permission? Would that be laissez-faire?
Theoretical science is another thing entirely, I think. On the other hand, the practical use of these principles would most likely be developed by private companies working together with the university (which may also have sponsored the particle accelerator in the first place). Such partnerships are obviously quite common.

And once that anti-gravity device has been developed it's patented and sold like any other.

I believe in a form of internet socialisation of exchange, this means using p2p and torrent software to bypass the greedy corporate oligopoly and have said software freely shared.

The same could be said for any other form of property. It's just that externalities are perhaps smaller and less immediately obvious with physical than intellectual property..

True, but no IP system even tries to get physical and intellectual property benefits equalized. Patents and trademarks are both limited in duration, and there general concepts that are unpatentable. Alan Turing couldn't patent the computer, the concept thereof, and Intel couldn't the concept of microprocessor, just a number of particular microprocessors.

Theoretical science is another thing entirely, I think. On the other hand, the practical use of these principles would most likely be developed by private companies working together with the university (which may also have sponsored the particle accelerator in the first place). Such partnerships are obviously quite common.

Partnerships are common in general for applied research and development. No company I know of will fund a particle accelerator, they can't capture the benefits.

Also, why is theoretical science different? The same pricipals apply.

And once that anti-gravity device has been developed it's patented and sold like any other.

If physical laws are patented then the creators of the anti-gravity device will have either be the ones who found the physical laws they're using, get the permission of the ones who did possibly causing all other devices of similiar nature if the uni thinks a monopoly is more profitible, or they'll fucked.

A lot of entreneurial activities won't happen because they have to go through the patent holders.

Basically you're argueing for utilitarian justifications of IP. However how long should patents and copyrights last? Forever? Should physical laws like superstring theory be patentable? If proven and unpatentable one is denying the discovererand or the theorists the benefits of his labor and the incentive to discove/theorize in the first place.

Physical laws can't be copyrightable because they're, well, physical laws. Since everyone has been using them even before they were formally discovered no patent is available. You can't copyright something that is already in general use; otherwise, you'd be able to regulate breathing, water, or any number of ridiculous claims.

Now, if you were to discover a way to manipulate physical laws to produce a given effect, you could copyright it.

Let me try: Say that person A has an idea and that later (or perhaps at exactly the same time) person B comes up with the same idea. Who would own it? Both? Or only person A, despite that person B came up with it on his own?

But for all your know, person X already thought of it 50 years ago. That would make them both thieves, and owing all profit to person X (or his children, if he's dead). Because IP really is exactly like property, right? Right?

In patent law, this is always taken in to account. Depending on the laws in a given country, they use one of two systems: the patent is either granted to the first person to patent the idea or the first person to develop it. In a first-to-develop system, if a person can provide legal proof that they had the idea first, it is likely they will receive the patent even if someone else has already patented it.

However, if patent law is such that the first person to patent it gets the right to own and license it, then the original inventor is out of luck. In a way, however, this is fair because it encourages the inventor to patent their idea as quickly as possible and get it in to the market faster rather than sit on it for future benefit. The downside to the system is that it encourages patent trolling and other exploitation.

I support the first-to-invent system of patents rather than the first-to-patent system because it better reflects the concept of intellectual property as, well, property.

I believe in a form of internet socialisation of exchange, this means using p2p and torrent software to bypass the greedy corporate oligopoly and have said software freely shared.
But who will make new software?

True, but no IP system even tries to get physical and intellectual property benefits equalized. Patents and trademarks are both limited in duration, and there general concepts that are unpatentable. Alan Turing couldn't patent the computer, the concept thereof, and Intel couldn't the concept of microprocessor, just a number of particular microprocessors.
Patenting general concepts is dangerous because it really grants monopoly power to the patent holder over a huge area. I'm not familiar with the specific cases and the arguments pro and con, it just seems like a silly idea to give Gottlieb Daimler the patent over the concept of a 4-wheeled vehicle driven by a combustion engine - the various innovations that he made to make the concept work would be better targets.

Also, why is theoretical science different? The same pricipals apply.
Theoretical science isn't done with commercial benefit in mind.

If physical laws are patented then the creators of the anti-gravity device will have either be the ones who found the physical laws they're using, get the permission of the ones who did possibly causing all other devices of similiar nature if the uni thinks a monopoly is more profitible, or they'll fucked.
But one can't patent a physical law. There's a difference between innovation and discovery. I can't patent gravity and charge everyone who uses it, that's absurd.

What would be patented would be the mechanism that takes advantage of the theoretical science, which is developed with commercial benefit in mind by the joint venture. The terms of the joint venture with regards to intellectual property would previously have been sorted out in the contract. Generally though universities lack the will or ability to market a good themselves, they'll just take a share of the profits and be fine with it.

Physical laws can't be copyrightable because they're, well, physical laws. Since everyone has been using them even before they were formally discovered no patent is available. You can't copyright something that is already in general use; otherwise, you'd be able to regulate breathing, water, or any number of ridiculous claims.

Now, if you were to discover a way to manipulate physical laws to produce a given effect, you could copyright it.

The latter is more or less what I meant. As in finding the physical laws so one knows how to manipulate them. So basically Maxwell's equations would be patentable, or would have been, and only those technologies that use them would have to pay them and not everyone with a nervous system.

I find it highly unlikely that this will occur and morally wrong.

So basically Maxwell's equations would be patentable, or would have been, and only those technologies that use them would have to pay them and not everyone with a nervous system.
But those equations just describe a bunch of relationships, they just describe physical reality.

I don't think that's to be patented, though for example the electromotor might be.

The latter is more or less what I meant. As in finding the physical laws so one knows how to manipulate them. So basically Maxwell's equations would be patentable, or would have been, and only those technologies that use them would have to pay them and not everyone with a nervous system.

Well, not really, because Maxwell's equations describe the physical effect and so are still considered physical laws; those equations did occur prior to his discovere and are "calculated" by the phenomena that use them. It's similar to the discovery of the mechanics of combustion; the process itself is not patentable, but the internal combustion engine using that process is.

I find it highly unlikely that this will occur and morally wrong.

I do agree. Even so, you'll notice it's not private companies that make these kinds of discoveries, it's research institutes and scientists motivated more by the awe of discovery than any potential profits.

(this is also why I support government funding for research, but that's another topic entirely)

Patenting general concepts is dangerous because it really grants monopoly power to the patent holder over a huge area. I'm not familiar with the specific cases and the arguments pro and con, it just seems like a silly idea to give Gottlieb Daimler the patent over the concept of a 4-wheeled vehicle driven by a combustion engine - the various innovations that he made to make the concept work would be better targets.

Of course, but if you don't then you're not letting creators benefit from the fruits of their labors


Theoretical science isn't done with commercial benefit in mind.

Because researchers can't capture most of the benefits and even if tehy did the returns, while gernerally large, take a long time to pay off.

But one can't patent a physical law. There's a difference between innovation and discovery. I can't patent gravity and charge everyone who uses it, that's absurd.

The distinction is a legal one. One can't charge all those who use gravity but one could charge all those who use the laws of relativity, quantum mechanics, ect to create technology based on those principals/

What would be patented would be the mechanism that takes advantage of the theoretical science, which is developed with commercial benefit in mind by the joint venture. The terms of the joint venture with regards to intellectual property would previously have been sorted out in the contract. Generally though universities lack the will or ability to market a good themselves, they'll just take a share of the profits and be fine with it.

Of course. So if a university/company discovers physical laws that let them or other invent anti-gravity any tech that uses anti-gravity needs to go through them. What company will intetionally create competition for themselves if they don't have to?

In patent law, this is always taken in to account. Depending on the laws in a given country, they use one of two systems: the patent is either granted to the first person to patent the idea or the first person to develop it. In a first-to-develop system, if a person can provide legal proof that they had the idea first, it is likely they will receive the patent even if someone else has already patented it.

However, if patent law is such that the first person to patent it gets the right to own and license it, then the original inventor is out of luck. In a way, however, this is fair because it encourages the inventor to patent their idea as quickly as possible and get it in to the market faster rather than sit on it for future benefit. The downside to the system is that it encourages patent trolling and other exploitation.

I support the first-to-invent system of patents rather than the first-to-patent system because it better reflects the concept of intellectual property as, well, property.

You didn't really answer the question. You were talking about the moral right to own ideas, and patents can't deal with that, as my example shows. Not to mention that every idea, every single thought is built on the knowledge of those that came before us, knowledge that is only possible for us to have since it was shared freely. If IP was taken to its logical conclusion, that is if every idea and every single piece of thought from now on was owned by someone, and enforcement became perfect (say, through a brain implant that blocked unauthorized thought data), I don't see a very bright future for the human race. If it has any future at all.

Yes, that was very silly. But IP is a very silly concept. You know, if I don't want people to see my new haircut, perhaps I should stay indoors, or not get that haircut at all. And maybe if you care a lot about your ideas, and don't want to share them with anyone else, you should keep them to yourself.

Well, not really, because Maxwell's equations describe the physical effect and so are still considered physical laws; those equations did occur prior to his discovere and are "calculated" by the phenomena that use them. It's similar to the discovery of the mechanics of combustion; the process itself is not patentable, but the internal combustion engine using that process is.

Then you're basically guilty of not giving scientists incentives to discover or the ability to capture the benefits of their labor

I do agree. Even so, you'll notice it's not private companies that make these kinds of discoveries, it's research institutes and scientists motivated more by the awe of discovery than any potential profits.

(this is also why I support government funding for research, but that's another topic entirely)

My basic argument is that IP is supposed to create incentives to enrich the public domain. Its not supposed to be natural law type of property. If it is too restrictive that it discourages innovation then that level of protection shouldn't exist.

But who will make new software?

The internet communities of course, I mean how do you think Rappelz or any of the other free programs available on the net got made?

Yes, because if people live in your apartment building, then you have less space to live in it. And because the number of people who can live it is strictly limited.

While for your ideas, when you "give" them, you still have the same amount of them - and some times even more, because the one to whom you gave it will do a comment, or another kind of feedback. And the whole world can have your idea without you losing even the smallest amount of it.

Quite different, isn't it ?Sort of. You were on the right track when you said that it was scarcity that was profitable in capitalism. In short, the only way for a person to reap the "fruits of their labor" is for the fruits of their labor to be scarce. Since capitalists believe that people should receive "the fruits of their labor", then it doesn't matter if the scarcity is physical or artificially maintained.

For instance, if person A chops down some of the trees on his land a builds a house on it.

Person B notices this, copies the idea, and does the whole process on this own land with his own property.<Patents housebuilding.>

How many people do you know who work their hardest even when there's absolutely no incentive for them to do so?Monetary compensation isn't the sole motivation that (most) people work.

Sort of. You were on the right track when you said that it was scarcity that was profitable in capitalism. In short, the only way for a person to reap the "fruits of their labor" is for the fruits of their labor to be scarce. Since capitalists believe that people should receive "the fruits of their labor", then it doesn't matter if the scarcity is physical or artificially maintained.

<Patents housebuilding.>

Monetary compensation isn't the sole motivation that (most) people work.
So much and so wrong.

Producing products that are desired by another is what's profitable in capitalism. Scarcity doesn't enter the picture, except through the laws of supply and demand. But a scarce item that isn't desirable isn't valuable.

After the second guy starts building his house, it's a common practice and not eligible for patent.

Last, without monetary compensation, there wouldn't be much point in laboring. It may not be the sole motivation, but it's the major one.

No reason to innovate if as soon as you do someone with more resources than you is just going to copy it, mass produce it, and crush you. Rather enforces monopolies that already exist to prevent limited monopolies.Isn't that the point of laissez-faire?

I would say no. IP is just getting the government to stomp out your competition for you because you are too lazy to continue innovating.

Isn't that the point of laissez-faire?

I would say no. IP is just getting the government to stomp out your competition for you because you are too lazy to continue innovating.

Except, as I have said before, technological development is an evolutionary Red Queen scenario, where you have to run as fast as you can to stay in the same place. You have to always continue R&D, you can't stop just as soon as you come up with a cool idea, you've got to keep going or you're gonna get steamrolled.

Producing products that are desired by another is what's profitable in capitalism. Scarcity doesn't enter the picture, except through the laws of supply and demand. But a scarce item that isn't desirable isn't valuable.

Scarce items in high demand are more valuable and more profitible to sellers. Information is nonrivalrous. We both can consume it without either of us diminshing the others use of it. IP creates artificial scarcity by letting the owner to exclude others from its use. Whether this is justifiable is up to debate.

After the second guy starts building his house, it's a common practice and not eligible for patent..

His example was to show the ludicrousness(spelling?) of IP takin' to the logical extreme.

.Last, without monetary compensation, there wouldn't be much point in laboring. It may not be the sole motivation, but it's the major one.

It depends on what you're laboring and why. Kids have high costs, when combining real and opportunity, yet few argue that parents should be paid in excess to these cost though many would subsidize them.

There seems to be a massive misunderstanding about what patents are and what they do.

Patents are only given on very specific new inventions or innovations. Trying to argue that someone could patent natural forces is fundamentally absurd. IP laws protect the right to the commercial gains for a very specific and novel process or creation for a number of years (I believe 17 to 20 years is the international standard). Under US law you have to prove that the idea is new (or a substantial improvement on existing ideas), not obvious (as in it actually took some brain power and effort to develop), and that you have come up with it yourself (you have to be able to show your research notebooks or some other documentation to prove it is in fact your idea if someone disputes it).

This means that, once someone declares the details of exactly what this new idea is, and makes that idea available to all in a public document, any commercial gains from that idea for the following 20 years is rightfully the inventors.

You cannot patent a general concept (like attempting to patent the concept of ‘spreadsheets’) but you can patent a specific spreadsheet program.

A patent does not prevent people from thinking about that idea for 20 years – that is silly. The knowledge is put out in the public domain for all to see – if you are working in that field you now have access to the idea that was just patented, you just cannot make any money off it. If you can improve it by 10% you can get a new patent on your improvement, and thus encourage others to improve on your own idea.

Declaring that all commercial profits of an idea rightfully belong to the inventor for 20 years encourages people to invest in creating new ideas and making those ideas known in public documents. A patent does not mean that the patent holder can prevent anyone from thinking about that general area of technology and does not mean they can prevent anyone else from doing research in that field. All a patent does is declare that any commercial gains from an idea belong to the inventor for 20 years in exchange for having made that contribution to society.

Patents are only given on very specific new inventions or innovations. Trying to argue that someone could patent natural forces is fundamentally absurd. IP laws protect the right to the commercial gains for a very specific and novel process or creation for a number of years (I believe 17 to 20 years is the international standard). Under US law you have to prove that the idea is new (or a substantial improvement on existing ideas), not obvious (as in it actually took some brain power and effort to develop), and that you have come up with it yourself (you have to be able to show your research notebooks or some other documentation to prove it is in fact your idea if someone disputes it)

No ones' argument is that natural forces would or should be patented, or at least I don't think they are. The argument that if the argument that property rights exist so that one may fully or at least mostly capture the fruits of one's labor, including information, is correct then logically those who discover natural laws, and thus could potentially use this knowledge to create technology, should be able to have ownership rights over the use of ths knowledge. Given that last bit is absurd the first part is incorrect.

This means that, once someone declares the details of exactly what this new idea is, and makes that idea available to all in a public document, any commercial gains from that idea for the following 20 years is rightfully the inventors.

Of course, the IP system, when run effectively, is used to create incentives to ultimately enrich the public domain, and thus the public.

You cannot patent a general concept (like attempting to patent the concept of ‘spreadsheets’) but you can patent a specific spreadsheet program.

Of course, but then one can't gain the full benefits of one's labor.

A patent does not prevent people from thinking about that idea for 20 years – that is silly. The knowledge is put out in the public domain for all to see – if you are working in that field you now have access to the idea that was just patented, you just cannot make any money off it. If you can improve it by 10% you can get a new patent on your improvement, and thus encourage others to improve on your own idea.

Declaring that all commercial profits of an idea rightfully belong to the inventor for 20 years encourages people to invest in creating new ideas and making those ideas known in public documents. A patent does not mean that the patent holder can prevent anyone from thinking about that general area of technology and does not mean they can prevent anyone else from doing research in that field. All a patent does is declare that any commercial gains from an idea belong to the inventor for 20 years in exchange for having made that contribution to society.

All of which reinforces my arguments.

Producing products that are desired by another is what's profitable in capitalism. Scarcity doesn't enter the picture, except through the laws of supply and demand. But a scarce item that isn't desirable isn't valuable.Not quite. An item that exists in infinite quantities isn't valuable, regardless of how desired it is.
An idea can be used infinitely.

Not quite. An item that exists in infinite quantities isn't valuable, regardless of how desired it is.
An idea can be used infinitely.
If everyone were capable of having the same idea, at the same time, I might agree. But that's not true. Someone always has the idea first. And sometimes only one will ever have the idea.

You are talking about implementation. Not creation. That's what needs to be licensed or patented -- subsequent implementation after a unique creation.

Otherwise, as others have said, there's no motivation for more creation. If BellLabs or Qualcomm wasn't given ownership of their ideas, do you really think we would have experienced the boom in either satellite communications or in cell technology?

If everyone were capable of having the same idea, at the same time, I might agree. But that's not true. Someone always has the idea first. And sometimes only one will ever have the idea.

You are talking about implementation. Not creation. That's what needs to be licensed or patented -- subsequent implementation after a unique creation.It's debatable that that's what needs to be patented, but yes, I was talking about implementation.

Otherwise, as others have said, there's no motivation for more creation. If BellLabs or Qualcomm wasn't given ownership of their ideas, do you really think we would have experienced the boom in either satellite communications or in cell technology?I said that IP was compatible with laissez-faire capitalism. That doesn't mean I agree with either of them, though.
So within the context of the system that we live in, probably not.

Intellectual property is one of the biggest shams of the modern capitalist market. The benefits of intellectual property are inherent and self-rewarding. Inventions and ideas existed and flourished long before they were 'protected' by this economic disgrace.

Let me state the obvious on this, there is no such thing as an original thought.

Of course. I own my ideas, and they should be treated like any other kind of property or asset and granted the same protection. Intellectual property is just a new dimension of the overall right to own property. A person should not be allowed steal my land or my house or any other asset, so they shouldn't be permitted to steal the thoughts, inventions, and ideas I've developed either.

Property is property, and the state has a duty to protect that asset in order to ensure a free society. I give you consent to use my ideas, and anything else really is nothing more than theft.

How are your ownership rights violated if another learns and employs your idea?

Secondly, if someone learns what you know, how are they taking your idea, rather than creating a new idea? Ideas are immaterial and not bound by scarcity.

You lose your ability to profit from it, and the space only has value because you can profit from it, so they're not so different after all.

No you don't, no it doesn't, and yes they are.

The reason for protection of intellectual property is to allow inventors and innovators a means to recoup the cost of invention.

Then it is government subsidy and violent theft and not compatible with laissez-faire capitalism.

Then it is government subsidy and violent theft and not compatible with laissez-faire capitalism.

Yep. Yet another good reason to avoid Laissez-Faire.

Yep. Yet another good reason to avoid Laissez-Faire.

Yep, we all love violent theft.

Yep, we all love violent theft.

I build a factory. I demand that, before using it, people first attain my permission--even if their use doesn't interfere with mine.

Violent theft, or not?

I build a factory. I demand that, before using it, people first attain my permission--even if their use doesn't interfere with mine.

Violent theft, or not?

You build a factory. Someone else thinks that's a great idea and builds his own factory, with his own time and resources. You demand that he pays you for this privilege, and has the state to back him up with the threat of severe punishment. Violent theft or not?

Then it is government subsidy and violent theft and not compatible with laissez-faire capitalism.

Patent protection is not a subsidy, it is payment for making your IP public.
When you file for a patent, you have to explicitly define your new invention. This new innovation is then made publicly available for everyone to benefit from that knowledge. Government grants you temporary rights of exclusive commercial control of your IP in exchange for making the IP available for everyone. This is essentially the government buying the rights to publish the IP.

How is this violent theft?

Someone else thinks that's a great idea and builds his own factory, with his own time and resources.

"Someone else, with his/her own time and resources, comes up with a different idea that accomplishes the same thing." Intellectual property doesn't entitle me to anything from that person.

But if I use the same idea or the same factory, then the owner (within the framework of laissez-faire capitalism) is entitled to compensation... otherwise there is a large positive externality involved in the creation of new, useful ideas or factories, and they will be undersupplied.

Patent protection is not a subsidy, it is payment for making your IP public.
When you file for a patent, you have to explicitly define your new invention. This new innovation is then made publicly available for everyone to benefit from that knowledge. Government grants you temporary rights of exclusive commercial control of your IP in exchange for making the IP available for everyone. This is essentially the government buying the rights to publish the IP.

How is this violent theft?

He means its a form of government intervention, which is always violent, and theft because others are barred from using what they know by government fiat.

According to Libertarian political theory, all forms of coercion, no matter how mild, are violence. Likewise, any form of removal of wealth, taxation, or tariff is theft, unless the person involved contracts to accept them of his own free will and with no coercion whatsoever.

In fact, from a certain perspective, this works reasonably well as a model of social interaction. (From other points of view - such as ones more effectively based in reality - it's complete bullshit).

The real problem is that the Libertarian position then draws the conclusions that coercion and and involuntary taxation should be banned, being respectively violence and theft.

The real reality disconnect occurs here, because they don't take into account that not all violence is bad and not all theft is wrong. Even if you accept their basic premises, the final conclusion remains insupportable.

Like most forms of absolutism, Libertarianism is a salutary lesson in what happens if you take a good idea, then spin it out to it's ridiculous extreme. The far ends of the political spectra, whether left, right, up, down, in or out are nowhere we want to be.

Of course it isn't compatible, thats why you have very little people these days supporting 100% pure laissez-faire capitalism.

According to Libertarian political theory, all forms of coercion, no matter how mild, are violence. Likewise, any form of removal of wealth, taxation, or tariff is theft, unless the person involved contracts to accept them of his own free will and with no coercion whatsoever.

In fact, from a certain perspective, this works reasonably well as a model of social interaction. (From other points of view - such as ones more effectively based in reality - it's complete bullshit).

The real problem is that the Libertarian position then draws the conclusions that coercion and and involuntary taxation should be banned, being respectively violence and theft.

The real reality disconnect occurs here, because they don't take into account that not all violence is bad and not all theft is wrong. Even if you accept their basic premises, the final conclusion remains insupportable.

Like most forms of absolutism, Libertarianism is a salutary lesson in what happens if you take a good idea, then spin it out to it's ridiculous extreme. The far ends of the political spectra, whether left, right, up, down, in or out are nowhere we want to be.

Actually, most libertarians are not anti taxation based purely on ideals. Less Tax can be good for the economy, and you can't rule out the idea that no tax may be even better. Most libertarians are libertarians for pragmatic reasons.

Personally, as a Rothbardian libertarian and a laissez-faire Capitalist, I am opposed to so-called "intellectual property" because it isn't property, but rather "intellectual protectionism." I am much in agreement with Stephen Kinsella (http://blog.mises.org/archives/007058.asp), who has repeatedly criticized the patent system as being incompatible with Capitalism. For example, patents originated in England, being referred to as "patents of monopoly" and granted nepotistically by Queen Elizabeth I and King James I (you know, the King James whom the most popular version of the Bible is named after). Because IP is nothing more than a monopoly grant and monopolies are incompatible with Capitalism (which is based upon the ideal of a unrestricted free market in which everybody is free to compete), like nearly all Rothbardians, I support the file sharers and I think that the music companies are stupid for attempting to enforce unenforceable laws and that their actions against their customers, not the file sharing, are the cause of the low music sales.

What do you think? Is so-called Intellectual Property compatible with laissez-faire Capitalism or is it properly termed Intellectual Protectionism and therefore only compatible with Mercantilism?

I think people like you should be shot for advocating the destruction of what is right and fair: effectively an anarchist. Intellectual property should be protected within reason. The RIAA should've opened up a music download site which would get the file-sharers who could afford it: 99 cents a song maybe. It'd've certainly sold a lot.

I think people like you should be shot for advocating the destruction of what is right and fair: effectively an anarchist.

Rothbard did in fact consider himself an anarchist.

But this hardly seems to merit him, his followers, or anyone else calling themselves anarchists being shot.

Actually, most libertarians are not anti taxation based purely on ideals. Less Tax is good can be good for the economy, and you can't rule out the idea that no tax may be even better. Most libertarians are libertarians for pragmatic reasons.

And that's why I still have some respect for Libertarianism in general - it has not become overly dogmatic, and comes in many shades.

In fact, as a small government conservative myself, I long for the days when the Federal Government of the US could finance itself solely on export and import tariffs. Pragmatically, I follow many of the concepts that are now considered the domain of Libertarianism - a maximum of personal rights and responsibilities, minimalisation of government, and advancement based upon personal merit.

However.

I am also a student of history. The United States pracrised a strong form of Laissez-Faire capitalism from roughly 1870 to the beginning of the Franklin D. Roosevelt administration. The results were not promising. Standard Oil, DuPont Chemicals and the Hearst Newspaper chain were either complete or near-complete monopolies developing from this, causing such inanities as the Spanish-American War (massively pushed by Hearst) and the 1920's Drug Panic (Hearst and DuPont). The latter continues today as the War on Drugs - with, fundamentally, no greater level of success.
The only other major products of the Laissez-Faire era were the Great Depressions of 1890 and 1928 - which can hardly be considered positive results for the populace.

The government has a role in the economy, as a moderator and corrector. Captalism, like fire, is a wonderful tool, but a foul master, and must be controlled, harnessed if you will, to produce the best results. If that requires taxation, I have no problem with that.

Pragmatic self-interest, including the lessons of history, is a good thing.

I am also a student of history. The United States pracrised a strong form of Laissez-Faire capitalism from roughly 1870 to the beginning of the Franklin D. Roosevelt administration. The results were not promising. Standard Oil, DuPont Chemicals and the Hearst Newspaper chain were either complete or near-complete monopolies developing from this, causing such inanities as the Spanish-American War (massively pushed by Hearst) and the 1920's Drug Panic (Hearst and DuPont). The latter continues today as the War on Drugs - with, fundamentally, no greater level of success.
The only other major products of the Laissez-Faire era were the Great Depressions of 1890 and 1928 - which can hardly be considered positive results for the populace.


Totally, Laissez-Faire didn't work to well for the UK either, basically it caused a load of unwashed disease ridden towns.

Personally, as a Rothbardian libertarian and a laissez-faire Capitalist, I am opposed to so-called "intellectual property" because it isn't property, but rather "intellectual protectionism." I am much in agreement with Stephen Kinsella (http://blog.mises.org/archives/007058.asp), who has repeatedly criticized the patent system as being incompatible with Capitalism. For example, patents originated in England, being referred to as "patents of monopoly" and granted nepotistically by Queen Elizabeth I and King James I (you know, the King James whom the most popular version of the Bible is named after). Because IP is nothing more than a monopoly grant and monopolies are incompatible with Capitalism (which is based upon the ideal of a unrestricted free market in which everybody is free to compete), like nearly all Rothbardians, I support the file sharers and I think that the music companies are stupid for attempting to enforce unenforceable laws and that their actions against their customers, not the file sharing, are the cause of the low music sales.

What do you think? Is so-called Intellectual Property compatible with laissez-faire Capitalism or is it properly termed Intellectual Protectionism and therefore only compatible with Mercantilism?

If I go to the trouble of inventing a thing or process, or of writing a book or poem or of making original art, why should I then permit it to be used by others without recompense? Patents and copyrights protect the creative individual. They do run out and eventually the protected property enters the public domain.

If I go to the trouble of inventing a thing or process, or of writing a book or poem or of making original art, why should I then permit it to be used by others without recompense? Patents and copyrights protect the creative individual. They do run out and eventually the protected property enters the public domain.

The problem is that if initiating force is always wrong then noncontractual forms of IP, currently all of them, is morally wrong. IP is a form of government intervention to subsidize innovation and promote openess, so goes the theory anyway. Since its a form of government intervention it can't be laissez-faire capitalism, and since its noncontractual its an unjustifiable use of government force if one is a philosophically consistent libertarian.