Hollywood, Feds seize control of Internet? The SOPA bill

[WaitingForGodot]

'Seize the domain name.'

But they weren't really scam sites. They were selling unlicensed merchandise. One had counterfeit NFL gear.

[Andius]

But they weren't really scam sites. They were selling unlicensed merchandise. One had counterfeit NFL gear.

Oh, I suppose that is not so bad I guess.

Still, a shame the appreciation of counterfeit sports gear is not influence enough to dissuade them.

For me, I love to play with the counterfeit football soccer shirts that I have, since I am an extra sweaty guy. It be a deadly sin if I ever get my official 2010-2011 Real Madrid or 2005 Brazil kit shirt sweaty, of which I resort to wear my counterfeit versions of it for game days.

[joel]

'Seize the domain name.'

But they weren't really scam sites. They were selling unlicensed merchandise. One had counterfeit NFL gear.

So it's really about the government enforcing the monopoly privileges they have granted.

[WaitingForGodot]

Any intellectual property holder would be protected under the same authority. They took down another site that was selling counterfeit auto software. I don't think it has anything to do with the grant of monopoly privileges.

[joel]

Any intellectual property holder would be protected under the same authority. They took down another site that was selling counterfeit auto software. I don't think it has anything to do with the grant of monopoly privileges.

IP is really just a grant of monopoly privilege.

"Intellectual monopoly" would be a more accurate term. Historically this was understood better. For instance, "patent" was synonymous with government granted monopoly privilege. If the government of England wanted to give sole privileges to produce salt, or to produce buttons, or for shipping etc., they would issue "letters patent" to the privileged business, thus granting a monopoly.

Likewise copyright was originally a system of censorship of and monopoly grants to scribes and printers (as opposed to freedom of the press). In England, "early copyright privileges were called 'monopolies,' particularly during the reign of Queen Elizabeth, who frequently gave grants of monopolies in articles of common use, such as salt, leather, coal, soap, cards, beer, and wine." (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_copyright_law)

[WaitingForGodot]

Oh I see what you mean. I thought you were talking about the Congressional grant of monopoly rights that the NFL (and utility companies, etc.) gets to operate outside the anti-trust laws.

[Andius]

That Queen Elizabeth granted monopolies over beer and wine, that should be capital sin in and of itself. >_<

[Augustine2004]

http://www.libertarianstandard.com/2...ish-copyright/

[Darth Executor]

IP is really just a grant of monopoly privilege.

The same logic can be applied to private property.

[Challenger Grim]

The same logic can be applied to private property.

I... half agree with this.

I've never been fully comfortable with libertarian denials of creative endeavors as part of private property, but on the other hand, there is some grade-A insanity in some current copyright and patent laws right now. (and SOPA/PIPA would have just compounded the issues)

[joel]

The same logic can be applied to private property.

At first that does seem so. But it turns out that the two ideas (tangible property vs "intellectual property") are opposed to one another (and cannot be different kinds of property coexisting).

If I own tangible property (say a toaster), okay, I have a "monopoly" on that toaster (in a very narrow sense).
But if one has an enforced privilege to be the only producer/seller of toasters (i.e. via patent grant), that is more properly a monopoly (the sole producer of a particular kind of thing).

If I have tangible property, I may do as I please with it without encroaching on other people or their tangible property. I could, for example, form it into a toaster.
If you had the "IP" on the idea of a toaster, then that diminishes my tangible property rights--I can no longer do what I like with my tangible property; I'm not allowed to form it into a toaster.
If you take IP to its logical conclusion (where all ideas are owned), then it diminishes all tangible property rights to virtually zero. No human action is possible.
On the other hand, tangible property rights imply that you can't have a monopoly on ideas--since I may form a toaster with my own property if I like.

IP also boils down to tangible property rights. Your having IP (on the idea of toaster) would in theory arbitrarily give you tangible property rights over the entire universe (including my property, and other planets)--regarding any matter's being formed into a toaster (thus a transfer of part ownership of everything to you). Whereas "normal" tangible property rights are limited to the one tangible thing.


I also hold that tangible property comes to be legitimately apart from any government (the government's job is only to protect such pre-existing rights). And this by a Lockean-style homesteading, which is a limitation upon acquiring property. But IP would give you part ownership of my property without you having 'homesteaded' it. Thus I would argue that tangible property rights are part of justice, which is prior to the state, whereas IP is an artificial creation of the state, and is ultimately in opposition to justice (since it is in opposition to property rights).

A related difference is that property rights apply only to scarce resources. Your taking my toaster deprives me of it. My building a toaster does not deprive you of the use of your idea of a toaster (you still have the same right to build all the toasters you want with your property). It does not conflict with your use. As Thomas Jefferson wrote, "He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me." (letter to Isaac McPherson, Monticello, August 13, 1813)
IP creates artificial scarcity where there was none. Tangible property does not create scarcity, but is the moral/just way of dealing with the fact of existing scarcity.

[Challenger Grim]

A related difference is that property rights apply only to scarce resources. Your taking my toaster deprives me of it. My building a toaster does not deprive you of the use of your idea of a toaster (you still have the same right to build all the toasters you want with your property). It does not conflict with your use. As Thomas Jefferson wrote, "He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me." (letter to Isaac McPherson, Monticello, August 13, 1813)
IP creates artificial scarcity where there was none. Tangible property does not create scarcity, but is the moral/just way of dealing with the fact of existing scarcity.

This is becoming a lot fuzzier with advancing computers and genetics.

Your assembling of just "1s and 0s" can end up depriving someone a use of their 1s and 0s if you (on purpose or inadvertently) create a virus, bug, worm, whatever. And can I take your genetic sequence and use my own raw As,Ts, Cs & Gs to create a new you that I can do whatever I wish? (we're not at this point yet, but how much longer can it be?) Unless someone works with tangible property, they deserve no compensation for any investment of time?

And I thought a lot of free-market ideals depending upon something intangible like reputation (something intangible). If I create a line of toasters (called "Grim Toasters") that are high quality, and popular market purchases, then you creating your own toaster (let's say one that's grossly inferior - perhaps even dangerous) and selling them as "Grim Toasters" very much deprives me of sales that I would have received and my customers the product they were hoping to buy and conflicts with my use.

[joel]

This is becoming a lot fuzzier with advancing computers and genetics.

Your assembling of just "1s and 0s" can end up depriving someone a use of their 1s and 0s if you (on purpose or inadvertently) create a virus, bug, worm, whatever.

This can be brought down into the realm of tangible property.
Your assembling/rearranging of matter might end up (on purpose or inadvertently) send a steel projectile through the engine of your neighbor's car (or head), thus violating his (property) rights.

Your property rights do not extend that far. You may do what you want with your own property as long as you don't encroach on others and their property. You may do what you want with what is yours, not with what is your neighbor's.
But my making a toaster with my own property doesn't encroach on others' person or property. Yet IP would forbid me from doing it, thus it does encroach upon my rights.

And can I take your genetic sequence and use my own raw As,Ts, Cs & Gs to create a new you that I can do whatever I wish?

If you created a twin of me, he would be a sovereign person with his own rights. He would not be your property.

Unless someone works with tangible property, they deserve no compensation for any investment of time?

Work does not automatically gain you compensation. You might spend lots of effort creating a product (tangible or otherwise) that no one wants to buy. Or you might be outcompeted by a competitor. Or even the existence of the competitor may reduce the price at which you can sell your product. You don't have a guaranteed compensation for work. You only have a right to exchange with whomever is willing to exchange with you. You don't have a right to force people to buy your product.

For that matter, IP doesn't even claim to guarantee compensation for investment/work, as its purpose. You might obtain a patent for an invention that no one wants to buy. Or your efforts might not produce anything of value in the first place.

And I thought a lot of free-market ideals depending upon something intangible like reputation (something intangible). If I create a line of toasters (called "Grim Toasters") that are high quality, and popular market purchases, then you creating your own toaster (let's say one that's grossly inferior - perhaps even dangerous) and selling them as "Grim Toasters" very much deprives me of sales that I would have received and my customers the product they were hoping to buy and conflicts with my use.

This is a different matter. In that scenario I would not be creating a competing identical toaster (copying your idea), I would be creating a differing toaster (not forbidden by patent) and committing fraud by claiming to my buyers that you made it. This is different from me copying your toaster design.

Or another example, there is a difference between my copying Dickens' Great Expectations (which is okay) and me claiming my own shoddy writing was written by Dickens, or my copying Great Expectations but blotting out Dickens' name and inserting my own.

If it was this kind of fraud that the government was cracking down on, then I'm sympathetic to that--cracking down on someone fraudulently selling a cheap watch claiming it's a Rolex. On the other hand if the buyer knows it's a fake, then it's not fraud. Everyone knows that the "Rolexes" being sold by the bum on the sidewalk are fake. I have no problem with someone wanting to buy/sell a fake Rolex as long as the buyer knows it's a fake. A buyer might like the look of it and not care that it's a cheap copy. Like if I buy a print of Mona Lisa. It's fine if I know it's just a copy. It's fraud if they try to claim they're selling me the original (for a vast sum of money).


On the other hand, if I start making toasters the same as yours (or perhaps better), and sell them under my own name, then I as your competition may still be "depriving" you of sales you would have received. But that's how competition and voluntary exchange works. I might even make a superior product that makes yours obsolete, thus depriving you of lots of sales. You don't have a right to sales.

[Challenger Grim]

This can be brought down into the realm of tangible property.
Your assembling/rearranging of matter might end up (on purpose or inadvertently) send a steel projectile through the engine of your neighbor's car (or head), thus violating his (property) rights.

Your property rights do not extend that far. You may do what you want with your own property as long as you don't encroach on others and their property. You may do what you want with what is yours, not with what is your neighbor's.
But my making a toaster with my own property doesn't encroach on others' person or property. Yet IP would forbid me from doing it, thus it does encroach upon my rights.

But the question is do we have any rights to our own thoughts and ideas. Why is it less wrong for someone to look into my house and take a photo of blueprints I'm working on than to just walk in (assume house is unlocked) and take the blueprints? (the big difference of it will be coming up)

If you created a twin of me, he would be a sovereign person with his own rights. He would not be your property.

Setting aside the question of when do the raw materials I own gain their own rights - what if it's something else? Say you're a concert pianist who plays so lovely people enjoy hearing you. Why can't I take your code, and - using my own materials - start marketing your "talent" out? Someone pay me, I can inject them with the genes coding your talent and then they'll play just as good as you (or good enough - obviously there's questions of practice, training, etc). Or I just make a recording of you without your consent and then begin selling CDs of your playing, reducing the audiences for your concerts. Have I not stolen from you?

Work does not automatically gain you compensation. You might spend lots of effort creating a product (tangible or otherwise) that no one wants to buy. Or you might be outcompeted by a competitor. Or even the existence of the competitor may reduce the price at which you can sell your product. You don't have a guaranteed compensation for work. You only have a right to exchange with whomever is willing to exchange with you. You don't have a right to force people to buy your product.

For that matter, IP doesn't even claim to guarantee compensation for investment/work, as its purpose. You might obtain a patent for an invention that no one wants to buy. Or your efforts might not produce anything of value in the first place.

I never said work automatically gains one compensation nor anything about forcing purchase of a product - I asked if people deserve to be compensated for their work.

Say there are no such thing as toasters. I - in my garage - spend many hours as well as physical resources creating and constructing the toaster. Should this time spent (and the opportunities given up) creating my toaster factor into its price? If yes, then no matter what, competitors will ALWAYS be able to reduce the price of a product because they can reverse engineer it, thus having less time investment in it than I did.

This is part of why pharmaceuticals are currently set up the way they are. It can take years and enormous funds to develop a new drug (not even counting testing of it) but a tiny, TINY fraction of that to copy and sell the same drug (hence "generics"). Without IP law, pharmaceutical companies would spend immense time and funds developing a drug... and then sell it for about a week to a month before generics hit the market. They would pretty much be doing research and development at a huge cost for no benefit. If that was the case, how long do you think the companies would still R&D?

As I pointed out in this thread: http://www.theologyweb.com/campus/sh...ages-caused-by there seems to be some kind of "innovation drain" happening as manufacturing is outsourced and we lose the industrial commons. A big question is: why? Why aren't the places gaining the industrial commons we lost inventing as America invented? Is there something intrinsic to the people? China, Mexico, etc just CAN'T invent like Americans can? Or is it something else? Does their general lack of IP law (or at least - enforcement thereof) reduce the incentive to

This is a different matter. In that scenario I would not be creating a competing identical toaster (copying your idea), I would be creating a differing toaster (not forbidden by patent) and committing fraud by claiming to my buyers that you made it. This is different from me copying your toaster design.

But fraud isn't a tangible object - which was my point. The free market isn't reducible to tangible objects alone.

Or another example, there is a difference between my copying Dickens' Great Expectations (which is okay) and me claiming my own shoddy writing was written by Dickens, or my copying Great Expectations but blotting out Dickens' name and inserting my own.

Now this is what I'm interested in as that last example (blotting out his name and inserting your own) is what I'm talking about when I'm discussing intellectual property.

If it was this kind of fraud that the government was cracking down on, then I'm sympathetic to that--cracking down on someone fraudulently selling a cheap watch claiming it's a Rolex. On the other hand if the buyer knows it's a fake, then it's not fraud. Everyone knows that the "Rolexes" being sold by the bum on the sidewalk are fake. I have no problem with someone wanting to buy/sell a fake Rolex as long as the buyer knows it's a fake. A buyer might like the look of it and not care that it's a cheap copy. Like if I buy a print of Mona Lisa. It's fine if I know it's just a copy. It's fraud if they try to claim they're selling me the original (for a vast sum of money).

No argument there.

On the other hand, if I start making toasters the same as yours (or perhaps better), and sell them under my own name, then I as your competition may still be "depriving" you of sales you would have received. But that's how competition and voluntary exchange works. I might even make a superior product that makes yours obsolete, thus depriving you of lots of sales. You don't have a right to sales.

Like I said above, never said anything about a right to sales, just what you mentioned right above (fraud) and what I said earlier with incentivising [sp?] invention.

[joel]

But the question is do we have any rights to our own thoughts and ideas. Why is it less wrong for someone to look into my house and take a photo of blueprints I'm working on than to just walk in (assume house is unlocked) and take the blueprints? (the big difference of it will be coming up)

I would say they are both wrong. They are both trespassing. I think you have a right to keep an idea secret.
But if you were to publish it on a sign by your sidewalk, then the idea is fair game. Once your idea is out there, then you don't have an exclusive right to the idea (in other peoples' minds), which would be a right over their minds. (Similarly if you sell a product publicly and thus others can see how it works, then the idea is made public.)

Setting aside the question of when do the raw materials I own gain their own rights - what if it's something else? Say you're a concert pianist who plays so lovely people enjoy hearing you. Why can't I take your code, and - using my own materials - start marketing your "talent" out? Someone pay me, I can inject them with the genes coding your talent and then they'll play just as good as you (or good enough - obviously there's questions of practice, training, etc). Or I just make a recording of you without your consent and then begin selling CDs of your playing, reducing the audiences for your concerts. Have I not stolen from you?

I don't think that's how genes work. But for the sake of argument, I think I see what you are saying. Maybe put it this way: suppose that I have some technique that allows me to play really well, and that you, observing me play, are able to understand my technique. I would say you are perfectly within your rights to teach others the same technique.

Also if I perform publicly and you record me, then you are within your rights to duplicate and distribute the recording. It's the difference between keeping my blueprints secret vs displaying them publicly. If I really want to keep total control of my idea, I have to keep it secret.

Copying is not theft (you have not deprived me of anything), so if copying were immoral it would have to be so for a reason other than being theft.
And there may be ways to profit but keep a secret--i.e., trade secrets. The official formula for Coca-Cola is secret. You can have your employees/clients sign non-disclosure agreements to not divulge trade secrets. Or my piano playing: I could just not perform publicly. Or to keep you from learning my technique I could cover my hands as I play. I could perform privately and make each audience member sign a non-disclosure, non-copy agreement. Then if you recorded and distributed it, it would be breach of contract.

There are other possibilities for profit: people may still want to see me perform live, selling authorized copies, or signed copies, or paid appearances/interviews, sellling merchandise or advertising.
It's also worth noting that small-time creators don't have a "piracy" problem, but an obscurity problem.
Copyrights really just benefit big-time creators and big media conglomerates. (Who keep getting legislation passed to keep things under copyright forever, and recently even to move the line backwards in time and re-copyright things already in the public domain. http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/201...ight-decision/ Peter and the Wolf was in the public domain. Now it's not.)

I never said work automatically gains one compensation nor anything about forcing purchase of a product - I asked if people deserve to be compensated for their work.

My answer is the same. Compensation is not deserved. There's only the right to offer things in voluntary exchange. There is no right to be compensated by others. (Who, specifically, would it be who would owe you compensation?)

However, there are two senses in which a person might be said to deserve compensation.

1) You work to create a, say, sweater, out of your own materials. You then own the thing. You "deserve" that property and its use. The product itself is your compensation (the fruit of your labor). You do not however deserve compensation from others, who may not wish to purchase it from you.

or

2) You might, before working, enter into a contract for agreed-upon compensation after the work is done. Then you deserve the agreed-upon compensation from that specific person, after completing the work.

Should this time spent (and the opportunities given up) creating my toaster factor into its price?

Price is just whatever you and someone else happen agree to exchange for. You can ask for whatever price you wish. But it depends on finding someone else willing to make that exchange.

Prices are not determined by costs. Say you spend lots of money/work creating your toaster. And suppose I independently invent the same thing, but with less cost. Consumers don't care that yours cost more, their buying price will be the same for each.

Just as how buyers are not willing to compensate less efficient producers for their inefficiency, by paying for the extra cost of the inefficiency.
Any two units of the same good will have the same price by consumers even if they had different costs. Prices are determined by the quantity of supply and the demand, not by the costs of producing the units of that supply.


But then what you are getting at is that without IP there will be less incentive to invest in R&D than some people consider optimal.
Thus a common argument for IP is that it is desirable to increase the incentive to invest in R&D.
To that I respond:

1) Even if it were desirable, it still seems to be immoral, for the reasons I gave before that IP is unjust.

2) There are arguments that can be made in the other direction. For example, to stay competitive, one must keep innovating to stay on the cutting edge. But a patent grant means that I can rest on my past success and thus reduces incentive to keep innovating. It is not clear that IP increases innovation/creation on the whole. (Other points are that the additional R&D due to the distorted incentives may be more R&D than is actually economical--may be at the expense of more urgent uses of those resources. Or that additional resources are used up in dealing with politics, patent litigation, Or inhibited innovation for fear of being sued for IP infringements.)

3) In fact, IP often/usually is seen in practice to reduce innovation/production. I used to be swayed by the above argument for IP until I read the book Against Intellectual Monopoly (full text for free, here: http://www.dklevine.com/general/inte...al/against.htm). It documents countless cases of IP being no help or detrimental, and lack of IP having superior market results (more innovation/creation/production). So many cases showing the same result again and again that the result becomes almost tedious. One finding is that the profits from "first mover" advantage (staying one step ahead of your competitors) is huge and is sufficient motivation to invest in innovation.

It has a whole chapter on your example of pharmaceuticals. "the modern pharmaceutical industry developed faster in those countries where patents were fewer and weaker." The earlier heavily patented U.S. market was slow and underdeveloped, while German companies like Bayer had no German patents but innovated much more and were more successful. Any incentive created by patents were more than offset by the increased legal restrictions on innovation caused by patents. Another example discussed is that Italy's market also was depressed after introducing drug patents in 1979.

Some interesting quotes from my notes:

• "[...] according to the chief scientific officer at Bristol Myers Squib, Peter Ringrose, who told The New York Times that there were ‘more than 50 proteins possibly involved in cancer that the company was not working on because the patent holders either would not allow it or were demanding unreasonable royalties".
• "more than half of the top selling medicines around the world do not owe their existence to pharmaceutical patents."
• "...the study showed that 10 times as many basic drug inventions were made in countries without product patents as were made in nations with them."
• Much (75%) of R&D resources are spent on creating redundancy to get around patents "Insofar as new drugs are replacements for drugs that already exist, they have little or no economic value in a world without patents – yet cost on the order of $800 million to bring to market because the existence of patents forces the producers to “invent something” the USPO can pretend to be sufficiently different from the original, patented, drug."

But fraud isn't a tangible object - which was my point. The free market isn't reducible to tangible objects alone.

I'm not following. Fraud (like theft, or murder) is an act, not an object. Fraud is not property.
Intangible ideas exist, but are not property.

Now this is what I'm interested in as that last example (blotting out his name and inserting your own) is what I'm talking about when I'm discussing intellectual property.

Lying is different from copying. Fraud should be illegal. We seem to agree on this.