and how convincing do you find that?
Where there is no property there is no justice; a proposition as certain as any demonstration in Euclid
Fools! not to see that what they madly desire would be a calamity to them as no hands but their own could bring
ok so the picture im getting is that no-one is arguing pro-patent here anymore . people are just arguing about kinds of copyright, in particular non traditional copyright over 'inventions'.
and everyone will agree that only two parties are bound by the sale of an explicity copywrighted object. The seller, and the buyer. all other 3rd parties who have eyes and minds are not bound. isnt this so?
Maxliberty:Good, you have finally admitted we are enemies by your choosing.
We're enemies because you refuse to acknowledge a reasonable argument and use a lot of strawmen.
Maxliberty:Your tone and attitude only indicate that what you are actually interested in is not a free society, because in a free society there will be disagreement, but rather you want to be the dictator.
Another strawman.
Maxliberty:Your opposition to voluntary contracts as it relates to IP is just one example of your desire to use force despite all your protestations to the contrary.
And we finish off with yet another strawman.
Thanks for making my point. When you are ready to argue what I have written, then we can carry on. As long as you continue to assert positions I do not hold, we're going nowhere.
Max I will add, for those in the peanut gallery, that your continued insistence that if something is contracted, that proves anything is the basis for our disagreement. I have never, ever written against voluntary contracts, and you cannot source where I have done so. That said, not all voluntary contracts are good, rational, or even possible to execute. You and I could come to terms on numerous actions, activities and outcomes, and that in itself would not prove any of those activities, actions or outcomes to be legitimate.
I argue this, based on reason. One can contract with me to turn off the sun tonight around 8:00 PM. I can agree to the contract. We have a voluntary contract, and yet we both know full well, I do not have the capacity to turn off the sun at any time.
Thus your argument, about contracting with employees to hide Coke's formula in it's vault constitutes voluntary IP protection, you are only correct in so far as the actual piece of paper the knowedge is recorded on, never is shared. However, the idea (IP) itself, is still capable if being learned, reproduced and discovered by others, so in that regard, any contracts to protect the IP can't be of any use protecting against another individual not contracted from using their brain as the orginiator of Coke did, in order to come up with the formula.
Anyway, please carry on. I actually laugh at some of your ridiculous ideas, at the very least they serve as entertainment. The market speaks, but individual participants (which comprise a free market) are wrong. Sounds pretty authoritarian to me. It is actually completely anti-free market when you assume that only the pro- position matters and the -con position does not.
Then again, you believe in supernatural beings, so perhaps this whole discussion is moot.
If you find something evil that wobbles, push it. - Gary North
Does anybody know what Jacksklark is actually saying? His theory goes way over my head.
I have not seen any calculational chaos in the many examples that I know throughout history nor do I ever see any breakdown for market of new digital goods.
http://libregamewiki.org - The world's only encyclopedia on free(as in freedom) gaming.
If anyone wants to see a great video game business model in the age of piracy(or sharing, as I like to call it), just look at Steam. They make their games hard to pirate(which is perfectly acceptable in a world without IP laws. DRM is a bad business practice as it fucks over the people who actually purchase the game, but that's not the case with Steam. There's no hassle whatsoever for those who buy the game, and it is VERY difficult to get a Valve game working without buying it...mostly because they require Steam to be running when you play, which is again, no inconvencience for those who purchase games through Steam) and make getting their games as easy as clicking a button. Furthermore, it offers great services, like being able to have all of your games tied to your account so you can access them from any computer, anywhere, at any time.
kiba:Linux isn't some hobbyist project coded by some programmer in their parent's basement. It is developed by professionals hired from corporations like IBM.
BC Linux is a capital good to that business. Gears 2 is a pure and simple consumer product.
Check my blog, if you're a loser
meambobbo:Nobody has really responded to my saying that labor used to create IP is scarce
It's irrelevant to the question of ownership. Only matter and space are in the unfortunate condition of being unusable except exclusively, and it is solely for this reason that the concept of "property" has any utility at all; information has no such handicap, so treating information as if it were property is quite simply absurd. The only justification one might use is that the widespread violence initiated to enforce property claims in information is somehow mitigated by some other factor, but any such justification would have to either implicitly or explicitly assert an objective inferiority of the rights of the victims as compared to others. This too is absurd as there are no objective signs or marks which distinguish any individual or group of individuals as having a right to rule, a right to impose their will upon, any other individual or group of individuals. The only objective rational ethical assertion we can make is one of an equality of rights, by simple process of elimination, as any alternative must either be non-objective, or self-inconsistent and thus non-rational, or both. The only oughts which must be assumed are that we should be objective and rational in our ethics; any argument against these basic first oughts must itself be subjective and irrational and thus dismissable out of hand as gibbering nonsense. The only objectively rational arguments must be for equality, which entails maintenance of pareto optimality, and thus for a non-initiation of violence, which precludes any enforcement of property claims in information.
Enforcement of legitimate claims of ownership of physical property requires no such violation of pareto optimality, as legitimate ownership of physical property is based on ongoing use of matter and space. For others to use the matter or space of my body requires denying me my use. For others to use the matter or space of my computer likewise requires denying me my use, unless I cease my use voluntarily; the former lacks justification for the very same reason as property claims in information lack justification. Where I sit or stand, what I hold in hand, the matter of my body, and the matter and space I reclaim from nature to hold the various forms I find useful, such as, for example, my computer are all in ongoing use by me. My legitimate ownership of any of them only ends when my use ends, such as through destruction of the forms I find useful, over time, due to increasing entropy; for example, if I build a house and it eventually rots back into the ground, the land and materials cease to be mine as I no longer actually use them. There is nothing in your notion of "intellectual property" that is by its nature only usable exclusively, as information is itself an intangible; information can only exist insofar as it is encoded in physical forms and so the only property claims one can legitimately make in relation to information are ownership claims on the physical media of storage and exchange. Brains, CDs, hard drives; those are the only "intellectual property" with any rational basis.
meambobbo:Most IP is developed by professionals and intended for mass consumers. Let me give you some examples: video games and Mac and Windows operating systems.
That is a tiny fraction of the software actually produced. Most software work is custom work, not work for mass consumption. Mass consumption is covered easily enough by software developed voluntarily by those who find doing so to be fun, those who in turn sell support services, and those who can support their work through ad revenue. I'm a programmer, I know what the field is like. Art isn't much different. Digital artists and designers can profit from advertisements while their work itself is available for free, or they can do custom work like designing websites or ads or logos; my girlfriend's a digital artist/designer and that's the primary sort of work available in her field. Physical art can be displayed in for-profit museums or originals can be sold for a profit; cheap mass produced copies might turn a profit, but they can't compete with originals. Performance artists can sell their performances. Musicians can likewise make their money off of live performances, as was their sole source of revenue before the invention of the phonograph. Composers can perform custom work for ad supported or subscription based entertainment, or for ads, or for musicians who have no talent for composition, only for playing. There's no presently IP covered field that can't be supported without resorting to the widespread violence of IP enforcement.
meambobbo:We even have at least one specific variant designed for mass consumer use - Ubuntu. These products are free to use. Every hardware vendor could save money installing it over Windows. So why do Windows and Mac still rule the OS market?
So why do Windows and Mac still rule the OS market?
They don't. GNU/Linux is dominant in the server market. Windows and Mac are dominant in the desktop market, largely due to inertia and the distortion of the market by IP laws, but continue to lose ground to GNU/Linux. The distortion of the market by IP laws allows Microsoft and Apple to gain unnaturally large profits, which in turn allows them to hype their software more through advertising, and in the case of Microsoft it also allows for the ongoing suppression of competitors by buying them out, bribing hardware vendors, et cetera. There's also the effect of IP on hardware, such as graphics cards, which has made it far more difficult to develop linux drivers for such hardware; Microsoft gets Windows drivers for free, while linux developers generally have to develop their own, increasing the difficulty of developing quality games for GNU/Linux. There's also the major distortion of the video game market itself to consider, which in turn helps Microsoft even more. Big budget video games are subsidized by the violence of IP enforcement; without IP laws, there would be fewer big budget video games, but the games which would exist would be more stable, portable, and moddable because the software end would tend to be developed primarily collaboratively rather than competitively, with content running on that software provided by subscriptions or through ad supported distribution sites or by volunteers who just enjoy modding or even as promotional material for selling hardware or some other products or services. The fact that free/open source software games/engines with the quality of Adanaxis, VegaStrike, Spring, FlightGear, et alia, are developed despite the existence of IP laws is clear evidence that, in their absence, quality games would still be developed, and that they'd be generally more stable, portable, and moddable than the big budget commercial games developed under IP laws.
meambobbo:Because Mac and Windows are designed to be user friendly to the mass majority of computer users.
Mac maybe, but certainly not Windows. Apple conducts actual usability research. So does the non-profit GNOME Foundation, which is responsible for one of the two most popular desktop environments for GNU/Linux. In fact, my girlfriend, who uses a Mac, tried out GNOME using an account I created for her on my computer, and she thought that in some respects it was even better than her Mac, and that overall it was at least as good as a Mac. Microsoft just guesses generally, and usually quite wrongly; it only has the advantage of inertia; people are used to it. The only thing they manage to make more user friendly is the initial installation, which is usually handled by hardware vendors anyway, and the only reason it's more user friendly is because they only install the basics; they don't offer the tens of thousands of additional applications which are standard on GNU/Linux installation CDs/DVDs. Installing all those additional applications, plus the extra configuration options offered by GNU/Linux due to the fact that it's just plain more flexible, often requires additional user input during the installation, which some distributions don't handle well. The commercial distributions like RedHat and Mandrake do a pretty good job in this area compared to non-profits like Debian; Mandrake is actually braindead simple to install, or at least it was back in '03 when I first tried it out, and I can't imagine it having gotten more difficult to install since then.
meambobbo:However, the brunt of the direction of development is in the direction the developers want to consume. They don't want to compete directly with Windows market, because they don't want Windows.
So? They work to make it better. Those who work on the UI try to make the UI as good as possible. Those who work on the low level components try to make those as good as possible. The people who work on the UI, particularly those developing GNOME-based applications, put at least as much work into making the UI user friendly as do Mac developers. If there are particular niche programs which are in demand but not supplied by volunteer work, they can be handled by those seeking to sell support services or by custom development work; in the worst case, those who want such programs can pool their money together to hire developers to produce them, though if it's the sort of program that's useful to more than a handful of people, the sale of support services should be enough to promote development and maintenance of such software.
meambobbo:What business model would allow entrepreneurial investment to direct IP labor towards satisfying consumer demands, while guaranteeing as much or greater income than current business models that rely on IP law?
Probably none. IP laws create monopolies, and thus monopolist rent. The same or greater income is not necessary for the development of information-based products and services; that some people won't be able to line their pockets with unnaturally large profits is irrelevant to the question of whether information-based products and services, of the same or greater quality, can be developed in the absence of IP. All the evidence suggests that they can be developed, but even if they couldn't, IP would be unjustifiable on ethical grounds.
meambobbo:or that the equivalent of the "new socialist man" would appear and work simply for others' benefit
How ironic, considering that it is you who suggests that others be forcibly denied full use of their own persons and property, that they should be forced into self-sacrifice, to support IP profiteers.
meambobbo:Here's a simpler question to answer - why would I work year-round with 2 dozen people to produce a video game that will give me less than a week's work of entertainment, if not for the monetary gains derived from satisfying consumer demand, which are obviously larger if our product is allowed to be artificially scarce? It seems anti-IP would turn all video games into hobbyist mods of existing games.
Even if that were true (which it clearly isn't given the existence of high quality volunteer-developed games, ad supported games, and subscription based gaming services), so what? If the demand isn't there in the absence of IP laws, it isn't there. People will find something else to spend their time and money on; creating massive distortions in the market just so you can turn a profit completely ignores the negative externalities of your activity, all that is unseen, all the alternative unrealized uses of the same economic resources, as well as the absurdity of your supposed right to rule over others to make your business model viable. Why would I work year-round with 2 dozen people to produce a giant statue of a resus monkey made out of feces if not for the monetary gains derived from extracting tithes from the people at gunpoint, on behalf of the monkey shit god? It's a question no more absurd than your own.
Corporations are an extension of the state.
Rich333, I'm usually not much for cheerleader posts, but I have to say this: you are a gentleman and a scholar and your post kicks ass.
Market anarchist, Linux geek, aspiring Perl hacker, and student of the neo-Aristotelians, the classical individualist anarchists, and the Austrian school.
liberty student: Then again, you believe in supernatural beings, so perhaps this whole discussion is moot.
Perhaps you'd best stop with the cheap shots against religion.
"You don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows"
Bob Dylan
GilesStratton:Perhaps you'd best stop with the cheap shots against religion.
You of all people should be able to appreciate a good cheap shot.
Rich333: meambobbo:Nobody has really responded to my saying that labor used to create IP is scarce It's irrelevant to the question of ownership. Only matter and space are in the unfortunate condition of being unusable except exclusively, and it is solely for this reason that the concept of "property" has any utility at all; information has no such handicap, so treating information as if it were property is quite simply absurd. The only justification one might use is that the widespread violence initiated to enforce property claims in information is somehow mitigated by some other factor, but any such justification would have to either implicitly or explicitly assert an objective inferiority of the rights of the victims as compared to others. This too is absurd as there are no objective signs or marks which distinguish any individual or group of individuals as having a right to rule, a right to impose their will upon, any other individual or group of individuals. The only objective rational ethical assertion we can make is one of an equality of rights, by simple process of elimination, as any alternative must either be non-objective, or self-inconsistent and thus non-rational, or both. The only oughts which must be assumed are that we should be objective and rational in our ethics; any argument against these basic first oughts must itself be subjective and irrational and thus dismissable out of hand as gibbering nonsense. The only objectively rational arguments must be for equality, which entails maintenance of pareto optimality, and thus for a non-initiation of violence, which precludes any enforcement of property claims in information. Enforcement of legitimate claims of ownership of physical property requires no such violation of pareto optimality, as legitimate ownership of physical property is based on ongoing use of matter and space. For others to use the matter or space of my body requires denying me my use. For others to use the matter or space of my computer likewise requires denying me my use, unless I cease my use voluntarily; the former lacks justification for the very same reason as property claims in information lack justification. Where I sit or stand, what I hold in hand, the matter of my body, and the matter and space I reclaim from nature to hold the various forms I find useful, such as, for example, my computer are all in ongoing use by me. My legitimate ownership of any of them only ends when my use ends, such as through destruction of the forms I find useful, over time, due to increasing entropy; for example, if I build a house and it eventually rots back into the ground, the land and materials cease to be mine as I no longer actually use them. There is nothing in your notion of "intellectual property" that is by its nature only usable exclusively, as information is itself an intangible; information can only exist insofar as it is encoded in physical forms and so the only property claims one can legitimately make in relation to information are ownership claims on the physical media of storage and exchange. Brains, CDs, hard drives; those are the only "intellectual property" with any rational basis. meambobbo:Most IP is developed by professionals and intended for mass consumers. Let me give you some examples: video games and Mac and Windows operating systems. That is a tiny fraction of the software actually produced. Most software work is custom work, not work for mass consumption. Mass consumption is covered easily enough by software developed voluntarily by those who find doing so to be fun, those who in turn sell support services, and those who can support their work through ad revenue. I'm a programmer, I know what the field is like. Art isn't much different. Digital artists and designers can profit from advertisements while their work itself is available for free, or they can do custom work like designing websites or ads or logos; my girlfriend's a digital artist/designer and that's the primary sort of work available in her field. Physical art can be displayed in for-profit museums or originals can be sold for a profit; cheap mass produced copies might turn a profit, but they can't compete with originals. Performance artists can sell their performances. Musicians can likewise make their money off of live performances, as was their sole source of revenue before the invention of the phonograph. Composers can perform custom work for ad supported or subscription based entertainment, or for ads, or for musicians who have no talent for composition, only for playing. There's no presently IP covered field that can't be supported without resorting to the widespread violence of IP enforcement. meambobbo:We even have at least one specific variant designed for mass consumer use - Ubuntu. These products are free to use. Every hardware vendor could save money installing it over Windows. So why do Windows and Mac still rule the OS market? They don't. GNU/Linux is dominant in the server market. Windows and Mac are dominant in the desktop market, largely due to inertia and the distortion of the market by IP laws, but continue to lose ground to GNU/Linux. The distortion of the market by IP laws allows Microsoft and Apple to gain unnaturally large profits, which in turn allows them to hype their software more through advertising, and in the case of Microsoft it also allows for the ongoing suppression of competitors by buying them out, bribing hardware vendors, et cetera. There's also the effect of IP on hardware, such as graphics cards, which has made it far more difficult to develop linux drivers for such hardware; Microsoft gets Windows drivers for free, while linux developers generally have to develop their own, increasing the difficulty of developing quality games for GNU/Linux. There's also the major distortion of the video game market itself to consider, which in turn helps Microsoft even more. Big budget video games are subsidized by the violence of IP enforcement; without IP laws, there would be fewer big budget video games, but the games which would exist would be more stable, portable, and moddable because the software end would tend to be developed primarily collaboratively rather than competitively, with content running on that software provided by subscriptions or through ad supported distribution sites or by volunteers who just enjoy modding or even as promotional material for selling hardware or some other products or services. The fact that free/open source software games/engines with the quality of Adanaxis, VegaStrike, Spring, FlightGear, et alia, are developed despite the existence of IP laws is clear evidence that, in their absence, quality games would still be developed, and that they'd be generally more stable, portable, and moddable than the big budget commercial games developed under IP laws. meambobbo:Because Mac and Windows are designed to be user friendly to the mass majority of computer users. Mac maybe, but certainly not Windows. Apple conducts actual usability research. So does the non-profit GNOME Foundation, which is responsible for one of the two most popular desktop environments for GNU/Linux. In fact, my girlfriend, who uses a Mac, tried out GNOME using an account I created for her on my computer, and she thought that in some respects it was even better than her Mac, and that overall it was at least as good as a Mac. Microsoft just guesses generally, and usually quite wrongly; it only has the advantage of inertia; people are used to it. The only thing they manage to make more user friendly is the initial installation, which is usually handled by hardware vendors anyway, and the only reason it's more user friendly is because they only install the basics; they don't offer the tens of thousands of additional applications which are standard on GNU/Linux installation CDs/DVDs. Installing all those additional applications, plus the extra configuration options offered by GNU/Linux due to the fact that it's just plain more flexible, often requires additional user input during the installation, which some distributions don't handle well. The commercial distributions like RedHat and Mandrake do a pretty good job in this area compared to non-profits like Debian; Mandrake is actually braindead simple to install, or at least it was back in '03 when I first tried it out, and I can't imagine it having gotten more difficult to install since then. meambobbo:However, the brunt of the direction of development is in the direction the developers want to consume. They don't want to compete directly with Windows market, because they don't want Windows. So? They work to make it better. Those who work on the UI try to make the UI as good as possible. Those who work on the low level components try to make those as good as possible. The people who work on the UI, particularly those developing GNOME-based applications, put at least as much work into making the UI user friendly as do Mac developers. If there are particular niche programs which are in demand but not supplied by volunteer work, they can be handled by those seeking to sell support services or by custom development work; in the worst case, those who want such programs can pool their money together to hire developers to produce them, though if it's the sort of program that's useful to more than a handful of people, the sale of support services should be enough to promote development and maintenance of such software. meambobbo:What business model would allow entrepreneurial investment to direct IP labor towards satisfying consumer demands, while guaranteeing as much or greater income than current business models that rely on IP law? Probably none. IP laws create monopolies, and thus monopolist rent. The same or greater income is not necessary for the development of information-based products and services; that some people won't be able to line their pockets with unnaturally large profits is irrelevant to the question of whether information-based products and services, of the same or greater quality, can be developed in the absence of IP. All the evidence suggests that they can be developed, but even if they couldn't, IP would be unjustifiable on ethical grounds. meambobbo:or that the equivalent of the "new socialist man" would appear and work simply for others' benefit How ironic, considering that it is you who suggests that others be forcibly denied full use of their own persons and property, that they should be forced into self-sacrifice, to support IP profiteers. meambobbo:Here's a simpler question to answer - why would I work year-round with 2 dozen people to produce a video game that will give me less than a week's work of entertainment, if not for the monetary gains derived from satisfying consumer demand, which are obviously larger if our product is allowed to be artificially scarce? It seems anti-IP would turn all video games into hobbyist mods of existing games. Even if that were true (which it clearly isn't given the existence of high quality volunteer-developed games, ad supported games, and subscription based gaming services), so what? If the demand isn't there in the absence of IP laws, it isn't there. People will find something else to spend their time and money on; creating massive distortions in the market just so you can turn a profit completely ignores the negative externalities of your activity, all that is unseen, all the alternative unrealized uses of the same economic resources, as well as the absurdity of your supposed right to rule over others to make your business model viable. Why would I work year-round with 2 dozen people to produce a giant statue of a resus monkey made out of feces if not for the monetary gains derived from extracting tithes from the people at gunpoint, on behalf of the monkey shit god? It's a question no more absurd than your own.
I'm not sure that there has ever been a situation where this is any more appropriate:
/thread
liberty student: I argue this, based on reason. One can contract with me to turn off the sun tonight around 8:00 PM. I can agree to the contract. We have a voluntary contract, and yet we both know full well, I do not have the capacity to turn off the sun at any time. Thus your argument, about contracting with employees to hide Coke's formula in it's vault constitutes voluntary IP protection, you are only correct in so far as the actual piece of paper the knowedge is recorded on, never is shared. However, the idea (IP) itself, is still capable if being learned, reproduced and discovered by others, so in that regard, any contracts to protect the IP can't be of any use protecting against another individual not contracted from using their brain as the orginiator of Coke did, in order to come up with the formula.
Yes, but a voluntary contract over things which you do have control, that is your own actions should be allowable and enforceable. For example, you have control over whether you decide to share information that you have been given. You have control over making copies of software or music you may have purchased. So contracts that restrict those activities should be allowed but you are in disagreement with that.
Now it is certainly true that these contracts would not prevent another person from thinking of the same idea and to the extent another person thought of the idea indepently then they would certainly have equal rights to the use of that idea. Clearly, what Coke is trying to do is to force people to think of the idea themselves rather than simply copying it off of a piece of a paper. If we look objectively at Coke's strategy to protect their idea it has been incredibly effective. Despite your claim that the formula is easily obtainable it in fact appears to be quite difficult to duplicate independently.
Also, we would expect a whole range of other design and development projects to use similar measures to protect their ideas and that is exactly what we find in the market place.
Simply because there is the possibility that someone else may have the same idea does not mean I am obligated to share the idea or that any effort to protect the idea or limit the knowledge of idea is a complete waste of time or somehow violates the other persons rights.
People believe that their ideas and inventions have value. People will protect what they think has value. People will make efforts to protect ideas and inventions. It has nothing to do with the government. The fact that there are laws about protecting ideas and inventions is an illustration of the above.
On this subject, unlike you I don't define anything I don't understand or lack knowledge of as being supernatural. Things either exist or they don't. God exists whether you like it or not.
Maxliberty:Yes, but a voluntary contract over things which you do have control, that is your own actions should be allowable and enforceable. For example, you have control over whether you decide to share information that you have been given.
No one has argued against this.
Maxliberty:So contracts that restrict those activities should be allowed but you are in disagreement with that.
Source or strawman?
Maxliberty:If we look objectively at Coke's strategy to protect their idea it has been incredibly effective. Despite your claim that the formula is easily obtainable it in fact appears to be quite difficult to duplicate independently.
Unless you can prove knowledge of attempts, their successes and failures, costs and investment. Otherwise, just as assertion.
Maxliberty:Simply because there is the possibility that someone else may have the same idea does not mean I am obligated to share the idea or that any effort to protect the idea or limit the knowledge of idea is a complete waste of time or somehow violates the other persons rights.
No one has claimed this, have they?
Maxliberty:People believe that their ideas and inventions have value. People will protect what they think has value.
Without a doubt. But if you've ever been in business, selling a product you produce, unless you price it to the market and consumer demand, rather than what you think it is worth, you're going to fail. Value in the market, is not determined on the supply side only. That is the core of Austrian economics.
Maxliberty:People will make efforts to protect ideas and inventions.
Sure. And sometimes they will be successful, sometimes they will encourage competition and R&D, and sometimes they will go bust. Saying "people will make efforts to protect ideas and inventions" (no insult intended) is about as insightful as saying "people will get alarm systems for their stores and offices".
Maxliberty:It has nothing to do with the government.
The IP market is completely distorted. Even the pro-IP folks back this up. People at the big corporations in charge of IP back this up. It's not at all in dispute. What is in dispute is if there is any legitimacy to it.
And if you really believe in the market, you'll let the market sort it out. It's my belief and experience, that it is very hard to compete against "free". Not impossible, but very difficult to compete with an indentical product for more money.
Maxliberty:On this subject, unlike you I don't define anything I don't understand or lack knowledge of as being supernatural.
Strawman.
liberty student: No one has argued against this.
Previously you have but it is good now you agree that contracts can be used to protect IP in a free market.
,
liberty student:Unless you can prove knowledge of attempts, their successes and failures, costs and investment. Otherwise, just as assertion.
liberty student: Sure. And sometimes they will be successful, sometimes they will encourage competition and R&D, and sometimes they will go bust. Saying "people will make efforts to protect ideas and inventions" (no insult intended) is about as insightful as saying "people will get alarm systems for their stores and offices".
Since the base of your arguement against IP protection is that people will not do it in a free society because it can not exist without the government then you are now contradicting yourself. I am glad you have changed your mind and now realize that IP protection wil exist in a free society and as you now say sometimes it wil be successful and sometimes it won't.
liberty student: Without a doubt. But if you've ever been in business, selling a product you produce, unless you price it to the market and consumer demand, rather than what you think it is worth, you're going to fail. Value in the market, is not determined on the supply side only. That is the core of Austrian economics.
Value in the market is determined by both a buyer and a seller but the decision to protect something new is determined by the perceived value of the new idea or invention and that is a one sided decision. To the extent the product is successful will determine whether the protection is a wise investment or not.
liberty student: The IP market is completely distorted. Even the pro-IP folks back this up. People at the big corporations in charge of IP back this up. It's not at all in dispute. What is in dispute is if there is any legitimacy to it. And if you really believe in the market, you'll let the market sort it out. It's my belief and experience, that it is very hard to compete against "free". Not impossible, but very difficult to compete with an indentical product for more money.
Since you now acknowledge that some free market IP protection will be successful I guess that puts you in the pro-IP group. Yes, I think I have frequently said that the market is the best place to sort this out and it consistently shows your previous ideas are false. If IP protection as you now admit will exist in the free-market then that would mean not everything will be easily copied and therefore "free". Which brings us full circle to Coke. Since the Coke formula has no government protection if your previous thinking prevailed we would expect to see an identical tasting soda to Coke at a much cheaper price. In fact we don't see that so the free market IP protection is working. Glad to see that you have seen the light on this issue.
If you would just concede my superior intellect in the beginning you wouldn't have to come so grudgingly to the truth.
Maxliberty:Previously you have but it is good now you agree that contracts can be used to protect IP in a free market.
of course people can have contracts which oblige them to physically behave in various ways, but whether this is the same as 'protecting IP' is another question. In fact, for us who deny the possibility of IP; we cant (and we dont) logically believe that IP that is protected; it is something else that is happening. the most we can say is 'coke' believe they are 'protecting' what they think is their 'IP'. I dont know that their motiviations are all that relevant to the matter really. its between them and their shareholders or whathaveyou.
Maxliberty: liberty student: No one has argued against this. Previously you have but it is good now you agree that contracts can be used to protect IP in a free market.
If you can't substantiate it, I am calling you a liar. When you strawmen intentionally, that is lying. So either backup these claims, or don't make them. You're not fooling anyone.
Maxliberty:Since the base of your arguement against IP protection is that people will not do it in a free society because it can not exist without the government then you are now contradicting yourself.
Maxliberty:I am glad you have changed your mind and now realize that IP protection wil exist in a free society and as you now say sometimes it wil be successful and sometimes it won't.
This is a strawman. IP protection per se can never work absolutely. It's a myth based on your assertion that if people make a contract, that can change A = A to A = B.
Maxliberty:Value in the market is determined by both a buyer and a seller but the decision to protect something new is determined by the perceived value of the new idea or invention and that is a one sided decision. To the extent the product is successful will determine whether the protection is a wise investment or not.
Do you really think that if you babble on and on, eventually you will make or win a point in the discussion? Because this is just babbling. It seems like everything you do in discussions for the last 6 months is based upon lying (strawmen) unsubstantiated assertions, or just running on endlessly.
Price is a measurement of value. Price is determined subjectively, by the buyer and seller working together to make or not make a trade. Period. This is Austrian Economics 101. By rights, you should have tried to reply, because now you're just posting fallacies.
Maxliberty:Since you now acknowledge that some free market IP protection will be successful I guess that puts you in the pro-IP group.
Another strawman, I mean lie. Source?
Maxliberty:Yes, I think I have frequently said that the market is the best place to sort this out and it consistently shows your previous ideas are false.
Unsubstantiated assertion, source?
Maxliberty:If IP protection as you now admit will exist in the free-market then that would mean not everything will be easily copied and therefore "free".
Strawman/lie. Source?
Maxliberty:Which brings us full circle to Coke. Since the Coke formula has no government protection if your previous thinking prevailed we would expect to see an identical tasting soda to Coke at a much cheaper price.
Maxliberty:If you would just concede my superior intellect in the beginning you wouldn't have to come so grudgingly to the truth.
You've proven over hundreds of posts to be nothing more than a stubborn liar.
liberty student: If you can't substantiate it, I am calling you a liar. When you strawmen intentionally, that is lying. So either backup these claims, or don't make them. You're not fooling anyone.
I could have sworn that your intial arguement was that since IP in your mind is not property then any contract about it by defintion became a slave contract and was enforceable because no one could force you to stop using your mind. I recall that as your general arguement. Nonetheless, we are now in agreement that contracts can be used to protect IP. Which if you believe what you just wrote then that essentially makes your entire arguement against IP a moot point because you are an advocate of contractually enforced IP protection.
liberty student: Another strawman, I mean lie. Source?
I guess you should read your own post in this thread. Something along the lines of "some IP protection will work and some won't". So try looking about 5 posts back.
liberty student: Maxliberty:Which brings us full circle to Coke. Since the Coke formula has no government protection if your previous thinking prevailed we would expect to see an identical tasting soda to Coke at a much cheaper price.Assertion and fallacious argument. Fail.
You really need to start reading what you write. Your claim that products can not compete with free products stems from your incorrect thinking that without government enforced IP protection all IP will essentially be "free". The Coke example shows you to be incorrect as the Coke formula is not protected by government enforcement and yet the Coke IP is not free. The Coke example disproves your theory.
liberty student:You've proven over hundreds of posts to be nothing more than a stubborn liar.
I can see you have given up trying to defend your undefendable position and have resorted to childish name calling.
nirgrahamUK: Maxliberty:Previously you have but it is good now you agree that contracts can be used to protect IP in a free market. of course people can have contracts which oblige them to physically behave in various ways, but whether this is the same as 'protecting IP' is another question. In fact, for us who deny the possibility of IP; we cant (and we dont) logically believe that IP that is protected; it is something else that is happening. the most we can say is 'coke' believe they are 'protecting' what they think is their 'IP'. I dont know that their motiviations are all that relevant to the matter really. its between them and their shareholders or whathaveyou.
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