If IP isn't OK, are trademarks OK?

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Miklos Hollender Posted: Tue, Mar 17 2009 3:52 PM

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http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2009/mar/17/rose-wine-provence-france-eu

I've just read this. These folks are worried about other people being allowed to make inferior rose wine.

I think all they can legitimately claim is really to have a clear way of communicating that their rose is the real deal, so that everybody who wants the real deal, can find it. And everybody else understands it that the rest is not the same.

So they need a trademark like "Original Provencal Rose" and be allowed to sue anyone who uses the trademark. And otherwise anyond should be able mix red and white and sell it but not under this trademark, not under this label.

It's just common sense ethics: they deserve to be able to clearly and unambiguously communicate to people that they started this thing and it is the original, real one,  but they don't deserve to right to forbid people to do inferior copies. But they do deserve the right to clearly tell people that this is is the original, real deal.

And, most importantly, no one should be permitted to masquarade their product as the same as these folks do, as that is cheating, but if it is a different product, it must clearly communicate to the customers that it's a different one. I think.

So they need a trademark.

If IP isn't OK, are trademarks OK?

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nazgulnarsil replied on Tue, Mar 17 2009 4:06 PM

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disallowing people from impersonating your product is much more clear cut than IP.

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Jordan replied on Tue, Mar 17 2009 4:21 PM

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Well, in Against Intellectual Property, Kensella argued that it would be more of an agression against the consumer,  vis. fraud. I liked what he said (I would also like to try those Rothbard burgers he talks about in the book).

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alansmithee replied on Tue, Mar 17 2009 10:24 PM

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Miklos Hollender:

If IP isn't OK, are trademarks OK?

there would be a number of arguments against trademarks but my current favorite is more of a pragmatic criticism: how could one enforce this in a libertarian fashion? I really don't think that preventing someone from doing as they please with their own property is justified given that no aggression has taken place.

Having said this it is probably somehwat fruitful to debate the fine line between trade and fraud as this I believe is what it must come down to. Fraud involves an act of implicit aggression in the technical sense as one has duped someone into handing over their property under false pretenses. So the argument then moves to 'did the seller intend to trick the buyer'. Intentions cannot be proven, hence 'beyond reasonable doubt', but then  one is right back at the start.

My personal opinion is that the fraud implied in reproducing a trademark is the sellers business, and so not fraud at all. If we think about it the non-agression axiom has not been broken, noone was forced to do anything and the buyer was entirely at liberty to do his due dilligence, Using the state to mitigate peoples risk at the necessary expense of others (to me) is a much greater problem and should not be tolerated, hence this kind of thing is totally ok for me. Infact, I would go so far as to say, governments attempting to seperate people from their 'dd' is the cause a a massive number of problems (including a large portion ofthe current financial crisis).

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Saiphes replied on Wed, Mar 18 2009 9:10 AM

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alansmithee:

Miklos Hollender:

If IP isn't OK, are trademarks OK?

there would be a number of arguments against trademarks but my current favorite is more of a pragmatic criticism: how could one enforce this in a libertarian fashion? I really don't think that preventing someone from doing as they please with their own property is justified given that no aggression has taken place.

[...] So the argument then moves to 'did the seller intend to trick the buyer'. Intentions cannot be proven, hence 'beyond reasonable doubt', but then  one is right back at the start.

My personal opinion is that the fraud implied in reproducing a trademark is the sellers business, and so not fraud at all.  [...]

Is it not clear that by stamping an Apple logo on a product you are dishonestly advertising that the product was made and production supervised by Apple?

Further, is the buyer not falsely being led by the good reputation of a company built over time, whereas the quality or warranty of the product in question does not necessarily match the counterfeit item?