Comments: A World Without Intellectual Property

This just makes too much sense.

What about personally identifying information?  There is a great deal of talk about identity theft these days, but is your identity the same thing as your property?

Horrible in every sense of the word.

Books and Newspaper

How are you going to get your book chapters in the Newspaper? What makes them obligated to pay you anything for your next chapter? Without any IP, they can just get someone else to write the rest of the book. Nothing stopping it and hey, maybe some authors don't like this particular book so instead they just decide to take out all the characters and put them into a different story. After all, you don't have any control over your characters or worlds or anything like that either, so everyone gets in on it. But people don't like the characters now, because every Tom, Dick and Harry have them doing different things and they're all developing in different ways and now no one is interested in the rest of your original vision. But hey, thanks for coming up with them for us! It's much more important that we just take whatever we want whenever we want than having characters and stories properly developed.

Movies

Motion-pictures Theaters rent their reels and the distributors are very watchful over them. I know, I used to help deliver and pick them up. You can throw that concept right out the window. Reel piracy isn't at all impossible, it's just way too obvious for a big theater to get away with doing it and there's not much practical reason to do it for any one else. Of course without IP, there'd be no reason not to.

This doesn't even begin to address everything that goes on DVD and never touches the theater to begin with. Direct to DVD sequels, all types of bonus content, television shows, Animatrix/Gotham Knight style bridge content between features.

Broadcasting

Yeah, there's nothing that's going to keep broadcasting from happening. Of course, Broadcasting isn't IP is it? TV Shows are. Why would any broadcaster bother paying any money for TV shows? It'd be much cheaper to just make sure you had the best broadcasting single in your area and pick up and show all the shows for free. The advertisers aren't interested in your method, they just want to be on what everyone is watching. You think any show of any budget is going to be made knowing that not only are you not going to get paid for what you're doing, but someone else is going to get paid for showing it?

Music

Blah Blah Blah, they make their money in the concerts!! Except not all music translates well to concerts, concerts require being on the road and working hard nearly every night which is something not all musicians are into and oh... if you don't have IP control over your songs, why does a concert promoter need to hire YOU? Wouldn't it be easier to find someone more famous and attractive than you to just sing your songs? Are you willing to compete with a multi-national corporation with loads of money just to try to have a concert for the songs you wrote?

Do you know why publishers make all the money? Because they pick up the tab for production regardless of whether or not the product actually makes any money. Some artist are showing that they can do it without a label but you know why they can? Because they already have the money to produce their own stuff. Most of us do not.

Oh and without any IP laws, there's nothing stopping a rich company from putting up and advertising a very easy access site that lets you download every single song they come across and let you download them for free while plastering a bunch of their own ads on the site.

Also, I've watched whole "people would buy" thing go down over the years,

"Well I'd buy the CD if it were a more reasonable price."

"Well I'd buy the music if I could buy it and download it immediately"

"Well I'd buy the downloadable music if it were higher quality"

"Well I'd buy the higher quality downloads if it wasn't full of DRM"

"Well I'd buy the non-DRM MP3 if it were just a more reasonable price"

Why don't we just admit people are not going to buy what they can get for free?

Inventions

"Okay, I spent 10 years of my life and all my money on a revolutionary new invention that will change the world and make it a better place and I finally have a working prototype."

"Hi I'm a big corporation, we've just been sitting here on our big pile of money chilling and doing nothing but making our brand name recognizable for 10 years. Oh hey is that your new invention? Oh I see, very clever. Well we're just going to sink our billions into out producing, out marketing, out delivering and out selling you and anybody else. But you're free to compete. Oh, you don't have any money left? Oh well, Thanks anyway!"

And before you begin to protest this, you already said that it works for newspapers.

Software

"requiring the consumer to pay for it." Uhhhhhhhhhhhh How?

"Google follows this model." And Google probably wouldn't exist! Fun!

Open source? really? That little concept that strives to exist on IP laws? That without a license that enforced source codes to be released that anyone could take a fork of a software, develop on it and sell it and no one would ever be able to force them to release their source code? That large community that works across the internet that is VERY protective of its work? Yeah, they're just praying for the abolishment of IP laws, I'm sure.

Brands & Trademarks

It looks like cheerios, it taste like cheerios, it's in the same box as cheerios, it's called cheerios, it even says General Mills on it (whatever that means) and it's 10 dollars less a case. Nope, I don't this is an offer I a may refuse.

Yes, this all just makes too much sense! Too much sense for people with no sense at all.

Added a point about the influence of patents on the steam engine and did some reformatting.

What about Rothbard's stance in the Ethics of Liberty, where people can make contractual agreements to the extent of "You may not copy this mousetrap".