Political Theory

Re: Intellectual Property in the Arts - How to enforce?

Clayton — Sat, 20 Oct 2012 17:25:36 GMT

Another good vid along the same lines:

(Please visit the site to view this media)

Clayton -

Re: Intellectual Property in the Arts - How to enforce?

Clayton — Sat, 20 Oct 2012 17:22:30 GMT

The TEDx Global video I mentioned earlier:

(Please visit the site to view this media)

Clayton -

Re: Intellectual Property in the Arts - How to enforce?

Mike99 — Sat, 20 Oct 2012 09:43:08 GMT

Yeah thanks for the recommendation and advice. I'm still going through the motions really but so far I have made peace with the idea politically and practically. I'm still not 100% on it morally. I suppose I find some of the moral arguments thin - such as the notion that becuase you could just throw anything at the thing that means it does not stand. For example we have laws against other things, but there are people out there who would argue similarlly against them. Such as rape for example, you could say "but what if / but what if / but what if" - at the end of the day though, it is easy to define, it is determinable in a court, and just because people abuse the system and get away with rape, or, on the other side, use rape charges as a weapon where no rape has occurred and use it that way, so now the underlying principle is void. But, let me keep going with it, I will come back to it :) I'm listening to that lecture now.

Edit: It's funny actually but I found out that my main concern was not financial, but that recordings as an artform might be lost - once I was able to see how that commercially would not be the case without copyright - that quality and ambition would continue to be the driving focus because of commercial reasons as well as artistic ones - that was when I was able to make peace with the whole thing commercially. It was not so some people can make lots of money but rather that great recording artists, engineers, producers etc, would still have AN incentive to make great records. In fact I figured that albums would still be a main focus of an artist even if they didn't make money off the sale of them directly, they will still need to be a central focus of any artists career - so their existance is still justified. Perhaps a petty wish of mine, but I was just not feeling good about this art form being lost for any reason other than a very good one - now that I can see it won't be, I feel better about the rest of it ;)

As for films and such, I think cinemas will make a comeback with first release rights, and black box based subscription downloads or the like working for home viewing. So I can see it all working. Anyway again, morally was always my central concern even if I asked other questions just to play devils advocate and get clear about things myself. Thanks for humoring me so far everyone :)

Re: Intellectual Property in the Arts - How to enforce?

grant.w.underwood — Sat, 20 Oct 2012 05:46:57 GMT

Dont know if anyone recommended this mike, but I would just not worry about. IP protection was one of the last things for me to let go. If you just keeping studying you will reach the same conclusion. So if you don't understand why yet you will get it sooner rather than later. You aren't getting it because there is probably another underlying flaw in your theory of economics/liberty. Once you start sorting all the economic laws in your head it will hit you.

Re: Intellectual Property in the Arts - How to enforce?

Anenome — Sat, 20 Oct 2012 05:18:27 GMT

Tex2002ans:

Stephan Kinsella has recently given another great speech on IP at Libertopia called "Intellectual Nonsense":

http://c4sif.org/2012/10/intellectual-nonsense-fallacious-arguments-for-ip-libertopia-2012/

I was there for this talk :)

Re: Intellectual Property in the Arts - How to enforce?

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Re: Intellectual Property in the Arts - How to enforce?

Tex2002ans — Sat, 20 Oct 2012 03:30:50 GMT

Stephan Kinsella has recently given another great speech on IP at Libertopia called "Intellectual Nonsense":

http://c4sif.org/2012/10/intellectual-nonsense-fallacious-arguments-for-ip-libertopia-2012/

On October 18th, he also added an extra two hour talk to cover the rest of the slides (which he was not able to cover in the original speech).

Re: Intellectual Property in the Arts - How to enforce?

Tex2002ans — Wed, 10 Oct 2012 06:35:31 GMT

Mike99:
What you can't do is copy his book verbatim and sell it *as though* it's your own *even if you leave his name on it*

Mike99:
In otherwords, if they can just copy it and sell it as though it's their own work, they are undermining my work.

If I take your book, "Mike99's Treatise" By Mike99, and I print my own version of it and begin selling it, I would be selling it as "Mike99's Treatise" By Mike99. It is still the exact same book. I did not change it to "Mike99's Treatise" By Tex2002ans. If that example doesn't work for you, then just substitute in something like Harry Potter.

Plagarism =/= Fraud. Read that Kinsella article on Fraud I pointed to above (and listen to the class). Kinsella covers this better than I ever could.

Kinsella likes to use the example of Aristotle's book "Nicomachean Ethics":

Right now you are free to take all of the ideas of ~~Aristotle~~ Mike99, you can even print a book "Nicomachean Ethics" by ~~Aristotle~~ Mike99.

Nicomachean Ethics by Mike99 is your book. and your property, It was created with your own ink, your own paper, your own printing press. There was no fraud here, just plagarism. Though they might have been expecting to buy "Nicomachean Ethics" by Aristotle. Then that would be fraud, but it would be a problem between the buyer and the seller, NOT with the "original creator".

Or how about this thought example that just popped into my head.

What if you released your book with font size 4 on gold sheets of paper for thousands of dollars. I loved your book so much, but thought it was impossible to read at size 4. I decided to be an entrepeneur, and printed it with a font I believe more people would enjoy (size 12). Or maybe a different font entirely. The content is exactly the same, but I just presented it in a much nicer way.

I may have also decided to be an entrepeneur and sell it on normal paper for tens of dollars, or maybe I thought people might like a paperback version, or maybe I sold a crappy version printed on looseleafs for a few cents.

Would this be ok if I put lots of labor into changing the font sizes? Would it be ok if it just took one second of pushing a button in my word processor?

What if I took your exact book and translated it to Greek. Would this be ok for me to sell? I put lots of work into translating it! And you had no interest in putting your book into Greek.

This is currently possible to do with ANY BOOK THAT IS IN THE PUBLIC DOMAIN. What is the difference between the year work goes into the public domain + 1 day, and releasing the book on "copyright expire - 1 day"?

It would be up the the original creator, to outcompete me by flooding the market and anticipating what format my customers would enjoy best. (Against Intellectual Monopoly goes into this).

This is what currently happens in the realm of recipes. You decide to make me the best spaghetti ever to touch the face of the earth. You use the finest ingredients, you hand make the dough, you use the finest tomatoes in all the land. I take the original recipe (X amount of pasta, Y amount of tomato sauce), and I compete with you. You are still free to use your recipe to create your super expensive plate, and I am still free to use that EXACT SAME RECIPE YOU CREATED, and sell it for less (gold paper book versus normal paper book). I can even use the same exact expensive ingredients you used if I think that is what the customers (STEALING YOUR IDEA), or tweak it slightly and use a different brand of tomatoes, and I use a different brand of pasta from you (keep size 4 font, but just change the font from Arial to Times New Roman).

Mike99:
but other's ideas, even if it's a *total* rip off, it will at least be YOUR ripoff. I have no problem with that. But taking my album, verbatim, selling it effectively as though it were your property to sell, that does not compute, to me. Sorry.

Does not compute because your thinking is muddled because you are in the business of selling music. Copying your spaghetti recipe in the above example, that is stealing your idea verbatim.

Look at the Industry X chapter in Economics In One Lesson, and look at all of my sentences above (inserting X). The same exact logic applies in every example. Music/Books are your "Industry X".

Mike99:
you are copying the hairstyle, the idea of the hairstyle, but not the product.

But you spent hundreds of dollars coming up with cutting your hair that way, while I, the simple observer, had done NO WORK WHATSOEVER but seeing the way your hair looked and have decided to ~~steal~~ copy it.

Mike99:
To go into a studio and copy my album by creating a new performance and a new recording, is to me, legitimate - at least the person had to do something.

The shoe creator in the year 2 million. He is a thief? He just pushed a button (no work) and replicated the shoe.

Mike99:
Nobody is stopping them producing their own work, but they are destroying the value that was in mine and stealing that value.

Value is unownable. You are saying you are on the side of the shoe monopolist who doesn't want a competitor to be able to open up his own shoe factory? If he gets to open up his factory, I am going to have to lose the value of my shoes!

Mike99:
Unless you are saying they have no value as property, don't exist as property and that is the sad reality then yeah, these things - studio albums, and the like will go out of existance except for hobbies.

The price of a good tends towards its Marginal Cost. The Marginal Cost of the idea in digital form has dropped to nearly $0. What you have to do is tie the idea (non-scarce, price tending towards $0), with a SCARCE good/service (concert, ease of download, teaching cooking/physics/math, etc etc.)

There are still professional cooks even though recipes are unownable, there are still professional teachers, even though Physics/Math/Algorithms are unownable, there are still Comedians even though jokes are not ownable, there are still fashion designers even though there is no IP Law in their sector, there are still mixologists, even though their mixed drinks are unownable.

Mike99:
Would books in your society be filled with product placements... ?

I don't know, I am not a book entrepeneur, maybe that would be the best way to make money selling books. It sure is working as a great way to make money on websites (lots and lots of words in a given pattern in digital form for everyone to read for free).

Mike99:
Could be legit I suppose... I'll have to start putting corporate subliminals into my recordings then I can get sponsors to justify the music...

That might just work. It is great to see some thoughts flowing through your head on how to compete with others.. this is what entrepeneurs have to do in the marketplace!

Re: Intellectual Property in the Arts - How to enforce?

Mike99 — Wed, 10 Oct 2012 04:49:22 GMT

So just because people can and have come along to argue things into the ground and sue people for a 2 second sample, and other even more grotesque absurdities, we must throw the whole thing out?

I am reading carefully everything you are saying and appreicate your time honestly. But I'm not seeing your examples equate to what I'm seeing. You say I can't use Newtons laws to teach physics? Wrong - I'm not saying that. I'm saying you can absolutely do that. What you can't do is copy his book verbatim and sell it *as though* it's your own *even if you leave his name on it*. Write your own book and base it on his, heck, don't even quote him - go ahead, people will find out - but at least write your own book. I think this is easy to define and easy to administer in law certainl relative to today's situation. Likewise, a piece of music - you can sample it, copy the chord progression, the melody, lyrics, and do all kinds of things - it will be YOUR performance if you play live, YOUR album if you take the trouble of recording it - it's something NEW created with your energy - but other's ideas, even if it's a *total* rip off, it will at least be YOUR ripoff. I have no problem with that. But taking my album, verbatim, selling it effectively as though it were your property to sell, that does not compute, to me. Sorry.

I hope you see what I mean. I'm just saying your examples do not equate to what I'm understanding in my mind.

Another example: "copying your hairstyle verbatim..." - you are copying the hairstyle, the idea of the hairstyle, but not the product. You are not magically stealing the haircut off someone's head, and transporting it to someone elses head, or to be more precise replicating it. That would be *akin* to what I am getting at (though of course not the same).

To go into a studio and copy my album by creating a new performance and a new recording, is to me, legitimate - at least the person had to do something. In otherwords, if they can just copy it and sell it as though it's their own work, they are undermining my work. Nobody is stopping them producing their own work, but they are destroying the value that was in mine and stealing that value. I know what the theory is behind what you say, but I just think these things are a different catagory and hoenstly the theory is missing something. Unless you are saying they have no value as property, don't exist as property and that is the sad reality then yeah, these things - studio albums, and the like will go out of existance except for hobbies. Which seems sad to me, as does the idea someone being able to make a living as an author, as opposed to someone only being able to write because it's their hobby. The irony is it seems to very "collectivist" the way this is all going. All my work (as I've defined it) is everyone's... Hmmm... Would books in your society be filled with product placements... ? Could be legit I suppose... I'll have to start putting corporate subliminals into my recordings then I can get sponsors to justify the music...

Re: Intellectual Property in the Arts - How to enforce?

Tex2002ans — Wed, 10 Oct 2012 04:17:25 GMT

Mike99:
Lets just stick to music for a moment - copying an album of music verbatim is taking someone elses work effort and creativity, doing basically none yourself, and profiting of the end result.

I would recommend staying AWAY from music. You are too close to the topic and it is muddling your thinking. I believe if you try to apply the same concepts to everything BUT music, you will see it fail in every case.

"Copying Newton's Laws of Physics verbatim is taking someone elses work effort and creativity, doing basically none yourself, and profiting by providing a service (teaching Physics)."

"Copying the Pythagorean Theorem verbatim is taking someone elses work effort and creativity, doing basically none yourself, and profiting by providing a service (teaching Math)."

"Copying your cake recipe verbatim is taking someone elses work effort and creativity, doing basically none yourself, and profiting by providing a service (placing ingredients in a certain quantity at certain time periods)."

"Copying your chair verbatim is taking someone elses work effort and creativity, doing basically none yourself, and profiting by providing a good others want (something to sit on, and looks a certain way)."

"Copying your hairstyle verbatim is taking someone elses work effort and creativity, doing basically none yourself, and profiting by providing a service (cutting hair in a certain way)."

"Copying your joke verbatim is taking someone elses work effort and creativity, doing basically none yourself, and profiting by providing a service (making people laugh)."

"Copying your tattoo verbatim is taking someone elses work effort and creativity, doing basically none yourself, and profiting by providing a service (putting a specific pattern of colors/shapes on your body)."

"Copying your software verbatim is taking someone elses work effort and creativity, doing basically none yourself, and profiting by providing a good (an algorithm)."

"Copying your boat design verbatim is taking someone elses work effort and creativity, doing basically none yourself, and profiting by providing a good (a boat that cuts through the water a certain way)."

"Copying your shoe verbatim is taking someone elses work effort and creativity, doing a whole lot of work, and profiting by providing a good (a shoe that I see has a market that is untapped)."

"Listening to your music and making sheet music is taking someone elses work effort and creativity, doing a little bit of work, and profiting by providing a good (a series of notes so you can play the song too)."

"Copying your book verbatim in the 1700s is taking someone elses work effort and creativity, doing a whole lot of work, and profiting by providing a good (a book that I see has a market that is untapped)."

"Copying your book verbatim in the 2000s is taking someone elses work effort and creativity, creating an exact duplicate with barely any work, and profiting by providing a good (a book that I see has a market that is untapped)."

"Copying your shoe verbatim in the year 2 million, is taking someone elses work effort and creativity, sticking it in the replicator and pushing a button, and profiting by providing a good (a shoe that I see has a market that is untapped)."

I believe this shoe manufacturer in the year 2 million is a dirty thief, because he barely put any work, he was just able to push a button! If you listen to the Tucker speeches, you can see that capitalism (and technology) is all about battling scarcity. Because of capital accumulation, we are able to create massive amounts of stuff, with much less labor (and resources) input. For example, computers a few decades ago took up whole warehouses, now they fit in your pocket and are billions of times more powerful.

Technology is constantly pushing Marginal Costs down (creating more with less). Sadly, the Physical World will never reach a Marginal Cost of $0 (but the replicator would be pretty close), but the realm of ideas is ALREADY THERE (ok ok you caught me, almost there, there are still Opportunity Costs associated like time (see the later chapters of Against Intellectual Monpoly)).

What Intellectual Monopolies try to do is create ARTIFICIAL SCARCITY (the exact terminology that is used in IP Law). It tries to artificially raise the costs associated with ideas from $0 to some positive amount.

Mike99:
Unless you came up with the identical book on your own (impossible) - it's not legitimate.

Forget the book example, what about math equations and algorithms. Are you telling me that if Pythagorean did not stumble upon the Pythagorean Theorem, that somebody else would have never found it? Or Newton's Laws, if Newton himself never created that "discreet unique whole individual expression" it would never exist otherwise?

What about a basic geometrical proof, (not unique, long, or discreet enough), then what about very long and complicated geometrical proofs, or what about such a long and complicated geometrical proof I can fill a book with?

Impossible I say, no one else would have been able to put together that combination of geometrical logic if I never came along!

This reminds me of one of the lectures (I believe it was maybe at an Austrian Scholars Conference a few years ago?) where they had a mathematician give a speech, and he found a very large and complex proof that got named after him and made this exact point. I will have to hunt this lecture down now.

Re: Intellectual Property in the Arts - How to enforce?

Mike99 — Wed, 10 Oct 2012 03:04:16 GMT

I see more where you are coming from but you say ideas can be replicated. Lets just stick to music for a moment - copying an album of music verbatim is taking someone elses work effort and creativity, doing basically none yourself, and profiting of the end result. That's what I'm talking about. I'm basically more or less willing to concede that government is not the apparatus to deal with it (more work to do), but I'm definitely not willing to concede that morally it's a void concept. I'm not talking about bits of ideas put together. I'm talking about a discreet unique whole individual expression. An album, a song, a book, etc. Sections, bits - yeah, you got to let that go in the real world anyway whether you like it or not, we're all influenced - absolutely. But complete works verbatim, that's someone's unique expression. Unless you came up with the identical book on your own (impossible) - it's not legitimate. Government to regulate? Ok, maybe not.... but you can take my creative efforts in whole and profit form them performing no work adding nothing yourself? No way. Can I stop you? Most likely not, but can society arbitrate that through market choices? Yes, I believe so.

Re: Intellectual Property in the Arts - How to enforce?

Tex2002ans — Wed, 10 Oct 2012 01:24:26 GMT

Mike99:
a verbatim copy is fraud, since it's got my name on it, and it's not you, or if you change the name, you didn't write it, so it's still fraud

Fraud =/= Plagarism. (Read that Kinsella article on Fraud, and he covers this in his class).

Fraud is illegitimate, but as I stated earlier, this is a problem that must be settled between the buyer and the seller, NOT with the creator and the seller. IP Law is not needed to protect from fraud, nor does it (see article below).

What currently happens with knockoff in fashion is the companies try come up with some artificial workaround. The companies have their logos trademarked, and then plaster their logo all over the item, so it would be impossible to make the same item without infringing on it... then government thugs can be sent in to steal the goods that CUSTOMERS WERE WILLING TO BUY (cheap knockoffs).

Check out his article Leveraging IP (first link in this article), and the Ars Technica article (linked in the post):

http://c4sif.org/2010/12/supreme-court-lets-ban-on-gray-market-imports-stand/

I would definitely recommend reading Leveraging IP, since it has the weird case of Omega (Swiss watchmaker) who used the process of Price Discrimination, but did not like the arbitrage opportunities that arose.

Mike99:
BUT if you change it in any way, add work to it, then I'm wiling to let it go as "another thing" or "another idea".

All ideas are built upon previous ideas. At what point does it stop being "your idea" and begin being "his idea"? How would you divy up the fractions of "your idea" and "his idea"?

If he decided to use his (or is it your?) idea and begin selling some good, does he owe you money?

By the way, if your mind changes on IP, I demand some compensation for you ~~stealing~~ copying "my good ideas". I will be sure to forward a fraction of the funds to Kinsella and Tucker as well. :)

Mike99:
I'm quite persuaded by the point that it's not the task of government to police it all - that it's a societal problem and for society to work out. In other words, it's for society to say "hey lets support this guy who does original stuff, and not the guy whose knocking off his records". "Oh did you buy a knock off, come on man, you should support that guy he does good work". etc.

Indeed, legitimate ways to "protect ideas" are Non-Disclosure Agreements (NDAs), and maybe Rothbard's "Copyright" contract example (the effectiveness would be dubious). What you have to see though is that the state binds not just A and B to the contract (legitimate), but EVERYONE to it.

It is also up to the entrepeneur to try to give REASONS TO BUY, and tying the non-scarce good (idea, pattern of notes, pattern of words, algorithms/science), to scarce goods and services (speeches, concerts, books, satellites, machines, 24/7 support).

Mike99:
What was just chiding with me and not feeling right was the idea that if I create something it's morally ok for someone to just rip it off verbatim and make money on it without doing any work.

Such is the nature of ideas, infinitely reproducible, and the costs of copying them have dropped to nearly $0. (See Clayton's post, see Tucker's Publishing speech).

Before you had to actually work very hard to sell books, and get your music out there and heard, now it can be replicated in less than a second, it can spread like wildfire in the blink of an eye, and be around the world in every single person's pockets, making a large impact on the world and everyone's lives, making everyone better off. How amazing is that?

Re: Intellectual Property in the Arts - How to enforce?

Mike99 — Tue, 09 Oct 2012 21:30:43 GMT

Yeah I have a lot to go through as well, but had to do a lot of running around today for something and as you do with such things it's a good opportunity to mull things over and I kind of arrived at a point of saying that basically I'm with Rand on intellectual property morally, or roughly close to it - I would take a simplified view: a verbatim copy is fraud, since it's got my name on it, and it's not you, or if you change the name, you didn't write it, so it's still fraud - BUT if you change it in any way, add work to it, then I'm wiling to let it go as "another thing" or "another idea". I can't deny we all get ideas from everywhere and make something new out of that. I'm quite persuaded by the point that it's not the task of government to police it all - that it's a societal problem and for society to work out. In other words, it's for society to say "hey lets support this guy who does original stuff, and not the guy whose knocking off his records". "Oh did you buy a knock off, come on man, you should support that guy he does good work". etc. And of course, to value ones own product appropriately for sale, and to saturate the market enough such as that it doesn't create opportunity for anyone else to fill it. I was thinking about the fashion industry, and the way that works with fraud versus knock offs, and how at some levels of society, people are fine buying knock off's whereas others would never think of it - point being, the designers DO make a living if they supply the wants of the people who do buy from them. So long way around it but I see a real argument there. What was just chiding with me and not feeling right was the idea that if I create something it's morally ok for someone to just rip it off verbatim and make money on it without doing any work. Seems to me like any "moocher" as Rand calls them (love that word) can just piggy back on your efforts - the litmus test being, did that person do any work or perform any valuable function before getting paid for it, or did they just use your work to make money. But I do agree that it is better solved at a societal level AND that it *can* be solved at a societal level. Not 100% clear yet, but that seems to feel right to me. In other words, I don't have to give up my conviction that it is *mine*, that doesn't mean I need the government to partner with me to protect it, I can rely on the over-riding morals of society to confirm that. Anyway, like anenome, much more research to do...

Re: Intellectual Property in the Arts - How to enforce?

Tex2002ans — Tue, 09 Oct 2012 06:25:16 GMT

Anenome:
Tex has made some good points. I'm gonna stop discussing this until I do my homework and read the pros and cons, especially more Kinsella.

It takes many months/years of just absorbing and listening to both sides of the arguments. When Jeffrey Tucker first read Against Intellectual Property, he thought the arguments put forth by Kinsella were crazy on their face (as most people do). It took Tucker years to come over to the Kinsella view, but he was won over by the consistency of the arguments.

It is also GREAT to have an anti-IP patent attorney, because he actually knows about how IP Law currently works. As I stated before, most of the Pro-IP people know nothing about IP Law, and assume they know how it works, but couldn't be further from the truth.

I would recommend putting Kinsella's site on your RSS feed, and also his site C4SIF.org.

See Tucker's review on Against Intellectual Monopoly here:

https://mises.org/daily/3298

See Tucker's interview with Boldrin here:

https://mises.org/media/3044/Against-Intellectual-Monopoly

Re: Intellectual Property in the Arts - How to enforce?

Anenome — Tue, 09 Oct 2012 04:37:28 GMT

Tex has made some good points. I'm gonna stop discussing this until I do my homework and read the pros and cons, especially more Kinsella.