Unless there is a serious updating of copyright law to recognize the changing technological environment, the law becomes an ass.
– Lynne Brindley, CEO, British Library in British Library calls for digital copyright action
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Copyright should only be extant as long as the author is alive. Its their work after all, why should their descendants get paid for doing absolutlely nothing? More often than not its some faceless law firm or publisher that cashes in anyway. Its what I’d do if I ever had anything of mine published. The old way of doing things is in its last days and personally I hope Google’s efforts to have out of print/copyright books searchable online succeed. Stick it to the man! Information should be free.
Unfortunately, copyright law has already been perverted by the influence of heavily funded media companies (e.g. Disney). This makes the collision of copyright law with modern information technology doubly impactful.
Intellectual Property is just that, property. The owner has the right to do with it whatever they choose and its ownership should not be based on a timeframe or any other factor society tries to impose on the owner.
While I agree other parts of IP law need to be removed (such as the nonsense that is patents) to deny the rights of copyright holders is to deny their right to self-ownership and property rights and is even worse than eminent domain in that they don’t even get any money when the government takes their property from them.
Oh Disney… Didn’t they get US copyright law changed to prevent Mickey Mouse becoming PD a few years back…
I’m not sure I agree with mandrill mind. I think IP protection should be horses for courses. A book can still sell well thousands of years after it’s “publication”. Classic movies still sell well (especially when my girlfriend is in the vicinity of HMV) but software… ‘fess up how many of ya still run Windows 95?
The length of protection has to be variable depending upon the nature of what is being copyrighted. This is a very tricky issue.
greap,
Could you please explain in what sense a patent is less deserving of legal protection than a Justin Timberlake album?
The owner has the right to do with it whatever they choose and its ownership should not be based on a timeframe or any other factor society tries to impose on the owner.
This is already the case, although IP says nothing about it. IP (like other property) is about restricting the rights of those other than the owner.
It seems simple enough that with technology the ability to copy is so fundemental that to truly quash it would require means too draconian for even moderate libertarians who frequent here.
Anything that is created, books, music etc is intellectual property and just like the owner’s other assets, his house, his car etc. on his death they should become part of his estate and therefore the property of his heirs.
Why does Mandrill believe that things should automatically become public property after some time period? Its theft by the state.
In regard to some of the points made above:
1) IP should expire after the creator’s death only if you are willing to apply the same principle to other forms of property.
2) Patents are different from copyright in that working by myself in complete isolation, I may create something brilliant, only to find out that someone else, working in complete isolation has patented it one second before, leaving me more or less screwed. The same would not happen with copyright, as working alone in isolation, I am unlikely to compose something sufficiency similar to Justin Timerlake’s “work.”
3) It’s funny that some of the same people who accuse libertarianism (property rights) of being a “return to wilderness” actually subscribe to the basic tenet of savagery i.e. might makes right; in this particular case, we come across this meme in the form of “ease of copying makes right.” Food for thought. If some new technology suddenly made rape as easy as the internet has made IP property infringement, would rape suddenly become more moral? I hope an “ethicist” (what sort of job is that anyways?) gets back to me on this one; I’m dieing to know.
4) While I support IP rights (perhaps patents less so), I also think that private individuals should get off their asses and protect their own IP through the means of DRM, and such thing. Relying on the government and lawsuits to keep your IP safe is not the best strategy.
5) Aside from being a moral imperative, IP laws also serve an utilitarian purpose in that they provide incentives for people to develop IP, which would simply not exist otherwise. Without some method of protecting your IP (not necessarily government derived), people would have a hard time making a living creating IP. Whether that’s good or bad is up to you.
6) That being said, I wouldn’t mind seeing most of today’s (socialist) “artists” dieing of starvation due to their fanbase having pirated all of their work. Poetic justice.
7) Aren’t there some more interesting topics that we could be discussing? 🙂
Lynne Brindley is an ass (at least from a libertarian perspective). From what I gather, he wants to use something that was designed to give content creators more rights by the grace of government (copyright laws) to restrict the rights of content creators to protect their own work themselves any way they see fit through DRM. He’s taking “fair-use,” which is an limit placed upon the amount of protection provided through the force of government, and wants to turn it around and enforce it at gunpoint against people who want to want to distribute their work themselves under their own terms with the protection of DRM instead of that of government.
In the article, he is even quotes as stating that he does not believe that “contract law” should be stronger than “copyright law”, which is complete gibberish. Anyone who does not believe in the right of two adults to engage in a contract does not support liberty, libertarianism, freedom, or the free market. But that opinion is the least of his problem; his confusing justification for his stance and his confused outlook on life are truly perplexing. That this buffoon should hold the office that he holds is mockery; that he should have his views propagated by being mentioned on this site is an outrage. I demand a full refund! 🙂
My apologies. Glancing at the article again, the quote about “contract law” and “copyright law” is actually by “Suw Charman, executive director of the Open Rights Group,” although Lynne Brindley obviously holds the same view (or else he would have no way of justifying his request or his position).
I’ve never seen so many “libertarians” defending government-mandated monopolies before.
That is what you’re doing. When someone steals my real property, I don’t have it any more, but if someone “steals” my intellectual property, I do in fact still have it, I just have competition when it comes to marketing copies of it. The way words are strung together on a page is not property, nor is the way machine parts are connected together to form a working device, except that our governments have chosen to treat these things like property so that creators can earn enough money from their work to encourage them to create more.
This may be the lesser of two evils—surely a world where artists and inventors hide their work away for fear of others using it without permission would be a much bleaker place to live—but it is still an evil (prior to the eighteenth century, all of these things were public domain immediately upon creation, so intellectual property laws are actually a temporary theft from the public domain; allowing works to finally enter the public domain is hardly any kind of theft), which is why both copyrights and patents are only allowed for a limited time, and always with fair use exceptions. The whole point of creating these artificial rights is to encourage creators to make their work available to society at large and enrich the public domain.
Granting intellectual property rights in perpetuity or quashing fair-use defeats this purpose entirely, and copyright holders abuse their short-term monopoly rights when they use contract law to make an end run around the established limitations. We will all be poorer for it in the long run.
Kyle, finally some sense. That is why I am not a libertrian or subscribe to any other -ism. To me it’s about distribution and dissemination of ideas and creativity and ultimately progress. Walled gardens don’t work for large corporations, so why should that approach work for individuals too?
Fair use benefits those who create and come up with new ideas. Creative Commons is a much better model of licensing use of information, knowledge and anything else created than traditional copyright and IP that is breaking down.
What sort of world do intellectual property rights proponents envision? The ease with which digital media is ripped and traded is, again, fundemental. One can rip a thousand CD’s to a harddrive (permissable under fair use, presumably) and I could loan that CD to someone else (or the harddrive for that matter) and no crime has been committed. But if borrower transfers any of the data, a crime has been committed. O.K. What then? Most lay people can do this, and are doing it already, so do we have surveillance cameras and people turning family members in?
There are grey market softwares in which you can rip a movie and burn it, borrow a copy from a library and make one of your own. There are softwares that will convert a dvd to pretty much any other modern format(and are white market or slightly grey) and store on a harddrive. Once on a harddrive can be shared peer to peer or loaned like above. DVD players can have their hardware altered to ignore Macrovision type protections stripped and the product can be dubbed. It really is endless. I understand it is illegal, but how much of it is just talk, because, again, any real method to staunch the flow of digital media is too severe to countenance. Hidden files that melt your harddrive if you try and copy, or men in shades and fedoras popping out of the closet. The proverbial cat is out of the bag at this point.
Now, also, there are ways wherein a piece of music or video (primarily) can be created without making a duplicate of a file (a la bit-torrent et al) so who do go after? And what severe methods are going to be tolerated in policing/regulating activities where a bit is grabbed here and bit grabbed there?
These same arguments arose 25+ years ago with the advent and popularization of VCR’s. “People are taping our shows!” “People aren’t watching the commercials nested in the programming so they are in effect stealing by not paying the freight of having the eyeballs hijacked by the sponsor”. “They shouldn’t be able to timeshift, goddammit.” And now it’s the same argument, only the technologies are much more advanced.
As for the arguments that intellectual pursuits have to be protected by force or people won’t bother is non-sense. Man has been inventing tools and making art long before the advent of protection. And the argument holds little water when one thinks thusly if one considers that without fair use reasoning we would not have ipods or any of the software/hardware products described above. Man is always inventive, and the premise should be the preservation of life and property, with an eye toward intellectual maximization AND freedom.
As last thought, who owns the “property” of what I’ve just written? By contract, it belongs to Samizdata. But it IS mine, is it not? But anyone could copy and paste it from here. Who is going to stop them? Should anyone? How?
Samizdata uses Creative Commons.
crypto asks, in point 7, why we cannot discuss something more “interesting”. Well, intellectual property is clearly not a straightforward issue even for ardent free marketeers (another example is the idea of limited liability corporate laws). So we bring up the issue from time to time and kick it around. If that appals some commentators who would prefer we take a hard “line” on the matter, too bad. I have not made my mind up about this issue. It is a hard one.
I personally am moving towards the idea that state-mandated IP laws are unenforceable and counter-productive, but I do accept that things like patents and copyrights can be defended on the basis that if a creator of a piece of work cannot be able to earn an income from his creations, less stuff gets created. I don’t think there is some sort of “natural right” to a patent or copyright, since these things are creations of the state, but I do understand the consequentialist arguments that are put forward in defence of IP of some kind.
Kyle Jelle:
Perhaps the freedom of thought you are experiencing on this site may be due to “libertarianism” being less dogmatic, and more flexible than other ideologies, or due to “libertarianism” attracting less dogmatic and more flexible people, or simply this site attracting people who are more than “libertarian.”
The dilemma you are experiencing is simple.
1) The producer wants to dictate the manner in which the IP that they produced is distributed.
2) The consumer wants to dictate the manner in which the IP that the producer produced is consumed.
Obviously, both of these cannot be true; ergo, a choice must be made. Personally, I favour the producer over the consumer, as by definition, the producer produces, whereas the consumer consumes.
As for IP being government-mandated monopolies, it is true to a certain extent, as you can find in my writing; however, you should also note that the government also gives you a monopoly over your body or your toothbrush. That monopoly is supported by government force, and where it not for government force, anyone strong enough could rape you or defecate on your toothbrush. That’s just the way life is.
As to not actually losing anything when someone steals your IP, that is debatable. Consider this example: you borrow $1 million so that you may create a movie about how terrible copyright is. You are now $1 million in debt. I come along, steal your IP. Now, we’re “competing,” as you put it; however, you are $1 million in debt, and I am not at all. You have been penalized for showing initiative. We both make some money distributing the project, but you will never recoup your investment, and will end up with a huge debt. I, on the other hand, will make almost pure profit. So, in the end, this is the inevitable result of your “competition when it comes to marketing copies of it.” So, a victimless crime this is not.
You assert that “The way words are strung together on a page is not property, nor is the way machine parts are connected together to form a working device” yet fail to provide any reasons why; very disappointing. You then continue: “except that our governments have chosen to treat these things like property so that creators can earn enough money from their work to encourage them to create more.” Fair enough, but that sort of argument could be used about anything that the government considers property and protects e.g. the human body is not the property of its owner; it is simply treated as such by government. As you fail to support your assertion, it is difficult to tear it down completely.
Your claim that prior to the 18th century IP did not exist is not very convincing. Assuming that you are correct, what exactly does that prove. You cannot say that something should be this way because it was this way before. You must say: this must be this way because this is the best way. You are engaging in a logical fallacy. Your attempt to frame IP laws as “temporary theft from the public domain” is intellectually dishonest. Once upon a time, no property rights at all existed. If I was stronger than you, I could take your food, and your wife. Yet you would not argue that all property rights are therefore invalid, and that property rights are just “temporary theft from the public domain.” The reason why copyrights and patents are only allowed for a limited time has nothing to do with anything. Just because something is a law, or in place, does not make it just or correct. This is another fallacy. The utilitarian motivation for copyright laws also has little to do with whether copyright laws are moral or immoral from an absolute perspective. Just because something may be done out of utilitarian motives does not mean that it is an immoral act. Something can be both moral (in a non-utilitarian sense) and utilitarian. Your argument is convoluted and tangential. You argue that because IP laws were created or marketed to be created for a single reason, that the only reason that they might exist is for the reason that they were created. This is obviously not logical.
Granting IP rights in perpetuity or quashing “fair-use” does not defeat the purpose: the purpose was to create IP, not to have it freely available. Your statement that “copyright holders abuse their short-term monopoly rights when they use contract law” is gibberish from a moral perspective. “Contract law” has little to do with government mandated copyright. If I offer to sell you my manifesto under certain conditions and you agree to those conditions (a contract) then you have to abide by them. If you did not want to, you should not have agreed, and if you do not agree, I may simply burn my manifesto or hide it forever. As such, “copyright” would have nothing to do with our contract. You also missed the point of the article. The content owners want to protect their own work using their own method (DRM) without any government intervention at all. What the morons quoted in the article are proposing is that since fair use is build in copyright law, that individuals cannot, even if they chose to protect their work using DRM rather than copyright, impose any stricter restrictions using DRM or a contract than would be permissible if the IP was protected by copyright law. I’m not sure if I am expressing myself clearly enough, but if you understand what I am saying, you would realize that this would be a complete inversion and perversion of copyright law, transforming it from something designed to protect producers to something placing limits (at gunpoint) on how producer can distribute their product (even if they want nothing to do with copyright).
Adriana:
While the distribution and dissemination of ideas and creativity and ultimate progress may be a noble goal, the matter remains as to how that end is to be reached. Creating commons, for example, is a voluntary method, whereby the producer voluntarily offers up their product under a set of distribution conditions. That is their choice to make. This, however, is completely different from me taking someone else’s work and distributing it under the Creative Commons license, against their wishes. Agreed? To illustrate my point, here is an analogy: you might believe that free sex (or whatever the hippies called it) is a good principle, and you are free to associate with any other people who feel the same way, and freely share the “product” amongst yourselves; however, if someone does not want to offer you “free sex,” you have no right to take it by force. Arguments about the other party having enjoyed the involuntary experience, or there being no real damage done (it’s all in their heads) are completely tangential to the morality of the issue, from the perspective of free choice. On a related note, I’ve heard pirated claim that by pirating the IP, they are actually helping the “artist.” Again, without debating the validity of the claim, even if it were true, you have no moral right to go against the wishes of an adult, even if it somehow is “in their best interest.”
Brad:
The world envisioned might be something along the lines of prosecuting all those profiting from the distribution of pirated material, coupled with the voluntary use of DRM. If you had read the article, however, the people in the article actually want government to dictate to individuals (at gunpoint) how they are allowed to use DRM, which is insanity.
If we are debating the morality of an act, the ease with which it can be carried out, or the number of people engaging in it is of no logical consequence whatsoever.
The fact that you make no distinction between copyright, patents, and other types of IP is a bit troubling.
Well, I’m out of here. It would be nice if people actually considered the points I’ve made both in this post and the other ones. See you later. 🙂
P.S. Creative commons (as well as the GPL) could simply not exist were it not for copyright. Specifically, Creative commons licenses under a set of conditions (e.g. attribution, noncommercial), which one would have no need to follow were it not for copyright. Think about that one while I’m gone
Probably not. If you actually want me to read your comments, make them about 1/4 the length.
Johnathan:
Point 7 was not really to be taken seriously. If I really found the topic to be of no interest, I could have simply moved on, and would definitely not have written comments regarding it. I would like to note, though, that it would be nice if people actually debated the points that I made instead of talking past me. 🙂
I have presented you with some non-utilitarian moral arguments as to the virtue of some IP (although I have not addressed the pragmatic application as it pertains to the state in these matters).
I really do wish people would separate the concepts of patents and copyright. Talking about them together is even more unnerving than talking about “Romania and Bulgaria” together all the time; although I suppose I should be glad that nobody ever talks about “Austria and Italy” or “Germany and Poland” as one entity as that would be even more unnerving.
P.S. All rights can be viewed as creations of the state. 🙂
I just couldn’t help myself.
The efforts by Disney Corporation to keep Mickey Mouse out of the public domain have serious consequences for our society as a whole. “Steamboat Willie” (which Walt ripped off wholesale from Buster Keaton, to the point of “crediting” the music to “Steamboat Bill” in the script) was made in 1928. Disney was, and remains, a very minor part of the total film output in the US, let alone the rest of the world. Yet, because films from that date onwards remain in copyright, many of them have been lost forever because nobody knows who the copyright holders are.
To take a personal example: Southern TV, in 1987, made a half-hour program on the World Science-fiction convention (Worldcon) which was held in Brighton. In 2005, the Worldcon (held in Glasgow) wanted to show that program. We tried to trace the copyright holders, Southern TV being long defunct, and traced them to a media conglomerate in the US, who flatly denied they owned it despite being faxed letters stating they’d been sold it.
There’s a theory that copyright will continue to be extended. If it is, more and more works will never be released into the public domain, and that will impoverish us all. There is very little that is truly original: we take the old tales and add to them and make them ours. (Disney did, and they were his greatest commercial successes: we’ll see what Russell T. Davies’ take on Robin Hood is shortly, and old fogies like me will gripe that it’s nothing like Richard Carpenter’s…). To be denied the opportunity to spin our own tales on the back of versions of stories we know and love is, I think, socially dangerous. As Spider Robinson put it in his own take on this subject, “Have you ever seen a cheerful elephant?”.
Harry Payne,
There is a legal device called a “Quit Claim Deed” in which the issuer quits any claim they may have had without actually declaring they had any.
If you could make it easy enough for them, their legal dept would allow it since it in no way acknowledges that they even own the property you think they own.
Just a thought.
In his very long, but well thought and readable comment, cryptononcommie made a point that needs to stand out.
Said differently, it is –
If we concede that as an individual, I have a right to have a secret, and
if we concede that as an individual, I have a right to enter into contracts with other individuals, and
I require a contract from another individual in exchange for telling my secret to him, and
that contract places restrictions on if and how he may relay that secret to others, and
someone finds that secret ‘with the doors unlocked’, then
they can no more claim entitlement to it than if they find my house or car unlocked.
They say that because stealing my car denies me the use of it, it is theft. No. It is theft because it is my car. Furthermore, stealing my intellectual advantage (IP) does deny me the use of it. Whether you are a moralist or a pragmatist, it’s still wrong.
IP is intrinsic to individualism. Denying IP is pure intellectual collectivism.
crypto, try and keep the comments brief. It encourages people to read them rather than pass out in front of the screen. Trust me on this.
“Patents are different from copyright in that working by myself in complete isolation, I may create something brilliant, only to find out that someone else, working in complete isolation has patented it one second before, leaving me more or less screwed. The same would not happen with copyright, as working alone in isolation, I am unlikely to compose something sufficiency similar to Justin Timerlake’s “work.””
I guess you don’t read much (or reading must be an ever thrilling experience as you realize each new detective novel has a completely unique plot (in one, the butler did it! but in this other one the best friend did it!)
I’m for ‘reasonable’ IP rights that have to end at some fixed time (death of creator and/or after 30 years whichever comes last, for example) and take into consideration the realities of different mediums. The music industry tried its damnedest to get consumers to disregard format (to make packaging costs cheaper) and are now shocked that people don’t care about packaging (their real product though they didn’t know it at the time).
Neverending IP rights are a farce of the kind that like all unreasonable laws degrade respect for reasonable laws.
Lets say I wrote a blockbusting novel. It sold millions and made me stinking rich. Why should anyone who had nothing to do with the writing of the book make money out of my hard work? Out of my millions I would be considerate enough to leave my children something but not the right to make more money without having to work fo it themselves. If artists/writers/musicians etc. saw sense and embraced the technology which is available quite cheaply at the moment the middle men (publishers/record companies/film studios) would very quickly realise that they are not necessary. These parasites make a living out of the work of others, they may have been needed in the past but their usefulness is coming to an end. They know this and it scares the pants off them, hence the thrashing around trying to prop up their swiftly tumbling house of cards.
My IP is just that; MINE. I don’t want anyone else cashing in on it without my express permission, If I’m dead I can’t give that permission so no-one cashes in on it, end of story. Its not theft by anyone because no-one will own it.
What a friggin communist.
Lets say I built an amusement park. It made millions and made me stinking rich. Why should anyone who had nothing to do with the building of the amusement park make money out of my hard work? Out of my millions I would be considerate enough to leave my children something but not the right to make more money without having to work fo it themselves. If other amusement park owners saw sense and embraced the recreational technology which is available quite cheaply at the moment the middle men (amusement park constructors/maintainers) would very quickly realise that they are not necessary. These parasites make a living out of the work of others, they may have been needed in the past but their usefulness is coming to an end. They know this and it scares the pants off them, hence the thrashing around trying to prop up their swiftly tumbling house of cards.
mandrill,
Do you feel the same way about your house? If you were to kick the bucket tomorrow is it OK if I move into your house rather than your children/heirs taking possesion.
Afterall you’d be dead so I wouldn’t be taking anything from you.
Midwesterner: A book/peice of music/film is radically different from an amusement park (or my house, which I don’t own btw, not everyone is so lucky). So we’re starting from different premises. You probably could build an amusement park on your own but it would take forever and may not be all that safe. The ‘middle men’ (contractors, safety inspectors, maintenance staff. etc) are a necessity when building an amusement park, So could all claim part ownership of it as it was their work which made it possible. This is coporate property (a form of collectivism btw) Not so with a peice of music, film or book. If you so desired you could do it all on your own. You only have to look at the internet to see it beginning to happen, YouTube, IUMA, and blogging are all evidence of it. These things can exist without the need for a physical form, they are pure ideas.
Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not talking about corporate or industrial IP, I’m talking purely on an individual level. If a company (which is something different to an individual.) ploughs money into R&D, that company should be able to profit from its research as long as it is in existence. This is just as valid when applied to manufactured/constructed property.
However items of art, in their purest form, are ephemeral. Pure ideas, usually the creation of one person’s mind. And so I ask again: Why should someone else profit from what goes on in my head?
No-one owns my thoughts but me. I may wish to sell a physical manifestaion of those thoughts (CD, Ebook, Dead Tree Edition, DVD) but the thoughts are still mine
all the buyer can claim ownership of is the medium of transmission, not the thought itself.
PS If I were a communist I’d be saying that no-one should own anything, which I’m patently not. I’d like a retraction please.
IP is not property, it is monopolistic protection, by government, to subsidize innovation.
Innovation is a public good — just like all the other junk gov’t often subsidizes. Even more so, usually.
There is a big, huge, enormous benefit to enforcing IP, and supporting innovation. There is also the cost of enforcement. With printing presses, the cost wasn’t so high; with Xerox, and cassette tapes, the enforcement cost went up; with digital information and most computers able to copy digital info, the COST of enforcement is almost certainly higher than the benefit.
We need a new way to support digitial information creation, and to scrap IP — that’s the revolution which is needed for the info revolution.
Remember, the Free Market price is the lowest honest price to the buyer. A $1 copied CD shouldn’t cost $10 for a $9 tax/ subsidy support to the innovators. (It’s not a tax, the gov’t never touches it. It’s not stealing, it’s copying.)
On morality, sharing with others should always be legal. When it’s not, the law is wrong.
Today, IP law is wrong. Beneficial to those getting subsidized, but still wrong.
“Why should anyone who had nothing to do with the writing of the book make money out of my hard work?”
This is not a statement about the legitimacy of IP. It is a flat out statement denying the legitiamacy of unearned property.
“(publishers/record companies/film studios) . . . These parasites make a living out of the work of others”
I’ll let other readers decide whether this is a statement on the legitimacy of IP or a more general anti-bourgeoisie sentiment.
“This is coporate property (a form of collectivism btw)”
I don’t think you understand the difference between voluntary co-operation and collectivism. Those silly East Germans should have just sold their stock in that particular collective enterprise.
“If you so desired you could do it all on your own. You only have to look at the internet to see it beginning to happen, YouTube, IUMA, and blogging are all evidence of it.”
Golly. You’ve got a lot of confidance in my capabilities. If I were to try that, I would still be hung up at the burying cable stage.
“No-one owns my thoughts but me. I may wish to sell a physical manifestaion of those thoughts (CD, Ebook, Dead Tree Edition, DVD) but the thoughts are still mine all the buyer can claim ownership of is the medium of transmission, not the thought itself.”
How can you claim they are your’s and yet also say they are not transferable or bequeathable?
“PS If I were a communist I’d be saying that no-one should own anything, which I’m patently not. I’d like a retraction please.”
Well, I certainly will retract “friggin”. It is irelevant and unproven. As for “communist”, it is relevant, and there certainly appears to be features of your concept of property that would be more at home in some for of communual property system. The contradiction that I can’t work out is how you can “own” it in your mind, but not transfer ownership of it on your own terms. That is the essence of IP. To provide a framework so you can share your thoughts without losing title to them.
Tom Grey,
I went to your website and found at that you are “Now a libertarian paternalist – progressive Conservative.”
This could be a clue as to why I can’t make any sense out of what you are saying.
I’m working on a post which will act as a continuation of this discussion on my blog. I feel that the scope of the discussion is expanding and don’t really want to hijack these comments with it. I’ll let you know when it gets posted (Its in draft stage atm and its late, probably tomorrow) Anyone who wishes to participate is most welcome.
Midwesterner: you are especially invited 🙂
You know where I am.
the discussion continues (and is not restricted to IP btw) here. All welcome.
life is made up of marble and mud.