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Topic: Hardcore libertarians: explain your anti-IP-rights position to me. - page 6. (Read 6806 times)

myrkul

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Quote from: JoelKatz on June 24, 2011, 12:08:49 AM

It's the last part that's the problem. I don't see any reason they shouldn't be able to enforce them against non-consenting third parties. If rights obtained by contracts are to be treated as real rights, then contracts will have to be enforceable against third parties.

Hypothetical: You and I own competing businesses. My employees have a clause in their employment contracts that if they quit to work for a competing business, they cannot contact prior customers for 180 days. You intentionally and knowingly hire my employees from me and pay them a bonus for each prior customer they get to switch from my company to yours. You specifically direct them to ignore the 180 day agreement. Can I sue you?

Rights are not obtained by contract. Agreements are.

No, but you can 'sue' them.

JoelKatz

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Quote from: myrkul on June 23, 2011, 11:56:25 PM

You're free to ask purchasers to sign whatever contracts you like.

Making things like that efficient is easy. I would imagine, for example, you would probably just show some kind of ID card indicating you had already agreed to standard terms to get into a movie theater or book store. I don't know the best way to do it, but someone would figure it out.

JoelKatz

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Quote from: em3rgentOrdr on June 23, 2011, 11:53:15 PM

tl;dr summary: in a free society, two contracting parties may create contracts restricting duplication of information by each of them, however, they may not enforce such contract against non-consenting 3rd parties.

myrkul

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You're free to ask purchasers to sign whatever contracts you like.

Don't expect to sell a lot.

em3rgentOrdr

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JoelKatz

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Quote from: myrkul on June 23, 2011, 11:01:55 PM

If I agreed to such a ludicrous contract, I would be bound by it.

Exactly. In a Libertarian society, IP 'laws' would be implemented as contracts and they would be enforceable.

Quote from: JoelKatz on June 23, 2011, 10:56:17 PM

You bought whatever your agreement with the seller says you bought. That agreement includes the laws of your jurisdiction unless you negotiate otherwise.

We're not talking about laws. We're talking about rights.

When laws set the parameters for contracts, they define rights. For example, say I agree to mow your lawn 8 times over the next 2 months for $900. Then say I don't mow your lawn. You certainly have the right to damages. But do you have the right to compel me to mow your lawn? Unless the contract specifies otherwise, you have that right if the law says so and you don't if it doesn't. One of the things laws have to do is set the default terms -- otherwise you couldn't buy a candy bar without signing a multi-page agreement and courts would have no rational basis to decide how to address contractual disputes when terms weren't in a contract.

Unless agreed otherwise, a contract transfers those rights the laws says it does, as this is what both parties expect. When you buy a CD in this country, you understand that you are agreeing not to copy it because the law does not give you that right. If you wanted to buy that right, the other party would have charged you more.

In a purely Libertarian society, there is no question that IP could be implemented by contracts. The only real question is whether those contracts should be enforceable against third parties who knowingly interfere with them (as in my shrimp example).

And note that absent IP laws, things might never go into the public domain and you might never have fair use rights. In a pure contract IP system, the contract says whatever the author/composer/artist wants it to if they can get the buyer to agree. This is why companies like Microsoft use copyright and patent when they have to, but they much prefer contracts (EULAs) -- because they can choose the terms on those.

Sigma

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Quote from: JoelKatz on June 23, 2011, 10:56:17 PM

Quote from: myrkul on June 23, 2011, 10:51:22 PM

By claiming intellectual property rights on the data in the book or CD or game I bought, you are claiming partial ownership of my property. That violates my property rights. I bought it, and I bought the whole thing, Data included.

Suppose I offer to sell you a car for $1,500. Then I say, "I tell you what, you can have it for $1,200, but if you drive it on a Saturday between 2AM and 3AM local time, you must pay me $15." Is that enforceable?

You bought whatever your agreement with the seller says you bought. That agreement includes the laws of your jurisdiction unless you negotiate otherwise.

I think the equivalent real situation you are trying to get at is that companies can wrap agreements in their products. What is different is that these wrappers are usually not signed by the purchaser, and not made clear prior to purchase and opening of the product. This would be like sticking this contract in the glovebox of the car and then claiming you agreed without any prior notification.

Perhaps you are being real and assuming someone would take those contracts for the car. This doesn't happen because there is no need and someone would simply rather sell the product. This has usually not happened with IP related materials up until very recently. This is happening now because IP is different than a normal product like a car and the producers of it need to come up with some way of keeping control of the profit chain, even though technology has moved past that ability.

myrkul

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Quote from: JoelKatz on June 23, 2011, 10:47:41 PM

Because your argument only works if contracts are *never* enforceable against third parties.

Exactly.

Quote from: JoelKatz on June 23, 2011, 10:56:17 PM

If I agreed to such a ludicrous contract, I would be bound by it.

Quote from: JoelKatz on June 23, 2011, 10:56:17 PM

You bought whatever your agreement with the seller says you bought. That agreement includes the laws of your jurisdiction unless you negotiate otherwise.

We're not talking about laws. We're talking about rights.

JoelKatz

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Quote from: myrkul on June 23, 2011, 10:51:22 PM

myrkul

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Since I didn't see the tl;dr you were looking for, allow me to provide it:

By claiming intellectual property rights on the data in the book or CD or game I bought, you are claiming partial ownership of my property. That violates my property rights. I bought it, and I bought the whole thing, Data included.

JoelKatz

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Quote from: em3rgentOrdr on June 23, 2011, 10:32:24 PM

So-called "intellectual property" violates real property rights, plain and simple.

Suppose you and I own competing seafood restaurants. Suppose you know I'm planning a very important event and shrimp is the main item on the menu. Suppose you also know that I have a legally binding contract with a shrimp supplier and would have a hard time finding shrimp for my important event if my supplier failed to deliver. Say you know the shrimp supplier has almost no assets and is basically judgment proof, and you know I would suffer damages well beyond what he could ever pay me back. And you really don't like me, and know that if I suffered financial harm, that would help your business. If you offer the shrimp supplier a large sum of money to default on his contract with me, have you violated my rights? Of course I can sue the shrimp supplier, but can I sue you?

Because your argument only works if contracts are *never* enforceable against third parties.

em3rgentOrdr

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So-called "intellectual property" violates real property rights, plain and simple.

wpride

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Thanks!

JoelKatz

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Quote from: toast on June 23, 2011, 08:22:29 PM

This is why libertarianism seems dogmatic to me. In this case, stopping someone from printing a particular book and selling it (which they couldn't have done if the book was never written!) trumps enriching everyone's lives by rewarding the innovator for his useful new idea and encouraging people to come up with other useful ones. How can anyone subscribe to this ideology?

First, let me repeat one more time that I disagree with Libertarianism's position on IP. But let me respond to your dogmatism argument:

Suppose there was a doctor who cured cancer. He knew the cure, but wasn't going to tell it to anyone unless he got compensation. And say he really wanted to have sex with your nine year old daughter. I hope you would consider any society that even considered trading him for the cure under those conditions to be unacceptable. Libertarians see these kinds of issues in those kinds of terms. He doesn't have a right to your daughter, period. It doesn't matter what society might gain, because your daughter is not society's to trade.

And I should add further that Libertarians genuinely believe that the long term benefits of having a society that reliably respects rights will outweigh all the small benefits of occasionally violating them. Yes, some development will be discouraged.

(I'm starting to feel I'm reaching the limit of my ability to defend a position I don't share. A real Libertarian might do a better job.)

To bring it on topic -- say we were to find something horribly wrong with BitCoin that made it much less useful but kept the value high. But say the early adopters held a patent and were too invested in the current hash chain to allow any fixes. IP could mean that we would have to wait 15 years to introduce a competing currency.

toast

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Quote from: JoelKatz on June 23, 2011, 07:51:26 PM

Do you mean how the actual IP laws countries have actually discourage innovation? Or do you mean a theoretical argument for why IP laws will always tend to discourage innovation? For the former, look at the issues with sampling in music, mashups in videos, and orphaned works in copyright generally.

I mean the theoretical argument for why IP laws will tend to discourage innovation. I can see pretty clearly why existing laws do that =]

Quote from: JoelKatz on June 23, 2011, 07:51:26 PM

Sure, and there are also many stories about how the guy who did the real, hard work lost out because someone else stretched a patent to cover his idea.

So this is a discussion of how to successfully implement IP law, not an argument against the idea of such a law.

Quote

But, again, these arguments aren't really that persuasive to Libertarians. If they're not convinced that IP rights are 'real rights', they don't want the government enforcing them.

JoelKatz

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Quote from: toast on June 23, 2011, 06:57:20 PM

I am interested in hearing how IP laws discourage innovation.

Quote

I can think of many real-world examples of how innovators would not have made any money (because let's face it, feeling good for making the world a better place is not sufficient reward for many) for significant time investments.

Sure, and there are also many stories about how the guy who did the real, hard work lost out because someone else stretched a patent to cover his idea.

But, again, these arguments aren't really that persuasive to Libertarians. If they're not convinced that IP rights are 'real rights', they don't want the government enforcing them.

TerraHertz

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I have a vehement anti-IP position, but not the time to explain just now, sorry. Maybe later. It's based on fundamental properties of the universe (the nature of matter, energy and data) as well as long term social benefits.

If you feel like a read, here's an SF short story I wrote last year. It isn't primarily IP-rights related but does touch on that issue briefly.
http://everist.org/texts/Fermis_Urbex_Paradox.txt

Oh, and yeah. Absolutely THE solution to the Fermi Paradox. Seriously. For anyone who cares about such things.

Ah, the unexpected things one comes across while dipping in and out to clock up login time before _really_ being allowed to post.

Now, I must back to work.

haydent

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Quote

Isn't it better for ideas to temporarily benefit their creators than for them to not exist at all (remember, I'm assuming the IP laws would be reasonable, not like they are now).

im not hardcore left,as you request, and i think we all agree that short term is fine. as also said by prev post its just gotten a little out of hand.

malditonuke

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Quote from: JoelKatz on June 23, 2011, 06:25:54 PM

One of the major reasons they oppose IP is that they see it as fake 'rights' enforced only because of a cost/benefit analysis.

From what I have read, the main reason IP is opposed by libertarians is that they see it as conflicting with physical property rights.

The bottom line with libertarianism is minimizing conflict over scarce resources. IP laws apparently increase the conflict over scarce resources and are therefore harmful laws.

rob80

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imho, Larence Lessig's 'Free Culture' is a good listen if you're interested in the subject: http://randomfoo.net/oscon/2002/lessig/

Personally, I like IP-Rights in the short term, but the current copyright system goes way too far. Age+70 I think it is?