Topic: Intellectual Property - In All Fairness! - page 108. (Read 105893 times)

Evidence? Show me some numbers or I'll have to assume that western medicine is pretty much similar.

There it is, naked and ugly. You have the right to do only what the masses—or rather, the group of people claiming to represent "society"—will not forcefully prevent you from doing. No reason. No consistency. No principle. Just the might of a few amoral people with costumes and the apathy or fear of everyone else.

Further down in the wikipedia article it mentions the criticisms of IP. What say you to that? In a way Hobbes is suggesting that a powerful personage in the realm protects my property. Does that mean might makes right only, or that some other reasoning might come in to play?


I understand the rules of a game of basketball, but I don't want to play the game. Do I have to play? Slavery worked pretty well for the cotton plantations in the South too, again and your point? Non sequitur and straw man argument. I may also want a cheaper knock-off can of coke too. If you're offering, I might buy. Abundance can not be equated to IP.


I argue that if we were to abandon the system of IP we might have more freedoms and better products and services. Unfortunately very few people, including yourself apparently are unwilling to try it. Selfish narrow mindedness.

You would be right I can't steal someone's idea, but only because there's nothing to steal. I am under no obligation to provide you or anybody else a benefit I don't think they rightly deserve. I owe them non-aggression at most.


I'm arguing that the enforcement of IP laws is theft. I wish to maintain that private property is a tangible thing exclusively owned by the person who consensually bargained for it or homesteaded it. Nothing more, nothing less.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Property_rights#Types_of_property

As you see there are all kinds of property. Private property is just one.  Where does the ownership come from?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Property_rights#Thomas_Hobbes_.2817th_century.29

"Hobbes' reflection began with the idea of "giving to every man his own," a phrase he drew from the writings of Cicero. But he wondered: How can anybody call anything his own? He concluded: My own can only truly be mine if there is one unambiguously strongest power in the realm, and that power treats it as mine, protecting its status as such."

This definition hasn't been improved upon and is the part of the basis of Hernando de Soto's work.   

Our society recognises that intellectual property can be owned. Why?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intellectual_property#Objectives

Because it makes us better off.

You keep trying to pretend that this reality can't make sense but it does.  Everyone understands it.  The system works.   You can go anywhere in the world and buy a can of Coca-Cola and you get what you wanted. We have a super-abundance of good things based on intellectual property. 

You argue that this system which works so well should be abandoned as it breaches your human rights.  What right are you deprived of?  You can't steal someone else's idea.  Nor can you steal their car.  Nor their share certificates.  All are things that you own as part of a social convention.  Unless you can provide a benefit that exceeds the value of the abundance of good things the existing system produces, you idea is pointless as any property rights are based on the benefit to society. 

In short, if you don't like the concept of intellectual property, come up with something that will produce more goods for us as a society.  Arguing that the intellectual property rights that society gave you conflict with the property rights that society gave you is not convincing.  You may as well argue that property is theft and all should be abolished.

Here's the thing. What can be said for certain is that the theory of private property and that of intellectual property conflict. The one affects the other and vice a versa.

They are not independently and mutually exclusive theories.

Intellectual property theory states that anyone can lay a claim to any property, anywhere, and at any time and for virtually any reason, based on it's physical attributes as determined by external agents.

Private property theory states that physical objects can only be legitimately acquired by homesteading or via mutual consent by trade.

Intellectual property laws violate more human rights than private property laws do, hence the reason for rescinding such laws.

And you seem to be doing that.  Your whole premise seems to be "I don't want to recognise intellectual property so I won't.  To hell with everyone else." 

And I say black is white, the sun don't shine, and gravity goes up, not down. I can say whatever I want, you see. Just saying it doesn't make it so.

I was made to be rich. I intend to acquire my wealth from you. The money you should give me, you gave to somebody else. My year-end accounts will indicate that that money was not included in my revenue figures when I evaluate my assets. The return on my investment will be lower.

That's a very serious affect. If it happens often enough, the return on my investment will fall to the point where it doesn't make sense for me to attempt to acquire monies from you, therefore I will close down.

You owe me. Now pay up.

I'm Irish.  Is there a free market in Ireland.  Lets look:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Index_of_Economic_Freedom_2010.png

Why there is   Good as I like to do my own business and don't want welfare.

Is there robust intellectual property in Ireland?  Why yes Good as I like being paid for my creations.

No contradictions.  If you see a logical fallacy there, the problem is your premise. 

So you admit that the definition of "free market" can be both free and unfree at the same time. Hmm... I think that's what we call a logical fallacy.

Here's a short, but in nowise exhaustive list of fallacies contained in your prior statements.

Irrelevant conclusion: diverts attention away from a fact in dispute rather than addressing it directly.
Affirming the consequent: draws a conclusion from premises that do not support that conclusion.
Begging the question: demonstrates a conclusion by means of premises that assume that conclusion.
Fallacy of false cause or non sequitur: incorrectly assumes one thing is the cause of another. Non Sequitur is Latin for "It does not follow."

Try to use a little more logic please however informal it may be.

Viagra was made to be sold.  The buyer intended to buy their Viagra.  The money they should have been paid is gone to a cloner.  In their year end accounts, that money will not be included in the revenue figures so when they evaluate their assets, the return on investment will be lower.

That's a very serious affect.  If it happens often enough, the return on investment will fall to the point where it doesn't make sense to do medical research and they will close down. 

The fraudulent sale in no way affects the assets, inventory, or any other property of Pfizer. It's like you're claiming that they own the potential sale, in which case they might as well sue anyone who intends to buy Viagra but changes eir mind before actually making the purchase.

Contract 3: Joe runs into the chemist and yells "Mary is gagging for it - gimme Viagra now!!" and gets sold the non-Pfizer Viagra.  Both Joe and Pfizer have been ripped off.

Its called "The big picture".  Who needs dots? :p

The original maker of Viagra has not being ripped off.  - of course they have.  Money that was meant for the drug they made has gone to someone else.  That is a rip off.

"A free market is a market free from state intervention. However, the term is also commonly used for markets in which economic intervention and regulation by the state is limited to tax collection, and enforcement of private ownership and contracts."  We buy and sell property, including intellectual property, freely so there is no issue.  

To fraud or not defraud.

Contract 1: I offer a knock-off version of a Viagra pill (known to the buyer). I specify that I am the producer thereof, and that I am not representing the Pfizer corporation. Buyer beware.

Outcome 1: No fraud.

Contract 2: I offer a knock-off version of a Viagra Pill (unbeknownst to the buyer). I specify that the pill in my possession was produced by Pfizer, whose company headquarters are located in Midtown Manhattan. However, I am the producer of said knock-off Viagra pill. I deliver my pill, and not the one originating from the Pfizer company as specified by our contract. Hence, no resell/transfer from Pfizer, to me, to buyer has occurred.

Outcome 2: Fraud.

Get it? .  .  .  . I'ts called connect the dots......

The original maker of Viagra has not being ripped off. The person on the other end of the sale has been defrauded of his money because the vendor who sold him the product, misrepresented its origns for something other that what was expected (specifically a pill designed and manufactured by Pfizer).

I think that dispenses with the trademark/patent neediness theory. A free market would imply persons who own objects comprised of any combination of physical characteristics, and services, trading with whomever they choose, free of restrictions.

You can't have trademarks and patents and a free market simultaneously. That's a logical impossibility. You're going to have to admit to that one. The logic says it's so.

Your use of the word "real Viagra" says it all.  If you don't have a trademark, there is no "real" Viagra and anyone can use the name for anything.  And there is a free market in the sense that if you don't want to patent your drug research, you are not forced to.  And no-one else can patent it either.  The patent law simply means that you can't gop copy someone else's work during the patent period.  Once that ends, you can make their invention as a generic drug i.e not using their trademark but yes to using their formula.

That's not the original maker being ripped off, that's the buyers being ripped off because they aren't getting the "real Viagra" that they thought they were. And that's true even without monopoly trademarks—it's called fraud.


"" is not sufficient for promoting an opinion to a fact. And the claim that there is a free market in drug development, when people who patent and submit to the FDA can use force against those who ignore the patents and/or the agency, is just plain false. The mafia claim that anyone is free to do business without paying protection money, too... let me know how they do.

I'm not joking.  Even the person you linked to assumed that trademarks ( the ability to sell under their own name) were needed.  Imagine a world where anyone can make a drug and call it Viagra - even if they don't copy the real Viagra, the original maker is being ripped off as the sales of that "Viagra" are actually sales that are intended for their "Viagra."

So you see, trademarks and patents are needed   But its a free market.  If anyone wants to try to develop a drug without bothering to have it patented and sell it without bothering to have a trademark, let me know how they do.

I can't tell whether or not you're joking. In the real world, people doing business as government threaten everyone who doesn't respect their monopoly constructs (patents and regulations).

You have put forward nothing more than an opinion that pharmaceutical development requires patents, and it is an opinion that at least one person with professional experience in the field explicitly rebuts.