Topic: Intellectual Property - In All Fairness! - page 7. (Read 105875 times)

That's a question for the people making the decision.  You can be as self-righteous as you like - democracies are well used to authoritarians lecturing them.  Gaddify used lecture us Europeans on how to run a "fair" society should be run.  

There is good and bad news for you:

The bad news for you is that you are have only one vote and there are lots of people with their own ideas you have to compete with.  Some say all property is theft.  Others say that lizard people have taken over the world.   There are still committed socialists who say some property can only be owned by the state.  You say that intellectual property is akin to slavery.  A democracy is a free market in ideas so its all good stuff. 

The good news is that you live in a free country so feel free to lobby for a change. If you don't come up with something better than the existing system, I don't see you getting any further than the lizard conspiracy people.

Useful for whom?  Sure, some people are going to try to treat data as property, but that doesn't make it so. (insert slavery property reference here)  Others will treat data as data, and you have no right to use force against them to prevent it.  I can get as self-righteous as I like.  Your great-grandchildren are going to be as embarassed to know how you "earned" an income as white southerners today are about how they came to inherit a Georgia plantation.

Nobody.  Who says that the elected represent society?  I don't.  You still haven't even tried to define 'society'.  Probably because you intuitively know that you can't define society in a way that is inclusive and still doesn't result in IP laws pitting one class of society against another.  We would hammer you down with that one too, no matter how you do it.  Because 'society' is an intangible concept; it is both real and false at the same time.  Certainly you know many people that you can identify with that you would consider part of your 'society', as well as many people that would completely reject being included by yourself.

And again, just because harm to one class within society can be demonstrated with the repeal of IP laws, does not mean that there is not harm caused to another class within society by the existance of IP laws.  I could sum it up in one sentence.

You are the 1%.

Guess who the 99% are?

So your assumption is that society exists, that it can act to prevent harm to itself but should not because you say so.  

Who elected you?  

No-one.

Is treating data as property useful?  If the answer is yes, people will do it and you have no right to tell them not to.  You can try to persuade but don't get self-righteous. 

Of course it does.  The main point is that people are not property, and neither is data.  Those states went to war over the right of seccession, not slavery per se.  And they were wrong about the slavery issue, just as you are wrong about the IP issue.  The US Constitution was flawed in that it maintained the practice of slavery in order to maintain peace among the states, and it didn't work anyway.  The Constitution is just as flawed in permitting Congress to establish copyright monopolies, and someday that will come to a head as well.  Copyright is a monopoly privilege granted by the king/goverment.  It was a common practice well before the foundation of the United States, and was regarded as about as legitimate as an inherited title or a land grant.  The early US didn't recognize copyrights issued by any foreign government for many decades, and never did recognize copyrights of anyone that date prior to 1776.  Still don't, not that it should matter.  Anything that requires the organized force of government to exist isn't a natural right.  Rights are negative in nature, meaning that to exist, they need only that others (and particularly governments) do nothing to inhibit their free exercise.  IP doesn't fit that model, since the 'right' of the producer to limit the free distribution of their work via IP laws require that agents of government do something to those who would freely distribute that data in order to prevent or limit same.  If you really can't see the distinction, I pity your children more than you; for your education has failed you, and will likewise fail your children because of you.

That's not what you said.


Show us how the law forbidding the theft of physical property also justifies slavery.

You are American and a fair number of your states went to war to defend their "property."  Does that mean that all defense of property is wrong?  Of course not - I am actively defending the idea of intellectual property.

As I said, saying that the same logic can be used for slavery as for defending IP doesn't make IP wrong.

No worries! Yours was a great description. I'm just a little behind on some abbreviations.

Not really, but that doesn't make the NAP any worse for a mentally handicapped adult than any other base principle of law.  The same can be said for an infant.  Even if s/he could harm you, you can't rationally hold that against the child, for they don't really know what they are doing.  The only thing that you can do, since you are still bound by the NAP as a rational adult, is to take steps to prevent or avoid harm caused by the child, such as keep the matches in a high cupboard.  The same is generally true for the mentally handicapped adult, no rational person would argue that any adult that can be demonstrated to a reasonable person to be incapable of rational thought has an inalienable right to 'keep and bear arms'.  The theory of 'natural rights' assumes the rightholder in question has the capacity to understand what such a right actually is.

EDIT: I completely read that question wrong.

Oh, sorry, I thought you were asking for a definition of the non aggression principle, not what the acronym NAP means.

Ah! http://common-law.net/nap.html I'm a little slow.

The initiation of violence is never justified.

Interesting! Definately woot worthy. Woot!  But can you define NAP for someone dumb as a stump?

I think my test for application of the NAP toward robotic life would be the same as organic life. The NAP applies if it (does or is able to) reciprocate in applying the NAP to me.

So... roomba? Slave.

Cow equivalent sentience? Questionable.

Human equivalent sentience? Free.

I wonder if he is sitting at his computer right now, with a response box open, trying to figure out what just happened.

Let me be the first to say that slavery is wrong!

Except with robots. I will be the first to own robot slaves. Who's with me!

Screw digital sentience and whatever moron decides that is a beneficial feature to invent. But trust me, someone will invent it. And he is going to screw things up for all of us!

Just wanting to see who bites!

Let me guess, because slaves are property right?

I've been waiting for this. If it could be used to justify slavery, please show us how.

*grabs popcorn*

The law that forbids you stealing other people's car could also be used to justify slavery.  Is it immoral to forbid theft?

Wit a wiffle bah bat!