Intellectual Property: Nonsense

[phattonez]

I did write it. Using my ideas.
Just as if I take a software program and rename it and sell it.

If you rewrite it then it's yours but if you're just taking his work and putting your name on it then it's fraud.

 

[winston53660]

Here is a guy that got screwed:

DETROIT February 25, 2005; The AP reported that Robert Kearns, the inventor of intermittent windshield wipers who won multimillion-dollar judgments against Ford and Chrysler for using his idea, has died. He was 77.

Kearns died of cancer Feb. 9 at his home in suburban Baltimore, his family said.

Kearns, a onetime Wayne State University professor, received numerous patents in 1967 for his design for wipers that paused between swipes, making them useful in very light rain or mist. The invention allows the driver to set the interval at which the wiper sweeps the window.

He shopped his invention around to various automakers but did not reach a licensing deal with any of them. But carmakers eventually began offering intermittent wipers as standard or optional equipment.

Kearns sued Ford Motor Co. in 1978 and Chrysler in 1982, claiming patent infringement.

Robert Kearns, Inventor of Intermittent Windshield Wipers and Battled Car Companies, Dies at 77

 

[the makeout hobo]

"Yes company A and the author got all the sales for the first few weeks, but that is such a small part of what the book makes that it by no means makes up for it."

What part of this hypothetical do you require proof of? That the sales of the first few weeks aren't usually the majority of sales of a book?

You don't deserve any compensation for coming up with an idea. The problem here is that people are arguing that there will be no incentive for the creation of new ideas without IP. I'm showing that there will be incentive. Because from the moment you create it, it is not scarce, you deserve no compensation.

The problem here is that we're not just talking about an idea. "A story where kids play laser tag in space and fight aliens by accident" is an idea. Enders Game in all its hundreds of pages isn't an idea, it's a product and a piece of work. If Orson Scott Card sued me for writing a book that is similar in some ways to his, that would be suing me over an idea. Suing me for publishing Enders Game without his permission is making sure he gets paid for the product and piece of work he created.

Then try to listen to what I'm saying. If what you produce isn't scarce then why should you deserve any profits? If I start up an air factory I shouldn't expect people to start paying me for air. Much in the same way, I shouldn't expect compensation for an idea because there's no production involved. Just because you worked hard on it doesn't mean that you deserve to get paid.

If you made air on the moon and sold it to colonists damn right you should get paid for it. The only way the text of a book isn't scarce is because anyone can make copies of it. It's not the same as air, and you know it.

If you think that it'll be a surprise hit then work out some kind of a deal with the publishing company so that you'll be paid accordingly.

Like royalties? Royalties are the basis of all intellectual work, and depend on IP laws.

It has. It's a gamble. Nothing is for sure in the marketplace.

So we set up payment schemes to reflect that, like royalties. you're trying to fix a system that isn't broken.

Because of the immediate profits.

But immediate profits aren't enough to support things. Take steven king: many of his books are still selling very well decades later. Or what about things that become hits long after they're put out, like Napoleon Dynamite?

But no one has proven that there are no incentives without IP.

What would you require as proof?

Because they'd be distributing a scarce good whereas you just have a non-scare and therefore nonvaluable good.

**** "scarcity". You can keep your precious little concepts you learned in High School Economics. Let's get back to the basics. If people don't get paid, they don't do work. This is a simple truth. Instead of accepting this, you come up with all these rube goldberg style schemes where the authors somehow magically get paid for their work but anyone can copy it.

And why should they?

Why should you be able to make money off of work I did?

Because I don't accept them? Please.

Because your schemes keep on getting more and more elaborate and whimsical.

 

[Phoenix]

If you rewrite it then it's yours but if you're just taking his work and putting your name on it then it's fraud.

Exact same words, different author, me.

If you can't accept this as NOT fraudulent, then you are denying the basic principle you are arguing. That ideas are not scarce and people can have the exact same ideas and are equally entitled to those ideas and the revenue that results from them.

 

[Bodi]

How can people want something that doesn't exist? You can't value something that doesn't exist.

I think that you are purposely ignoring things... an idea exists once it is realized, and you are not taking the next step into account, making the idea public in order to make a profit. Once it is public, then nobody can prove that they came up with the idea independently, hence copyrights and patents.

Secondly, the idea, once shared, can be unlimited... but the original idea, the first time it happened and before it was shared in order to make a profit, THAT idea was and is scarce.

Regarding the State of Nature... there are no rights in the State of Nature according to Hobbes. Read Leviathan again. In the State of Nature there are no rights, there is simply what you can do to others and what you can keep them from doing to you. The whole point of the Social Contract is that the formation of government gives those that live under it the very Rights that did not exist in the State of Nature.

Hobbes famously argued that such a “dissolute condition of masterlesse men, without subjection to Lawes, and a coercive Power to tye their hands from rapine, and revenge” would make impossible all of the basic security upon which comfortable, sociable, civilized life depends.

Hobbes's Moral and Political Philosophy (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)

It seems that you are taking communism or some Orwellian nightmare to a new level of mindless idea sharing with no individuality or independence or personal ownership.

 

[phattonez]

Here is a guy that got screwed:

DETROIT February 25, 2005; The AP reported that Robert Kearns, the inventor of intermittent windshield wipers who won multimillion-dollar judgments against Ford and Chrysler for using his idea, has died. He was 77.

Kearns died of cancer Feb. 9 at his home in suburban Baltimore, his family said.

Kearns, a onetime Wayne State University professor, received numerous patents in 1967 for his design for wipers that paused between swipes, making them useful in very light rain or mist. The invention allows the driver to set the interval at which the wiper sweeps the window.

He shopped his invention around to various automakers but did not reach a licensing deal with any of them. But carmakers eventually began offering intermittent wipers as standard or optional equipment.

Kearns sued Ford Motor Co. in 1978 and Chrysler in 1982, claiming patent infringement.

Robert Kearns, Inventor of Intermittent Windshield Wipers and Battled Car Companies, Dies at 77

The same suit would have won if he had showed them his invention while signing a contract with them agreeing not to use it unless they purchase the idea from him.

 

[Phoenix]

**** "scarcity". You can keep your precious little concepts you learned in High School Economics. Let's get back to the basics. If people don't get paid, they don't do work. This is a simple truth. Instead of accepting this, you come up with all these rube goldberg style schemes where the authors somehow magically get paid for their work but anyone can copy it.

Excellent way of expressing it. Ask a libertarian why taxes shouldn't be high. They will tell you because people will not work unless they can make a profit!

 

[phattonez]

Exact same words, different author, me.

If you can't accept this as NOT fraudulent, then you are denying the basic principle you are arguing. That ideas are not scarce and people can have the exact same ideas and are equally entitled to those ideas and the revenue that results from them.

But you didn't write it. When it says written by, and you put your name, you're lying. That is fraud.

 

[phattonez]

Excellent way of expressing it. Ask a libertarian why taxes shouldn't be high. They will tell you because people will not work unless they can make a profit!

And no one here has proven that without IP that there would be no profit for coming up with ideas. :2wave:

 

[phattonez]

What part of this hypothetical do you require proof of? That the sales of the first few weeks aren't usually the majority of sales of a book?

That the profit made from those few weeks is not enough to spur creation of new works.

The problem here is that we're not just talking about an idea. "A story where kids play laser tag in space and fight aliens by accident" is an idea. Enders Game in all its hundreds of pages isn't an idea, it's a product and a piece of work. If Orson Scott Card sued me for writing a book that is similar in some ways to his, that would be suing me over an idea. Suing me for publishing Enders Game without his permission is making sure he gets paid for the product and piece of work he created.

So if I make vacuum tubes, I should sue consumers for not buying them and compensating me for my work?

If you made air on the moon and sold it to colonists damn right you should get paid for it. The only way the text of a book isn't scarce is because anyone can make copies of it. It's not the same as air, and you know it.

:rofl Seriously? Producing air ON EARTH can be done, but it makes no sense because air isn't scarce. No one in their right mind would pay for the air that you produce.

Like royalties? Royalties are the basis of all intellectual work, and depend on IP laws.

Groundless statement. No proof has been offered for this.

So we set up payment schemes to reflect that, like royalties. you're trying to fix a system that isn't broken.

Except it is broken. Ever seen the price of a college education? How about prescription drugs? Exorbitant and a waste of resources.

But immediate profits aren't enough to support things. Take steven king: many of his books are still selling very well decades later. Or what about things that become hits long after they're put out, like Napoleon Dynamite?

Where is your proof that these immediate profits are not enough?

What would you require as proof?

Anything. I've shown that authors put up their works for free online. I've shown that IP (more specifically patents) can hold up technological progress. All you've argued is theoretically, and I've cast doubts into those theories.

**** "scarcity". You can keep your precious little concepts you learned in High School Economics. Let's get back to the basics.

Looks like trolling to me.

If people don't get paid, they don't do work. This is a simple truth. Instead of accepting this, you come up with all these rube goldberg style schemes where the authors somehow magically get paid for their work but anyone can copy it.

A scheme where everyone gets paid for their work? So then let's make sure that the guy who makes vacuum tubes gets paid for his work even though it's a waste of resources.

Why should you be able to make money off of work I did?

Because you don't own what you created. It's just an idea and it isn't scarce. Furthermore, your idea is based on ideas that other people came up with. Shouldn't they, according to IP arguments, also receive some of the benefits of your idea?

Because your schemes keep on getting more and more elaborate and whimsical.

Yet plausible.

 

[Harry Guerrilla]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. You're the smart one, we're all just brainwashed from birth.

So prove that it shouldn't exist by "real economics."

Popularly accepted doesn't equal brainwashed, entertaining new ideas and perspectives, however, does take some intelligence.

An idea is an intangible thing, you can not hold it, smell it, feel it, see it or taste it. It does not exist except in your mind.
As long as it is in your mind you own it.

Now when you release that idea, it can be copied an infinite number of times.
Using the economic theory of supply and demand, we start with the number of items, in case the number of 1 idea.

It can be produced to infinitely at near zero cost, so supply is infinite.

The demand on the other hand is finite, so you get infinite supply / finite demand = price of near 0.

 

[phattonez]

I think that you are purposely ignoring things... an idea exists once it is realized, and you are not taking the next step into account, making the idea public in order to make a profit. Once it is public, then nobody can prove that they came up with the idea independently, hence copyrights and patents.

I've never argued against trademark.

Secondly, the idea, once shared, can be unlimited... but the original idea, the first time it happened and before it was shared in order to make a profit, THAT idea was and is scarce.

It wasn't scarce. It didn't exist.

Regarding the State of Nature... there are no rights in the State of Nature according to Hobbes. Read Leviathan again. In the State of Nature there are no rights, there is simply what you can do to others and what you can keep them from doing to you. The whole point of the Social Contract is that the formation of government gives those that live under it the very Rights that did not exist in the State of Nature.

It's an appeal to authority. I don't care what Hobbes said, he was wrong. There are rights in the state of nature, they are just routinely violated.

But on the subject, there is a right in the state of nature according to Hobbes. That right is for each man to use his power to do whatever he needs to do. But that's unimportant for this discussion.

It seems that you are taking communism or some Orwellian nightmare to a new level of mindless idea sharing with no individuality or independence or personal ownership.

Lol, I'm a Marxist again!

 

[Phoenix]

But you didn't write it. When it says written by, and you put your name, you're lying. That is fraud.

How? You keep stating it's fraud but it would not be.

start reading around page 38 of your anti IP primer.

http://mises.org/journals/jls/15_2/15_2_1.pdf

Further, ideas in one’s head are not “owned” any more than labor is owned. Only scarce resources are owned. By losing sight of scarcity as a necessary aspect of a homesteadable thing, and of the first occupancy homesteading rule as the way to own such things, Rothbard and others are sidetracked into the mistaken notion that ideas and labor can be owned. If we recognize that ideas cannot be owned (they are not scarce resources), that creation is neither necessary nor sufficient for ownership (first occupancy is), and that labor need not be “owned” in order to be a homesteader, then the trouble caused by these confused notions disappears.

If you state that I can't legally take his words (or ideas on paper) and read them, thereby making them my ideas, and write my own book (using the exact same words) then you are allowing the author to retain some manner of ownership to the ideas he has put on paper.

All action, including action which employs owned scarce means (property), involves the use of technical knowledge. Some of this knowledge may be gained from things we see, including the property of others. We do not have to have a “right to copy” as part of a bundle of rights to have a right to impose a known pattern or form on an object we own. Rather, we have a right to do anything at all with and on our own property, provided only that we do not invade others’ property borders. We must not lose sight of this crucial libertarian point.

 

[the makeout hobo]

That the profit made from those few weeks is not enough to spur creation of new works.

Do you know a good website to look up book sales on?

So if I make vacuum tubes, I should sue consumers for not buying them and compensating me for my work?

No, because we're talking about two separate cases here. With the vacuum tubes it is that no one wants the product. With IP, it is that people want the product as cheaply as possible, and are willing to get it in a way that I don't get paid, despite my creating the work. Can you drop the silly analogy and argue what we're actually talking about?

:rofl Seriously? Producing air ON EARTH can be done, but it makes no sense because air isn't scarce. No one in their right mind would pay for the air that you produce.

What's your point. You used another silly analogy instead of actually discussing the case as presented, I described the difference and gave an example where making air is a good idea.

Groundless statement. No proof has been offered for this.

Which part don't you believe?

Except it is broken. Ever seen the price of a college education? How about prescription drugs? Exorbitant and a waste of resources.

Those are specific cases to be dealt with, but not in ways that upend the entire system.

Where is your proof that these immediate profits are not enough?

Please address my point instead of ignoring half of it.

Anything. I've shown that authors put up their works for free online. I've shown that IP (more specifically patents) can hold up technological progress. All you've argued is theoretically, and I've cast doubts into those theories.

Bull. I've given examples where people were screwed over because IP laws weren't used. And your online example doesn't count because the people choose to put them up, they're not required to. We've also explained why IP laws are needed, you've mostly just ignored it.

Looks like trolling to me.

Because I'm being a bit impolite? I'm sorry, here's a hankie.

A scheme where everyone gets paid for their work? So then let's make sure that the guy who makes vacuum tubes gets paid for his work even though it's a waste of resources.

NOT THE SAME AND YOU KNOW IT!!! I've explained over and over why your silly analogy doesn't count. Arguing by analogy is a logical fallacy, you know. Would you like to discuss the concept that people don't do work if they don't get paid?

Because you don't own what you created. It's just an idea and it isn't scarce. Furthermore, your idea is based on ideas that other people came up with. Shouldn't they, according to IP arguments, also receive some of the benefits of your idea?

Define "idea"

Yet plausible.

How many authors do you think would support your plan?

 

[Bodi]

I've never argued against trademark.

I believe that I just said, "copyrights and patents", not trademark. Can you please stay on point?

It wasn't scarce. It didn't exist.

Ummm.... you just don't get it, do you? When I think an idea or thought, it exists. I can choose to say it, write it, diagram it, sing it or just think it. You can keep repeating that it doesn't exist all you like, but unfortunately for you that doesn't make it true.

It's an appeal to authority. I don't care what Hobbes said, he was wrong. There are rights in the state of nature, they are just routinely violated.

This is the second time out of two times that you have used a fallacy incorrectly. It is not an appeal to authority since I am not making a claim to be a legitimate authority on the subject. I am quoting Hobbes who is an accepted authority on the subject.

This fallacy is committed when the person in question is not a legitimate authority on the subject.

Fallacy: Appeal to Authority

Moving on from that error, perhaps you would care to show us what "rights" exist in the State of Nature, or without government to protect said rights?
Rights are a legal construct, not a philosophical one...

But on the subject, there is a right in the state of nature according to Hobbes. That right is for each man to use his power to do whatever he needs to do. But that's unimportant for this discussion.

It is not the right to do what he needs to do, it is that he can do what he needs to do. The whole point is seemingly a paradox until this little fact is understood. Rights enter the equation once a Social Contract has been established, that people have more freedom and rights by having a government and laws instead of less. People are less free in the State of Nature and more free in the Social Contract. Like I said, read it again... don't just google a quick answer.

Lol, I'm a Marxist again!

I was actually going for a psuedo-utopian Thought Police instead... but whatever.

I understand that you have this idea that you really want to work, it just isn't though...

 

[winston53660]

The same suit would have won if he had showed them his invention while signing a contract with them agreeing not to use it unless they purchase the idea from him.

He had the patent. You have a very idealistic notion of our legal system.

 

[misterman]

An idea is an intangible thing, you can not hold it, smell it, feel it, see it or taste it. It does not exist except in your mind.
As long as it is in your mind you own it.

Now when you release that idea, it can be copied an infinite number of times.
Using the economic theory of supply and demand, we start with the number of items, in case the number of 1 idea.

It can be produced to infinitely at near zero cost, so supply is infinite.

The demand on the other hand is finite, so you get infinite supply / finite demand = price of near 0.

Yep. And that's why you get no ideas released in the first place. Who will bother? The price they get for it is near zero. I'm not writing a big novel for that kind of reward, not without a copyright.

 

[misterman]

The same suit would have won if he had showed them his invention while signing a contract with them agreeing not to use it unless they purchase the idea from him.

And he might have won some money, from that one company. But if there were no IP, once his secret was out, anyone could copy it and use it. And if his suit against the first company would likely be based on damages - the money he lost - he would get very little, since he wouldn't have made anything anyway.

 

[Ahlevah]

No, it's not artificial scarcity. Land IS scarce. Ideas are not.

If an absentee landlord possesses title to a tract of land encompassing thousands of acres of prime agricultural land that sits fallow, how is that not creating an artificial scarcity?

And has been pointed out already, when someone writes a book, a play, an opera, a song, or whatever it's more than an idea. It's a unique thing in which the original developer invested time, effort, and money creating.

 

[Phoenix]

If an absentee landlord possesses title to a tract of land encompassing thousands of acres of prime agricultural land that sits fallow, how is that not creating an artificial scarcity?

It's not actually. He is right in this point. The same amount of land area exists no matter what (Well barring a volcanic eruption - read Hawaii). What the land is being used for has no impact on the amount of land that is available. It's always the same. It can only be traded between people. In order for one person to buy another must relinquish control of a parcel of land. Hence it is scarce.

 

[winston53660]

And he might have won some money, from that one company. But if there were no IP, once his secret was out, anyone could copy it and use it. And if his suit against the first company would likely be based on damages - the money he lost - he would get very little, since he wouldn't have made anything anyway.

In the end he wound up winning roughly 38 million dollars.

 

[Ahlevah]

It's not actually. He is right in this point. The same amount of land area exists no matter what (Well barring a volcanic eruption - read Hawaii). What the land is being used for has no impact on the amount of land that is available. It's always the same. It can only be traded between people. In order for one person to buy another must relinquish control of a parcel of land. Hence it is scarce.

It is de facto.. It doesn't exist to the other folks who would use it if not for the land title granting exclusivity to the "owner." The title effectively reduces the amount of land available to others for farming.

 

[misterman]

In the end he wound up winning roughly 38 million dollars.

Yes. Because he had a patent.

 

[Phoenix]

It is de facto.. It doesn't exist to the other folks who would use it if not for the land title granting exclusivity to the "owner." The title effectively reduces the amount of land available to others for farming.

A claim to the land would exist with or without a deed. The amount of land DOES NOT CHANGE. Land is scarce merely by the fact that only a certain amount exists. Something can't then make it artificially scarce by any means.

 

[Ahlevah]

A claim to the land would exist with or without a deed. The amount of land DOES NOT CHANGE. Land is scarce merely by the fact that only a certain amount exists. Something can't then make it artificially scarce by any means.

Yeah, but whose claim? If an absentee landlord didn't farm it, someone else could lay claim to it as long as there wasn't a government standing in the way to stop him. How much would a squatter be willing to pay for something that he could get for free?