From: Michael S. Lorrey (retroman@turbont.net)
Date: Wed Mar 15 2000 - 22:37:45 MST
Lee Daniel Crocker wrote:
>
> > > It is one thing to hold the opinion that infinitely copiable memespace
> >
> > Assumption check: Who says memespace is infinte? In a finite universe, there is
> > a limited amount of memespace.
> >
> > > should be fenced off and privately held the same way as uncopyable
> >
> > > dirtspace, but it is quite another to continue claiming that those who
> > > oppose the former also oppose the latter when you know that's not true.
> >
> > memescapes and landscapes are equal to me. I am equally comfortable living in
> > the land of ideas as I am living in concrete reality. This is one reason why
> > even extropians have let the socialist statists at ICANN steal the whole kit and
> > kaboodle out from under us. Since eventually that is where most of us will be
> > living one day, failing to see memespace as real estate is a serious
> > miscalculation.
>
> You are once again confusing two separate things--namespaces such as those
> administered by ICANN and Trademark law (and which are indeed uncopiable
> scarce resources like land, and which I have always supported property
> rights in), and Patents, which were the subject of this thread. Come back
> to this debate when you understand the difference and can stay on-topic.
I'm trying to, however some people here are dismissing all intellectual
property, while you are discriminating between types.
>
> A piece of fish, and the lake from which I fish are singular scarce
> resources; if you use them, you lessen what I can use. The name "Joe's
> Quality Fish" is a scarce and valuable resource. If you use that name,
> you commit fraud by pretending to be me and you lessen the value that
> name has to my customers. My _method_ of fishing is different. If you
> watch me fish on my lake, then copy what I do on your own lake and
> sell your own fish under your own name, you are not stealing my fish
> or my name, you are just competing in a market I created, and our
> respective customers will decide who is better. Just because I created
> the market doesn't give me any right to muscle out my competitors.
Thats a disengenuous argument. Say I create a new type of fishing reel.
I make them. Someone buys my fishing reel under my license to them not
to copy it. That someone's fishing buddy sees how the reel works, and
decides to manufacture the same reel, however since he doesn't have to
pay the amortized costs of my research and development, he can underbid
me in the market, and drives me out of business. Thats how your
patentless society would work.
>
> Patents and copyrights pretend to protect "property rights" in the
> space of ideas and expressions; what they really protect is the _market_
> for products based on those ideas. If the government stepped in to
> grant a monopoly market to an apple farmer, shutting down farmers who
> grew their own apples on their own land, we would rightly call that an
> act of force. I don't see any reason to change that opinion just
> because farmer A "invented" apple farming by doing it first.
If a farmer invented a new type of apple, and spent $1 billion
researching and developing it, yet his neigbors felt that it was
perfectly ok to buy one of his apples at market, extract its DNA, and
start growing the same apples themselves, but since they don't have the
cost of the research and development that the first farmer did, they can
run him out of business. They don't even have to buy an apple, just go
to the dump and pick up a discarded apple core. The property rights
extend to the added value of the investment of research and development
into the new idea, which is why patent rights are temporary, so that the
inventor can recoupe the investment in R&D, before it becomes fair game
for the open market.
Mike Lorrey
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