From: Hal Finney (hal@finney.org)
Date: Sun Jun 09 2002 - 12:50:33 MDT
Harvey writes:
> However, using
> lawsuits to suppress competition in preference to trying to advance the
> state of the art or compete fairly in the marketplace is unextropian.
> This does not advance the state of the art. Extropians believe in the
> free market and competition in the hopes that it will drive all parties
> to excel. Trying to suppress competitors rather than improving one's
> self is not extropian.
This depends on what kinds of lawsuits we are talking about. What one
person sees as an attempt to suppress competition, another sees as
defending his rights. Ultimtely it comes down to having laws which define
a useful set of rights which will promote innovation and competition.
If you have such laws, then you should support lawsuits even when they
are used to suppress competition. If someone has some property which
is being infringed on by someone else, they have a choice: defend their
property rights, or ignore the infringement and seek to compete more
vigorously so that they can win despite the disadvantage they face.
We cannot always say that the second alternative is superior.
If everyone were to adopt such policies (of ignoring infringements),
then cheating and infringement on other people's property would
be widespread. This would discourage investment and development of
new property, because the fruits of the labor would become available
to competitors. Ultimately, ignoring infringement actually hurts the
progress of competition.
So although it may seem that using lawsuits to suppress competition is
anti-extropian, in the long term it can actually promote progress and
promote extropian ideals.
Note that I have been careful not to distinguish here between intellectual
and physical property. The principles are exactly the same in each case.
Hal
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