From: Mike Lorrey (mlorrey@datamann.com)
Date: Sun Jun 16 2002 - 18:10:01 MDT
Randall Randall wrote:
>
> Mike Lorrey wrote:
>
> > Randall Randall wrote:
> >
> >>Mike Lorrey wrote:
> >>
> >>
> >>>I think, though, that Lee's definition of property is the problem. What
> >>>gives an item value is entirely a matter of its marginal utility to its
> >>>user, while an item's status as property is matter of the fact that
> >>>labor produced it (or improved it from raw resources).
> >>
> >>But the status of something as property is not intrinsic to the
> >>thing itself, but a social convention. This social convention has
> >>proven to be incredibly useful for things, because the convention
> >>makes it easy to tell who should make decisions regarding that thing.
> >
> > ownership of an individual's labor is not a 'social convention', ergo
> > ownership of any product of an individual's labor is not to be decided
> > as a 'social convention'.
>
> If ownership is not a social convention, then there has to be a way to
> determine ownership without other people telling you who owns what.
> This isn't the case, however; since you must be told that someone owns
> an object, and since you must also be told *who* owns it, ownership
> cannot be a property of the object itself.
>
> > You are either a slave or you are a free
> > person. If you are a free person, then anything originally produced by
> > your muscles or your mind is your property. While the statists,
> > socialists, and communitarians are fond of the concept of fractional
> > slavery (taxation), they are not fond of calling it what it is, slavery.
> > Ten men who are one tenth slaves equals one fully enslaved individual.
> > The same sorts are also not fond of IP as an extension of the
> > individuals natural right of self ownership and prefer to describe it
> > merely as a priveledge granted to the individual by the state (as they
> > are wont to do with everything). This bias tends to creep into the left
> > end of the libertarian spectrum, though the looter mentality can crop up
> > anywhere where utilitarianism or opportunism gains a foothold.
>
> This bit above has nothing to do with my argument, and seems only calculated
> to attempt to group me with statists and tax collectors. In case it was
> unclear, I am not saying that the State determines who owns things, but that
> people themselves determine this, by agreement.
While I am saying that individuals establish ownership by a) posession,
AND b) improvement via labor. Does a squatter own the land they squat
on? Under certain circumstances, they do, in fact, do so. They must
first improve it in some way: build a permanent structure, clear it for
farming, landscape it for appearance, dig it for mining, etc... and then
occupy it for some period of time.
A squatter who merely occupies the land without improvement is
committing theft of services, just as a Napster user commits theft of
services by using music they did not pay for, or distributing to others
copyrighted music they purchased knowing it was copyrighted.
The dogmatism of the anti-IP movement tries to confuse the issue by
treating IP as a material good rather than a service.
The services concept fits far better to IP. For example, if I rent a
hotel room, I am paying not for ownership of real estate, but for the
service of a well kept place to sleep. If I then sublet that hotel room
to six other people, I am committing theft of services, since the rate I
paid was based on single person occupancy.
Like IP, the hotel still has its hotel room, I've just 'reproduced' the
experience for more people. That's fair, ain't it?
>
> >>>To use another's labor without recompense is slavery, therefore any
> >>>product of our labor is property.
> >>
> >>Nor is anyone here, so far as I can tell, advocating that the thing
> >>of that type or with that arrangement should be taken away from you,
> >>only that others should be free to create that sort of arrangement
> >>of things in there own things.
> >
> > IP law in general entirely allows individuals who create something that
> > has been previously invented to use their creation for their own
> > purposes. Copyright law also allows shared ownership of identical art
> > concieved entirely separately from each other.
>
> IP law is much like taxation, I'm sure you'll agree, in that it seeks to
> remove from my possession matter I've worked for if I arrange the matter
> in forbidden patterns.
But it doesn't. While this is a common claim by those against IP, that
isn't what it does at all. I can build any item ever patented, and I can
play any music or read any work of literature ever copyrighted, for my
own personal use, without paying a cent to anybody. I can even play a
tune or read a book to others, or let them use my device, so long as
nobody profits from it. Libraries wouldn't exist if IP worked the way
you claim it does.
>
> > Others here are, in fact, advocating that others should be free to use
> > the product of your labor without compensation to you, on the theory
> > that if it doesn't cost you much, or anything at all, to produce
> > identical copies of your ingenuity, that you shouldn't be paid anything
> > at all for the additional copies.
>
> I believe that others here (including myself), are actually arguing that
> they should be allowed to make copies themselves of things that *they*
> have purchased with the fruits of their labor. This literally has nothing
> to do with the person who first arranged things in that way, and no one
> is claiming that that first person should somehow be obligated to make
> copies at her own expense for others. Indeed, I would expect the first
> person to charge very highly for the first copy.
Ah, but the individual buying the first copy is being provided a service
(i.e. the previously printed book) in which is specifically printed the
contract under which the purchase is made. If you don't like copyrights,
don't buy copyrighted books, or music, etc. If you buy a device that
says "Patent #########" or "Patent Pending", it is your responsibility
as the purchaser, buying the device 'as is', to be aware that the
purchase of said device is conditioned on patent restrictions. If you
don't like it, don't buy any product that has this printed on it. This
is why products HAVE to say these things on them for patent rights to be
binding. This is why books and music have their copyright dates (as well
as dates of first publishing) on them, so the purchaser can make a
caveat emptor determination whether the product is purchased under
copyright restrictions.
>
> > A proper accounting of IP would reflect what the utility your ingenuity
> > is worth to each user of each copy, and pay you a royalty as a fraction
> > of that utility value. Additional copies only dilute what each copy is
> > worth as a function of how broadly the ingenuity is used. Ubiquitously
> > utilized ingenuity confers very little real additional utility to each
> > user in a perfectly competitive market.
>
> Prices are not just a function of demand (which is related to user
> self-estimates of utility), but supply, which in this case can very
> cheaply be increased. So low additional utility in the case of a
> physical good would be an indicator that supply would decrease, but
> in the case of arrangements or patterns, means only that prices
> would tend toward zero as the number of copies increase. This is
> prevented from happening by artificial monopolies on copying, however.
In a condition of low additional utility, supply would only decrease if
the cost of production were greater than the additional utility. Prices
will only tend toward zero (but not necessarily reach it) when marginal
utility has an effect of diminishing returns AND supply outstrips
demand. Books do get remaindered, for example (I picked up Jim
Halperin's novel The First Immortal in hardback for three bucks in this
way). In this example, even an 'artificial monopoly' did not prevent
supply from outstripping demand, or prices from hitting rock bottom.
It's amazing the books you can pick up at the local dump, or a yard
sale. I bought an Oxford dictionary printed in 1916 at a flea market for
fifty cents. Its easy to buy copyrighted science fiction novels at yard
sales. You can get records, tapes and cd's with all sorts of music that
is still under copyright.
In digital IP, the cost of production is always less than the additional
utility gained by a new user, so supply never decreases. Software prices
are therefore not set by cost/price considerations, but by cost/market
estimates. If piracy is rampant, the market for software is miniscule,
and new software doesn't get produced. Ask me why the software industry
in China sucks.
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