This discussion is what I live for. Its why I’m under construction. I’m going to continue it here because I don’t want to get too far off topic on Samizdata and I want to find out where it takes me. The destination is not all that important, as long as I learn something along the way.
Midwesterner:
First thing: I don’t want this to degenerate into a slagging match and as stated above if I can learn something from this discussion all the better. I don’t take issue with the friggin’ part of “What a friggin’ communist.” Anyone who denies that is lying or dead from the waist down. However, I am far from a communist. I will concede that some of my attitudes and opinions will be collectivist in nature, I blame that on my cultural and socio-political conditioning and beg your indulgence. I’m slowly getting it out of my system through argument, education, and some directed reading (suggestions welcome). Saying I’m a communist implies that the majority of my opinions about such things are communist in nature, which I’m sure they aren’t. If you feel you can convince me otherwise then please do so. Otherwise I’d still like a retraction 
On to more important things…
“Why should anyone who had nothing to do with the writing of the book make money out of my hard work?”
This is not a statement about the legitimacy of IP. It is a flat out statement denying the legitiamacy of unearned property.
True. I don’t see your point though.
“(publishers/record companies/film studios) . . . These parasites make a living out of the work of others”
I’ll let other readers decide whether this is a statement on the legitimacy of IP or a more general anti-bourgeoisie sentiment.
Marxism defines the bourgeoisie as the social class which obtains income from ownership or trade in capital assets, or from commercial activities such as the buying and selling of commodities, wares and services. Though why you let Marxism define anything I don’t know. I’m not anti-bourgeoisie, that would make me a communist. The service that the aforementioned parasites provide is no longer necessary though they would like you to believe that it is. The only thing that concerns the parasites is keeping the monopoly on distribution that they have. Not very free market is it? This is beginning to change Spiralfrog.com is an indication of how things are developing. Once active Universal Music will be making their entire catalogue available for download free of charge all they ask is that you watch some ads while you download. It could so easily be the artists themselves making that money instead of Universal.
“This is coporate property (a form of collectivism btw)”
I don’t think you understand the difference between voluntary co-operation and collectivism. Those silly East Germans should have just sold their stock in that particular collective enterprise.
To be honest I don’t see the difference between voluntary co-operation and collectivism, here’s your opportunity to educate me. You seem to be implying that collectivism requires coercion, hence the East German reference. I don’t think that it does. Collectivism may be voluntary, based upon an agreement between individuals.
If a corporation isn’t communal property what is? A corporation is considered to be a single entity but it is made up of individuals whose work has gone into providing the corporation with its property, the only thing that stops these individuals claiming a chunk of the corporation’s profits is the fact that they have agreed not to. How have the shareholders ‘earned’ their claim on the corporation? Bought maybe but not earned.
“If you so desired you could do it all on your own. You only have to look at the internet to see it beginning to happen, YouTube, IUMA, and blogging are all evidence of it.”
Golly. You’ve got a lot of confidance in my capabilities. If I were to try that, I would still be hung up at the burying cable stage.
What do you need to bury cable for? You’re already paying for that if you have an internet connection. How YouTube, IUMA et al make thier money is by selling advertising space on their websites. You are already paying for the infrastructure in a million little ways. All you need is A DV Camera for film, A microphone for music and a keyboard for an Ebook and of course the requisite talent and determination and you’re laughing.
“No-one owns my thoughts but me. I may wish to sell a physical manifestaion of those thoughts (CD, Ebook, Dead Tree Edition, DVD) but the thoughts are still mine all the buyer can claim ownership of is the medium of transmission, not the thought itself.”
How can you claim they are your’s and yet also say they are not transferable or bequeathable?
how can you claim your life? It is after all equally non-transferrable and unbequeathable and yet it forms the basis for all concepts of property. A thought cannot be unthought, I cannot give you a thought of mine and then not have the thought. You’re applying concepts of physical property to something intangible which simply doesn’t work.
“PS If I were a communist I’d be saying that no-one should own anything, which I’m patently not. I’d like a retraction please.”
Well, I certainly will retract “friggin”. It is irelevant and unproven. As for “communist”, it is relevant, and there certainly appears to be features of your concept of property that would be more at home in some for of communual property system. The contradiction that I can’t work out is how you can “own” it in your mind, but not transfer ownership of it on your own terms. That is the essence of IP. To provide a framework so you can share your thoughts without losing title to them.
I don’t see the contradiciton. I am transferring ownership on my own terms. Upon my death any idea of mine which I have transmitted in any medium (Book, CD, DVD, Flashdrive, or whatever) enters the public domain and no individual or corporate/government body may restrict or otherwise impede the reproduction of said idea for their own profit or advantage. If someone wants to keep printing my book and selling copies all power to them but they will not have the sole right to do so.
