My Political Education: Lesson 1, Part 2

Posted on October 6, 2006
Filed Under Deep Thought, Lessons, Politics |

In this comment (read the whole thread for the context) Midwesterner said:

I cut and pasted this out of the SD thread. why don’t we drop it on the ice and chase it around a bit.

If we concede that as an individual, I have a right to have a secret, and
if we concede that as an individual, I have a right to enter into contracts with other individuals, and
I require a contract from another individual in exchange for telling my secret to him, and
that contract places restrictions on if and how he may relay that secret to others, and
someone finds that secret ‘with the doors unlocked’, then
they can no more claim entitlement to it than if they find my house or car unlocked.
They say that because stealing my car denies me the use of it, it is theft. No. It is theft because it is my car.
Furthermore, stealing my intellectual advantage (IP) does deny me the use of it. Whether you are a moralist or a pragmatist, it’s still wrong.
IP is intrinsic to individualism. Denying IP is pure intellectual collectivism.

So, starting from the top down, let’s find the first statement that is not stone cold obvious, and debate it. By working one at a time from the top down, we can reduce confusion. I’m on way too many threads right now.

If we establish IP as a general concept, then we can go onto to details. But they will be easier if we can keep track of how we got to where.

I can’t find anything in that to disagree with, if the secret bestows upon the originator and any contracted keepers some kind of advantage, ie it has a practical application or is useful in some other way. A treasure map for instance or some kind of industrial secret. The words “intellectual advantage” must have triggered something in my brain and I realised where I’d been misunderstanding and misunderstood.

Through entirely my own fault I was looking at the issue from the perspective of the secret being a work of art (music, writing, film, painting etc.) which has no practical applictaion. Its what immediately came to mind when copyright was mentioned. There is no intellectual advantage to be gained from keeping art a secret, it is meant to be shared/distributed as widely as possible otherwise it loses any meaning. A book is meant to be read, a painting to be seen, music to be heard and a film to be watched. The only advantage gained by anyone with regards to art is by those with the means to distribute it as widely as possible.

Until these digitised times a book had to be printed, music pressed onto discs, films transferred onto film and these physical things had to be transported around the globe by a variety of slow and expensive means. Various industries grew up around the need to distribute art, and they made an awful lot of money at it. That all changed with the dawn of the internet. I can access a symphony recorded in Tokyo and have a copy stored on my computer in a matter of seconds. I can read a book as it is being written half a world away (Its a very good book aswell I can reccommend it.) And though I don’t think anyone’s done it yet I could feasibly watch a movie as it is filmed, live, right on my desk.

The old distribution systems are no longer necessary and so neither are the giant companies which grew up around them and made so much money from them. The distribution network is much cheaper and as such is available to every Tom, Dick and Harry who feels the urge to put finger to keyboard, digicam to eye, mouth to microphone, or stylus to graphics tablet. I’m doing it myself, no-one in their right mind would publish what I write in a traditional medium, it just wouldn’t be cost effective (and most of it isn’t really good enough anyway). Instead of the distributors getting rich of the backs of the artists, if they want to the artists can get rich themselves or give their art away for nothing. The whole brouhaha about copyright (of art) is to do with the passing of the old order and the various distributors resisting the change. They’ll give in eventually and find other revenue streams or they’ll go the way of the dinosaurs they are.

As to their ownership of the art they distribute, they never had that, they were only contracted to distibute it (The film industry is a special case where the distributor is more often than not the creator aswell, see Disney). Its a pity that the musicians and writers of the past whose works are still under copyright can’t reclaim the distribution rights.

Having read that back to myself I realise that its a bit of a ramble and probably slightly off topic. As I said the idea of IP is a valid one, as it is explained above, and I have no objection to it when applied to practical, profitable and useful ideas. If you can convince me that keeping art to yourself bestows an advantage, in and of itself, which would be lost if it was freely distributed, then as I said before go right ahead.

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Comments

12 Responses to “My Political Education: Lesson 1, Part 2”

  1. no imageMidwesterner (Who am I?) on October 8th, 2006 8:00 pm

    Nuts. I lost another big comment.

    Short version, what somebody does with their property is nobody’s business. I don’t believe that they lose title if they don’t put it to society’s best use.

    We have to separate what can be owned from how the owner chooses to use (or not use) it and how it is distributed. It’s not private property if society can exercise ownership rights when they think it can be put to better use than the owner’s.

    “The whole brouhaha about copyright (of art) is to do with the passing of the old order and the various distributors resisting the change.” I don’t care diddly about distributors as long as all voluntary contracts are honored. But without copyright, the artist is screwed.

    As for “If you can convince me that keeping art to yourself bestows an advantage, in and of itself, which would be lost if it was freely distributed”, I’m not sure how you feel about naked pictures of your wife, but most couples would prefer to keep their’s out of the distribution system. :) And I still don’t think that’s relevant.

    We may be awhile sorting out terms, but when done, there may be no disagreement. We’ll see.

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  2. no imagemandrill (Who am I?) on October 8th, 2006 9:49 pm

    I apologise for the above post it was off topic and more of a distraction than anything else.

    Short version, what somebody does with their property is nobody’s business. I don’t believe that they lose title if they don’t put it to society’s best use.

    Agreed.

    We have to separate what can be owned from how the owner chooses to use (or not use) it and how it is distributed. It’s not private property if society can exercise ownership rights when they think it can be put to better use than the owner’s.

    Also agreed, but with a question thrown in; What are the ownership rights of the dead? If ownership is not transferred whether before death or by means of a will, who is the owner if not the deceased? As long as the artist is alive and can prove the item in question was created by them then that should be sufficient. My argument is that the copyright should die with the artist. But thats beside the point really.

    What can be owned? Where does ownership come from?
    I would start with the premise that we own ourselves, our minds, our bodies (and our souls, if such a thing exists). Subsequently, we also own anything which we create where our mind or body is the means of production. Work is the act of using said mind or body to create. Not being able to do things instantaneously, we also own the time over which any work is done by our mind or body. We may trade our work and time for whatever we think it is worth.
    To summarise;

    • We own our bodies and our minds
    • We own anything created with our bodies and minds
    • We own anything traded for the creations of our bodies and minds.

    Trade implies giving something up and having no further use of an item in exchange for something we want. We give up our time to our employers in exchange for money. We no longer have that time and can make no further use of it. I think it gets more complex when it comes to discussing ideas, but thats beyond the scope of basic principles.

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  3. no imageMidwesterner (Who am I?) on October 9th, 2006 3:31 am

    For the “question thrown in”, death does not have any effect on the property owned being ownable. It would be handed on the same as real or personal property.

    This leads to a very complicated question we should leave for the very end of the IP discussion, after all else is resolved. How long should IP endure? That is a separate question from how it should be treated while it does exist.

    Your “what can be owned?” is a good working definition.

    If we can widen the definition of trade, I have on occasion traded something I really wanted to keep for something else I wanted even more to have. How about trade is voluntarily exchanging something for something else?

    So at this point, are we ready to agree that-
    ●IP is created in the mind.
    ●Its disclosure can be governed by contracts.
    ●It endures as IP until yet to be determined time, at which point.
    ●It falls into the public domain and ceases to be IP.
    ●It can be transfered and used as other forms of property can while it endures.
    Consider if these work for you and, if so, then the next step would probably be to begin categorizing types of IP and after that, how long they each should endure.

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  4. no imagemandrill (Who am I?) on October 9th, 2006 9:44 am

    Trade: agreed, this doesn’t change the implication that you are giving up something and can no longer claim ownership of it. (this point is important, but we can come back to it)
    Back to IP;

    • IP is created in the mind. Agreed.
    • Its disclosure can be governed by contracts, implies it may not be, at the owners discretion.
    • It endures as IP etc. Agreed, further clarification necessary however, thats part of the next step though. This point and the next are really just one point aren’t they?
    • This last point is where I have difficulty. I can’t give you an idea of mine and then remove it from my mind so I can no longer make use of it. I still have the idea I am merely sharing it with you. With IP it may be that contracts are not discretionary but a necessity, defining who owns the IP and may make use of it once the trade is completed. This of course relies on all parties involved abiding by the contract. Moreso that other forms of property in that once traded, if the party in reciept of the IP breaks the contract the IP cannot be confiscated from them whereas personal and real property can.

    As to your response to the “question thrown in” I wasn’t saying that the death of the owner made property unownable merely asking who owned it if its not set out in writing. Who decides who gets it if there is no will, for instance? The State? The spouse? The man next door?

    …what somebody does with their property is nobody’s business. I don’t believe that they lose title if they don’t put it to society’s best use.

    You see the dilemma?
    I’m going to go and have a coffee now, I think I did quite well for having just got out of bed :)

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  5. no imageMidwesterner (Who am I?) on October 9th, 2006 6:42 pm

    “at the owner’s discretion”. Yes. But a case to keep in mind for later is what if somebody invents something but doesn’t protect it? Is somebody else who separately invented it entitled to protect it? I think this actually happened with the telephone.

    On the question thrown in, my point was that it should be handled the same as any other property intestate. In Wisconsin the law is intended to embody a single common ‘best guess’ at what the decedant would have wished. Any valid will at all takes precident over that, of course. It should be noted that, in this case, it is the intention of the law to honor the decedant’s wishes, not potential benefitters.

    To your concern on the last point, the former owners should be handled in the same way as any member of the public that attempts in infringe. For example, a near by mechanic here sold his name with his business and is forbidden from putting it on his new business. Even though he is doing the same work in a nearby location.

    It happened in a rather humorous way when Lennon/McCartney made some bad business decisions and paid the price.

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  6. no imagemandrill (Who am I?) on October 9th, 2006 11:26 pm

    I’m familiar with the kind of situation with regard to the mechanic. How is he forbidden if not by a contract? Even if it is the law of the land it just means that any contract entered into includes that clause if it is relevant to the trade in question.

    As an aside; I’ve been leaning gradually over the last few months towards a minarchist outlook. In that I believe that the state should be as small as possible and should only exist to arbitrate and enforce contracts between individuals. If a contract is drawn up between two parties nothing should be assumed, every possible eventuality should be taken into consideration (more work for the lawyers but I’ll figure that kink out eventually). If an eventuality is not covered by the contract then it is not enforced as if it is. Less work for the minimal state. Anyway thats beside the point for now…

    You can probably guess my response to the question of protection from the above paragraph. If someone has a good idea and doesn’t think to protect it in some way (Writing it down and posting it to yourself, then not opening it when you recieve it and putting it away somewhere safe is pretty watertight I think, I’ll have to look it up though.) then thats their tough cheese. If someone else has the same idea and does protect it then they win, coming out once you know of the other persons idea and saying “but I thought of that weeks ago!” with no proof shouldn’t hold any weight at all. I’ll look into the telephone thing though, I know it happened with the steam engine but was unaware of it happening with the telephone. If both parties have protected their idea and in the unlikely event that the they were simultaneous in their conception of it then a little competition never did anyone any harm. Market forces should take care of which is the more successful.

    LOL at the Lennon/McArtney story. Though I can completely understand them wanting to avoid the gov’t stealing their money and it made them rich in the long run. This illustrates my previous point about art quite nicely though and I can understand how galling it must be for Paul to see his work making money for other people.

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  7. no imageMidwesterner (Who am I?) on October 12th, 2006 1:05 am

    Well, even after thinking on comment 6 for a day or so, I think we are in 100% agreement on all points.

    The only thing I have to add is a side note. The US patent office has specifically disallowed that method but they have provided something else in its place. I’m not sure, but I think you just send them a disclosure, they file, and then if it ever matters, it’s on file.

    I guess we’re ready to return to anything we left for later, like what is eligible for IP protection and for how long.

    I’m not resolved on specifics, and I’m not sure they can be resolved so if I may, here are some considerations to kick around.

    1. The moral principle is that protection should run until somebody else would have thought of it.

    2. The pragmatic principle is that protection should run long enough to incentivize creation.

    3. These two could be in conflict. For example, the car that wins a 500 mile race by a half car length does not finish in 4 times faster than the second place car. But it is rewarded with four time the prize money. Otherwise, the teams would not race nearly as hard. They would not expend nearly the resources to go farther, faster.

    Well, let’s see where these go.

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  8. no imagemandrill (Who am I?) on October 12th, 2006 11:51 pm

    Ok here goes;

    1. How do you know when (or even if) someone else would have thought of it? The fact that it has been thought of renders any prediction of when it might have been thought of in the future completely null and void, it collapses the waveform. Surely the principle should be that protection runs until the originator of the IP is no longer able to profit from it (In the case of an individual that would be death, in the case of a corporation: bankruptcy or some other corporate disaster.)

    2. And how long is that? If an artist or inventor is going to create something it will be done because they need to create, any financial gain is a side effect. Corporations (in their many and varied forms) create for no other reason than profit, and they can only profit if they exist (and vice versa), it is their raison d’etre. There have been rumours of pharmaceutical companies changing the molecular design of a drug (but not its effects or efficacy) very slightly and then repatenting it so that they don’t lose ownership of it. This is an example of IP laws providing an indirect disincentive to innovation, what if the money spent on a slight redesign of an existing drug was instead spent on researching a completely new drug?
    3. To the victor the spoils. No prizes for second place. It increases the risk of investing in innovation but also increases the rewards. If two research teams are working towards the same goal and one of them gets there first then they should be rewarded. The investment of the other team need not be wasted however, they could possibly take their research in another direction.

    sorry if this is a little disjointed, its been a long day.

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  9. no imageMidwesterner (Who am I?) on October 16th, 2006 8:50 pm

    How do you know when (or even if) someone else would have thought of it?

    Exactly. It can’t be known.

    The fact that it has been thought of renders any prediction of when it might have been thought of in the future completely null and void, it collapses the waveform.

    Not at all. How soon after the first MacBeth was written would somebody else have written it? Probably never. But what about patents? How soon after an electric iron was invented would someone else have invented it? Probably pretty darn quick!

    Surely the principle should be that protection runs until the originator of the IP is no longer able to profit from it (In the case of an individual that would be death, in the case of a corporation: bankruptcy or some other corporate disaster.)

    Until the originator of the IP is no longer able to profit from it is way too long. The value of of IP on the market is a product of its longevity. The originator can live a lot better on money from selling something that lasts for centuries versus something that dies with him.

    On to number 2. Danger Will Robinson. With all of your might, avoid creating any situation in which the government (or anybody else for that matter) gets to interpret someone else’s motivations. Especially if there is money involved.

    Your point on the pharmaceutical patents is correct, I could name several, but the original formula still rolls out into the public domain. When one of my dad’s prescription’s patents expired, instead of going to the ‘new’ highly advertised improved version, he stayed with the original formula and bought a generic.

    This is an example of IP laws providing an indirect disincentive to innovation, what if the money spent on a slight redesign of an existing drug was instead spent on researching a completely new drug?

    Something best left to the market. See “Danger Will Robinson” above.

    On number 3. Yeah. Pretty much.

    In summary, our present system involves dividing IP into categories according to our best estimate of how long it would take on average for that product to be thought of by someone else. This is why literature, music, etc are protected for so long and inventions for so short. Trademarks are philosophically similar to real estate in that they exist in perpetuity unless sold or abandoned.

    This system certainly is not perfect. And it doesn’t accurately reflect what might have happened. But I think it is a best possible guess that can be fine tuned according to new understandings.

    Hope this helps. Have we more left? Or more to talk about here? Or some new and unrelated topic?

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  10. no imageMidwesterner (Who am I?) on October 17th, 2006 2:22 am

    Post script: I’ve enjoyed this quite a bit. You’re causing me to organize and rationalize my thinking. Hopefully it’s helping you too.

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  11. no imagemandrill (Who am I?) on October 21st, 2006 12:35 pm

    Right, sorry its been so long for a reply to be forthcoming but we’ve had a bit of a hectic week round here. Arthur is full of the cold and keeping me up at night quite a bit, so I haven’t had the energy for much cogitation.

    First Point: Here is where the difference between practical IP and Art rears its head once more. My argument is that Art is fundamentally different from other forms of IP and requires different rules.
    The rights to profit from art should die with the artist. If transferred to another party they still die with the originator of the art. this is because the value of the art is not in the longevity of the right to profit from it, it is intrinsic to the art itself.
    I see your point about patents, possibly change originator to owner, this allows the originator to sell the rights to someone else or draw up other forms of contract (royalties, licensing etc.)
    Different rules for Macbeth and Patents.

    Point 2: The gov’t should not have the opportunity to interpret any contract it is called on to enforce. My ideal would be a gov’t which deos not make money from taxes but is paid to arbitrate contracts, it is paid the same amount no matter the contract and each party involved pays an equal share. Contracts ahould be so watertight that interpretation is not necessary (again more work for the lawyers, I will find a way round that eventually). The motivations of the parties should be set in stone in the contrtact. Though why motivations come into contracted transactions I don’t pretend to understand.

    The pharma thing is probably best left to the market I agree, but the market (ie your average joe on the street) can be manipulated. Advertising is a very powerful tool against those of weak intellects, which is what our current education systems seem to b e geared towards geared towards producing at the moment. (another one of my hobby horses, a subject for another time maybe)

    In summary I think our current system has it backwards. Art should have the shortest protection where as patents and industrial IP should have the longest.
    Because Art’s value does not come from its profitability or practicality and it is generally created for its own sake and not for profit, there is no need to incentivise its production. On the other hand, Invention’s value is wholly based on its usefulness and preserving the right to profit from that usefulness for as long as possible incentivises innovation.

    Post Script: Have we exhausted this avenue of discussion? I don’t really have many further questions and have a pretty well formed idea of what the rules are and what I think they should be (and more importantly why on both counts). If you know the reasons behind an idea you can better frame an argument for or against. One thing I regret is that my school didn’t have a debating club or society (something I think you see an awful lot less of these days for reasons I won’t go into here, hobby horse again.)
    Learning how to reason an argument out is an extremely valuable skill which I haven’t had much practice with. Thank you for the opportunity.

    Next…?

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  12. no imageMidwesterner (Who am I?) on October 27th, 2006 6:44 pm

    In “Point 2″ you say

    .. .. .. My ideal would be a gov’t which deos not make money from taxes but is paid to arbitrate contracts, .. .. ..

    “Yes!” he says enthusiastically. (Jumps up and down, clapping hands.) “Yes!”

    You are now the 2nd person (after me) that I’ve heard advocate that structure.

    The rest of that paragraph is probably not something we can do much about. There will be foolishly written contracts. When they are vague, the courts will have to interpret them. We can’t very well forbid foolishly written contracts, I don’t think. We can only make sure that what is intelligible is honored.

    your average joe on the street) can be manipulated.

    Undoubtably true. As we here in the USA are facing a deafening bombardment of political BS campaign ads, I regret this truth as a major source of our problems. But I see no general solution that doesn’t involve collectivising responsibility. If you see any possibility that doesn’t absolve people of personal accountability, let me know.


    my school didn’t have a debating club or society

    Mine certainly did. But I was far too shy to participate. Something has certainly changed since then. I now didn’t even experience any discomfort when I ran for public office and debated the other candidates in front of both a live and cable TV audience. More of a joie de combat.


    If you know the reasons behind an idea you can better frame an argument for or against.

    If we agree so closely on so many things (which we do) then one of us must be ‘wrong’ on art as IP. If it’s me, I would like to find a rational basis for altering my conclusions. If it’s you, I presume you have a similar desire to confirm or correct your rational basis for your conclusions.

    If you are interested, maybe we can pursue that a little bit.

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