[logjam]

Can't argue with that. 'Course, geniuses like this particular copyright lawyer would note that laws prohibiting strip mining Yosemite "go against free market capitalism" too. More limits on "free market capitalism" will thankfully continue to elevate us a bit above what amounts to the brainless economics and political philosophies of cancer cells.

[sp332]

Actually, it's just wrong. Copyright is an artificial, state-enforced restriction on competition. In a free market, people should be able to compete.

Copyright is the opposite of the free market.

[jules]

Property law is an artificial, state-enforced restriction on competition. In a free market, people should be able to compete.

[pyre]

Intellectual Property is a concept that tries to put ownership on ideas/abstract concepts. How does one 'own' and idea? In the physical sense, one can 'own' a physical object through possession.

[anonymoushn]

It's easy. You write some text, then you own a number representing the text (probably a number between 10^2400 and 10^240000) and all encodings of that number (some of which might be as small as 10^120). Now whenever you see anyone else using that number or any encoding of that number without giving you money, you tell them to give you money, and if they don't you get the government to threaten to kidnap them or steal their money if they don't give you money. However, if you pick a number around 7, I don't think you'll be able to pull it off.

[jules]

In the same way, owning a physical object is ridiculous. Quantum mechanically, you can't tell the difference between an electron in your object and an electron somewhere else. So you end up owning an particular arrangement of electrons and protons, not the electrons and protons themselves. We can then apply the same reductio ad absurdum by examining somebody who claims to own a very small object, say a single electron.

The sensible way to define property is defining it by those cases where the state protects your rights to it. One defines intellectual property in exactly the same way.

[anonymoushn]

Right. What I'm saying is less like an assertion that you can't own an idea and more like an explanation of how you go about owning ideas (but mostly ideas that are bigger than 7). I suppose my opinion is pretty easy to guess, though...

[jules]

In what sense do you own a physical object, and how is it fundamentally different than having the copyrights to a work? What's stopping me from taking the object from you? The same entity that's stopping me from copying and selling a book that you wrote.

There are many good arguments against copyright law, but that copyright is somehow fundamentally different than property law is not one of them.

[deskamess]

Property rights and copy rights are different beasts. Unlike theft of property, copying does not disenfranchise the originator of his asset.

I find Thomas Jeffersons quote instructive: "He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me." http://movingtofreedom.org/2006/10/06/thomas-jefferson-on-pa...

This is why the term intellectual property is not, in my mind, the right term and one can even argue that it has the word 'property' to get us thinking along the lines of 'physical property'. Theft vs. copying.

[jules]

You are making the mistake of thinking that copy right is somehow the right to own your own book, say. If you think that then of course somebody copying and distributing it doesn't take your book away. Copy rights protect your ability to sell your book, not to own a physical copy of your book. Somebody else who is copying and distributing your book does hamper your ability to sell your book. Copy right protects your ability to use your intellectual property (again, NOT a particular copy of that intellectual property), just like property rights protect your ability to use your physical property.

[zampo4]

Anti-trust law is an artificial, state-enforced restriction on competition. In a free market, people should be able to compete.

[mikecane]

Wait, tell me how a writer having a Copyright on his, say, crime fiction book prevents any other writer from doing his or her own crime fiction book and competing? This I need to hear.

[sp332]

If a publisher pays a writer some money to license the writer's copyright, then the publisher can print and sell copies of the books. But if a different publisher can do a better job, customers might buy that other publisher's nicer books, and the writer might not get any money. Or, more likely, another publisher makes the books cheaper and everyone buys those. The customers are still getting the same text, maybe an exact duplicate of the licensed copies, but without copyright the original author might not get any money at all.

[mikecane]

That is life. When I rent an apartment, I lock out all others who competed for it.