[mohene1]

Museums - Examples of donations: Julian and Josie Robertson donate Picasso to North Carolina Museum of Art http://www.wral.com/news/local/noteworthy/story/7107735/ http://thesouthern.com/news/breaking/new-york-collectors-don...

Radio and Record Companies work in conjunction Music-formatted radio stations both commercial and non-commercial get their music for free from record labels.

http://www.musicbizacademy.com/knab/articles/radiostations.h...

Libraries are publicly funded

Why ticket prices have shot up over the last decade

http://sg.finance.yahoo.com/news/why-rock-roll-slumping-u-21...

Breakdown of ticket prices, bands receive %74to90% of ticket price

http://www.wisebread.com/how-much-a-breakdown-of-concert-tic...

Music sales slump,concert ticket costs jump and rock fans pay the price.

http://www.krueger.princeton.edu/10_17_2002.htm

Ticket price, true they(BEP) were not that popular then but $28+tax in 1999 compared to $45 now is still higher than inflation. The inflation increase is 29%[3], the ticket increase is 60%[4].

[3]http://www.warpedtourtickets.musictoday.com/WarpedTour/calen...

[4]http://www.westegg.com/inflation/infl.cgi

[alexqgb]

So what? The industry has changed. It's no longer possible to make outrageous profits by selling copies with tremendous markups. So people increase the price for live events. Other people pay them. The world changes. Life goes on.

I mean, what do you want? Time to stop? Progress to end? Change to be abolished? This isn't actually a joke. Lots of people with a vested interest in the current extent of intellectual property rights are going to absolutly insane lengths to ensure that a changing society isn't allowed to roll back the extent of IP rights to make them more harmonious with the needs and reality of the present day.

But those people can all go to hell. They're the same backwards looking people who said "but what about property rights" when it came to freeing slaves. "Property rights" were also applied to wives and daughters, and you can just imagine how much consternation was caused when (horrors!) wives and daughters were given the vote.

Property rights are ultimately about controlling others. They're good and necessary in limited circumstances, like keeping unwelcome individuals away from our bedrooms and out of our bank accounts. They're absolutely horrifying when extended to the theoretical maximum. Indeed, the very definition of a totalarian state is one in which all people are the property of the State. At some point, between this and anarchy, there's an optimum. As life changes, this optimum point will move. Some will fight these moves and make life miserable for others rather than suffer change themselves, but if the change is big and clear and beneficial enough, most will peacefully adapt.

I recognize that rapidly evolving ideas about what should and should not be considered property aren't easy for those whose careers are caught in the flux. Believe me, I'm one of them. At the same time, I see Change as being - on balance - a very healthy thing, even if it makes my own life harder than it might has been in a more static environment. Others aren't so sanguine. They really hate Change. But there's some good news for them too; one day, they'll die, and Change will no longer be a problem for them.

[davidw]

Comparing people scared of change in IP rights to slave owners is a bit over the top.

Can we try and keep discussions about this stuff serious and intellectually honest?

[alexqgb]

Uh, the point was that the definition of "property" not only changes over time, but that it can change quite radically.

The idea seemingly lost on you is that while property in some sense has always been fundamental to civilized orders, it has encompassed very different things in different times and places. Indeed, this remarkable flexibility may be the key to its endurance. And this vital flexibility is EXACTLY what anti-reformists try to obscure, deny, ignore, or otherwise wish away when discussing IP.

In their conception the invention of the Internet is irrelevant. They portray the current scope of property rights as rigid, fixed, ever-lasting, and absolutely supreme. And this particular stalling tactic is nothing new. In fact it's appeared time and time again - really, any time that society has evolved in a way that demands a fundamental reconsideration of what is and is not going to be viewed as private property, with its protection provided by the full force of the state.

Of course, the people who take the absolutist view don't like to discuss this history in detail. And why would they? Saying that the current configuration of rights - which evolved over time - cannot be allowed to evolve any further is a conspicuously indefensible position. So when absolutists raise the issue of "property rights" they are not trying to add anything to the conversation. To the contrary, they are attempting to shut it down. The hope is that residual deference to the once-sensible bounds will kick in reflexively, and people will suddenly stop talking about things that are certain to harm their economic interests and / or social standing if discussed openly.

And that pattern has been a consistent problem every time society has felt the need to redefine property rights. When confronted by the kinds of dishonest and self-serving assholes who would try to shut down or derail conversations of this nature, it's important for people to recognize who and what they're dealing with, and what kinds of tactics will be used against them. It's equally important for them to remember just how threatening and powerful open conversation really is, and why it's protected by the 1st Amendment.

I maintain that the conversation surrounding property rights in America circa 1850 is likely to contain an enormous number of parallels with the conversations surrounding IP today. For people looking for a roadmap on how to handle the recurrent problem of inflexible absolutists, it's a fine source. And it's not the only place where they can find echoes of the same losing arguments about maintaining outdated but profitable arrangements. Indeed, I strongly suspect that close variants of the same arguments will appear in every case where the scope of "property" has become a bone of contention.

Regardless, if you still think there is anything "unserious" or even "dishonest" about this perspective, please elaborate.

[davidw]

> Regardless, if you still think there is anything "unserious" or even "dishonest" about this perspective, please elaborate.

Yes, what you wrote here:

> They're the same backwards looking people who said "but what about property rights" when it came to freeing slaves.

To me the comparison is too direct and is therefore inflamatory and distracts from your point. It takes the conversation in a Godwinish direction. Oh, also, it's factually incorrect given that the slavery people were mostly white southerners who have been dead over 100 years, and many of the IP people are wealthy coastal types who probably are fairly "progressive" in their politics in other ways, if you look at Hollywood as an example, superficial though they may be in their outlook.

The whole "intellectual property" thing, in any case, really derives from two things: 1) the "moral rights" to control something you brought into being, and 2) that artificial property is a good solution to the public goods problem in certain cases, if the needs of consumers and producers are properly balanced (currently I do not deem that to be the case): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_good

[alexqgb]

And calling people "intellectually dishonest" isn't inflammatory?

More to the point, I was asking you if you saw anything unserious and dishonest about my perspective as a whole. And that perspective is not summed up in the single line you extracted. Nevertheless, you felt you could justify a personal attack on the integrity of another by citing this one line in isolation, as though it were a complete summation of the broader argument.

I think you need to be careful with this "intellectually dishonest" tag, my friend. This may be a case of what Peter says about Paul says more about Peter than it does about Paul.

In the meantime, I maintain my position: the Civil War era remains a rich source of examples showing how humans respond when changing norms about what can and cannot be considered property threaten the economic interests of those who are likely to lose their status. Even if the bone of contention is different, the point (which you seem hell-bent on missing) is that the reactions are very much the same.

Indeed, being able to see those reactions in a very different context is essential to recognizing their underlying patterns, and the unifying elements. You, on the other hand, seem to be saying "No! Regardless of the parallels, they CANNOT BE DISCUSSED! No No No No! This is OFF LIMITS!!!!

To which I say, oh go grow a pair.

[davidw]

I didn't call you as a person dishonest, I called one portion of your comment dishonest, and I stand by that.

There's no way I could judge you or your character via one offhand comment on a web site, but I can certainly say that I find comparing intellectual property to slavery ridiculous.

Most of your comment was pretty well reasoned, which made the inflammatory bit irritating as it, IMO, dragged the rest down.

Perhaps a more neutral approach: "what has been considered property through the ages has changed" would have worked better than directly comparing supporters of IP to slave owners.