[bo1024]

I can't agree enough. The biggest victory of the intellectual property movement is the term "intellectual property".

[Edit/rewording] The information covered by copyright and patents is not property. It literally cannot be owned. All that copyright law does is grant temporary control over distribution of information; all patent law does is grant temporary control over use of information to produce products.

If you're serious about this issue, don't use the terms theft, steal, or so-called "intellectual property", and don't tolerate it when others do -- call them out.

Alexqgb's post, while very insightful and interesting, is fundamentally flawed because it accepts as a premise a lie and a falsehood -- that it is even possible to "own" information as "property". This literally cannot be done. It is a broken metaphor designed to distort the issue.

[grellas]

Copyright and patents are not property. They literally cannot be owned.

It may be a broken metaphor but the law says you can own intangible rights without question - or at least gives you rights that equate to pretty much everything that an owner of tangible property has (the right to exclusive control, the right to sell/buy/assign/lease/license/bequeath to heirs, etc., and the right to sue to enforce these rights in a court of law - see http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3463640 for elaboration). This is the bundle of rights that the law calls "ownership" and, in this sense, you certainly can "own" copyrights and patents.

You are arguing, in effect, that the law should be otherwise and that is fine. I also agree that the term "theft" is a loaded term that distorts the discussion on infringement. But it is not right (in terms of law) to "call out" those who use the term "property" for using a label that accurately describes exactly how the law treats the intangible rights (copyright, patent) with which you take issue. You may disagree with this but this is what the law currently holds. It is also, in practice, exactly how every startup I have ever worked with (many thousands) regards the IP rights that it develops (i.e., something "owned" by the company).

Trade secret rights, by the way, are also treated by the law as property. Such rights extend only to information that is confidential and proprietary - "proprietary" literally comes from a Latin root that means "one's own" and refers to information (whether formulas, customer lists, confidential pricing information, or whatever) that is owned by a particular company (as opposed to being public information). This too is another example of the law treating information as something capable of being "owned." Indeed, that is the essence of most intangible rights that the law protects, including contract rights. It protects them by giving them the attributes of ownership. This may be question-begging ("they are only property because an illegitimate law calls them "property") but it is reality and is very deeply ingrained in current law. It would take nothing less than a revolutionary way of looking at the concept of property to change it.

[timwiseman]

As always you make enlightening points.

Yet, even under the law, there are some significant difference in the purpose and implementation between traditional property and intellectual property. IP rights are for instance limited in time. In fact, historically the original purpose of patents was to encourage inventors to disclose their information so that eventually it could be used by society at law. Patents are inherently, and meant to be, self limiting.

Also, traditional property is normal inherently exclusive. If I am using my hammer, you are not. We may manage to come to a time-sharing arrangement or something similar, but only one of us is using it at a time. On the other hand, my building a product based on a patent you hold is prevented only by the law, rather than by the mere fact of you holding it. To quote Jefferson "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. "

In a legal sense, IP is most certainly property, but it has significant differences from more traditional property and is not property in the same sense that a hammer is.

[bo1024]

> the law says you can own intangible rights

Sorry if my wording was unclear. You can be granted rights (or more accurately powers), but you cannot own information. It is physically impossible by definition.

[tvon]

I think that's barking up a pointless, semantic tree. You don't need property for there to be "theft", you just need to deprive someone of something.

[rome]

It's not semantics. If that were the case theft laws would apply and they don't.

Whether or not copyright infringement deprives copyright holders of a sale is very difficult to substantiate. Which is why courts decide it.

Compare that to actual theft. If someone steals my phone, I can't use it anymore.

[rome]

I couldn't reply to repsilat for some reason.

I agree mostly with your statement except that we are speaking about legal terms. It's important to make the distinction between theft and copyright infringement laws. They were made for very different purposes.

[repsilat]

The legal definitions of words like "theft" and "ownership" and "property" are not the only definitions. There's obviously a widely held definition of "theft" that does include copyright infringement, whether it constitutes theft in a legal sense or not. (You can tell it's widespread because the argument that "infringement is not theft" keeps being made against all kinds of people.)

You can argue that the usage of that term might be prejudicial, but calling it incorrect is at odds with the enlightened linguistic descriptivism we're all so enamoured of. :)

[sophacles]

You can argue that the usage of that term might be prejudicial, but calling it incorrect is at odds with the enlightened linguistic descriptivism we're all so enamoured of. :)

I get what you are saying, but this is a bit hypocritical. The very act of arguing and pushing for new terms, and trying to clarify language is in fact OK and even encouraged, even if one is a descriptivist. Even the most passionate "let language do what it will" person will agree that at some point you can't have every word collapsing into every idea.

[repsilat]

I think I agree, for the most part. I have no problem with people arguing that copyright shouldn't be called theft, but I do have a problem with people arguing that copyright can't be called theft.

Perhaps the distinction is finer than the subject deserves. If I'm honest I think I prefer the "should not" argument to the "may not" one because the latter begs for shallow, deductive arguments from definitions instead of admitting a more thoughtful discussion.

[quicksilver03]

If someone wants to sue me for theft, they'd better do it according to the legal definition of theft. If not, that's defamation.

[bo1024]

> You don't need property for there to be "theft", you just need to deprive someone of something.

Deprive who of what? Information can only be copied, not taken. You can't deprive anyone of information unless you hack their computer.

Copyright law says nothing about deprivation. All it says is who has the legal right to make copies, and who doesn't. If you make copies without permission, you've violated copyright law. "Theft" doesn't enter into it.