[atom-morgan]

Copyright, along with patents and trademarks, is not a capitalist invention. It's a privilege granted by the government. Without the government close by, individuals or businesses would not have the power to enforce whatever it is they're trying to protect. In a truly free market, copyright would not exist.

[notahacker]

All de jure property ownership, as distinguished from de facto possession, is a privilege granted, regulated and enforced by the government. In the absence of government, I'm assuming copyright could be enforced by "protection agencies" against people without adequate defence against them in the same inefficient but brutal manner as they could uphold other purely paper-based "property rights" like contracts, debt repayments and ownership of the means of production.

In fact, they'd probably get so efficient at collecting the money from those without significant resources to spend on defence they wouldn't look too hard to see if copyright had actually been violated before sending their royalty demands. It would be like the current legal system, but with more pointed weapons.

The pipe dream of "truly free market" shares one property of communism: that of being so egregiously flawed in theory as to be impossible in practice.

[dragonwriter]

> It's a privilege granted by the government.

Property is a privilege protected by government to exclude other people from some set of actions with regard to some particular subject matter. Sure, that's true of copyright and other intellectual property, and intangible personal property more generally, but its equally true of tangible personal property and real property, as well.

> Without the government close by, individuals or businesses would not have the power to enforce whatever it is they're trying to protect.

That's true of pretty much all property but the smallest stores of tangible personal property.

> In a truly free market, copyright would not exist.

The definition of a "truly free market" is generally underspecified and seems to adapt to whatever is convenient to a "free market" advocates current argumentative position.

[humanrebar]

Well, it would exist to the extent that DRM could enforce it.

[atom-morgan]

True. I didn't think of this. However, DRM is much different than something along the lines of a patent.

[humanrebar]

Not a patent, per se, since patents require publication. But intellectual property enforcement can exist outside of legal fiat through DRM, certifications, obfuscation (perhaps a special case of DRM), trade secrets, and trade organizations (like guilds). Not to mention social pressures for creators to respect the work of others (as in comics stealing jokes).

Point being, purely private intellectual property rights exist, but usually only to the degree that they are enforced by private organizations or the societies they belong to.

[dllthomas]

Patent also doesn't distinguish by origin.

[dllthomas]

What extent is that?