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[Hterag]

Hi all,

Just wanted to get some views on intellectual property, what with all these terrible pirates coming in to scuttle the film and music industry, costing $800 squillion a year and the government coming in to save the day following the RIAA/MPAA into battle... Well, here are my thoughts:

First of all, some definitions:

+ Property: The result of invested individual labour.
+ Theft/stealing: The illegitimate removal of property against the will of the owner making it unavailable to them.

I think that data is valid property given the fact someone created it. Just as a chair is valid property because it's the result of individual labour. On the other hand, an idea to make, say, a spoon in a world where spoons do not yet exist is not valid property - it's an idea. If I do nothing with that idea (including telling anyone) and someone else comes up with the same idea, I can't say I own it and they need to pay me, obviously. They didn't, "steal" anything, they just had a similar idea.

So, if I decide to make that spoon and create it exactly as I imagined, I own that spoon. The property is created at the point that I create the spoon. I own THAT spoon. I don't own the idea of a spoon because as soon as people see it then it's unavoidably in their heads. Am I then to charge them just for seeing it? Of course, that's ridiculous. It's like these monks in China who try to put a ribbon in your hand by tricking you into taking it then trying to make you pay for it because the, "good luck" has been used by your touching it.

That said, if someone decides to copy your new utensil, they are not initiating force. They're drawing, printing and carving a piece of wood that they own. How can I legitimately initiate force against a peaceful wood worker? He's done nothing wrong here and of course we could get into the first to market benefits at this point but let's move on for now...

Computer code and movies are exactly the same way. If I spend time writing a program then yes, I own that code. I own the changes in magnetism on the hard drive. The problem seems to be, I can then copy it very easily and precisely. Philosophically there's no difference, though. There's no difference between copying a spoon design and copying data. The original is still there and available for the owner so we can't say it was, "stolen".

Another example would be if we imagine a world where it's possible to accurately copy objects the way we copy data now. If we could walk by someone and make an exact copy of their kidney with no negative effects on them then I don't think most people would have a big problem with that. I can't imagine I'd be saying, "Well, he stole my kidney!" because I'd still have both kidneys in place, healthy, untouched etc. but now there's another kidney in the world, that's great.

I think the distinction should be made between concepts/patents/ideas and the physical stuff (including the data on the disk, in the cloud or on the flash memory, etc) because there is a big difference. Ideas are not property, what you do with it is what creates the property and I can't see any difference between copying data and a Star Trek-style replicator (3D printer that prints literally anything, including food etc.) and if we ever reach a point where we have that technology and physical stuff can be copied as accurately as data then that will not only be a wonderful time to live in but totally ok, I absolutely cannot see it being immoral.

tl;dr Copyright/patents/intellectual property is not property. Ideas/concepts physically cannot be exclusively owned.

What say you?

[Spanone]

I don't have a solution, but I would like to point out that we have the ability to distribute all produced media to (most) everyone at (almost) no cost.

Obviously the producers of media deserve compensation, but there has to be a better way than traditional buy-sell as if they were physical things.

[vbelac]

I have a great idea to solve this well-thought issue, why don't we all share collective ownership over all goods and services?

[Lupecake]

Or just try to better our selves, and not use money... Like Star Trek? lol

[Hterag]

Spanone: "Obviously the producers of media deserve compensation" (can't use the quote feature...)

Could you help me to understand why this is obvious? Also, could you define, "media"? I'm not saying you're wrong I just want to see where you're coming from.

Here are some possible solutions for software/movies/music/data off the top of my head:

+ Donation-based models (charities)
+ "Pay what you want" models (see humbleindiebundle.com)
+ Crowd-sourced payment in advance (see Kickstarter)
+ Service-based models (see Red Hat who offer software for free but charge for the support service)

You could also try encryption for software or streaming services for movies like Netflix which make it so convenient to watch movies etc. that you may as well pay and save time downloading potentially bad quality rips.

All of those things work fine for software/data but that isn't really what I was getting at with intellectual property. I wanted to distinguish between ideas (which people call patents, copyright, etc.) and the physical form that idea takes when made real.

As an example, Apple claims the idea of rounded corners at specific angles etc. and what they're saying with that claim is, "Only I can make this shape and anyone else who does it has to pay me money." which I'm arguing is not valid. Of course, if someone steals an iPad then that's wrong but if they make the same shape using their own piece of aluminium and plastic... Well, I can't see a problem with that. If I accept that and take it to the logical conclusion then copying data is exactly the same.

Just because we can copy data more easily and quickly doesn't mean it's any more wrong than making a copy of a car or a shoe. If I plan for many years and invest in different weapons to murder someone... Well, that's no different to just shooting them dead in 2 seconds. The result is the same, the person was murdered. If I copy some object or other and that's not wrong then I can copy data.

[Intangir]

tl;dr

ill have to read it later

but aspects of property are scarcity, and necessity

patterns are not inherently scarce, they are only as scarce as the media you store them on
methods are not inherently scarce, they are only as scarce as the materials you perform them with

to facilitate conflict resolution the concept of exclusive ownership of scarce resources is justifiable.

any concept that is based on the concept of property can't override the concept of property

the (en)FORCE(ment) of intellectual property violates property rights on which it is supposedly based, obviously the concept is severely flawed


ill catch up on the whole conversation later

[Spanone]

Hter, I'm not necessarily disagreeing or agreeing with any of your ideas, I was just pointing out that although we can distribute anything everywhere, there also needs to be incentive to create new content.

[Hterag]

Well, while it is a big motivator, there are plenty of incentives besides monetary gain.

On the software side, people write software all the time just for fun, they enjoy it. I've done it myself in the past and given out the games I produced for my friends to play. People develop in the Linux/Android community; they release custom builds of OSes, new kernels or games totally for free because they enjoy it. Sometimes they include an option to donate or buy a paid version if you like it.

On the movies/music side, again, there are lots of people who do it for free or ask for donations/pay-what-you want. For movies, how about a Kickstarter project? Announce your movie idea to the world and see who wants to see that kind of thing. If people like it, they'll toss in a few coins and when you have the whole world as your potential customer-base combined with an awareness of the concept of, "If you want to see it, you have to pay for it." then people will pay all the production costs and the studio can still make a profit.

They then release the movie for free and while it's true that anyone can then be a free-rider they could do all kinds of things like put a list of contributors in the credit list and if you're watching it and your name isn't there then people will be like, "Oh, you..." and that'll put a bit of pressure on to contribute next time but it doesn't matter since it was all paid for and profited from. Until they raise the investment, they don't start production so they don't lose money.

The same could happen with research, potentially. If a company isn't doing well enough to do their own R&D they could just wait for a, "free" R&D centre to spit out something for them to make that was researched using crowd-sourced funding. That research centre could keep a list of their biggest contributors and if you see Company X is releasing a product based on tech they got from that R&D centre yet they aren't on the list then you could make the choice to not buy from them if you feel bad and if you don't then it's not a problem for you anyway.

[Spanone]

I wasn't referring strictly to monetary gain, I meant any incentive, or any compensation.

[Hterag]

I know, I guessed you probably meant other incentives too and I just wanted to give some examples that I was thinking of at the time. I hope that I addressed what you meant, though.

[Shaman]

Do you think this will work?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ae62mN23WDg

[Intangir]

if you have a friend who owns it, he can log in for you and download the upto date version
then there are command lines on the site somewhere to launch it to play for free