Replying to 13 Tweets on Intellectual Property
Over the past few years, I've been very influenced by Voluntaryist / Anarchist philosophy, especially when it comes to anarcho-capitalist thinking which relies heavily on property rights (I own myself in the past, present, and future: more on that here). I recognize my own biases having been born in the United States which likes to tell itself stories about free markets and economic freedom (though we're not even in the top 10 nations for economic freedom).
This concept of "property" comes up again and again, and it is important for us to define, especially as our world becomes more and more digital.
I wrote a post a few weeks ago titled Why You Should Care About Plagiarism and Fair Use.
The very next day I saw this fantastic post by @jaredhowe Intellectual Property: A Government Protected Monopoly. You can see from my back and forth comments with Jared that it changed my thinking in terms of digital information not really being a scarce, rivalrous resource.
I also really enjoyed this post by @modprobe On the Origins and Purpose of Intellectual Property.
18 days ago, I sent a link to Jared's post to a lawyer I know in Nashville, and he replied with a series of Tweets today. You can follow the thread here.
Since I don't like Twitter for these long conversations, I was going to reply with a gist file on Github or something, but figured I'd just go ahead and make a Steemit post instead. If this stuff doesn't interest you, please feel free to save your votes for other great content out there.
I've quoted his tweets and included my replies below.
Hopefully Rick will be interested enough to create an account here and join the discussion.
Sorry it’s taken me this long to respond! Got swamped, but I put it on my to-do & now I’m doing! I’ll respond as best I can
Thanks for replying!
Intellectual property certainly isn’t "property" in any normal sense. IP is a bundle of rights & gov’t-granted power to stop others from doing certain things, the idea being to encourage innovation & creativity (leaving trademark out for now)
What do you think of Stephan Kinsella's Against Intellectual Property or Boldrin & Levine's Against Intellectual Monopoly? What if IP doesn't encourage innovation and creativity at all, and we can argue this using empirical evidence? As to government granted power, how do we delegate rights to others we as individuals don't have (i.e. the initation of force against non-violent people because of the transfer of information)?
But it’s property-like in that you can buy & sell it—even slices of it. IMHO, it’s most like real property, if you think of real property less as something you have title to & more as something gov’t permits you guard borders of w/ a big gavel. You can let people on for $$, or sell, but some will sneak on b/c you can’t be everywhere at once. And sometimes it’s OK for people to be on w/o your permission for reasons that are (supposedly) socially useful—fair use, e.g.
So government controls everything and "property" is only something permitted to us by government? From my perspective, that seems ridiculous. Land is always a sticky subject regarding ownership, but we can at least say it's a scarce, rivalrous resource (as the author of that post describes property). Can we say the same about digital information?
IP doesn’t protect "information" per se, unless it’s a secret.
Once something can be physically copied, is it still technically "a secret" regardless of the intentions of the originator of the information? The media of a "secret" can be physically protected, but not the information itself.
It protects novelty (patents) & creative expression (copyright).
Or it is intended to, but what if it doesn't actually do these things but instead creates monopolies which suppress innovation and creativity? I wrote a post about the negative consequences of these actions from an evolutionary/game theory perspective.
No one owns a color, or 0’s & 1’s. But one may "own" a creative combination of colors or of 0’s & 1’s. That’s not double dipping
But does that creative combination of colors or 0's and 1's create a scarce, rivalrous resource? Or is it only the physical media itself which could be considered a scarce, rivalrous resource?
I don’t understand this guy’s resistance to abstraction. Is he really OK with, say, pirating someone’s creative content?
He talks briefly about plagiarism as fraud (which is what I consider the downside of "pirating"). But copying information and distributing it... is that really fraud? Has anyone actually been violated physically or otherwise?
He touches on real problem w/ IP: it was meant to create a kind of market by creating scarcity, but digital undermines all that
So much so that the entire idea, as it relates to digital information, may be completely incompatible. Again, digital information is not a scarce, rivalrous resource, only the physical medium it is stored on can be.
Now policing the borders of your "land" is harder & must be much more heavy-handed. How should creatives be compensated for the hard work of creation? If not compensated, they won’t have as much time to create
There are multiple approaches, one of them being the blockchain based system Steemit uses where value is created essentially out of nothing and given directly to the content creators and curators. Bitcoin adds around a million dollars of value every day to the economy. Steemit is a similar system, but it has a much easier mining algorithm so at a 9 to 1 ratio the rewards are given to more than just the miners. Creatives can be compensated via voluntary exchange without the need for government use of force and many artists are already exploring this reality with "pay what you want" and open source approaches. The gatekeepers of information no longer exist as the world goes digital and anything put into digital form can be copied.
Rick: Thanks again for spending your valuable time replying via Twitter. I really appreciate it and hope my anarchist ideas aren't too far out in left (or would that be right?) field for them to sound reasonable. I've read a bit of Rothbard, Mises, and Hayek along with @larkenrose and others who have significantly impacted my thinking regarding whether or not we actually need rulers in modern society. I do believe in the value of keeping secrets which is why I'm such a big fan of encryption mechanisms for doing just that. I don't believe good ideas require force and, from my perspective, the State is just a monopoly on the initiation of force, leading to all kinds of negative unintended consequences. I believe in a voluntary future using physics, math, and encryption to enforce the things we care about, not the guns of government.
Thanks again for your time.
P.S. I've selected the "Pay me 100% in Steem Power" for this post.
Good post Luke. Property is a murky subject that I wrestle with when it comes to Anarchism. I find myself not really being a fan of Intellectual Property of any kind. An artist creates. If someone copies it, does that stop the artist from continuing to create? It may reduce compensation so they don't have a monopoly, but it does not cripple them and stop them from creating again.
How do you select "Pay me 100% in Steem Power"?
When you "Submit a Story", there is new checkbox now, you can enable "Pay me 100% in Steem Power"!
Thanks I have not noticed that.
I've moved that direction recently as well.
The funny thing is, it may not actually do this. That's what surprised me the most.
Well once you've settled more and have your head wrapped around us build a nice post and I'll certainly read it. You might be stumbling along a path now that I haven't yet walked, but likely need to. So I am basically telling you to stick a few torches out for people like me. laugh
yes, the government is cheating, but that doesn't change anything to the fact that we need to protect IP
Why do we "need to protect IP"? Are we culturally programmed to believe that?
because IP is not about protecting ideas, it's about protecting intellectual labor, when a author writes a book, we're not protecting the idea of writing a book, we're protecting the time and effort it took to write that book
you and those other fake libertarians are just creating a straw man argument by falsely claiming that IP protects ideas, which is simply not true
it's a matter of respect vs making excuses to steal somebody else's work, by pretending it's just an idea ... it's not about the idea, it's about the work, the investment
the fact that government has been abusing the concept of IP to benefit their cronies, is a separated issue; the government is the problem, not IP
Do you think time and effort determine value? To me, that's a fallacy. Value in an economic sense is determined at the moment of exchange. Value from an effort and time perspective is subjective. It's not a scarce, rivalrous resource either. It's not property.
You've dismissed me as a "fake libertarian" by assigning me to a label without engaging my specific ideas. As to it being "a matter of respect" I completely agree which is what my post was about entirely. Evolutionary stable strategies and game theory dynamics reward cooperative actors in repeated prisoners dilemma scenarios. I won't repeat my whole post here, but the point is the value is in signaling to the network that we are cooperative actors who value creative work which benefits the network. That does not require violence backed laws which is all IP is.
IP can exist without the violent state, because it addresses a real need, which is the protection of intellectual labor, otherwise intellectual labor will diminish
I already told you that, but you actually think that throwing some 3 syllable words up in the air is an argument
You didn't answer my questions. Do you think time and effort determine value? Is "labor" property in a "scarce, rivalrous resource" sense of the word? Is "labor" value?
Is your claim "otherwise intellectual labor will dimish" based on empirical evidence or a culturally programmed opinion? From what I understand, the books I referenced above argue it's just an incorrect opinion and the evidence does not support it.
The need isn't protection of labor, it's the protection of cooperative interactions which benefit the network. Intellectual Property is a concept defined by laws of the state and backed by violent force. There are other mechanisms for groups of people to reward and encourage creative innovation which is valuable via exchange that have nothing to do with "IP" which is why the concept, IMO, should be done away with.
I did answer your question; talking beside the point and making false arguments still don't allow you steal
and that's why you just can't accept it, because to you this is not about right or wrong ... you just want to have an excuse to steal!
Sorry, I'm a little slow. Can you please show me where you answered my questions?
I don't understand how you could come to the conclusion "Luke Stokes wants to steal" unless you didn't read the post I linked to above, and you've already defined for yourself what my motives and worldview is before we even started discussing this topic.
your question was just another straw man argument based on nothing, which is why I replied by pointing that out, instead of falling for your word trap
IP doesn't come from the state, it comes from the gildes, from the time when city states were independent, and private organisations would protect IP
the first patent laws in europe were all written in flemish, because they were directly copied from the Antwerp gildes, which were private organisations ... it does not come from the state ... that's just another fallacy
you know nothing about this topic ... you just want to have an excuse to steal
Interesting about the history of the Antwerp Glides. Where can I find more information on that? I see no mention of it on Wikipedia. Do they also know nothing about this topic? Are they also wanting an excuse to steal?
To say "I answered your questions" and then to say "it was a word trap so I didn't answer it" makes it clear to me you're not interested in constructive discussion but instead want to label me as ignorant while ascribing immoral motives to me such as theft. I've asked you to read my post where I clearly outline my motives and I have other posts on my framework for morality as well. I have no desire to steal. I do have a desire to use words accurately, understand what property actually is, and not initiate force against non-violent people. It seems you also agree with me in that government is not needed for a system of protecting property to work, so at least we can have that in common. I hope future interactions are more mutually beneficial and involve fewer personal attacks.
hahaha ... it's not in wikipedia, so it can't be true ... you actually said that!
obviously, you never read 1 single history book, otherwise you would know wikipedia is an extreme left wing propaganda site full with lies
you're making excuses to steal ... you're nothing but a thief
Disclaimer: I am just a bot trying to be helpful.
it seems to me the individual has as many rights as that individual can enforce by defending, and can expect compensation to the extent that others find the contribution to be of value to them. this is all assuming that the society is voluntary and adhering to the non-aggression principle, and that there are not roving bands of statists seeking to eat out the substance of the people.
That sounds a lot like a "might makes right" moral framework which I've never really been a fan of. We're pretty evolved social beings with an advanced frontal cortex which enables us to understand the benefits of cooperation as an evolutionary stable strategy from a game theory perspective. I'm hoping we can do better. Great voluntary ideas don't require force and those who treat others badly according to the community norms will face consequences.
this is why i'm speaking of defense and not aggression. i agree that in a voluntary society strategies need to go beyond this. might makes right is the motto of the aggressors. i guess i'm just not running into very many evolved social beings. mostly the people that i know are those who would use the power of the state to rob me. i hope, one day that i'll live in a place where cooperation of a voluntary sort, is the norm. i would be careful with the community norms, they are more often than not, not based in reason. humans being so often irrational. community norms caused the witch trials. i grew up in a cult, i know.
Well said about community norms. I'm not sure I can jump onboard with moral realism, but I'm not a moral anti-realist either. We create our own morality, in many ways, we just have to go about it with reason and logic. :) I have a "Where does your morality come from?" post about this stuff.