Devil's Advocate

Show me the harm and perhaps we can progress beyond, "Innovation, hurrah!" - "Copying, boo!" Regress? As in retreat from the implementation of a right to life without proving harm? Interesting that you choose an example of actual harm to dismiss an argument about the necessity of proving harm to justify IP. Got denial much? -- edit: But at least we now have evidence that you are using the common definition for harm that advocates and opponents of IP understand - we can work on why only one side appears to be using it consistently

OK, so there's harm and there's harm. Tell me about this harm you have when I copy something that belongs to you; I know not. Where does it hurt?

Harm is harm, as anyone who has been harmed knows. Not getting the compensation (or reward, or respect, or love...) you think you deserve, regardless how hard you worked for it, isn't harm. The word you and others who promote IP struggle with (or ignore) is actual, i.e. actual harm. Real crimes like theft and forgery leave a mark; copying an idea expands knowledge. You will say that copied knowledge is forbidden, but you cannot say why. Thomas Aquinas cannot demonstrate the existence of God; no one can. Faith is required to believe in things that won't be summoned. Apparently IP falls into this category.

I think you're defending IP, but perhaps not seeing the logical end to securing a right to compensation beyond what a free market supports. Don't get hung up on my reference to a welfare state. Think about what the objective measure of how much compensation someone is entitled to prior to bringing a product to market. If there is one, and someone copying your product impedes that amount, then yeah, you're right... IP is justified. If there isn't one, then we have more to discuss...

We tether the concept of property to reality to avoid the altruist notion that someone ought to be rewarded according to their need for compensation. What is the objective measure of how much profit someone is entitled to prior to bringing a product to market? If no one chooses to purchase it, shall compensation then be awarded as welfare?? The reality is that compensation (as a need), doesn't flow naturally from a right to life. Someone is only entitled to property that is earned by the effort of producing a material object. Compensation is then achieved by personal use, or by trading it to a willing customer; not by fixing the market to deliver a winner. Who would risk spending time and resources to deliver a new product to a free market? An honest trader.

The Original has summed up the continuing disagreement very well, along with our shared frustration at having to keep moving backwards in order to proceed with this discussion. I don't fault the participants as sometimes the apple must fall several times before the concept of gravity sinks in. I will only add at this point that an additional problem with IP is the presumption that no one can own the problem. In the natural world, reality does and often limits the solutions to a handful of things that can work. In the man-made world, man does and often by creating the problem himself. An example of the latter is what led to the design shape of the Pentagon: "The Arlington Farm tract had a peculiar asymmetrical pentagon shape bound on five sides by roads or other divisions. Finally, guided by the odd shape of the plot, they designed an irregular pentagon." http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/05/23/AR2007052301296.html Imagine a landowner with a problem defined by property lines and a goal of maximizing the amount of allowable area for development. 3 Designers are invited to provide solutions, and all 3 "create" an envelope for development based on setbacks from the property lines, along with code specified building heights, points of access, locations of utilities, etc. Not surprisingly, the resulting designs have been effectively constrained to a problem owned by the landowner, and the resulting design solutions reflect this; all 3 being essentially the same solution. The owner chooses the least expensive designer who is immediately charged by the other two with infringing on their IP. The plans are examined by reasonable potential customers and found to be indistinguishable. Who is guilty and who is innocent in this scenario?

It could, but we are already agreed that a novel iteration doesn't represent an infringement of inventor A's patent. On the other hand, Plow B could be indistinguishable from Plow A, and it is nonetheless a second plow in reality and property earned by the physical and focused mental labor of another man.

I am arguing for property rights, as are you. The difference is I see IP as more of a hindrance than a benefit. We're making better progress now, but I want to see your future thoughts expressed to the Original DA prior to going more in depth at this point. I do want to say that I prefer your use of listing duplicated property according to the original source. In our discussion, the novice (as the designer's employee) is duplicating the designer's property A into versions A1, A2, A3 etc. An important thing to bear in mind is that neither the designer nor the novice are creating original property by duplicating it. In the office setting we are familiar with, these kind of duplicates end up being discarded or filed away as records.

Moving forward (I hope), we can see by example of the designer, the novice and the client, certain fundamental characteristics in the action of creating an original work (property). 1) The designer creates his own property, with or without the labor of the novice or reward of a client. 2) The novice benefits by learning the means to create (distinct from recreating) property from the designer. 3) The client benefits by having a unique source (the designer) to trade property with. See my response to dream_weaver above. There are no exact duplicates; A=A. The original property of the designer exists as a unique material object, and as such has a specific value that operates independently from the process of duplication. If anything, duplication actually increases the value of the original, as can be seen in comparing the values of limited edition duplicates to the original piece of art. It's all property, but the value of the original isn't degraded by duplication. See my response to dream_weaver above. This actually occurred in my office to some degree, where employees of the principle designer/owner occasionally worked on their own time in his office, using knowledge gained from the designer, along with his supplies to create drawings for their own clients. The practice was ended by the threat of termination of anyone who continued to do so. Suffice it to say that illicit activities that bite the hand that feeds them are generally resolved within the kind voluntary contractual agreement that exist with employees who act as agents of their employer, or are dismissed. -- edit: I'm really hoping to move beyond a discussion that begins and ends with, "Copying (recreating) is a mindless, illicit activity." Shall we proceed?

In terms of copying intellectual property, is there a distinction you are making between work that is performed absentmindedly and unmindful or mindlessly? Again, what I'm questioning is the presumption that copying (recreation by whistling in this case) is a distinctly unmindful and illicit activity. We apparently agree that there is nothing illicit about coping per se, and if you also find nothing unmindful in what was portrayed by Atlas Shrugged for either the young brakeman or Francisco, then we are copacetic on this point. It may be a small point, but applied forward it suggests my answer to your second example of yet another illicit activity.

... and on the issue of copying being distinctly unmindful?

I would say that in general, create and recreate are better terms to use than innovate and copy. However the following association of recreation as absentmindedly going about their business undermines, or at least plays into the presumption that copying is a distinctly unmindful (and illicit) activity. This presumption is what the Original DA (I believe) and myself are arguing against.

Yes, and I think we should work in the direction of developing a credible working example we are both familiar with. As an aside, I was encouraged to see this day's quote is from Frank Lloyd Wright: "Noble life demands a noble architecture for noble uses of noble men". Let us proceed with noble intentions and see where that leads us... Our experience ought to allow us to agree that blueprinting a designer's work, while a labor per se, isn't equivalent to the creation of a design, but neither is it a mindless act. The novice performing tasks under the direction of a professional is in a position that is primarily educational, but still billable (even as an intern) because there is a client paying for the services of the professional and those he employees. Therefore when you ask, does the copying of 'X' equate with the creation of 'X', the honest answer is, no. Both the professional and the novice are working, but they are producing the designer's property, not the novice's. The novice has an opportunity to profit from learning to apply the designer's knowledge (and we'll get to that), or to profit from a misrepresentation of the designer's knowledge. He might, for example, take the designer's print to another client and attempt to sell it as his own design, in which case we'd both agree that particular action of copying would involve theft and fraud, correct? Shall we proceed??

... "and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed." ~ DOI Thus a legitimate need to be able to copy, as in the usual case, to learn. But it would be comparing apples to oranges. The artist who records their work isn't creating music; they are copying it. That is not to say they didn't create the music they are copying to sell, but you need to differentiate the actual process. In making marketable duplications of their original, they aren't exerting any more effort than the pirate does; neither are creating music at that point...

I work in Architecture, but primarily from the IT end, so I've enjoyed and can relate to your architectural references. We might do well to continue in that vein. In terms of intellectual property, I am strongly influenced (or held back :o) by Locke's views, so you may approach my statements with that in mind.

There are several issues to address here, but the one that jumps out at me is the obvious use of force to accomplish the physical/emotional harm you're referring to. The kind of copying we are referring to doesn't require putting a gun to your head. Only the advocacy side needs this kind of threat to rationalize IP as a "security". Whether innovating or copying innovation, the only activity required to produce property can be described as focused mental activity combined with physical effort.

It's difficult to get any traction with your opponent if he doesn't accept your presupposition that copying innovation is a theft of property. You ask, what's the harm? If I take your bacon, you can't eat it. If I copy your bacon... ??? Well, it wasn't yours to copy, was it? There! I caught you, you nasty little bacon thief!! Except that now there's twice as much bacon... Here want some back??

He did; there is no other credible meaning to be had. If thoughts, efforts and products are property, then we are simply left with, "property is property". I mean what else is there when the ends is also the means. Apparently the way to end up with a brick as property, is to begin with that brick as property?

Yes, this seems to be the case. Commercial use appears to me to be the primary concern, but there also seems to be some leeway regarding use for research. It also appears to me that the onus is on the patent holder to initiate legal action against infringement, which may account for some ambiguity in the regulation of IP for noncommercial use. You're not going to like this but to paraphrase the lady, if that which you claim to think about does not exist (yet), what you possess is not property. Can something really exist as property prior to being brought into existence as a material thing? How exactly does one validate the existence of an idea prior to any physical manifestation or prototype? I suppose if you're desperate to claim all property is intellectual this is the direction you'd need to go, but it appears dangerously close to reversing the POE...

Here's an exercise that will help me understand the pro IP argument better... I create a new vehicle, name it the Devil's Ride, and want to limit its use to my benefit. 1) A patent allows me to prohibit anyone from duplicating* it for commercial purposes for a period of time. 2) A copyright allows me to prohibit anyone from duplicating* it for commercial purposes. 3) A trademark allows me to prohibit anyone from duplicating my logo on the hood (a fallen angel) , its color (ebony), or fragrance of emission (sulfur) for commercial purposes. 4) A trade secret allows me to prohibit anyone from reverse engineering it for commercial purposes. I have italicized "for commercial purposes" to highlight what I see as the bone of contention in this discussion. Is there any personal/educational prohibition of use beyond commercial purposes, and is this an accurate description of the terms we are using? If I see you driving a duplication of the Devil's Ride without my express permission, but not trying to sell the duplicate, can I send you to Hell, or at least tell God on you?? -- * meaning an exact copy in every detail

Yes, if my labor uses stolen materials then whatever action follows is that of a thief. Now just convince me that material in public view/use is private and well be closer to resolution. If I see your car in a parking lot, I at least know it's not mine, and the same would be true of an idea (I think). I wouldn't presume to drive off with it and not get punished. But IP (as practiced) would allow me to take it for the purpose of learning how to drive but not for going to market. That's very different than (or inconsistent with) all other applications of private property isn't it?

Then we agree that it is labor, which combined with something tangible, becomes property. But is it the labor of a thief? I would like to understand how copying is theft. If a burglar finds something you have hidden away, and duplicates it leaving the original intact, is the crime a theft or a trespass (or both)? I think all can agree to the trespass and even to forgery, but in what way is a duplication of property a theft of property? Set aside the context of trespass (not hidden), and forgery (not misrepresented), and what remains is a second piece of property that belongs to the individual who worked to produce it. If anything, the original becomes even more valuable and unique by the action of duplication.

Thanks for the clarification. Nonetheless, the right to property is made credible not because we humans say so, but because the law of identity says so. As to trolling, phui! The passage I cited (not the one you referred to) was presented in response to your assertion that opponents of IP, "see barriers and monopolies where none exist". Such barriers and monopolies actually do exist regardless of whether or not you choose to acknowledge them. Such casual dismissal of what actually is indicates a break is in order.

Look, any item by patent that prevents another individual from duplicating it with the intention of bringing it to market, provides the real example you're looking for by suspending the would be competitor's right to create property, i.e. implement their right to life, with that item. It is done expressly to recover the innovator's investment of time and effort at the expense of recognizing a competitor's time and effort, and it is done by creating an artificial monopoly* within a supposedly laissez-faire marketplace. IP only allows an innovator to own a solution, for a period of time, and calls that property; it isn't. It's equivalent to claiming that only innovators can break a sweat, therefore innovators are entitled to own the marketplace free from competition for a period of time, which means that laissez-faire is suspended for that same period of time. Claiming, as you are, that IP doesn't really effect a free market in terms of others being able to compete with patented products, or that their right to create property by their own effort isn't impeded, simply isn't supported by the current practice of IP. I can't make it clearer than that at this time - we just disagree on this issue. However I remain in agreement with what you expressed earlier, that an individual must be allowed the choice to respect the intellectual property of others. I think your following comments suggest you aren't fully committed to that view, but it remains a starting position we shared and have drifted away from. -- * "Governments sometimes create artificial monopolies for limited periods by mandating entry restrictions. Patents are a principal example of this. A patent confers a monopoly upon the patent holder until its expiry." http://what-when-how.com/social-sciences/monopoly-social-science/ see also, natural monopoly: http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/natural-monopoly.html

I think much has been gained in terms of establishing, and exposing, the roots of the disagreement about IP. I'm grateful for the patient feedback obtained thus far, but agree that it may be time to take a step back and reflect on what has been presented thus far to avoid the frustration that often arrives with an apparent impasse. There is a genuine disagreement on the extent to which the action of copying is an invasion of the privacy of property. Much depends on whether the implementation of a right to life allows for (or does not) the ability to copy without permission. I believe that it does...