howardofski

No. This is certainly true of how we use language (it was HIS idea), but that expresses the origins of the idea, not a property right. Treated as property, an idea objectively "belongs" to whoever is thinking it, since it is an activity of their property - their brain.

Yes, it is OK then, since law does not require government for either its establishment, nor for its enforcement. This is covered in other threads, but it is interesting that the two threads have in common the Objectivist promotion of monopoly, on using an idea in the case of IP, and on legislation and enforcement of laws in the case of government. In both cases, monopoly requires a violation of NAP.

I don't think I have mentioned government in this thread. I recommend you read what I wrote there and if you find it in error, reply to it there. I look forward to your comments. What I am discussing here is the morality of IP law. For the record, I believe in a few good laws, but not in government. IP law is not good law. The most important law of all is the establishment of private property.

A scrap heap of elements does indeed require a person who thought to turn the elements into something better, in order to become a machine. I agree. But that person does not need to have been the one who first had that thought. In your post, you are using a different meaning of "scarce" than I am. It is often used to mean "in limited supply", as you are using it, but I am using the term in its other meaning of consumable and/or not usable by everyone at once. This attribute of consumability is true of all objects, all the time, whether in use of not, but not of ideas. An idea can be applied to your scarce object but also to my scarce object. Your object is scarce because we can't both use it. It is yours because you used it first or traded for it. When I apply that same (non-scarce) idea to previously unowned materials, I then own that duplicate object by the same principles of homesteading, trading, etc. We both own similar but separate objects. We own them because we used them first, not because we were the first to think of that use. It is the intelligent use of material that changes it from unowned to owned (I refer you to Ayn Rand for details on this point). It is not true that ownership can only arise from intelligent use which involves original thinking. If that were the case, only inventors could own anything, and then they could only own their inventions. There must be a broader foundation for property rights that begins with original (first-time) use of objects, not original thoughts of use. Property does not begin with original thoughts. It begins with original use (meaning the object is being used for the first time) of a previously unused object/material. My owning of my object does not interfere with your owning of your object.

equine juxtaposition = cart before horse?? Scarcity and NAP ARE the horse. Without them, there is no cart, unless it's a stolen concept cart, which is almost as bad as a stolen bicycle.

Don, Tad (in Post# 159)is asking why stealing is wrong, but also seems to be asking what justifies morality - a much more fundamental question. I have not implied that he lacks a moral code or can't justify one. I have asked him what he means by his (to me) complex question. Further, notice that in asking his question, he proscribes two elements, which I have clearly employed in previous answers: scarcity (I assume this is what he means by an "economic term") and the NAP. Now, if I am to eliminate these from my answer, then I end up with no need for the concept of property at all, which leaves us free to assign ownership by some other method - Tad's IP method? The NAP is merely a prohibition against violating property rights, and property rights are a response to the obvious metaphysical fact of competition for scarce resources. They both mean the same thing: don't fight over scarce resources, but instead use a rule to assign ownership (give title). Nevertheless, here is an outline of a my answer which should cover all bases: ****************************** Due to our lack of instinct and our gifts of free will and reason, and due to the optional nature of life, we must make choices and those choices can serve our lives or not. We need rules (moral principles) to guide us to pro-life choices if our choice is to live. This would be true even if we were alone on the proverbial island. That is the justification of morality. Due to our physical nature, we must choose to consume and use physical items in order to live. Due to the scarcity of such physical items, in the company of others, there can arise conflicts of interest over who will consume what. The sub-category of morality called political philosophy solves this conflict over consumption by assigning rights to consume called property rights, or ownership. It is important to solve this conflict of interests in consumables, by the political principal of property rights in order to avoid solving it by violence, which is dangerous (anti-life). Property rights (rules of ownership) allow individuals to live together in peace. Ownership is assigned by homesteading, trading, or gifting. Homesteading means to be the first to make use of a scarce resource or area. Thus, property begins with our own bodies and then includes those objects or areas of land which we have made use of through homesteading, trading, or gifting. The use of force violates the right of property. Now, given the above, NAP is most certainly fundamental to both morality and to politics. Ayn refers to it as the basic principle of Objectivist politics. It also reflects the basic principle of social morality, which is "Do not harm the harmless". Stealing consumable (scarce) items harms the harmless. Scarcity and the NAP are the two most important ideas to understand in order to understand why it is wrong to steal a bicycle.

Then what is the valid basis of IP violations? How does one violate IP?

You are looking for a justification of morality? Does this mean you don't know why one should have a moral code at all? I have no idea what "equine juxtaposition" means.

The point is that if a thing can be consumed, then we need the idea of "property" to sort out who shall consume it. But when consumption is not possible - everyone can "have" it - there is no longer a need to sort out who shall "have" it. So "ownership" becomes a non-issue. Ideas are not consumed, they are mental tools that anyone and everyone can use without interfering with anyone else's use. So then the argument is, "I thought it up, therefore I own it - even after I reveal it to you." The "therefore" in that sentence is what is being challenged by the Anti-IP debaters. As for land, two people cannot be in the same place at the same time, just as they cannot both eat the same bite of lunch. But they can both use the same idea.

Regardless of the validity of the offense? Of course not. We are debating whether imitation is morally the same as stealing a bicycle. I am saying that it is not - that imitation is not wrong and stealing a bike is wrong.

Good, don't talk about it. That way, I get the last word. These post are all responses to individuals and to individual points they have made. They are brief and easy to read in 5 minutes. I consider their brevity to be a virtue. They add up to a very coherent and sustained argument.

If we are using this word (disposal) as originally (traditionally) used in the definition of property, then it cannot be applied to ideas, since they cannot be disposed of - they cannot be used up or depleted. They are not a physically limited resource since they can be infinitely reproduced and shared with no loss to their originators.

Because you can't eat your lunch if I have eaten it, but you can use an idea which I have used. The lunch issue is what economists refer to as "scarcity". Scarcity does not apply to ideas. They don't get "used up" and one person's use does not preclude another person's use.

Then you are either very young or have only recently arrived on planet Earth (I'm just visiting here, myself). Here on Earth, when they run out of logic, they turn to word games, sarcasm, changing the subject, personal remarks, psychobabble, misrepresentation and a host of other rhetorical strategies too numerous to list. Saving face precludes all else. I suspect it has to do with the excessive gravity, but that's just a theory of mine.

No, it is not easy (at least for me) to see why one man's use of an idea should lead to him violently preventing another man's use of that same idea.

Exactly Right! Vast rhetorical contortions are invented (but not patented).

Exactly right! The rhetorical strategy is the claim that imitation = theft. But in truth, imitation = education.

Exactly right.

If IP law is immoral (under debate here), then whether its absence stifles innovation, or not, is irrelevant to a debate about its morality. To suggest that a coercive monopoly is necessary to live a fully creative, productive life, is hyperbolic, at best. The utilitarian question of whether IP law does, in fact, produce net benefits or losses to society, is highly debatable, but it's a debate for another thread. In Post #22, Nicky claims the goal of IP law is to "allow" individuals to fully engage in life sustaining action." But that would be allowed in the absence of IP law. Instead, IP law actually DIS-allows that for all but one person.

Yes! However, no one is questioning the survival related need for products of intellectual work. What is being questioned is the right to prevent others from producing similar products for their own survival - which is what you are promoting.

This is known as begging the question: Decorating the argument with 'abstract concept' does nothing to make it valid. IP is the belief that imitators owe something to the imitated. This is not true until it is shown that the imitated have suffered some loss. This will never be shown, thus the increasingly cloudy rhetoric. The Pro-IP position requires the misuse of language. It requires redefining common terms.

Many do understand but disagree. You do not have a right to set conditions - of any kind - on how others use an idea that they obtained by observing you (assuming no harmful use, of course). Their use of their property does not become your business simply because their use of their property reminds you of your use of your property.

It sounds that way because that is what it does, in fact, mean. People (in general) do know what rights are. They understand that, so long as they do no harm, they CAN do whatever they want with THEIR chair.

Obviously (and I do mean OBVIOUSLY), imitation denies no one the right to self-sustaining action, intellectual or otherwise, and equally OBVIOUSLY, IP law does, in fact, deny to imitators that very same right to use what they know (their intellect) and what they own (their property) for their own self sustenance.

Perhaps everyone is ignoring this because it is so patently (sic) untrue. Property rights certainly do include the right to act, but it is a right to unspecific acts with regard to a very specific object. The word "property" refers to the object, not the acting, and the phrase "property rights" obviously refers to both actions and the specific objects which are acted upon. Property rights are very much a right to materials and objects. Divorcing the term 'property' from its traditional, objective definition is necessary to the upkeep of the IP argument.