howardofski

This translates to the ownership of an action, regardless of the actor or whose object is acted upon. But action is an attribute - of the actor. Put simply: no, you can not own my actions, nor my objects that I act upon - unless you own me and my objects.

Agreed. 'Appropriate', in this context, means 'steal', which means to remove something from its rightful owner. Obviously, the Pro-IP debate depends on the continuing false implication that the imitator is removing something from its rightful owner, the imitated (for instance, his "extension of himself"). And obviously, that is false - no one's 'self-ownership' is threatened or limited by imitation. But the 'self-ownership' of imitators IS curtailed by IP law.

This is a great example of a stolen concept. Your property rights end suddenly where mine begin. Your property rights do not include the right to violate the property rights of others, any more than your liberty includes the right to deprive others of their liberty. It means to be free of that sort of thing. Your argument reverses the meaning of the word 'property' in order to defend IP. And rightly so; that's just the sort of rhetorical monkey-business that IP requires.

Once again, we are treated to the false argument that to imitate an action = to steal an object. The Pro-IP debate depends on the continuing very false implication that the imitator is removing something from its rightful owner, the imitated, a falsehood based on the metaphor that action = property.

This is false. Competition does not cause economic loss. Not getting as much as you want is not the same as losing what you have or have a right to. You do not have a right to a market share. Market share = other people and their money and their choices.

Eiuol is not, of course discussing the "control of the design" as he claims, but rather the control of other people and their property. Nor is he discussing a "right to the design", but rather the right to initiate force against others. All of this euphemistic rhetoric is necessary to the upkeep of the IP error. Continuously invoking new examples in order to redeploy the same rhetorical tactics is pointless. And note the ethical concern expressed through these rhetorical devises: the "problem" is not that the innovator has lost anything by being imitated - he hasn't. It is that someone else may benefit - at no cost to anyone. Preventing this presumably scary possibility is the whole purpose of IP law and why the rhetoric is so diligently crafted as a false claim that imitation harms the imitated.

I don't think amorality is really possible except in distinct, isolated subjects where we can say, "He does not care about what is right and wrong in this situation and he has no opinion on it". Amorality means (to me) not having an opinion on the morality of the situation. But I suspect everyone has lots of moral opinions about most situations, so I generally see amorality as a possible, but not likely state, in most cases. Pure altruism is also nearly impossible to find. However altruism within self-interest is common. One can (and many do) say, "In order for my life to be good, I should care about other's lives". True altruism is (I would guess) almost never practiced, but it is often preached - by parasites trying to convince their intended victims to be willing victims.

So the acres I thought I owned aren't mine, since I haven't used my mind to alter them. To define property as a thing belonging to someone is a tautology. To "belong" MEANS to be property - that definition doesn't offer a basis for deciding when or why something becomes property in the first place, which was your question - which I answered, and you have not answered. The definition of IP - something you can get a patent on because you have rights to it - is equally circular.

If I buy a material item which is the product of your mind, it is still your property? If I reproduce your book, what property do you no longer have?

Jaskn, You asked me for a definition of property, and I gave you a definition of physical property. Leaving aside intellectual property for the moment, would you please define physical property for me? Why is one rock property and another rock not property?

See post #87 for my clear definition of property (a reply to you), which I didn't make up, and which excludes IP. Your difficulty with remaining civil is not my problem. No one if forcing you to follow this debate.

You start by telling me that I don't know what IP is, then assign me some homework so I can catch up with you. Why don't you just tell me? I say it means that you own an idea in my mind and therefore I can't use it. Straighten me out, please. I did glance at the first (Post 16) and read: "If someone else sells it..., then you are harmed if it was your intention to use it in commerce.: That is not true. Your intentions are not claims on others. To be harmed you must lose something that belonged to you. You do not own the market, customers, popularity, opportunity, profit, success. You are not harmed if they don't come your way. Being disappointed is not evidence of harm.

Your charge that I am 'assuming' my premise is false. You are offering no 'proof' that IP is property. You are merely redefining property so you can own ideas in other people's heads. Fooling with definitions is not proof. Your conclusion is that you get to violate property rights by limiting what others can do with their property.

Anyone who chooses to.

They would not make the law. They would offer the service of security within the law. Such agencies exist now. I happen to be in Ecuador right now, and there are very few police - the government just can't afford many - they are a rare sight. But there are plenty of private security guys standing, for instance, at the entrance to a bank or large store, with serious-looking shotguns. They tend to be very polite. They don't need to be called, They're there.

Nicky asks: "Who would determine what "due process" is, and who would prevent people from ignoring this due process?" My answer is that everyone has equal rights to engage in all functions of law making and law enforcement. So everyone would vote on the rules of due process and everyone would have the right to enforce those rules. "Who" questions all have the same answer: everyone has an equal right to perform those functions.

Good question. I use 'Ruler' to refer to an authority with power over others - a person or small group with different rights than those they rule over. By Majority rule I mean everyone having an equal say - no one having more power to decide than anyone else. It does of course mean that a majority can overrule a minority, but no individual has more power than any other, and to me, that is the important issue and what is meant by no rulers.

No, the burden of proof is on you to prove that IP is indeed property, if it is you claiming the right to a coercive monopoly based on your premise that you can own an idea that is in someone else's mind. You need to define what property is and show why an idea fits that definition. Traditionally, scarcity has been a standard, but that doesn't fit. Traditionally, material goods only have been qualified, but that doesn't fit, either. In fact, IP violates the material goods of others, so you should be very suspicious. It is not my debate responsibility to prove a negative.

Jaskn, post 229, You write: "You're also right that IP is a limit on what another person can do with some of his property." Limiting what others can do with their own property in order to reward yourself for originating an idea makes no moral sense. You write: "Well, in context, that's not their property -- they didn't do the original thinking." Yes, it is their property if they do the work of applying the idea to their own materials. Applying an idea you revealed to me to my materials does not cause my materials to stop being mine - in any context. Again, you are implying here that the value to the consumer of your product is the wonderful thinking-up you did. Perhaps that thinking is wonderful to you. But perhaps it is trivial to them. Perhaps they only value the item's usefulness to them. This does not mean that I reject your whole (obvious) thesis that man's mind is the source of valuable products, etc., etc., - it means that your mind should not be dictating the value of things to my mind. In a free market, I decide how much I value something I purchase. I am paying for the item, not your creative mental efforts - which I cannot measure or know, anyway. This does not mean I do not recognize cleverness and mental effort and their value. But if I don't value the usefulness of the product, it doesn't matter to me how clever you are or hard it was for you to think it up. Here's a simple example: You spend 40 years thinking up an original and very effective mouse trap. You want to be paid for your 40 years of thinking, so you charge a high price and purchase a patent to eliminate any competition from those who try to imitate your mousetrap. I copy your mousetraps for my own use, but I don't sell them. I use my own effort and materials to make a mousetrap in imitation of yours. According to current IP law, I think I'm still legal, but by your reasoning, I am at least immoral, yes? I have benefited from you idea, but not paid you for it. You would have difficulty however showing that I have harmed you, since you have not lost anything that you owned. You don't own me or my materials or my labor. Your price was too high, so you haven't lost me as a customer - I was never going to be one anyway. So, as far as I can understand your position, you just object to benefiting anyone else, even if it does no harm to you. Further, you are willing to harm others to stop them from such benefiting. However, in so doing, you violate the most fundamental principle of morality - that you must not harm the harmless. You consistently fail to show how anyone harms you by imitating you, but you appear to want to harm them to reward yourself for your thinking. But no one owes you rewards for your thinking. Your reward for thinking is that you are able to shape reality into a new and useful product. Do so, use your new product, and your thinking is rewarded. Your proper reward is not that others owe you anything. They didn't ask you to think anything up. You chose to do that. They may even think you were foolish to spend so much time at it. Your time spent is not their problem. You seems to want to make all choices for everyone and then force those choices on others. You choose to think. You choose to create a new product. You choose to reveal it to others. Then you choose to control their use of their own property because you choose the value - to them! - of what you revealed to them for free. You ignore that a product is valuable to a customer because of its utility and you insist, qua philosopher, that its value is the thought you invested in it. But other people are not required to value items as you want them to be valued. My position is that your proper choices end where you and your property end. You do not deserve anything from anyone unless they are under contract to you. You do not have a right to anything which must be supplied by others - not rewards, not customers, not praise, not gratitude, not philosophical appreciation, nothing. You only have a right to demand payment for the material goods whose title you transfer to them in a voluntary trade of material goods (mousetrap for money). You thinking is your business, and not their concern. To repeat and summarize: the pro-IP debaters consistently fail to show how they would be harmed under a lack of IP law. And they consistently promote harm toward others by means of IP law. Their position is contra property rights and they present it with pro-property rights rhetoric, based on the metaphorical error that ideas are owned exclusively by their originators after they have been voluntarily revealed to others.

For purposes of clarity, I define anarchy as 'no rulers', not 'no rules'. If monarchy does not mean 'one rule', then anarchy does not mean 'no rules'. Anarcho-Capitalism certainly does not mean chaos or no rules. It is essentially the Objectivist political position without coercive monopoly - without a ruling class. BTW, older dictionaries define anarchy as I do. The anarchy=chaos definition is more recent and promoted by statists.

Eiuol, if you actually mean this (in your post 214), then you are in agreement with the anti-IP position. The IP position is that you may NOT use your own property if your use is similar to that of someone claiming to 'own' that action or pattern or use.

Jaskin, in post 220, You begin by telling me that I drop context, but you fail to reply to either of the two points I made. Instead you treat us to an example about a hammer and then several quotes by Rand which clearly are about the use and ownership of material objects, such as a hammer, which is irrelevant to this discussion of the ownership of ideas, since no one here is challenging your right to own material or employ it using whatever ideas you wish (assuming no harm to others). Can you own an idea in my mind? Yes or no? Do I have a right to act on an idea using my own effort and materials (assuming no harm to others)? Yes or no?

Your reply leads me to suspect that I did not make my own position clear. 1) I am suggesting that there be no legislature - that all laws are voted on by all individuals - including children. This is sometimes referred to as "direct democracy". 2) I am suggesting that all individuals have the right to enforce all laws - including children. In other words the, functions of legislation and law enforcement belong to everyone equally. The primary constitutional law which says that all laws apply to all individuals, would preclude the possibility of a majority making laws to exploit a minority. Arguing that this won't work since the majority may decide to change the constitution in their favor, is an argument that applies to all political systems. I believe the system I am proposing would result in a very few, permanent laws instead of the steady supply of ever-changing new laws we now see. If every law applied to every person, very few laws would gain majority favor. The important aspect of this system is that there is no ruling elite - no official positions of power or privilege, with all the corruption that such positions promote.

Psychobabble and motive guessing: what people often do as they run out of logic.

Actually, since you are arguing that you get to engage in force to secure your "property right" to an idea, the burden of proof is on you to prove that an idea can be property. It is you that is begging the question.