Robert Romero

Air isn't valuable because it's superabundant.  Using it doesn't deprive anyone else of its use.  If you can't be deprived of the use of something simply because others use it, then you can't be deprived of ownership of it.   The situation on Mars would be different, because air would be scarce, not superabundant.

I’ve enjoyed reading Ayn Rand and listening to lectures by the Ayn Rand Institute.  I do disagree, however, with the Objectivist position on intellectual property, based on my reading of the book Against Intellectual Property, by Stephan Kinsella.   The objection to intellectual property is as follows:
Individualists are strongly in favor of property rights, but we must ask why do we want property rights?  We want them because property is scarce.  If someone takes your land, your car, or your phone, you lose the use of it.  But if something is superabundant, we do not talk about property rights to it.  For example, no one talks about property rights to atmospheric air.  It’s superabundant and free.  No one says “you’re breathing my air”.  That fact that I’m breathing does not impinge on your breathing.  Property rights are meaningless in this case.
Suppose you had a bagel, and I have the ability to make a perfect copy of it simply by having knowledge of it.  In doing so, I do not impinge on your use of your bagel.  You can eat it, sell it, do whatever you want with it.  This situation would involve no scarcity, no taking of property, similar to atmospheric air.
So it is with ideas.  By gaining knowledge of your idea, I’m in essence making a copy of it.  You still have full use of it.  Therefore, nothing has been taken in a property rights sense.  Ideas are not scarce.  They are infinitely copyable with no loss of use by the person they are copied from.
Example:   People are living in a forest.  Someone comes up with the idea of building a log cabin.  His neighbors observe him building it, and say “hey, that’s a great idea!”  They all proceed to build one for themselves , using THEIR own land, THEIR own materials, THEIR own labor, etc.  Some of them even improve on the design.   The logic of intellectual property is that what the neighbors did would be wrong, because they “took his idea”.  But what “property right” has been violated here?  Has the originator’s physical property been taken?  No.  Has he lost any use of his physical property?  No.   Has the idea of a log cabin been removed from his mind?  No.   Is he still able to use that idea?  Yes.  Has he been coerced in any way?    No.  Is he not able to enjoy the fruits of his labor, ie the log cabin?  No.  He has FULL use of it.  Indeed, the fact that some people took his idea and improved on it is to everyone’s benefit.  None of the things that apply to the taking of property apply here.
It might be argued that the “taking” of “his” idea about a log cabin means a loss of value to him.   Perhaps he planned to start a log cabin business, which will not be able to make as much money, because others can do the same.  Perhaps he simply laments a potential loss of value in his log cabin.
This is not, however, a valid objection, because he has no property right to the value of his property.  The value of his property is whatever potential buyers are willing to pay for it.  He can no more object to the loss of value than someone who decides to sell his car, and laments the fact that another seller of the same make and model car undercuts his asking price.  Tough luck.
Furthermore, the concept of the idea of a log cabin being intellectual property has terrible implications.  Exercising his “intellectual property right” would mean that he has coercive power over how his neighbors (indeed, even the entire world based on contemporary court cases) use THEIR property and even their minds, even though doing so involves no force against him, no prevention of the use of his property or his mind, and no fraud against him.  I don’t think this can be considered a good thing at all.  The sharing of knowledge is a good thing.  This very forum is evidence of that.

Here is my response to the question of intellectual property:  If you want me to respect your right to a pursuit of property, respect mine.
The final arbiter of the value of any product in a free market is the individual who agrees to buy it, because it is only to him that the product has any value.  The delivery of a new product, or an existing one, doesn't alter that fact that value is determined by the individual who is willing to purchase it;  no buyer = no commercial value.
When you introduce a new product to the marketplace, you have effectively increased the knowledge of every participant in that marketplace, i.e., you have given a free sample of what you have to offer.  If you give me a dollar, I am not obligated to return it to you.  If you give me an idea, I am not obligated to pay you for it.  I am only obligated to perform according to what we have agreed to in advance of any transfer of property, intellectual or otherwise.
That is the meaning and practice of a free market.  Enter at your own risk.
 

Of course I am, because you said you define virtue in the Objectivist sense.  I was showing that you aren't.  You're coming up with your own ethics that holds that theft is a virtue.   As I previously asked, why then wouldn't you advocate having the most ruthless egoistic thug as head of state instead of a businessman?  For that matter, there is no reason for you to not consider ANY thug initiating ANY kind of force (including murder) to be virtuous.  After all, your only standard is what is useful to the thug.  So you are advocating that men interact with each each other on such a basis.  This is a "surrender of all the virtues required by life—and death by a process of gradual destruction."  Also, you're using "nonvirtuous" and "mindless" interchangeably.  I don't think that's valid.

Louie said:
I find this to be characteristic of the kind of psycho-epistemology that would support an übermensch. The kind that treats independence as a type of willingness to persue their own whim "to hell with you if you dont like it" with no thought for rational warrant or principle.  The kind that says "He is smarter than me, so I should listen even if I dont understand. I can pretend to understand. I'll never admit that I am ignorant because what matters is that the genuinely virtuous think I'm virtuous too". 
This is a maximization of pretense, not virtue. A society of actors-performers in a social drama. 
Your Nietzchean devil has no idea what independence means, or how productive acheivement requires volition.
legislated virtue is an oxymoron for a truly independent mind. Duty and force are antithetical to productivity.

Glad you agree.
The point is not that lack of scarcity causes ideas to have no value, or why they have value.  Of course they do.  The point is that a lack of scarcity means the use of an idea cannot deprive anyone else of the use of it.  It therefore becomes meaningless to say that anything has been taken from anyone by its use.
Bandying about labels such as Hegelian or Kantian does not address the point.  A label is not an argument.  Enemies of Rand use this illegitimate tactic against her, labeling her a Nietzschean without addressing what she actually said.  There is a certain irony in quoting Gresham’s Law (which comes into play when several types of money have a conversion ratio specified by legal tender laws different from their market price), because very much the same thing happens when patent laws are in force.  In the free market, Jonathan Hornblower’s improved steam engine would have been more valuable than James Watt’s engine.  But the patent laws didn’t allow that.  Instead, improvements were forced out of the market, and weren’t allowed to occur until the patent expired.
This is, if you’ll pardon the expression, a patently false implication.  I am an advocate of LFC, not a collectivist, and every opponent of IP I have read is explicitly and militantly an advocate of LFC.  At least one explicitly calls himself an Objectivist.   It is an oxymoron to call someone a collectivist advocate of the free market,  ie LFC.
I have cited a research paper that demonstrates that it is patent laws that preserve mediocrity, inhibit innovation, reduce efficiency, reward stagnant firms, and punish innovative ones.  That is hardly the way to reward the achievements of genius.   My response to the last question is, “Why should Rearden be the only one permitted to serve his own life by applying what he has learned?”

Egoism is not challenged by recognizing everyone has a right to life.  Obviously my life is mine to do with as I will, and yours is up to you to determine for yourself.  The moment we begin placing demands on each other, in terms of performance, is the moment we begin to drift away from the inherent power to own your own life.
Patronage (which is what IP pretends to secure), i.e., respect for talent, cannot be coerced without contradicting the Trader Principle.  An honest trader doesn't need the artificial protection of IP.  He recognizes thieves exist, yet prefers the interaction with those for whom such a protection is irrelevant.  Consider the complex characters in Atlas Shrugged... did ANY of the protagonists require IP to interact with each other?
Given my Dutch heritage, I'd truly like to think the ancient merchants got it right, that, "leven en laten leven" implies an obligation to allow artisans an exclusive right to benefit from products of innovation they bring to the marketplace, "for a time, but not forever to avoid the dangers of monopoly" (from memory of my reading of Lex Mercatoria), but monopoly remains a danger, and like "a little poison", compromises the health of any system.

There's also a degree of "design by nature" that IP tends to dismiss.  Just to take this widely aside for a moment, you may be aware that NASA recently posited the existence of surface water on Mars, which proves what has long been suspected, that the planet once had rivers, lakes, oceans, etc, all of which makes the existence of life a much stronger possibility.  Suppose then some future exploration of Mars not only posits life, but tool-making life that crafted some kind of boat to navigate waterways.  We wouldn't be surprised to discover similar designs to Terran, considering water is essentially water, and presents the same challenges to innovation regardless of where, when or to what species they present themselves.

All of this is just a long way around to demonstrate that at any given moment there are any number of innovators at work addressing a common design issue, e.g., how to improve travel, communication, food production, shelter, etc.  One person breaks ahead of the pack (or his lawyer does) and receives exclusive compensation for his research and effort while all others (some of whom are on the brink of discovery) are stopped in their tracks take a total loss.

So with regard to encouraging innovation, I think the current practice of IP makes a stronger case against it.  It increases the actual risk of failure tenfold, and all to present an artificial reward that otherwise wouldn't be any part of a laissez-faire marketplace.

But then this itself answers your question. You had asked, given the role that (I argue) scarcity plays in forming context for the concept of property, how could a road or data be considered property? I answered to demonstrate how it could: that, for instance, I am disallowed from going on your computer and deleting your files, because you are the one who has the right of use/disposal to those files. I am disallowed from blocking your road, or using it without your permission.
But in that "data is not itself material...it is actually infinitely copyable," then that data, in itself and apart from any particular material configuration or implementation (meaning: as a file on a hard drive, or etc.), cannot be "owned." In a sense, our thoughts are data, just as you point out above. Whether it makes sense, strictly, to say that we "own" our brains or not, they are ours. Yet we do not own the thoughts that we have, which are not material, which are infinitely copyable. We do not own them because they are not material, and they are infinitely copyable, which is to say that they are not scarce. However, one's physical position on a given road, or one's use of a specific file on a specific computer, is scarce, which is why those things are properly considered property.
Is that what IP is "supposed to be about"? It seems to me that others in this thread are making the case that it's about making money in the marketplace, and "recouping investment," though maybe I'm mistaking their arguments. And I think (though possibly misremember) that Ayn Rand made the case that IP intends to protect the product(s) of "the mind," or something similar. So at least she's appealing to justice, and right, which is the proper idea, even if I disagree with her specific arguments and conclusions.
But the reason why I keep bringing up material wealth is because I believe that material wealth is (as Rand identified elsewhere, and I have quoted in this thread, and will do so again below) the proper subject of property, and I think that this amounts to a contradiction between her arguments, both in theory and practice. I further believe that her arguments for IP are faulty, do not accord with reason/reality, and lead to injustice when applied.
Out of curiosity, if you believe that you should "control all copies" of a song you wrote, do you think I should be disallowed from singing it... in a nightclub? Walking down the street? In my shower? (So as to prevent "decay or corruption"?) Or do you mean something else by "control all copies"? If so, what?
People certainly do pay for the medium, which is the thing that allows them to listen to the song, and yes, the medium is material wealth, which is why it is property.
But, Eiuol, since it appears that you have more time for this topic than you had previously imagined, would you mind addressing the example I had raised to you earlier (the knork, or now the SteakSaber 2000, or whatever)?
Both climbing a tree and building a machine require mental and physical effort. In climbing a tree, a man must grasp not only the mechanics of the ascent, but also the purpose, and weigh that against potential risk, opportunity costs, etc. Men are not zombies, and when they climb a tree to get a banana, it is a mindful act. A slip of focus could mean a literal slip, and possibly death. And building a machine is a physical labor, as well as a mental one, and many potential machines are undone due to physical defect, or poor construction. They require proper materials and steady hands and capable tools, and sweat, and strength, and perseverance, and much expended energy over time. Man is not a ghost, and he cannot achieve material wealth (which is the stuff he needs to survive and thrive) without physical labor.
Every creation of property requires both the mind and the body, and there does not exist material wealth which is not the result of both mental and physical labor.
In the case of a man who invents a machine, and a second man who observes that machine and then "copies" it (which in reality means to understand the purpose of the machine, and make-up/design, then learn to construct it, then expend the physical effort and whatever resource required to do so--and this process may certainly involve not insignificant "trials and tribulations"), we should observe that there is not one, but two machines. The first machine, constructed by the original innovator, and also the second machine, constructed by "the man who copies." So really, we have two questions: who has the right to Machine A? And who has the right to Machine B?
Here, again, is Rand on property:
"Those who apply." Not those who innovate, but those who apply. This is why the second man to pluck a banana from the tree does not owe his banana to the first man, the man he copied, but owns it himself: he is the the one who applied the requisite knowledge and effort required to secure that banana, to make it "of use or value." It is his labor which has won the second banana, and so he is entitled to the second banana, in the name of justice.
Similarly, with respect to the machine, the innovator who constructs the first machine has the right to that machine. And the man who constructs the second machine has the right to that machine. This is, in fact, what having "property rights" is all about:
Man B, "the man who copies," in building Machine B, is no less supporting his life by his own effort and by the guidance of his own mind than the innovator is. And if Man B cannot dispose of the product of his effort--which is Machine B--then his rights have been violated, and his very life has been assaulted.
And now I would like to note a couple of additional things about our example.
We did not specify any specific time frame between the machine's innovation and the second man copying it, or whether it is within or outside of any given assigned length of patent. Which is just as well: all of that kind of detail seems to me to be arbitrary anyway. But I think that "the act of copying" is the same, with respect to morality, in year 19 following the innovation and year 21. Which is to say that it is always moral to apply what you know to create material wealth, for the betterment of your own life, notwithstanding who else might have done something similar first, or when, or where.
And since it seems to be an important point that the innovator has put in more effort than anyone subsequent (i.e. "trials and tribulations"), I think it important to observe that this is not necessarily so. A genius might quickly and (relatively) effortlessly come up with some process, or here, some machine, whereas another man might struggle for a long amount of time trying to understand and replicate the same; the man who copies may well endure greater "trials and tribulations," in trying to wring his fortune from the earth. But this is just as well. I don't believe that property is, or ought to be, awarded on the basis of suffering, or the amount of effort, per se. But that a person performs the effort necessary for the creation of material wealth is what entitles him to the use/ownership of that resultant material wealth. For you, the effort (mental or physical) involved in creating some instance of material wealth may be small, while for me to do the same thing it might be large, or vice versa, but what matters is that we are both entitled to the fruit of our effort regardless.

It hasn't been established in this debate that ideas are property, so comparing them to a house is begging the question.  Also, with a house, I spend virtually no energy establishing that it's my property (no burglar would try to claim that he's justified in breaking in because the house doesn't belong to the owner),  With patents, there are lengthy lobbying efforts to establish the monopoly, lengthy and costly efforts to establish who thought up what first (is it really just to deny someone the right to make a product simply because he didn't file for the monopoly first?), how close an idea has to be to be considered "stolen", etc.
 

Great Googly Moogly! If you know I'm not talking about trade, please don't respond as though I were! Conversation about these kinds of topics is hard enough as it is when we're all talking about the same things.
I disagree that you have to keep going back to "it," seeing as how I have tried to clarify several times that you mistake my meaning. It's like, have you ever had a conversation referencing "selfishness" or "altruism," where someone else insists upon his own meaning for the terms, and you keep saying, "but when I talk about selfishness, this is what I mean," yet they never seem to allow for that, and the conversation never goes anywhere except to argue in circles over the meaning of "selfishness"? That's what this has been like for me, where I keep trying to point at my meaning, but you insist that because "scarcity is an economic concept," I must mean all of these other things that I'm not saying and do not believe. Frustrating!
I continue to favor my meaning of "scarcity," and hold to the arguments I've made, but never mind all of that now. We're much further along towards mutual understanding below...
 
Apologies aren't necessary, and doubly so because a spear is a (nearly) perfect example. Not because I think that the spear is or ought to be patentable in 2015, but because I believe its simplicity allows us to examine the bare bones of our arguments.
Furthermore, while the spear specifically may not be patentable in 2015, that doesn't mean that other seemingly simple things might not be the subject of IP today. And further furthermore, if my memory of Rand's essay "Patents and Copyrights" serves, there is nothing in it which would disqualify the spear from being subject to IP on principle, except for its having been invented long ago, and thus whatever term of IP protection having run out (which is, of course, another fraught topic).
The example I would like to pursue, if it pleases you, is the one I brought up to Eiuol (though it does not appear that he plans on following up on it): the knork. Or fnife? No, I prefer knork.
Here is the post where I introduced it. Do you agree that such a thing serves our purpose? Or if not, why not?
But the medicine is itself the return on your investment. The thing that you have created is your property.
Takes how? If someone steals some vial of medicine that you've created, or steals your lab results, or etc., then that's theft. If someone buys your medicine from you under the condition that they are not to make copies, then breaks that contractual agreement, that's a violation. If someone buys your medicine from you, free from such condition, then makes their own copies and sells those copies, then I would say that was okay. As property is/entails the right of disposal, insofar as a person owns a vial of medicine (free from prohibiting condition), they have the right to copy it, too.
If someone else independently creates this medicine, or similar, that's their property just as much as the medicine you've created is yours.
You also may create the cure for a disease, spending ten years and however much money and whatever other resource to do so, and find that someone else makes an even better cure in the same time frame that makes your own "worthless" qua market value. It may ruin you financially, for all of your efforts. This is immaterial. Because you invest X, hoping to realize some return in the market, that doesn't guarantee you anything; all that you are guaranteed is that the material wealth you create is your property--that which you have rights to, and cannot be deprived of (in justice). Not some specific return in the marketplace.
If this fact drains you of the incentive to try, or inspires you to go into some other line where you expect you'll stand a better chance of making money, then so be it... but I would imagine that so long as there is disease, there will be financial incentive enough for many bright people to search for medicine--because those suffering from disease will be willing to pay to alleviate their suffering. (And if they are not willing to pay, then where does the financial incentive we imagine come from in the first place?)
I would like you and Mrs. Architect to be able to take that vacation. Anyone who cures a disease ought to be rewarded (generally speaking). And I suspect that, in the absence of IP laws, the marketplace would adapt accordingly to allow you to do that. But this is a little like trying to express how the Lunar program could possibly exist outside of a coercive government taxing and making it so. I am confident in the principles, but I cannot guarantee that I know the specifics of how it would happen.
Yes, I don't like that either. LOL. If what we're discussing is truly property, then I see no call for it to be looted and given away to the public--and for what? Their "need"? If I invent Mickey Mouse, and if I truly own him, then let me pass him down to my children's children just as much as a chair that I've carved.
IP is indeed convoluted. There are other adjectives I could use, as well. I attribute its "complicated" nature to the fact that it is not based in rights, in reason or reality, but that it is a legal fiction. Contradiction, arbitrariness, and injustice are thus to be expected in application.
Clearly we disagree. But that's okay; it's the stuff that good discussion is made from.

Well stated, and I think better than I have been trying to do
This presumed right in the form of IP is, I think, fundamentally at odds with a free and unregulated market place.  The production of a marketable product cannot be stolen, as from a store, without paying for it, and that makes sense morally.  But where is the moral imperative that knowledge gained by window shopping, e.g., via advertising or general awareness (gained without contract), must not be used to create a competitive or improved product, or one that is simply recreated for personal use?
Where is the argument that laissez-faire capitalism cannot exist without an artificial monopoly in place?

I don't know where I've been talking about "trade." It flummoxes me to see these replies to what I've said that... do not appear to speak to what I've written. Or maybe they do in some sidling fashion? But if so, then apparently I need it explained to me, step by step.
But just so as we're clear: I'm not talking about trade.
And on "value," what is it that I've said about value that you are taking issue with specifically (if you are taking any issue with what I've written at all; I honestly cannot tell)? If you mean value in trade, like this is worth X amount, or two pigs for a cow, or so forth, again, that's not what I'm talking about.

If this is the crux of the issue, then let us endeavor to get it right. Man needs to live and he uses his mind to do so. And also his body. Where property is concerned, man needs to perform both mental and physical labor, in order to create material wealth, which is the stuff he needs to live. This is why the quote from Rand I've offered says this:
The application of knowledge and effort.
And here's another quote which may serve this same point:
To think. To work. And to keep the results, which are material wealth, which are property.
If you invent a spear and no one takes it from you, then the property you have created--which is the spear--is not communal property. You do get a return for your time: you have a spear.
If by "taking a man's ideas" you mean seeing someone else use a spear, and thereby come to understand how to fashion a spear of your own, then you do not deprive the initial spear carrier of the time he has spent earning that spear, which is still his property.
If you spend your time creating a spear, I jolly well agree that you should have the full unbridled benefit of your time and sweat in doing what you've done (whether "only you" could have done it or not). That full unbridled benefit is the use and disposal of the property that you have created, which is the spear. Those are your rights in property, because that is what you have created.
Would you like the power to tell other people that they may not learn from your example and craft spears of their own, to benefit their own lives? I disagree that you have any right to such a power.

Because property is only meaningful when issues of supply come up (as is the case with all material wealth, but not so with ideas). But take the contrary, and try (as I have invited you to do through my examples) to imagine a situation where there is no issue of supply at all, and then ask yourself what the motivation would be for people to have rules (with respect to ownership) governing the use and disposal of these non-scarce material values. No such situation could exist with respect to material wealth for reasons I hope I've already given to your satisfaction--material wealth is inherently scarce--but we can come close enough to it with something like "air" for Robert Romero to raise it as a seemingly compelling example, and as I've said, such examples can be illuminating.
We don't normally speak of air as a matter of property (notwithstanding the examples I've provided to demonstrate that air, too, is scarce). Early peoples would probably not have even considered such a thing (insofar as they were even aware of the existence of air). Yet if we were colonists on Mars, we would have a keen interest in the division of air, and according property rights to it. We might fashion an entire subcategory of property law that to us, here and now, might well appear ridiculous and unnecessary. (Who knows what? But perhaps we would insist that a person only pass gas in his own air... or pay a fine in recompense!) Well, what makes the difference between one situation and the other?
A red crayon certainly could be regarded as "a collective item that we ought to share," just as in my other example I referenced a common wood. Insofar as there are no conflicts in interest between people sharing the crayon or the woods, this might serve existing interests well enough. And indeed, if I were a teacher in a classroom, I might set up some system of sharing limited classroom resources... or as a parent, between siblings. But there may yet come a point where there is a conflict, because two people might want to use the very same red crayon at the very same time, in a mutually exclusive fashion. (Which is what it means for the red crayon to be "scarce.")
I would want a system to resolve this conflict. As a teacher, I might say that "the first person to pick up the crayon" is allowed to use it for whatever duration of time, or I might allow a system of "dibs" or I might even institute a "classroom economy" whereby a student could earn classroom money and spend it on usage of the red crayon. These rules are analogous to what real people had to do when real people competed over real resources which were, in fact, scarce. If you and I were hunting the same deer in the same wood, how would we resolve our competing claim? Well, we might agree that the first to land an arrow in the deer had rights to it, or something similar. I'm not a hunter and I have no interest in it, but I'd imagine that real-life hunters have some means of working things like that out between themselves. If there were identical deer for each of us, however, and accordingly no competition between us (that is to say no scarcity, so long as it is understood that this could not exist in reality; in reality, every particular deer is scarce), we would not bother to have such rules. Why would we? Such rules would serve no need.
Scarcity creates a need for a system of property--for some person to have rights to the use/disposal of material values in a way that is mutually exclusive from anybody else's use/disposal of those same material values. Any given cupful of water can only be drunk by one person (at a time, at least)--which is again to say that it is "scarce"--therefore we need some system of deciding who gets to drink that cupful of water.
Ayn Rand advocates a particular system, based on justice. Recognizing that the creation of material wealth requires labor, she accords property rights to that wealth to the person who has performed that labor. Or in her words:

Property is a response to scarcity; scarcity forms part of the context in which we develop property rights. That doesn't mean that property rights (or more specifically the Objectivist theory of property rights) will necessarily develop in response to the fact of scarcity in some given society, in some given time frame. Indeed, while there were many different systems of property over the millennia, so far as I know, it took Ayn Rand to finally lay out a just theory of property rights. (Though I'm sure that there are at least echoes of similar thoughts throughout history.)
Well it's true in a sense that what the Incas did (though I'm taking your word on that; I haven't studied the Inca in... quite a while, and never deeply when I did) was not "property per se," but it was still an attempt to address the allocation of scarce material wealth... which I think you recognize when you say that they "understood scarcity." Which is my point.
Other systems of allocating such wealth may be better or worse, when judged by some standard whether ethical or economic or sociopolitical, moral or immoral according to a given ethics, but they're operating within the same general context. And if you substantially alter that context, you change the results (which is exactly what you should expect; this is why context is so important, and why we cannot remove conclusions from their context and act as though there is no connection). Here, the context for property is the nature of material wealth, and specifically that it is scarce. Were material wealth not scarce, we wouldn't need the Incan method of allocating material wealth... or the Objectivist one, or any other.
As to the bulk of the remainder of your post, I'm afraid don't understand the meaning. But I think/hope that this reply already addresses the central point, and trust you to clarify where necessary.
No, I'm not making anything so. I'm discussing what I find to be true in reality, and providing my reasoning and examples. I am attempting to point to reality just as much as you are.
Right. And what I'm saying is that the reason why it is "important" that you can call something yours and dispose of it for yourself is the fact that it is scarce. Were it not scarce, it would not be important that you could call it your own. You couldn't be deprived of something that was not scarce.
When you say "how scarce it is," it reflects the confusion that seems endemic to this conversation, but I will try again to clarify this point: scarcity (as I am using it, at least) is binary, it is an on/off switch, an either/or, and not a matter of degree. Material values are scarce (as in: all of them, down to every instance). Ideas are not. Material values are thus ownable whereas ideas are not.
 
You cannot take a man's thoughts. Or to the extent that you can in some metaphorical fashion, this is, again, "learning."
  Actual commons are material wealth, which is why it results in tragedy when everyone is supposed to take ownership. Ideas and thoughts are not material wealth, they are not property, and when everyone shares in an increase in thought and idea it is a boon to the world, down to a man.

I think there's something key here with regard to "scarcity" that you are, perhaps, missing.
"We want property rights because it is a moral requirement to live and thrive as a human."
True -- but why is this so? Why are "property rights" a requirement to live and thrive as a human? What is the fact of reality that makes this so? I believe it is scarcity. If property were unlimited (which is to say non-scarce), and by this I mean the material wealth that human beings need to live and thrive, then we should hardly divide things into yours and mine, because we would have no need to.
Property is something you create, sure. But we need to have a concept of "property" in the first place because living requires material values, and material values are not unlimited; they are scarce. Thus I do not think "scarcity" is necessarily irrelevant to a further exploration of the concept property and its proper application.