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IP once more, with feeling

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Harrison Danneskjold

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 Sure: Patents and copyrights are nonobjective and immoral practices, stemming from the fact that they're unrealistic.  They are the ownership of ideas, as such, but earlier I realized that this is a sloppy and somewhat vague description of the actual issue.

 

There are two parts to this and the first is the problem:

 

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1:  All volitional action is the result of ideas; this causation being specific to each thinking/acting person

2:  All property is the result of volitional actions

     2a:  Both ideas and action are necessary for the creation of wealth (either one, without the other, accomplishes nothing)

3:  All patented innovations must be actively produced in order to exist; a patent in isolation is worthless

C:  A patent, itself, is the claim to ownership of an idea

 

Part C is not correct and a simple example will help illustrate it:

 

I'm thinking of an idea: Warp drive.   Can I patent this? 

 

..

 

No?

 

..

 

May I ask why?

Edited by Craig24
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Okay, I think I get it. So in the first part, what you seem to be saying is basically (putting minor disagreements over wording aside) that you disagree with the first-discoverer doctrine. If A and B both invent something indepentently, but A beats B to the patent office, then B is denied his right to own his IP/invention. But your stated conclusion of "Patents and copyrights are nonobjective and immoral practices" hardly follows from this. There are plenty of IP theorists who grant independent discovery, and certainly we can conceive of a system of IP law wherein it would be protected.

 Yes, that's exactly it.

As to whether or not "IP is nonobjective and immoral" follows from that or not depends on how you define IP but I thought that the first-discoverer aspect was an integral part of it.

 

If there were some other method of patenting something, while still allowing other people to come up with the same idea then I wouldn't have any problems with it; that's specifically the line of reasoning that led me to the alternative I suggest.

 

 

Either way, this doesn't seem to answer the big picture of why IP is or isn't justified. Also you said "They [patents and copyright] are the ownership of ideas, as such" and, though did say this is imprecise wording, lest you be accuse of attacking a straw man, it's always helpful to have a good idea of the theory, as advocated by specific people. So which specific advocates of IP say something like it involves "the ownership of ideas, as such"? Or, are you trying to make an agrument like "the advocates of IP don't say this, but the theory of IP is tantamount to ownership of ideas, as such." If the latter, then it requries an argument.

To be clear:  I am disputing whether anyone can claim an idea as theirs, simply because they thought of it first.  Others are capable of figuring it out for themselves- and I think that not only should this (multiple innovators of a single idea) be allowed, everyone should be given the opportunity to do so (hence my solution).

 

If this does not contradict IP as a whole then I suppose I'm not challenging IP as a whole, and should check my terminology.

 

As for the ownership of ideas, there are two parts to any volitional action: thought and action.

 

1-  Every material value is the product of thought AND action, in concert

2-  The process of bringing a patented idea into concrete form constitutes all of the actions necessary to create that object

C-  Before a patented object has been created, no [or trace amounts, only] requisite action has been performed

     Ca-  Patents do not constitute the action half of the thought/action process

 

Ergo patents are not the active part of creation.

 

There are actually two possible solutions from there: patents constitute all [or basically all] of the thoughts required for creation OR patents have nothing to do with it.  I include the second only for the sake of formality; I think we can all agree that patents do play SOME role in the creation of wealth [and thusly that they are owned ideas]?

 

Owning an idea, as such, isn't necessarily wrong though (as such!); you own your own brain and all of the thoughts in it, don't you?

 

Which is why that term is sloppy; it doesn't get down to the actual issue, which is treating ideas as if they were metaphysical essences, which seems to be synonymous with this first-discoverer principle.  I'll have to look into that some more.

 

 

PS:

As far as warp drives are concerned, there is actually a valid concept behind them (they could be built someday).  I would say that you cannot patent them in the first place, even if we accept the first-discoverer principle, because (I assume) you don't know how to build one.

 

However, if you have found some way to manipulate the Higgs' Boson and bend spacetime to your will, I would advise you to get OFF the internet and go patent it, right now!!!

Edited by Harrison Danneskjold
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