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Intellectual property

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Robert Romero

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1 hour ago, DonAthos said:

....you have every right to stipulate that they may not use them to make further copies (of the building or of the documents), or sell them to any third party, or etc. This is entailed in your general right of contract.

The right to stipulate the use and/or re-use of drawings is entailed, not per contract, but per Copyright laws. This has nothing to do with executed contracts.  As a writer you should be intimately aware of the difference.

And I very specifically state in a post above that I have no problem with the current United States Law(s) as pertaining to IP - meaning Trademarks, Patents and Copyrights.

Irrespective of any Ayn Rand essay, the Law is the Law.  If Objectivist wish to influence the direction that IP law takes in the future then they need to, at a minimum, understand the law as it currently is -- and only then propose better solutions.  My posts have addressed the Laws as they are, and not how Rand might have interpreted them in an essay.

The laws which we in the United States all live by did not just spring from nothing.  They are solutions to real life problems guided principally by antecedent English-American case law and the belief in equity.  Too many posts on this topic discuss such things as, "Starting from Aristotle...", or "Primitive man knows...."  "inventing mouse traps" or "watching someone eat a banana."

If you can understand that historically "patents" were granted exclusively by the Crown or Parliament, then it should be clear why the Founding Fathers revised the laws to grant IP exclusively to citizens.  If Objectivist can actually propose detailed ways of moving IP Law in a better direction, without destroying the economy, then people might listen.

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3 minutes ago, New Buddha said:

The right to stipulate the use and/or re-use of drawings is entailed, not per contract, but per Copyright laws. This has nothing to do with executed contracts.  As a writer you should be intimately aware of the difference.

Intellectual property laws do not empower us to enter into contractual agreements with one another, and set terms on our interactions; we already may do this. Their raison d'etre is, rather, to unilaterally restrict the actions of those who have not entered into any such agreement.

If we enter into a contract where I grant you the license to use, but not reuse, some drawing, we do not need recourse to "copyright laws" to judge whether or not you have violated the terms of our agreement; this is part and parcel to the nature of contracting. However, if some third party (i.e. not a party to our contract) constructs a building deemed similar to yours (even if never having made use of these drawings), now intellectual property laws potentially come into play.

3 minutes ago, New Buddha said:

And I very specifically state in a post above that I have no problem with the current United States Law(s) as pertaining to IP - meaning Trademarks, Patents and Copyrights.

I don't know what portion of my post this is meant to respond to, if anything, but if you have no problem with what I believe to be injustice, then you are in a large and well-respected company.

3 minutes ago, New Buddha said:

Irrespective of any Ayn Rand essay, the Law is the Law.

Yes, the Law is the Law.

3 minutes ago, New Buddha said:

If Objectivist wish to influence the direction that IP law takes in the future then they need to, at a minimum, understand the law as it currently is...

Despite discussing what I believe the law ought to be -- and further, what is consistent with Objectivism -- this does not mean that I do not understand "the law as it currently is." My primary aim in arguing this topic (in a persuasive sense; I have reasons apart, and even more important, than persuasion) is to help other Objectivists to be more consistent in their views, better reflecting reason/reality, and specifically in the application of justice, so that a truly just government may one day be created. This is a rather "far future" scenario, I'm afraid, yet I don't much care to spend my energy trying to prevent Disney from further extending copyright in the interim. (It's not a battle I would expect to win, anyways.)

3 minutes ago, New Buddha said:

-- and only then propose better solutions.  My posts have addressed the Laws as they are, and not how Rand might have interpreted them in an essay.

Rand's position on intellectual property is relevant to the topic of intellectual property, I feel, given the nature of the board. Also, the OP begins thus:

Quote

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...

Accordingly, I hope you won't mind if I continue to discuss "the Objectivist position on intellectual property," including Rand's essay on the same.

3 minutes ago, New Buddha said:

The laws which we in the United States all live by did not just spring from nothing.

True.

3 minutes ago, New Buddha said:

They are solutions to real life problems guided principally by antecedent English-American case law and the belief in equity.

I agree that at least most laws are attempted solutions to what are perceived to be real life problems. I fear that sometimes these "solutions" create new problems in their turn, and that these can also sometimes be worse than the original problems the solutions were meant to address, if these original "problems" were, in fact, problems at all.

3 minutes ago, New Buddha said:

Too many posts on this topic discuss such things as, "Starting from Aristotle...", or "Primitive man knows...."  "inventing mouse traps" or "watching someone eat a banana."

Well, I don't know exactly what to tell you, except that different people approach conversation topics (and especially contentious ones) from different angles. Some of these things you mention specifically, it seems to me, are meant to try to strike at the heart of the topic; to try to get to the root fundamentals. Maybe they're not ideally formed or expressed? But that is the intention.

But then, I've also tried to introduce several real world, actual examples of IP, so that remains available, too, if you judge that to be a superior approach. For instance, we could discuss whether writing "fan fiction" is "an initiation of the use of force," or otherwise immoral, though I'm afraid that remains an attempt of looking at this question "from the Objectivist point-of-view."

If you're content with the Laws as they are, and do not care what Ayn Rand said on the subject, or how IP relates to Objectivism, or whether Rand's essay on IP is consistent with the rest of her philosophy, then I suppose there's not much more for us to discuss.

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6 hours ago, DonAthos said:

If we enter into a contract where I grant you the license to use, but not reuse, some drawing, we do not need recourse to "copyright laws" to judge whether or not you have violated the terms of our agreement; this is part and parcel to the nature of contracting. However, if some third party (i.e. not a party to our contract) constructs a building deemed similar to yours (even if never having made use of these drawings), now intellectual property laws potentially come into play.

A contract may not specify things like "you're my slave now" or "you must not think for a week", so why can you add "no copying" if it's so essential to living? By "no copying", I just mean something like "you may not render my designs in different software". Why is this restriction bad before entering a contract, but all okay after a contract is signed? After all, you seem to be saying being denied a right to copy is a violation of individual rights. That would mean it'd remain a violation even with a contract.

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11 hours ago, New Buddha said:

Please do.  I was truly not tying to be snarky.  I believe that the ideas I put forth in that post were logical corollaries of a society without IP laws.  Copyrights protect an author or architect from unauthorized copying of work.  And yet you appear to believe that Copyright laws cannot exist or some how are coercive?...

First off, I need to have you clarify what you meant when you entered this discussion with, "Respecting IP is a choice that each individual must make for himself."

IP laws are coercive because they they transform what you ought to be able to decide for yourself into what you must do; they remove choice.

Perhaps I misunderstood you on this point, and if so it would help us to move forward if you could clarify it.  We may not actually be disagreeing, at least I thought we started on the same page...

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22 minutes ago, Eiuol said:

A contract may not specify things like "you're my slave now" or "you must not think for a week", so why can you add "no copying" if it's so essential to living? By "no copying", I just mean something like "you may not render my designs in different software". Why is this restriction bad before entering a contract, but all okay after a contract is signed? After all, you seem to be saying being denied a right to copy is a violation of individual rights. That would mean it'd remain a violation even with a contract.

I agree that there are limits to contract enforceability, though I'm not an expert in contract law, and I would make a poor partner for trying to determine the nature of those limits. (For now, at least. If it were essential to this conversation, maybe over time I could investigate the subject and develop some meaningful opinion... but I am not so certain that it is essential.) Suffice it to say that I don't think that terms of an agreement such as "I'll sell this book to you, if you agree not to make any copies of it," and etc., are any threat to those limits, or even approach them.

Otherwise, it seems like you're asking me to... defend the nature of contracts, as such? (E.g., "Why is it wrong to take someone's money without their consent, as stealing, but okay when backed by court order to enforce a contract?") I think that's beyond the reasonable bounds of the present conversation and would only serve to distract/detract (we could also present a skeptical challenge to one another's arguments, after all, or one based upon metaphysical disagreement, or etc., but those should each have their own thread, if anyone actually wanted to pursue them). I assume that everyone participating in this conversation agrees that we have the general right to contract/enter into voluntary agreement (just as we all have some basic level of agreement on metaphysics, epistemology, and so forth), and that (again within certain limits) these are enforceable. If that proposition truly needs to be defended here, here is some of Rand's rationale on the subject (from "The Nature of Government"):

Quote

 

In a free society, men are not forced to deal with one another. They do so only by voluntary agreement and, when a time element is involved, by contract.

[...]

A unilateral breach of contract involves an indirect use of physical force: it consists, in essence, of one man receiving the material values, goods or services of another, then refusing to pay for them and thus keeping them by force (by mere physical possession), not by right—i.e., keeping them without the consent of the owner.

Anyways, yes, I believe that I have made the case that "copying" is an essential survival tool, and while acknowledging my bias on the subject, I think it's a strong case. I think it's true. If you'd like to challenge that directly, please feel free to do so. (If you continue to believe that this presents some problem for contracting/licensing, then perhaps another thread is in order to suss out the nature of contracts. But I see no issue here.)

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Don,

If I understand  correctly, Contracts should replace the role Copyrights currently play.  Can you explain how this would work with regard to books?  Would the contracts be printed in the books and signed at the time of purchase?  With maybe printing the persons name, address , etc. in them?  Could a child sign such a contract?

How would this work?  How would we transition society?  How would things be improved?

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24 minutes ago, DonAthos said:

So far as I'm concerned, it could even continue to be that cute little circled C, where it is understood that to purchase such a book entails agreement with the general terms of "copyright.

If this appears to be "a distinction without a difference," then allow me to point at one or two places where this approach of "voluntary agreement" would differ with "intellectual property," with the case of "independent invention" perhaps being the clearest.

IP is broken down into two groups: 1) Trademarks, Copyrights, Industrial Design Rights and 2) Patents.

Per your post above, is it safe to say that the laws governing the first group should remain unchanged?

COPYRIGHT:  A book typically has a statement such as "Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced...."   

TRADEMARK: The name and font of "McDonalds", the golden arches logo, etc. can be Trademarked, so that someone cannot open a restaurant identical to a "McDonalds" without obtaining a Franchise Licesnse.  Same for putting a Nike logo on shoes.

INDUSTRIAL DESIGN:  I'm not real familiar with this term, but I believe it protects the aesthetic design of a Honda Accord so that someone cannot duplicate it exactly.

In the second paragraph above, you switch to talking about Patents, where as in the first paragraph you were talking about Copyrights.

Are we in agreement with regards to the first 3?

 

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Some posts appear to have gone missing. Perhaps they will come back? Regardless, I know that Eiuol essentially disregarded my reply to him and restated his question. Perhaps unsurprisingly, my answer remains the same.

1 hour ago, New Buddha said:

IP is broken down into two groups: 1) Trademarks, Copyrights, Industrial Design Rights and 2) Patents.

Per your post above, is it safe to say that the laws governing the first group should remain unchanged?

No. The laws we are discussing ("intellectual property") should not exist and instead we should deal in voluntary agreement, which includes contracting. Much (but not necessarily all) of what we regard as "copyright," for instance, can be implemented as a commonly understood contractual agreement -- as was asked by dream_weaver and answered by me earlier in the thread, and linked by me in a post which at least temporarily no longer exists. That form of "copyright," which is really just a type of contract, is not the "intellectual property" that Rand advocates, and it isn't what I have a problem with.

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Don,

From this link Patents and Copyrights, there's not a thing that I disagree with, nor does it conflict in any way that I can tell with the 4 types of IP as currently defined under US law.  And I could be proven wrong, but I imagine that ARI makes use of them, as does every other business, even though they don't have to if they regard them as coercive.  Do you know if that is the case?

So, I'll bow out of the Post.  The main reason I jumped in is because I saw statements that seemed to meander back and forth between Trademarks, Patents, Copyrights, often in  a very confusing manner.  Persons trying to make a point using Patent Law to disprove Trademark Law, and that sort of thing.

But I did learn things by researching my position, so it was well worth my time.

ARI makes use of IP see Link.  And they aren't being forced to do so.

INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY

This Site, and its materials, organization and layout, are protected by federal and international copyright, trademark and treaty laws. All pages within, and Content made available to you from, this Site are the intellectual property of the Ayn Rand Institute and its affiliates, unless otherwise noted. “ARI” is the service mark of Ayn Rand Institute. All other trademarks, service marks and logos used in this Site are the trademarks, service marks or logos of their respective owners.

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6 hours ago, DonAthos said:

Some posts appear to have gone missing. Perhaps they will come back? Regardless, I know that Eiuol essentially disregarded my reply to him and restated his question. Perhaps unsurprisingly, my answer remains the same.

Sorry, you did make some sort of answer, but didn't clarify what I wanted to clarification on. I don't see how it's consistent to say that copying is an essential piece of your process to create so IP is a violation of that, while also saying it's perfectly okay to make contracts that constrain an essential part of your life. I can't address why copying isn't essential until you say how it's legitimate to -ever- say you may not copy. Then I'll directly answer how copying, while important, isn't essential - and go from there to say that copying is -best- done in the context of IP. IP is a better way to benefit from copying even if it does mean asking for permission or paying. I'll do that in another thread.

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8 hours ago, New Buddha said:

Don,

From this link Patents and Copyrights, there's not a thing that I disagree with...

Understood.

8 hours ago, New Buddha said:

 But I did learn things by researching my position, so it was well worth my time.

I'm glad to hear it.

2 hours ago, Eiuol said:

Sorry, you did make some sort of answer, but didn't clarify what I wanted to clarification on. I don't see how it's consistent to say that copying is an essential piece of your process to create so IP is a violation of that, while also saying it's perfectly okay to make contracts that constrain an essential part of your life. I can't address why copying isn't essential until you say how it's legitimate to -ever- say you may not copy. Then I'll directly answer how copying, while important, isn't essential - and go from there to say that copying is -best- done in the context of IP. IP is a better way to benefit from copying even if it does mean asking for permission or paying. I'll do that in another thread.

There are times when I read some response, and I wonder what thread I've wandered into. I feel like Alice at the bottom of the rabbit hole. Like this: "I don't see how it's consistent to say that copying is an essential piece of your process to create so IP is a violation of that, while also saying it's perfectly okay to make contracts that constrain an essential part of your life." I recognize that it is somehow meant to represent some argument I've made? But I find it utterly impenetrable.

Here are the arguments I've made which seem to have lent themselves to that funhouse mirror of a sentence... I think?

Human beings copy one another as a vital learning process. It is a survival skill.

Human beings may make agreements not to copy some specific thing as a part of some contract/trade/exchange, or otherwise through voluntary agreement.

IP is no right, but it is the initiation of the use of force. It is anti-property.

I think you're trying to put all of these arguments together, but you're not retaining the context (or meaning) of any of them when you do so. For instance, the observation that human beings must copy one another in order to survive does not mean that it is somehow immoral to agree not to make a copy of some item in some specific instance, as part of a trade. That would be like saying that because we must eat to survive, it is immoral to go on a diet.

With respect to contracts, we're all agreed that one may not contract himself into slavery. Yet one may agree to perform some sort of work or service as a part of a contract, and if one chooses unilaterally to violate the terms he has agreed to, he is potentially liable for damages. This is the same sense in which "it's legitimate to -ever- say you may not copy"; it is legitimate because it is an agreement one has entered into, voluntarily, as in the manner of all contracts. Your attempted challenge on that point is not against the necessity of "copying," but it is against the right to contract.

And no, you do not need to ask anyone's permission to create your own wealth (though IP would have you do so). That's the road to a society of slaves.

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33 minutes ago, Eiuol said:

Then I don't know in what sense you mean copying is essential.

Imagine that you get food in some sort of middling way. Some days are good and you do well for yourself. Other days aren't very good and you go hungry. You then observe another person who gets food in some superior way, guaranteeing to himself a steady diet. All else being equal, you would put that into practice for yourself, wouldn't you? You would "copy" the behavior of someone who does something better than you, and thereby improve your life.

This is how humans have raised themselves up out of the darkness, and how we individually make ourselves successful. We are born into a world that is full of material wealth, and also full of ideas and knowledge. Aspects of every segment and facet of our lives have been improved upon through the labor of millions and millions of others, which is why we do not live in caves or trees as our early ancestors did, living short lives filled with fear and pain and hunger. We make use of these ideas we did not innovate in order to better our own lives, and we are right to do so.

So how do we characterize this? Is it "immoral" or "parasitical" to make use of what ideas you can for the betterment of your own life? Not at all.

In fact, this is very nearly the soul of human intelligence. We rely upon this ability in order to survive and to flourish. Without the ideas of others, or the ability to make use of the ideas of others, we would all die; there does not exist, and has never existed, the human being who alone could "innovate" everything that an individual needs for survival/flourishing. Survival itself is too demanding, and time is too short. Developing agriculture, for instance, took thousands of years. Inventing tools, simple machines, distilling pictograms into syllabaries and alphabets, domesticating animals, mastering fire, etc., etc., etc. Take all of this learning away, this vast reservoir of human knowledge, and man is a beast again, only a beast without any of the sorts of physical tools that most other beasts employ to win their survival. Man's greatest tool is his intelligence, and the primary way that man exercises his intelligence is to learn from observation.

Thus to say, or to imply, that it is somehow immoral to copy another man's actions for the betterment of one's own life, is to strike against the very ability which allows us to survive.

None of this is to say that man cannot innovate. It is no blow against creativity, rearranging the elements of what one has observed to produce novelty, which is also a key to man's success (speaking both of "society" and the individual). Yet it is an observation about the reality of human survival, and the role that "copying" has in that survival.

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7 hours ago, DonAthos said:

Thus to say, or to imply, that it is somehow immoral to copy another man's actions for the betterment of one's own life, is to strike against the very ability which allows us to survive.

No one said you aren't allowed to copy ever, just that you have no right to make use of people's creations without trading. You can use anyone's knowledge as you wish, just not their creations. If an invention is so crucial to mankind, people will trade. How best to acknowledge and provide some sort of justice to the people who make such great things? By pointing out that the innovation was from their mind alone, and only trading for it. Same goes to the guy who sells apples, he is responsible for getting those apples to you by whatever means he made and/or traded for.

So far, you explained essential things of flourishing as in things you benefit greatly from (essential would usually mean without it, you would literally die). Living among people in a social environment is great. Transportation, too, is essential as copying is. If you couldn't drive to work, you'd be pretty held back. Same as education. Same as the Internet.

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8 minutes ago, Eiuol said:

No one said you aren't allowed to copy ever, just that you have no right to make use of people's creations without trading.

Oh certainly, you must trade in order to make use of the things that people actually create. I.e., actual property. But not so ideas. You do not have to trade in order to make use of ideas. You do not need anyone's permission. You may simply make use of them, insofar as you have them.

So if my neighbor creates a plow, I don't have the right to make use of that plow, depriving him of the same (not without his agreement, at least). But I have every right to create my own plow... even if it looks like his, even if it works in the same way, even if it is built in the same manner.

The right to trade is a right of contracting and voluntary agreement and association, just as we have discussed these rights elsewhere. They entail the right not to trade, too. My neighbor-farmer does not have to give me a plow, or make one for me, or trade one to me, and he might not be willing to do so, in any event, for reasons of his own (none of which are my business). But he cannot rightly stop me from making my own. I have the right to work to make my life better, to wring my own wealth from the earth, to the greatest extent that my mind and hands will allow.

8 minutes ago, Eiuol said:

You can use anyone's knowledge as you wish, just not their creations. If an invention is so crucial to mankind, people will trade.

Your use of the word "creation" hides the central error. When Man A builds Car A, he has created a single car. That car is his creation (it is the thing that he has created). When Man B builds Car B, he too has created a single car.

So yes, Man B may not use Man A's creation, which is Car A, and Man A may not use Man B's creation, which is Car B. This is the right of property, and it's what I've advocated this whole thread and from well before it.

But IP turns on the claim that Man A, not Man B, has actually created Car B. This is factually incorrect. It is a flawed understanding of reality. Man A has created Car A which is similar to Car B. We can recognize them as both being cars of the same type. We can even understand Man B's having taken inspiration from Man A and his car, or having learned how to build a car in that way. But Car B is a specific piece of property, and property rightly belongs to the individual who has applied the knowledge and effort required to make it of value.

This is why in year 21 (after any patent would have expired, according to my understanding of today's arbitrary patent laws), we fully recognize that Man B has every right to the car he has built, in the manner of all production, both morally and legally. To say that he does not have such a right a couple of years beforehand, in year 19, is a legal fiction. It is a government-granted monopoly, not by right, but by fiat. It is a redistribution of wealth, taking what Man B has made with his own hands -- depriving him of the fruits of his labor -- and giving it to Man A, because we wish to "encourage innovation." This is the same sort of thing as rigging protectionist tariffs because we would like to encourage domestic manufacturing.

It is an initiation of the use of force and it is wrong.

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I had hoped New Buddha might clarify how transforming an ought (to choose to respect IP) to a must (respect IP) is essential to securing property.  It's apparently central to the defense of IP, and yet never adequately explained.  A persuasive argument for enacting this categorical imperative against man's ability to survive by copying, would seem a necessary starting point. The presumption that copying is theft implies a burden on the individual to continuously prove his innocence; to ask permission prior to taking any action that may have "originated" in some other person's mind.

Beyond that, it is also curious that (in most cases) only the commercial application of copying is prohibited, and only for a period of time.  This points to a unique definition for property that immediately undermines another dubious claim that all property is intellectual.  All property can be inherited - can IP?  All property belongs to its owner indefinitely - does IP?  And if IP secures investment, as is often claimed, how does allowing for personal/educational use not undermine the very same commercial security?  If I am allowed to duplicate intellectual property, but not to market it, I have still removed myself (and the innovator's compensation) from the very thing IP is proposed to secure.

The personal/education allowance obviously points back to the fact that copying per se is a legitimate implementation of the right to life.  Were it not, all (students and consumers alike, who in reality are one and the same) would be forced to respect IP or be punished for not doing so.  And the only way to "inherit" IP, to my knowledge, is to purchase it.  If for nothing else than the sake of logical consistency, IP were an essential security of property, shouldn't we then remove any constraint of time and require the children of innovators to purchase their inheritance?

No, all property isn't intellectual and all copying isn't theft.  Forgery certainly is, as is breaking and entering to carry away property that belongs to someone else.  I can't do that with the contents of someone's mind.  There are legitimate securities in place to retaliate for aggression against ones actual property.  IP doesn't justify forcing an additional contractual prohibition on anyone but a willing trading partner, and there again contracts already exist for that form implementation of a right to life.

 

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I'm waiting on the Superbowl, so I'll jump back in....

I'll give a real life example of the benefits of IP, and hopefully it will become clear why IP is a win-win - meaning IP is not a zero-sum game, where someone wins and someone loses.

In the Pacific Northwest, moisture and mold in wall cavities is a huge problem and results in more lawsuits in the construction business than any other thing.

When an architect designs a weather-resistive barrier system to manage dew points, pressure differentials, and breathability of wall cavaties, etc., he cans use traditional techniques that have no Patented component.  These have been around for many 60+ years.  And, for the most part, these are tried and true solutions that, if installed perfectly, can do a pretty good job.  But they also lack Warranties except those covered by the Architect and General/Subcontractors with their professional liability insurance.  They also can be hit or miss in installation.  They are not optimal for anyone.

Or the architect can specify a list of of proprietary systems (which have some component IP protection, such as patented materials) all of which come with a form of Warranty, trained and approved installers, on-site product representatives that are available during installation, etc.

Below are just a few, quickly chosen links.  There are MANY more.

Dupont  Georgia-Pacific WrapShield WR Grace

Far from being hindered by IP Laws, these companies TRIVE on it.  Each one tries to out-do the other in making a better product which is cheaper, easier to install, more durable, better engineered, better warranties, etc. THEY WANT TO STAND OUT AS BEING UNIQUE.  The are constantly calling architects and engineers, trying to get face-time, catering lunches to make presentations, give educational seminars, etc.  They want you to realize that they are the superior product.  They also bend over backwards in educating you how to incorporate your product into your building, providing you with basic CAD details for free, etc.

And this is true for any component in a building you can think of.  Plumbing fixtures, roof membranes, windows, paint, etc., -- right across the board.

An architect NEVER (or very, very, very rarely) specifies one acceptable proprietary system.  He specifies a list of acceptable systems to get the best deal for his client by keeping things competitive.

There a multiple ways to solve the same problem.  The problem is not patentable, but the solution is (or at least this years solution).

So here's my question:

Who is the slave in this?  People in the business of producing IP love the IP laws.  Who are the supposed victims?

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1 hour ago, DonAthos said:

So if my neighbor creates a plow, I don't have the right to make use of that plow, depriving him of the same (not without his agreement, at least). But I have every right to create my own plow... even if it looks like his, even if it works in the same way, even if it is built in the same manner.

I already talked about this on the last page. I'd say no, it isn't your creation because it is a straight copy. You only built it in a limited sense of stacking pieces of metal together. Or, if you did create new things to add to the plow, you made use of someone's creation. So I'd want to know which parts a person used to assemble a plow. I'd ask who got the wood, who got the metal to smelt, who bent it, who shipped it, who painted it, who created a specific plan to build this exact plow. I'm hoping you'll move forward on this though, not loop back around to talking about IP law again. We talked about scarcity, some of copying, a whole lot about IP systems, even assembling inventions like Steak Sabers. If we talked more about creation, we'd get somewhere new.

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2 hours ago, New Buddha said:

... Who is the slave in this?  People in the business of producing IP love the IP laws.  Who are the supposed victims?

The producers and consumers of generic goods who must wait for a patent to expire before they can participate in laissez-faire capitalism.

--

Edit:  GO PANTHERS!

Edited by Devil's Advocate
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53 minutes ago, Devil's Advocate said:

The producers and consumers of generic goods who must wait for a patent to expire before they can participate in laissez-faire capitalism.

What is a generic good?  Real life examples?  An exact, indistinguishable copy, right down to the Trademarked  name?  I just bought some Kroger "strong strip fabric bandages"  i.e. Band Aids.  There was nothing under current IP laws preventing Kroger from developing this - so long as they met the Point of Novelty.  In fact, it was almost certainly created by a company other than Kroger who specializes in "generic" products, and sold to Kroger.  Kroger can sell it cheaper, be cause less money goes to Band Aid.

And judging by the number of "generic" items in the market, the Point of Novelty appears to be low (I'm no expert of Patents, so that is an assumption).  There are countless types of "generic" items on the market - just not exact duplicates.

Edit:  At any present moment, there are more things that cannot be patented then can be patented, and the number increases each year. (Edit. There is no limit to the number of things that we can invent.). And, as an aside, I'd bet that the shelf-life of a patented product is MUCH shorter than the life of it's patent.  Companies who don't innovate for 20 years will go out of business.

And, who's job is not protected, in some way, by IP?  If you work for a company, the chances are almost certain that the company name and logo are Trademarked.  Who is a pure consumer?  Who is not a producer of some sort?

There is nothing preventing anyone from jumping into any market and competing except for lack of creativity.

Edited by New Buddha
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2 hours ago, Eiuol said:
5 hours ago, DonAthos said:

So if my neighbor creates a plow, I don't have the right to make use of that plow, depriving him of the same (not without his agreement, at least). But I have every right to create my own plow... even if it looks like his, even if it works in the same way, even if it is built in the same manner.

I'd say no, it isn't your creation because it is a straight copy.

When you build a thing, that thing that you have built is your creation.

When Man B builds Car B, or when a farmer builds a plow, then a car which did not exist prior to that act now exists; a plow which did not exist prior to that act now exists. It is absolutely the case that Man B has created Car B, and the farmer who has built the plow has created it, in that they have brought these things into existence through their actions, which is what it means to create a thing.

It is also the basis of property right: the application of knowledge and effort which creates wealth. Not bringing something out of nothing (which is impossible), but creation qua wealth -- the rearrangement of material into a useful configuration which did not exist beforehand. Constructing a plow or a car or a whatever is an act of creation. It is the creation of wealth, and the resultant property right to that wealth belongs to the man who has created it, which means the man who has applied the mental and physical labor necessary to bring it into being.

2 hours ago, Eiuol said:

You only built it in a limited sense of stacking pieces of metal together.

Which is to say that you have built it in the technical sense of... having built it.

But at last we are bringing you closer to voicing the full sentiment which, as I have long maintained, truly reflects Rand's IP argument: "You didn't build it." But you are wrong, President Obama. The man who has built Car B, or the farmer who has built his plow, has built it, not in any "limited sense," but in the full and complete sense of the word.

This response of yours, derisively describing an act of creation, and productivity, as "stacking pieces of metal together" is reflective of the unfortunate mind/body split Rand introduced to the subject in her "Patents and Copyrights" essay, and which Objectivists need to root out if we wish our views on property rights to be just, and consonant with reason/reality. For building a plow is a mindful activity. Further, if you look again at my example, you'll note that I did not specify the manner in which the farmer came to build his plow; I only said that it is similar to the plow created by his neighbor (in that it "looks, works, and is built" in the same manner). But this does not preclude the possibility that the farmer had to reverse engineer, or otherwise engage in his own research and development, or even wholly independent invention. His building of a plow is mindful at least (as all productive human activity is), and in terms of degree of difficulty -- or the amount of mental labor required, however that's meant to be measured -- it can be as large as you'd like, including surpassing that of the innovative neighbor.

The mindless connotation of "stacking pieces of metal together" is unwarranted. It is your own bias, copied (if you'd like) from Rand's similar error.

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2 hours ago, DonAthos said:

But at last we are bringing you closer to voicing the full sentiment which, as I have long maintained, truly reflects Rand's IP argument: "You didn't build it."

I think you said there is a link to how you arrived at the conclusion that Rand supports the, "You didn't build it" argument.   Could you repost the link?

Rand made her money from plays, movies, fiction and non-fiction books and new letters - all of which were/are Copyright protected.  I'm giving her the benefit of the doubt that she fully understood the US Copyright laws, and that she supported them.  I'm unaware of her saying anything critical about them.  And I think if she did conclude that they were coercive, she would have said so.

Edit: She also Trademarked her work, and her description of the Patent system seems spot-on and fully supportive.

Edited by New Buddha
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4 hours ago, DonAthos said:

The mindless connotation of "stacking pieces of metal together" is unwarranted. It is your own bias, copied (if you'd like) from Rand's similar error.

Err, you're reading into it. I was trying to distinguish between building something up with pre-assembled parts, from having built all the pieces like a pioneer family. So "limited" as in you built portions, which isn't to say you necessarily created nothing. If this is all creation is, in the full sense, then you also need to say which portions of the plow you acquired. Creations are made of creations, all the way down. The only question is how you've acquired your pieces. Stacking metal is legitimate work, all I'm asking is for you to specify more of the process of creation.

Inevitably, you'll say you got the plow idea from your neighbor (per your example), the rest you got by buying the commodities. All the other parts you got by trade, and if you got parts by theft, you really have no claim for what you fitted together (even if IP is not involved). I imagine you'd say someone else smelted the metal, so created those parts. This would apply to all the material creations. Then we get to the idea related parts. Which of those are created by you?

I'm not using either copy or create in a special way. If you copy a story, you didn't write the story. That's not an IP claim, it's just to say a straight copy of a book isn't creative in the sense a writer is creative.

 

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24 minutes ago, Eiuol said:

I'm not using either copy or create in a special way. If you copy a story, you didn't write the story. That's not an IP claim, it's just to say a straight copy of a book isn't creative in the sense a writer is creative.

If someone who doesn't speak or read English gets his hands on an unpublished manuscript, and uses a copy machine to make a copy of it, is this indistinguishable from what the Author did?

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8 hours ago, New Buddha said:

...  There was nothing under current IP laws preventing Kroger from developing this - so long as they met the Point of Novelty...

So yes, there's nothing about copying that IP prevents as long as it's different, which is to say there's nothing about copying that IP allows. And the primary reason is to secure a return (by monopoly) on the innovator's time and effort creating something novel.  The following link describes this in greater detail, but we already agree on what IP secures:

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/whats-the-difference-betw-2004-12-13/

Our disagreement has to do with why.  Specifically why suspend the implementation of a right to life of a competitor whose only "vice" is knowing what you know?

 

 

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