I don’t see why it isn’t.
All right. It’s been a while, and I don’t believe I ever addressed your OP due to overwhelming frustration at the time. Let’s take this from the top.
Franz has a specific blueprint to build pianos, which are special kinds of pianos with building specifications that Franz developed after figuring out new techniques to bring out important acoustic qualities. His brand of piano is distinct. Right now, he has only built one piano – he needs investors first. Recently, he took the piano apart and will rebuild it, to make sure his blueprints were perfect. The pieces are organized on the floor, and Franz can rebuild it with his blueprints. He goes piece by piece, until it is complete.
Does Franz own the piano?
Sure.
This part so far is deliberately simple. I would bet most people say yes, Franz owns the piano. The reasons, though, may vary. As I said, I don’t think it’s just because he owns the individual pieces.
On that subject, let’s briefly pause.
Suppose Franz had not yet designed his piano or his blueprint. Suppose that he had simply purchased the material as he struggles to come up with a design, and now that material is on the floor in similar fashion to your proposal. Is that material any less Franz’s, in terms of ownership, for not yet having been collated into a particular piano design?
Does he not, even at such a stage, already have complete ownership of those materials?
The stance I take is that he owns the coupling of an idea with the corresponding physical goods made from that idea. Keep in mind, since property is what one needs to maintain their existence, and by extension, their flourishing. (I’m skipping a lot of inductive steps, I know, I can’t write a book here.) To be able to define what is actually part of maintaining one’s existence (as related to their personal evaluations and decisions), we need to have a reasonable constraint to its range of application. This way, claims to property can be objectively evaluated. A range of application isn’t as simple as saying a physical boundary. That may apply to a basketball, but not an open cattle range - there is no intrinsic boundary to land. Some degree of value is needed as well, otherwise there would be no need to recognize any existents in a special way with regard to individuals.
I believe that land is a special category of property at least. If we are dealing in pianos and ships and basketballs, and if something “as simple as saying a physical boundary” applies well enough to them, then let’s deal on that level unless we have some good reason not to. If we were discussing engineering a roller coaster, after all, there would be no need to begin our discussion with quantum mechanics – would there?
I would argue that the pieces are of no value to Franz anyway, and the value only comes from the fact he knows how to build his brand of piano. Although I’m sure Franz can build other styles of piano that are very old, the pieces are for making a Franz brand piano. So, you couldn’t say “the pieces have infinite uses, why focus on a piano brand?” Building a treehouse is not his intention. In this sense, his pieces are only of value because of what he wants to create. Franz could sell the parts for a price, but since no intrinsic monetary value of goods exist, I can say that relative to him, there is no monetary value. The value is in the potential piano, similar to how value of farmland is potential crops. No actual piano exists, so what I’m getting at is that the property in question is intellectual in nature, not merely concrete existents.
Let’s be careful here. First of all, I need to clarify (because this is very often at the root of my critique of your approach to IP) that your assertion here – “what I’m getting at is that the property in question is intellectual in nature” – does not mean that you are necessarily addressing yourself to IP, despite your use of the word “intellectual,” and even if this use of the term is accurate.
There is a difference between a standard theory of property and a theory of intellectual property. Which is not to say that there can’t be some “grand unifying theory,” which… I think is what you’re after? But at minimum, a theory of IP (and even such a grand unifying theory) would have to be able to address those things that IP actually does/has done in the world, namely patents, copyrights and trademarks. (If it does not, then we are not discussing IP at all.)
So even if you’re right in your approach to standard property, in that there is this “intellectual” component to it, that does not serve to justify what we mean in the world when we discuss IP; IP still requires its own justification.
As regards the content here, in terms of property I think we recognize that Franz owns these materials independent of his purported intentions for them. Whether he values them for their own sake, or only for some specific design, is another matter. (And “monetary value” is yet another thing altogether, and I would argue a needless complication.) I’d agree with you that people typically value materials, as such, because we recognize that they have some eventual, potential application… but I don’t think we necessarily need to know whether some specific material is slotted for a piano or for a treehouse or for anything at all, for those to fall under the umbrella of “property rights.”
After all, if you had a warehouse filled with material – material for which you had not yet found a particular use, but were preserving against future discovery/need – I doubt that you would be comfortable with my ransacking your warehouse, because I had judged my own need for that material more important or more immediate than yours, because I would like to use it to build a piano, for which I have a design ready. Or if that’s deemed allowable under your theory of property rights, then I’m not certain it is a recognizable theory of property rights at all.
Let’s modify this a little bit. Suppose Wolfgang saw Franz’s blueprints, and Franz said nothing special to Wolfgang about building a piano. Unbeknownst to Franz, Wolfgang acquires the necessary pieces to build the piano. Later on, Franz visits his friend Wolfgang’s house after hearing beautiful piano music. When he greeted Wolfgang and saw the piano, he realized it was his own piano that he designed! Franz finds this to be unjust and even as theft, because it was his design and creation.
Should Franz have the right to bring Wolfgang to court if he so chooses?
I’m a little hesitant about responding to your question as phrased. Should Franz have the right to bring Wolfgang to court if he so chooses? Don’t we generally have the right to bring people to court for any manner of reason – injuries real or imagined?
The real question is whether Wolfgang has committed some crime against Franz. Now how I would normally try to assess such a thing is to ask whether Wolfgang has in some fashion initiated the use of force against Franz, because that’s what I hold to be criminal. Leaving aside the question begging I might expect from others (i.e. the response that “he *must* have initiated the use of force, because he violated intellectual property rights!”), let’s ask ourselves what it means to initiate force against a person – what it looks like, what it means, and how we respond to it.
Because, look: if we can establish that Wolfgang is now employing physical force against Franz, then you and I will be finally agreed on the basis for IP.
In the earlier case, if Wolfgang took a finished piano or even the piano pieces without permission, that is a clear case of theft, and should be taken to court.
Yes. It’s a criminal matter, and Wolfgang should be processed through the criminal justice system in such a case (which might mean going to prison).
But where does the difference come in with Wolfgang creating a piano with his own materials?
I would argue that the difference is such that he has committed no crime. Let’s return here to the question of the initiation of physical force.
Things are what they are – are we agreed? If I initiate physical force against you, then it doesn’t matter whether you’re aware of my having done so or not – I have committed that crime.
But how do we recognize the initiation of physical force, or any crime, to begin with? Let’s consider Wolfgang.
You have him building a piano of his own materials in his own home by virtue of the design he learned from seeing Franz’s blueprints, yes? And then you have Franz discovering the fact when visiting Wolfgang’s home, leading to court. But let us note, that moment of discovery is not when the crime was committed.
In theory (and specifically what I take to be the theory of IP you would lay out), Wolfgang has initiated the use of physical force against Franz at the moment he has built his piano.
Now please, in the name of your at least understanding my position on this matter, I would like for you to give that scenario some substantial thought.
We do not have to further suppose that Franz visits Wolfgang’s house and sees the piano. That would not change the supposed criminal nature of the deed in question. Franz would not ever need to know that “he has been harmed.”
But has he been harmed? In truth? In reality?
We can recognize the harm when Wolfgang takes Franz’s physical, actual piano from him, such that Franz is left bereft of his piano. We understand how and why Franz might defend himself physically against such an ordeal, or failing that, use some third party to use retributive force in response, in the name of justice. It is clear to see that Franz is injured from such an action, which is why we would act to prevent it from happening, or in retribution.
But how do we account it the same kind of thing when Wolfgang is ensconced in his home playing music on a piano he has built, apparently injuring no one, and possibly without anyone else’s knowledge? How is that harm at all?
An easy answer is to say that the two pianos are not exactly the same, so inventing a type of piano does not imply owning pianos that Wolfgang (or anyone else) creates. People own what they make, and it follows that what they make is their property, fitting all the standards I mentioned earlier with constraint to range of application.
My answer is that there is no difference, except perhaps what the property in question is. The easy answer I find to be too materialistic by ignoring the very means and person that enabled Wolfgang to build the piano.
Another caution: “materialism,” so far as I understand it, is a theory that denies consciousness – a theory to which I do not subscribe. The position that property has to do with material is not an advocacy of “materialism,” unless the very claim that material is something which exists – that things are made of material, and are recognizable (as a piano, or a basketball, or etc.) – is somehow considered suspect.
In specific, I’m not “ignoring” the means by which Wolfgang has built his piano. But I would argue that you might be doing that very thing, if you are arguing in similar pattern to what I’ve found typical of the proponents of IP.
Contra “materialism,” both Franz and Wolfgang have a consciousness. Wolfgang has learned of the idea of the piano through Franz, but his consciousness has also grasped that idea. And furthermore, he has translated that idea into reality, which is the basis of property rights. The object of that translation, the idea made manifest – the piano, which is material – is what is property.
Wolfgang is not somehow using Franz’s mind to build this piano; he is using his own.
Franz did a lot of research, then took time to develop the specific piano design. He had to figure which wood to use, how to bend the wood, how to set up the curves, etc. The whole value of the piano is in every case dependent upon what Franz developed.
No. The value of the specific piano that Wolfgang has built is immediately dependent on two things: 1) Wolfgang choosing to adhere to the design he learned from Franz’s blueprints/research (for he could have altered them, either intentionally or accidentally); and 2) Wolfgang’s having built the piano in reality. If Wolfgang does not accomplish step two, then there is no piano to speak of, and no material value.
Other people even find value in the piano. To the extent that the design is useful to many people, not just the piano itself, there is reason to say Franz should have the right to control the design in any manner he chooses – who can use it, how he wants to profit from it.
Of what use is a piano design, except in the construction of one or more actual pianos?
But the rest of this is just a reassertion of your premise, I believe. I agree that I may design a piano, and others may find value in that design and opt to purchase a piano or build their own, but I disagree that there’s any necessary “therefore, I should be able to tell them that they can’t do it.”
I disagree that building a piano or a type of piano (with all of the requisite research granted) gives me reason or right to control “the design,” which actually means to control the actions of others, even should those actions cause no injury to myself.
If anything, the usefulness and value to multiple people makes a design worth recognizing as property, especially since Franz designed it for the reasons anyone would create or seek property. The value a variety of people hold towards the piano is indicative that at least some people find the piano design a contributor to flourishing, even for Franz. In ethical terms, this means Franz has a right to his designs and what people may make from those designs, or to shorten the phrase down, intellectual property.
I disagree. I find an implicit premise to all of this that “whatever contributes to flourishing” is therefore property (or a similar thought, though I’m sure you’d want other language to express it, if you’d even agree that this underlies your position). We give away “value” and contribute to the flourishing of others all the time without some resulting claim in property.
To use an example that I’ve employed before, imagine that I smile at a pretty girl as I pass her on the street. My smile may well inspire her to do something great – I have a killer smile. I think in terms of reality, we may speak of this as being a “contributor to flourishing.” What we do, even down to something so apparently small as a smile, matters. But I have no property stake (in reason or in law) in what she does thereafter, even if she cites me as her muse and accounts her entire product to our chance meeting. Even if she is, in some sense, right.
Ethically? We could perhaps talk about her recognizing the relationship that my choice to smile at her has had to her resultant fame and fortune. Perhaps it would be nice of her to invite me over for a spot of tea. But I do not own what she does, even on the basis of the inspiration I have provided. The property that she creates is directly a product of her mind and her physical labor, and that forms the basis for property. Her property.