[Rothbardian]

Rothbardian - I not suggesting a new kind of government with taxes and classes of free riders very far from it. The funny thing about right-libertarians is that although the concept of the commons or commonwealth eludes you for manufactured things they do seem to accept and even insist on a commonwealth for ideas and information and by implication a commonwealth on natural resources (or else homesteading would be illegal). We could equally say from your argument that 'roads, lighthouses, etc' had been private property with no problem that also ideas information and natural resources had been private property with no problem.. You worry about free riders of manufactured goods but not free riders of information. And the rivalous / non-rivalous argument doesn't work really to distinguish between information and goods. A road is mostly non-rivalous, only when it hits capacity does it show signs of the quality of being rivalous. In contrast information can often be rivalous. For example: my company spends x amount of resources designing and testing a new and better widget which then sells for y amount which includes the information cost and then your company simply copies the design at virtually no cost and is able to put it on the market for less than y amount. Then that information is rivalous and you are a free rider.

So you believe you can own ideas?

[SolarCross]

So you believe you can own ideas?

It is generally better that ideas and information are commons, that is my preference. I think ideas and information are not different to any other manufactured good, who owns them depends on social custom and law. It is better that we all own all stuff communally but that requires that most people are kind and sensible or problems will arise. For example if ideas were commons and my company invents a better widget at some cost and your company wanted to use that information to also make widgets then your company ought to be wise and kind and do something in return for my company. If it is generally the case that no one will give anything they don't have to but will take anything available then ideas probably will have to suffer the kind of defined property rights and all the operational overhead that goes with that same as with anything else.

[mikema63]

There is no IP or copyrights in ancap.

[Rothbardian]

It is generally better that ideas and information are commons, that is my preference. I think ideas and information are not different to any other manufactured good, who owns them depends on social custom and law. It is better that we all own all stuff communally but that requires that most people are kind and sensible or problems will arise. For example if ideas were commons and my company invents a better widget at some cost and your company wanted to use that information to also make widgets then your company ought to be wise and kind and do something in return for my company. If it is generally the case that no one will give anything they don't have to but will take anything available then ideas probably will have to suffer the kind of defined property rights and all the operational overhead that goes with that same as with anything else.

I would agree with you, this would certainly be a huge benefit....to the people creating new systems/technologies. Of course, creating monopolies will always benefit a select few. I fail to see the benefit to anyone else, though. That aside, I didn't ask you what you felt is better, I asked you if ideas are property that can be owned. That ought to be the determining factor here. If ideas are property then property rights ought to be upheld for all the reasons you are no doubt aware. If they are not property then no good can come of pretending that they are.

I'm curious how you reached this conclusion, considering the success of the technology industry, which has by far the least IP (not to say none, just the least) regulation in place. Ever looked into the video gaming industry? Company A comes up with a new idea or technology, it's a hit on the market, they make a killing. Some time later, everyone copies it (despite the way it gets thrown around like it's no big deal, reverse engineering is EXTREMELY difficult), some improve on it, but Company A has already made a name for itself, and all the copying of the idea just validates that Company A knows what its doing.

The industry as a whole wins, the initial creator of the new technology wins, the consumer wins. Why would you want to step in the way of something that works so well?

[SolarCross]

Rothbardian - The term property for me just means 'right of use'. So everything that can be used rightfully is property. Private property is where the right of use is exclusive to named individuals and common property is where right of use is inclusive except for certain named individuals (mis-users). Whether anything that is usable is common or private depends solely on the normative ideas of society. To say that ideas can't be property is a contradiction, if something can be used then it is property the question is only who can use it, is it only for a select few (private property) or everyone (common property). Property rights are inevitably normative to the society.

Video games are an example where copyright is the norm rather than the exception. Very few games are released under a GPL licence and no big budget games at all are distributed under a GPL.

A better example of ideas being released as common property would be scientific research.

[Eran]

I understand and sympathise with your bias in favour of communal property rights - a situation in which people face the least restraints on action due to other people's property rights.

When it comes to the use of natural resources, some restraints are inevitable. Two people cannot wear the same shirt at the same time. Society has to develop mechanisms for peacefully resolving conflicts as to the use of scarce resources like shirts.

But with respect to ideas, no such mechanism is necessary in the first place. When I use an idea, I do not detract in any way from your ability to use the same idea at the same time. Ideas, unlike shirts, aren't rivalrous.

So why even contemplate the notion of assigning property rights in them?

[SolarCross]

eran for the most part you are right about ideas being non-rivalous and indeed at least some ideas require sharing to be useful at all, for example language. Some ideas however are rivalous, as I showed in my example, this is mainly technical ideas that require extensive resources to develop. This is why some market participants lobbied for IP in the first place. Likely they will still want to do that post-state and market based law will oblige them.

Physical things tend to be more rivalous than information but it is not a hard difference. Many physical things are mostly non-rivalous until they hit capacity. Say for example a village water well, this can and should be commons and isn't rivalous until there is a drought or say a horde of thirsty tourists turn up all at once.

Physical books can be commons like for example in a lending library. In some communes they have lending 'libraries' for all sorts of things: tools, clothes, toys..

I am trying to be agnostic as to what is best put in the commons or private. I just think it is funny that right-libertarians should be so keen on a commonwealth for ideas while at the same time being unable to conceive of the merits of a commonwealth for anything else. In the end I think the agora while find the best solution.

[Eran]

I agree that the degree to which physical thinks are rivalrous varies depending on circumstances. However, all of them are capable, in principle, of being rivalrous. The degree to which private ownership should be allowed in all things is precisely related to the degree to which they are rivalrous.

The NAP justifies exclusive access (i.e. private ownership) only to the extent that such exclusive access is reasonably required to prevent one from peacefully engaging in one's project into which those things have been incorporated.

I don't see how the example you gave supports the notion that ideas are rivalrous. If I spent much time and resources developing a widget, I still own the first sample widgets, the records of its production process, templates, drawings, etc.

It is then my decision to release that information to the public. I could, for example, come up with both physical and contractual mechanisms to try and limit the extent to which my competitors could use the information to generate similar (or even identical) widgets. But if they do gain access to that information, my project of building widgets isn't harmed. It might lose economic value, but that is a different thing altogether.

Consider what would happen if we allowed lose of economic value to count as a harm worthy of protection. Merchants could argue against competitors setting shop in the same town. Typewriter manufacturers could argue against word-processors (as technological advancement is generally economically harmful, at least in the short-term, to some people). Ideas regarding what products to offer, how to serve customers or run a business efficiently would also be protected.

In short, I believe the NAP correctly sets the standard of harm justifying the use of protective force at physical invasion of one's property (or, more fundamentally, one's peaceful projects) rather than the imposition of economic harm.

[mikema63]

Taxi, are you coming out on the right of us on this issue?

Patents have been one of the main ways that government has allowed companies to form monopolies and one of the big ways companies are able to hold down the third world which can't afford the high R&D costs (which are highly subsidized through government to the point that in some cases companies are just getting free patents). The people in the third world cannot produce these things for themselves because of the patents and the so called "free" trade deals their countries are locked into.

Probably one of the best cases for that is made in the book "iron fist behind the invisible hand" by Kevin Carson, it detailed how historical capitalism was built and how modern corporate capitalism is maintained at present, it even comes as a nifty free 1:30 audio book.

[SolarCross]

Don't get me wrong I do support a commonwealth for ideas and information even technical information that required intensive resource use to develop. I just think it is an over-simplistic view to say information is non-rivalous and ought to be commons and that physical things are rivalous and ought to be private.
An-cap theorists might like to think that a market based society guided by the NAP would naturally put information in the commons but I think that is naive. Some market participants ARE going to want to lobby for IP protection if they calculate that it will benefit their business more than it hurts it, the difference will only be whom they will lobby. Post-state it won't be the state it will be market-based law providers.

[Eran]

From a principled point of view it is certainly possible to make a distinction between the rivalrous nature of physical things, and the inherently non-rival nature of ideas.

Adopting a pragmatic attitude (in the spirit of David Friedman), I agree that a combination of self-interest by creators and very common moral intuition ("people deserve to enjoy the fruits of their inventive efforts) may well create a legal regime, even absent a central government, in which some IP rights are protected.

What would hopefully sway the pragmatists is another feature of IP-enforcement - its inherently intrusive nature.

Under most circumstances, violations of property rights in physical objects requires proximity of the offender and the property in question. A person can detect, at least in principle, such violations from the vantage point of his own property.

IP is different - a person may violate another's IP rights in the privacy of his own home. Consequently, detecting violations of IP rights inherently requires invasion of other people's private space (i.e. violating their property rights in physical objects and locations).

In fact, giving X IP rights inherently takes away from the otherwise-unlimited right of Y to do with his property as he pleases. It is easy to imagine a regime in which property rights in objects are unlimited, but only if IP rights aren't allowed.

[Nunt]

Regarding IP I would also like to notice that nobody takes a principled view of IP rights. People only use IP rights in a pragmatic way. We can easily see that nobody is advocating principled IP rights because of all the exceptions they are willing to make when IP rights would become too invasive. Nobody really believes that you can indefinatly own any idea you come up with. In contrast people do believe in indefinate property rights of physical objects. In order to own an idea, it must be specific enough. For example, you can't own the general theory of relativity. Its not that engineers making calculations using the general theory have to pay money to Einstein. He never owned the idea. Indefinite idea ownership could mean that the person who first put out a fire by throwing water on it, now owns the following patent: "to extuingish flames by throwing a non flammable material on the flames". Anyone who would ever want to extuingish a fire should get very creative or pay the patent owner. Of course, nobody is really willing to go so far. So IP rights are limited in some ways.


But this is pragmatic because there is no way of distinguishing a specific idea from a nonspecific idea. Courts do make the distinction, but this distinction is arbitrary. Where do you draw the line?

Furthermore, why can you own some ideas and not others? Clearly, the guy who invented fire dousing did humanity a greater service than a guy who invented "unlocking a smartphone using one continuous swipe accross the touchscreen". Nobody can give a principled explanation for this only that the world would stop working if indefinate idea ownership would become a thing.