How do you square the opinion that the work product of a writer is not property? Are you espousing the marxist position that the work of all belongs to society and not individual? How does this opinion square with the comments of : www.learnliberty.org/content/rule-law
This is a live issue among libertarians, though, as mentioned in the article, the anti-intellectual property camp seems to have won the debate. They’ve convinced me.
As the article explains, IP is not property, because property rights must be violated to enforce it.
You ask specifically about writing. Here’s an excerpt from the article:
“If two people want to have the same idea in their minds, or put that the same idea to use, there is no conflict between them — they both can do it. And they can pass on an idea to as many people as they want without diminishing their own possession of the idea. Kinsella uses the example of a book:
[I]f you copy a book I have written, I still have the original (tangible) book, and I also still “have” the pattern of words that constitute the book. Thus, authored works are not scarce in the same sense that a piece of land or a car are scarce. If you take my car, I no longer have it. But if you “take” a book-pattern and use it to make your own physical book, I still have my own copy.[8]
Thomas Jefferson had essentially the same insight some two hundred years before:
If nature has made any one thing less susceptible than all others of exclusive property, it is the action of the thinking power called an idea, which an individual may exclusively possess as long as he keeps it to himself; but the moment it is divulged, it forces itself into the possession of every one, and the receiver cannot dispossess himself of it. Its peculiar character, too, is that no one possesses the less, because every other possesses the whole of it. He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me.[9]
So IP rights cannot be true “property rights.” And when government grants IP rights, it’s not really granting a property right in an idea, but is instead granting a monopoly on the right to use an idea for certain profitable purposes.”
You may also be interested in the utilitarian arguments for writers, also detailed in the article. There seems to be little to fear.
I have read all that you cited and much more. I still say that if your idea creates value, that value is propety in an economic sense. Since that value is your work product, until you give it away it is a value that belongs to the creator.
The essence of property is value. If some thing does not have any value then it would not be property in an economic sense. This allows for something having value to individuals but that value would not translate to economic value.
That is to say some things have value but not be property but property always has value.
To say that someones work product that has economic value belongs to all is the essence of Marxism.
So what do you say to Stephen Kinsella’s argument, that claiming an idea as your sole and exclusive property is a violation of everybody else’s property, because it prevents them from arranging, their metal, their plastic, their paper and ink, or whatever, in ways that they like.
Should the first woman to photograph her naked breasts be able to copyright the idea and demand royalties from every succeeding woman who does so because they are “derivative works”?
How do you square the opinion that the work product of a writer is not property? Are you espousing the marxist position that the work of all belongs to society and not individual? How does this opinion square with the comments of : www.learnliberty.org/content/rule-law
Ed K
This is a live issue among libertarians, though, as mentioned in the article, the anti-intellectual property camp seems to have won the debate. They’ve convinced me.
As the article explains, IP is not property, because property rights must be violated to enforce it.
You ask specifically about writing. Here’s an excerpt from the article:
“If two people want to have the same idea in their minds, or put that the same idea to use, there is no conflict between them — they both can do it. And they can pass on an idea to as many people as they want without diminishing their own possession of the idea. Kinsella uses the example of a book:
[I]f you copy a book I have written, I still have the original (tangible) book, and I also still “have” the pattern of words that constitute the book. Thus, authored works are not scarce in the same sense that a piece of land or a car are scarce. If you take my car, I no longer have it. But if you “take” a book-pattern and use it to make your own physical book, I still have my own copy.[8]
Thomas Jefferson had essentially the same insight some two hundred years before:
If nature has made any one thing less susceptible than all others of exclusive property, it is the action of the thinking power called an idea, which an individual may exclusively possess as long as he keeps it to himself; but the moment it is divulged, it forces itself into the possession of every one, and the receiver cannot dispossess himself of it. Its peculiar character, too, is that no one possesses the less, because every other possesses the whole of it. He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me.[9]
So IP rights cannot be true “property rights.” And when government grants IP rights, it’s not really granting a property right in an idea, but is instead granting a monopoly on the right to use an idea for certain profitable purposes.”
You may also be interested in the utilitarian arguments for writers, also detailed in the article. There seems to be little to fear.
I have read all that you cited and much more. I still say that if your idea creates value, that value is propety in an economic sense. Since that value is your work product, until you give it away it is a value that belongs to the creator.
The essence of property is value. If some thing does not have any value then it would not be property in an economic sense. This allows for something having value to individuals but that value would not translate to economic value.
That is to say some things have value but not be property but property always has value.
To say that someones work product that has economic value belongs to all is the essence of Marxism.
Ed K
So what do you say to Stephen Kinsella’s argument, that claiming an idea as your sole and exclusive property is a violation of everybody else’s property, because it prevents them from arranging, their metal, their plastic, their paper and ink, or whatever, in ways that they like.
Should the first woman to photograph her naked breasts be able to copyright the idea and demand royalties from every succeeding woman who does so because they are “derivative works”?