Intellectual Property Rights?

[Travis Retriever]

Me and Lord T Hawkeye keep having dissagreements over this.
I'm convinced that IP is bogus.  He is convinced they are a good idea.

A convo we had on it:

LTHE: "if I write a book, I don't want someone copying it and claiming it was his or if I make an invention, I don't want someone taking credit"

Me: "Plagiarism is fraud and is a separate issue."

LTHE: "but even then, look at the first Zombie movie.  Editor forgot to put the copyright notice on it and as a result, they made nearly nothing on it because anyone and everyone could copy the movie and sell it."

Me: "Did someone else try to copyright it?"

LTHE: "no just how it works back then was you had to put the notice on or else it was public domain.  They made a last minute change to the movie and the editor forgot to put the copyright notice on
To this day, you can copy that movie and sell it 100% legally"

So what thoughts do any of you have?
Is IP needed in a free market, or is it not?
Is IP an economic boon, or an economic impediment?
why/why not?

[MrBogosity]

So, how does he justify, say, Thomas Edison patenting the light bulb and getting all the credit when it was really Henry Woodward and Matthew Evans who invented it? Or how about a patent for Galileo's telescope over 200 years after Galileo developed it?

[Lord T Hawkeye]

In my defense, I didn't have time to read the whole article.  If it has a good argument, I'll go for it.  But just how is the matter of everyone picking at your inventions resolved?

I do agree, state controlled patents are just as ridiculous as state controlled anything but the article was saying the very idea of having something patented is bad which I admit does throw me off.

[Travis Retriever]

So, how does he justify, say, Thomas Edison patenting the light bulb and getting all the credit when it was really Henry Woodward and Matthew Evans who invented it? Or how about a patent for Galileo's telescope over 200 years after Galileo developed it?

Or the practice of patent squatting?

Also, I wonder about IP regarding copyrights...
Last time I checked musicians only get a tiny sliver of the money from their CDs, most of which goes to the corporations (as the music is often copyrighted TO the corporations, as in the case of TV shows, movies, etc), such that the majority of their money comes from live concerts.
I don't know about authors of books and stories like he tends to worry about, but I doubt IP is the answer to that either.

[Travis Retriever]

In my defense, I didn't have time to read the whole article.  If it has a good argument, I'll go for it.  But just how is the matter of everyone picking at your inventions resolved?

I do agree, state controlled patents are just as ridiculous as state controlled anything but the article was saying the very idea of having something patented is bad which I admit does throw me off.

What I don't get is that just because there isn't an "ok, it's this simple" solution why we automatically to go granting person X a monopoly on the production of his goods/services.
Please watch the videos on "The myth of science as a public good" they go into detail into the idea using your premises regarding the capturing of research.

What pissed me off in one of the mises articles on IP was the conflation of black-mail & defamation.
Which makes zero sense period.
Heck, the author didn't really use that for the rest of his article (as far as I could tell), nor was it relavent, and could have left that part out completely.
Reminds me of the anarchists I've seen who think fraud is part of a free market, or FE saying that slavery is part of a free market.
According the to first, it is OK for the FED to bleed us dry with printing money like crazy (fraud), and according to FE the initiation of force is a free market, which is a contradiction in terms.
So yeah, anarchists can be stupid as shit too.

I will personally always adore ladyattis' thoughts on this, emergence: you will not always get the society you want in a free market, but as long as people aren't using an initiation of force, fraud or duress against you, who cares?

[valvatica]

In my defense, I didn't have time to read the whole article.

What article are you referring to?

[Travis Retriever]

What article are you referring to?

The Fallacy of Intellectual Property by Daniel Krawisz

[Gumba Masta]

Does this IP cover voice synthesizers that make you sound like Optimus Prime?

[Travis Retriever]

The last 2-3 minutes of this video has what you need to see.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BKyutB3u2bM

I was very impressed with the beginning and middle of this video, but he kinda lost it there.
Intellectual property in the sense of you are responsible for what you say and for what work you publish, etc, is a fact of life, what they're talking about, the exclusive right to copy software copyrighted to Microsoft backed by the barrel of a gun even when copying said software doesn't deprive Microsoft of anything, and trying to conflate the two is comparing apples and oranges at best.

I've already seen the philosophical reasons why IP =/= Physical Property over here:
http://mises.org/daily/3631 ("The Fallacy of Intellectual Property" by Daniel Krawisz)


While I'm at it: Hawkeye, you asked for a more practical look at this IP stuff.
Here you go, dude:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LI7moMzwF8g
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8I_d_FiuJxQ

If you want the unabridged version:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8KSua3Nczjk

I'll end this off with a comic and quote by Dale Everett which I think captures this point quite well:
http://anarchyinyourhead.com/2010/07/16/guest-comic-by-the-muslim-anarchist/