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Well, that's because some of the underlying
assumptions are absurd. Certain people in this
list, and in the world at large, have a vested
interest in a flawed model, so they are
reluctant to admit -- or even to dispassionately
examine why that model is showing cracks.
>Kevin, you apprently don't think there should be any
>legal safeguards to protect stuff like intellectual
>property, patents, and so on? Copyright law is not an
>"artifical legal construct" - or at least it's not any
>more artificial than any other legal construct out
>there.
Any law is artificial, in the sense that it is
a bunch of words describing an idea. However, the
distinction I wanted to make is that copyright
and other "intellectual property" laws are not
supported by underlying "natural law", the way
basic prohibitions against assault and physical
theft... are.
In other words, the concepts (and the laws and
regulations based on them) of "intellectual
property" are largely self-referential. The
common man or woman, despite having been exposed
to them for all of their lives (and the lives
of their recent ancestors) does not buy into the
"intellectual property" concepts with the same
ease and comfort that they buy into prohibitions
against physical theft, assault, property damage.
The proponents have tried to justify their efforts
by way of analogy, but the anology doesn't quite
cut it. People realize this, either consciously
in an articulate fashion, or unconsciously in a
"that's not quite right somehow" fashion.
>Knowledge is a very valuable asset, often much more so
>than tangible goods. If you steal my knowledge (be it
>a document or a piece of software) and then use it
>without paying me, you're stealing.
Yes, knowledge is very valuable. Like the contents
of a can of worms, or a bag of cats, it gets out,
and can't be stuffed back in.
People have protected "trade secrets" for centuries,
by the simple expedient of keeping their secrets
unobserved and close to home. An artisan produces
wonderful work, that others just can't manage to
duplicate. His stuff is valued over the work of
others because of it's unique beauty or utility.
He can preserve that advantage only as long as he
doesn't reveal how he does it.
It becomes his choice whether to keep the secret
safe and make profit only on the number of pieces
he is able to create single-handedly, or to risk
the secret by employing others to help him produce
greater quantities. He can minimize the risk of
spreading the secret by keeping it in his family
or among a small community of people who are tied
to him by strong bonds... or whose tongues he has
cut out (in the days before writing...) :-)
>Why is stealing my toaster a bad thing, when stealing
>my design (for an amazing new toaster) not stealing?
Because stealing your toaster prevents you from using
that toaster. Copying your design does not prevent you
from using your design.
Furthermore, as soon as you begin selling them, I can
copy your design from a toaster that you sell to me,
and probably improve on it in the process. I don't
need your blue-prints.
>People and companies invest millions of dollars in
>R&D: that's investment in an asset (intellectual
>property) that the law protects.
Yes, it does. So, however, would secrecy.
>Why? Because we want to encourage and stimulate
>innovation (whether it's for a new drug or a new kind
>of Jello) and the only way to do that is protect
>people's investment in innovation.
Encouraging innovation is the ostensible motivation,
yes. However, as is usual with anything the government
does, it is rife with unintended consequences.
That, in fact, is why I equated "intellectual property"
rules with prohibition in an earlier post. It's the
same idea. You decide to meddle, you talk a bunch of
people into supporting you. You persuade them by
making the supposed benefits sound plausible and by
(craftily or stupidly) downplaying/ignoring the
inevitable consequences. Then, you reap your political
benefits and retire to a sunny place before the voters
start reaping the consequences.
People innovate. That's what they do. The current
climate of "intellectual property" merely encourages
them to innovate in certain ways and to protect
their work in certain ways. If copyright and related
laws were to shut down tomorrow, there'd be some
upheaval for a couple of years, and then things would
rapidly settle down into a new version of "business
as usual". Many of those who profit from the current
artificial structure would lose out. Some would be
flexible and agile enough to make the cross-over and
be successful in the new way, and others who had not
previously been hugely rewarded would begin making
more money from their work. Mostly, I believe the
replacement model would favor smaller enterprises
and craftsmanship.
>The fact that many of us break the law routinely (by
>copying cassette tapes, for example) doesn't mean that
>the legal framework ought to be torn down.
Actually, it does, and for the same reasons that
stupid laws like prohibition should be torn down.
They make criminals out of people who would not
otherwise, be, and they tarnish/undermine the law
as a whole, including the good laws. The more you
make non-essential laws that are hard to enforce
and that people do not feel morally constrained to
obey, the more you detract from the good and valid
laws in the minds of those who don't care (or are
not able) to make the distinction.
>At any rate, unless someone on this list is a legal
>expert, there's not much point in continuing to
>discuss this. We ought to get back to something we
>know about.
Ahh, but there's the rub. Some of us in this list DO
count on copyright and other "intellectual property"
laws, and the foundation is now seen to be crumbling.
I haven't made any legal arguments. I've made practical
and observational and even ethical ones as to why
that is happening. For example, I've observed that
most of us, while we may pay lip service to Copyright
(by dutifully including the notice on our docs) do
not benefit from it in any tangible way. We write
docs that only our customers want, and then only
until our employers modify the product.
If I were to get into the book-publishing business,
I'd probably try to profit from copyright, too, but
I would't expect it to last, as I might have thirty
or forty years ago. That is, if I had written a
popular (I hope) book, I would probably NOT go out
of my way to invoke CopyLeft. I would hold my publishers
to any contractual obligations they had undertaken.
I consider it my right to defend my person, my home,
and my other physical property against anybody who
wants to take it or damage it. This is so, because
a) I want it that way, and
b) I reliably extend the reciprocal rights to all
other persons.
By contrast, protection of my so-called "intellectual
property" is merely a privilege, and I can't really
count on it lasting much longer, much as I can't
guarantee I'll protect anybody else's claims.
On the other hand, I believe I've paid for every
piece of software that I'm using. I want those folks
to keep producing and supporting it for a while.
I'd be pleased if they'd switch over to a service
model, but for the moment there's some utility to
me in pretending that they have property rights in
the code that came on the CDs they SOLD (not rented)
to me.
Before anybody gets any smart-assed ideas, if you
take my words (these or any others) and pretend to
the world that they are yours, I may go after you
for misrepresentation, just as I would if you tried
to put your words in my mouth.
If it turns out that I'd get less utility out of
a misrepresentation lawsuit or charge than out of
an "infringement" charge, well I regard that as a
shameful and unfortunate perversion of law. There
are plenty of those around.
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