[772] in libertarians
Re: Intellectual property
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Nick Davis)
Mon Feb 27 11:54:17 1995
From: Nick Davis <94728860@mmu.ac.uk>
To: libertarians@MIT.EDU
Date: Mon, 27 Feb 1995 16:35:45 GMT
I have found the question of intellectual property one of the hardest
to consider, and I have still to be pursuaded one way or the other.
I hope that I live within my principles, but have broken what are
probably stupid copyright laws - has not everybody? I suppose one
could argue that these laws emanate from the State, and thus do not
reflect the property rights which *ought* to apply to intellectual
property, rather they represent the entrenched interests of
publishers, software houses and so forth.
But does not that dodge the issue somewhat. On the most basic
level, If I create with my body or mind I acquire some kind of
property rights. Alternatively, I may have traded my time and
expertise for something I value in which case the person with whom I
have traded acquires these rights.
Should the rights which derive from creation differ just because the
"thing" in question is physical? Try the following:
1. I buy some land and build a house.
2. I buy some stone and carve a statue.
3. I paint a picture.
4. I paint a picture, and produce copies which I sell.
5. I write a book about *how* to paint a particular kind of
picture.
All the above surely create property rights. But whereas I would not
sanction, for example, removing a part of the house, or taking the
statue or any of the paintings, I could understand someone who
borrows and copies one of the copy pictures, and would have few moral
problems with someone who photocopied part (or all?) of the book.
Does this mean that I am being inconsistent or that different kind of
rights follow? This is meant to be rhetorical but Io not know the
answer.
My immediate reaction is that the rights are different. One example
strikes me as appropriate. Rights over the house transfer with
ownership but basically should last forever. This is not true of
"intellectual property". I am not even convinced that intellectual
property rights, if they should exist at all, should exist beyond the
lifetime of the inventor/thinker/writer. And even them, if we were
to consider a philosopher, while the actual text would be covered,
surely the argument presented is not?
I am not suggesting that the origination of ideas should not be
acknowledged - I believe it should be, but more from a sense of
intellectual honesty and politeness than property rights. But I am
not convinced that an author can "sell" those rights to a third party
in the same way that rights over a house can be sold. The reason for
my scepticism here is that if i.p. rights can be sold in this way,
then they would, logically, be able to exist for ever, which cannot-
by common sense - be the case, and therefore they do not and they
cannot.
Nick.
P.S. Or perhaps I am jumping ahead of myself. It may be that in a
free society, a mutually acceptable court or arbitrator would use a
similar reductio argument to help her reach a decision that i.p.
rights can exist for a "reasonable" period after the death of the
originator or "sale" of the ideas.
