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posted by
takyon
on Wednesday April 08 2015, @10:30AM
from the I-have-a-vision-for-SIGNAL-LOST dept.
from the I-have-a-vision-for-SIGNAL-LOST dept.
Not too long ago both Rand and Ron Paul were pushing a copyright maximalist agenda. Today the chickens have come home to roost. Rand Paul's presidential announcement has been blocked by a copyright claim from Warner Music Group due to a clip of a song used in the announcement. Even more apropos of the (less and less as time goes by) libertarian-leaning Republican candidate, it wasn't a DMCA takedown raining on his parade, but the purely private ContentID system that Youtube put in place in order to appease the copyright cartel.
Here is a transcript of Rand Paul's announcement.
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Rand Paul Censored by Youtube ContentID Copyright Enforcement System
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Logicians have but ill defined
As rational the human kind.
Logic, they say, belongs to man,
But let them prove it if they can.
-- Oliver Goldsmith
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday April 09 2015, @04:20AM
Real property is both rivalrous and excludable.
Except when it's not, of course. A sign, for example, is real property, but use by someone doesn't prevent use by others (hence, is not rivalrous) nor is it excludable, if it happens to be in public view. And it's worth noting the obvious that a lot of intellectual property is both rivalrous and excludable. I can't just go write my own Lord of the Rings sequel and profit from it like the Tolkien estate could.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 09 2015, @07:52AM
Where's the -1 Dense as Dogshit mod option when you need it?
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday April 09 2015, @01:03PM
To recap this thread, an earlier AC poster claimed that "intellectual property" was a propaganda term because it wasn't "similar" to real property. I merely note that IP is real property for obvious reasons. Why argue something that with a little thought you can see is false? There is no point to the argument.
(Score: 2) by monster on Friday April 10 2015, @09:14AM
The meaning of the sign is neither rivalrous nor excludable, in the same way the red color in your car is neither rivalrous nor excludable to others. The object (sign in one case, car in the other) is rivalrous and excludable.
As for intellectual property being rivalrous and excludable, I think you are wrong: Just by writing your Lord of the Rings sequel you haven't taken anything away from Tolkien state. You could theoretically harm it by distributing your sequel, but even that is dubious (see fanfic, for example, or how modern covers also increase sales of old songs) and that reasoning is a dangerous path in its own way: An argument that your sequel harms Tolkien state's sequels could be used likewise in other industries to quite over the top results, like from an automaker about other automakers (by making good cars they harm my chances to sell my average cars!)
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday April 10 2015, @09:40AM
The meaning of the sign is neither rivalrous nor excludable
The correct term here is "use" not "meaning". We thus eliminate your first argument.
As for intellectual property being rivalrous and excludable, I think you are wrong: Just by writing your Lord of the Rings sequel you haven't taken anything away from Tolkien state.
First, note that I will subject to lawsuits from the Tolkien estate which can have a penalty large enough that I can't profit from the endeavor. That creates the rivalrous and excludable nature of this particular copyright. Focusing on the degree of harm that my efforts can cause, is a different matter than consideration of whether something is effectively property or not.
(Score: 2) by monster on Friday April 10 2015, @09:58AM
A sign is useless unless there's and associated meaning to it like "Stop", "Emergency exit" or "Beware of the dog" for example, but given that you are dismissing the whole argument with just a reference to incorrect use of terms I think you are just deflecting the matter entirely, and that your debating process seems to contain little sportmanship.
So your argument is that it is property because the law says so, and the law must say so because it is property. I detect a small chicken and egg problem...
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday April 10 2015, @11:05AM
but given that you are dismissing the whole argument with just a reference to incorrect use of terms I think you are just deflecting the matter entirely, and that your debating process seems to contain little sportmanship.
It's not my job to think for you. The problem here is that you need to up your game. Come up with a reasoned argument that can't be dismissed so easily.
So your argument is that it is property because the law says so, and the law must say so because it is property. I detect a small chicken and egg problem...
The law exists so the chicken and egg problem is resolved.
(Score: 2) by monster on Friday April 10 2015, @12:52PM
I've already presented an argument and you dismissed it solely because for you the correct term is "use" and not "meaning", so I rest my case. I'm not going to change it just because you don't like my words. You are not debating, you are just trolling.
No, it's not, it's just a statement of fact (the law exists) and not a rational cause for the existence of such property (IP). Otherwise, slavery should still be legal, since there was a law that said that some people were property and so it wasn't correct to abolish it.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday April 10 2015, @01:12PM
I've already presented an argument and you dismissed it solely because for you the correct term is "use" and not "meaning", so I rest my case.
And you rest your case why? My point destroys your argument. A sign's meaning is in its use which is what I've been speaking of all along.
No, it's not, it's just a statement of fact (the law exists) and not a rational cause for the existence of such property (IP).
Exactly. Chicken and egg is resolved when the fact of either's existence is determined. Since the law exists, the chicken and egg problem is resolved.
I really don't get what you are trying to argue here. The issues you brought up have been trivial and uninteresting.
(Score: 2) by monster on Friday April 10 2015, @01:55PM
Then follow up and show how the use of the sign is rivalrous or excludable. Unless you show how it can be, you haven't destroyed anything, just nitpicked about words.
Since you seem to be so away from the discussion, I'll use an schematic:
You (in response to an AC): "And it's worth noting the obvious that a lot of intellectual property is both rivalrous and excludable. I can't just go write my own Lord of the Rings sequel and profit from it like the Tolkien estate could."
Me: "You creating a sequel wouldn't deprive Tolkien state of its belongings, so it doesn't fit the nature of property"
You: "The fact that Tolkien state would sue me creates the rivalrous and excludable nature. Also, focusing on the degree of harm that my efforts can cause, is a different matter than consideration of whether something is effectively property or not."
Me: "So you are justifying IP with the argument because the law says so"
You: "Yes"
Me: "That's not a justification, that's just a statement of current law. It could be used to justify anything, as long as somebody gets to put it in a law".
You: "Since the law exists, the matter is resolved"
Both me and the AC don't need you to know that IP is in the law. What both are arguing is if it should exist at all, given its radically different nature from physical property and that any similarity is brought by enforcement of arbitrary rules to cause scarcity in what would otherwise be an infinitely available good.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday April 11 2015, @01:01AM
Then follow up and show how the use of the sign is rivalrous or excludable.
I already stated at the beginning that it wasn't. In other words, we have real property which isn't rivalrous or excludable in its intended use. That was the whole point of my example.
Both me and the AC don't need you to know that IP is in the law. What both are arguing is if it should exist at all, given its radically different nature from physical property and that any similarity is brought by enforcement of arbitrary rules to cause scarcity in what would otherwise be an infinitely available good.
So what? You just acknowledged that IP is at the least similar to real property due to these rules (which aren't arbitrary BTW). And property as a whole tends to require a lot of rules in order to exist. Most people can't maintain their own bands of thugs to protect their property from all the other bands of thugs. To create property and other "civil rights" one needs some sort of "arbitrary rules" and sufficiently negative consequence to breaking those rules.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 11 2015, @11:18PM
Dense as dogshit is right.
Even if your specious logic were actually a coherent proof that a sign is not rivalrous or excludable ... at best you've found a minor corner case that says nothing about the general case. No economist in the world would agree with your side of the argument. Assburgers does not make you good at understanding economics because economics is a field of psychology.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday April 12 2015, @03:02AM
Even if your specious logic were actually a coherent proof that a sign is not rivalrous or excludable ...
Which it is for its normal use. Hence, why I used it as an example.
at best you've found a minor corner case that says nothing about the general case
A corner case which happens to be considered real property and which is really common in today's societies. A person who isn't blind or living on their own in deep wilderness can't go a day without running into a number of such signs.
No economist in the world would agree with your side of the argument.
I don't need their agreement, I just need to be right.
Assburgers does not make you good at understanding economics because economics is a field of psychology.
Economics isn't a field of psychology. Psychology shares some aspects with economics, but you are attempting to anthropomorphize economics. I can come up with a number of economics examples from the natural world, such as pollination or carcass feeding which usually don't involve humans and hence, for which psychology (of the traditional human-oriented sort) is of very limited usefulness in discussing the motives and behavior of the participants. Similarly, I can look at examples from the computer world such as high frequency trading which involve humans distantly, but which happen at scales that can't involve human psychology.
Further, economics activities are fundamentally objective. We may not fully understand the motives or valuation beliefs of the participants in an economic system without understanding their psychology, but we can observe their actions. And an economics system is far more than the behavior of the individual participants. It's also the infrastructure and rules of trade, negotiation, production, and consumption.
But the psychology argument is just another non sequitur since it doesn't matter to our argument whether economics is a subfield of psychology or not. An assertion was made that IP was not similar to real property. The assertion was backed by the claim that IP was not rivalrous or excludable. That right there excludes the need for psychology. We're just discussing an objective, non-human behavior aspect of IP.
When I pointed out that the assertion was false, then you continue to insist otherwise. I don't know why since IP laws do create the necessary conditions to consider it similar to real property. Some of your other arguments are particularly nonsensical, such as claiming that the meaning of the sign is somehow more relevant to property classification than its use is which is just a pointless semantics game. Or claiming that there is a "chicken and egg" problem when neither the initial chicken or egg are hard to come by. We can actually look at the past few centuries of the evolution of such laws and such IP to see how they came about. And creating the intellectual property or the rules to protect that intellectual property just aren't that hard.
(Score: 2) by monster on Monday April 13 2015, @01:20PM
First, the AC is not me. I'm still trying to have a discussion and not namecalling.
Second, as I have already stated, that a law says something doesn't mean that it is that way in the real world. Some state laws saying that Pi was exactly 3 are a prime example of what I'm trying to say: Laws don't change reality, they just stablish rules, so the fact that there already are IP laws does nil to justify the moral standing of such laws and are just a "Because I say so" kind of argument, like they were in other times for slavery or other matters.
Third, since we can't even agree about what we are discussing, I see little reason to continue this back a and forth. Have a nice day.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday April 13 2015, @01:41PM
Second, as I have already stated, that a law says something doesn't mean that it is that way in the real world.
In this case, it does. The rules matter because there are large financial liabilities associated with violating IP law. A nimble, nothing-to-lose pirate can work around that. A major corporation which owes its exists to the confines of law can't.
so the fact that there already are IP laws does nil to justify the moral standing of such laws and are just a "Because I say so" kind of argument
An enforceable "Because I say so" satisfies the preconditions for my arguments. Moral standing is completely irrelevant to the discussion at hand. IP doesn't become more or less rivalrous and excludable just because the moral standing is not as justified as you would like.
(Score: 2) by monster on Monday April 13 2015, @04:23PM
Like I said, that was the case with slavery, too. There were large financial liabilities associated with slavery in the South. That fact doesn't justify slavery.
Moral standing is everything in this discussion. Otherwise, it's just an example of "Those who own the guns make the rules".
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday April 14 2015, @08:59AM
Like I said, that was the case with slavery, too. There were large financial liabilities associated with slavery in the South.
The financial liabilities of violating IP law scale with profit. If I make a billion dollars by illegally selling a song for which I don't have the copyright, I can be fined for the full amount of my profit and then some. That renders the effort unprofitable except for those with little to seize by a court. Meanwhile early 19th century slavers just had to cover the costs of their holdings. They were quite profitable.
That fact doesn't justify slavery.
If you're looking for a justification for slavery, you'll have to look elsewhere. I don't care about it since it is completely off topic and irrelevant.
Moral standing is everything in this discussion.
Of course, it's not.
Otherwise, it's just an example of "Those who own the guns make the rules".
And this is why. The rules were made by people with guns. Since, we have the example of the latter, we don't need to care whether it is an example of the former "moral standing" category.
(Score: 2) by monster on Monday April 13 2015, @01:09PM
Sigh... The item you have (the sign) is rivalrous and excludable. If I take it away, you don't have it anymore. It doesn't matter that you can get another sign with the same use. A $100 bill also has a use, if you lose one you may get another and even in that case it's rivalrous and excludable. That's why your example makes no sense and why I was arguing that whatever words you use the facts about physical items remain.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday April 13 2015, @01:23PM
What makes the sign analogy relevant is that I notice a conflation of use with ownership. The sign like IP has use that is not rivalrous and excludable. But like IP ownership is rivalrous and excludable.
(Score: 2) by monster on Monday April 13 2015, @04:21PM
So your example of a physical item which is not rivalrous and not excludable was a sign, I showed you that what is not rivalrous and not excludable about it is its use (per your words) and not the item and your response is to avoid the matter and return to IP. Seems like your example backfired badly, IMHO.
An attorney's bar can also be taken away and that fact doesn't make it more property-like, just shows the fact that it is a state issued permit.