Quote from: Shasarak on October 06, 2021, 07:45:54 PM

Quote from: GeekyBugle on October 06, 2021, 02:57:48 PM
Why is it different producing bricks than producing a creative work?

Because a brick is an actual tangible thing where as a creative work has no inherent value.

Right, which is why people gave how much money to JK Rowlings?

Go write the next Harry Potter, put it under public domain and get as rich as her, then we'll talk.

Quote from: GeekyBugle on October 06, 2021, 07:47:41 PM
Right because if I do publish them to profit from my creative efforts then you feel entitled to take them and profit from them without my consent and without compensating me for my efforts... Slavery and theft.

Go write the next Harry Potter and put it under public domain, get as rich as JK Rowling then you might have an argument. In the meantime you're just trying to justify theft and slavery.

How is it slavery, when nobody's forcing you to do anything? How is it theft when no one is taking anything from you?

Quote from: GeekyBugle on October 06, 2021, 07:47:41 PM
Right because if I do publish them to profit from my creative efforts then you feel entitled to take them and profit from them without my consent and without compensating me for my efforts... Slavery and theft.

Go write the next Harry Potter and put it under public domain, get as rich as JK Rowling then you might have an argument. In the meantime you're just trying to justify theft and slavery.

As Pat says, you're associating *effort* with *compensation*. There is a moral ideal that people should be compensated in proportion to the value of their work, but it's not guaranteed in a working economy. Someone might put a lot of effort into their job, but their boss still treats them like shit and doesn't pay them fairly. Meanwhile, someone else might do a shitty job, but they're the boss' favorite and they get a huge salary.

You're arguing from a moral view that by doing the labor, someone should inherently own the fruits of that labor. From that view, getting paid unfairly is theft and slavery.

I think this ideal isn't possible in a practical economy. There is no way to enforce fairness in compensation, and ownership of the fruits of one's labor is not a natural right. The best we can do is approximate it by having laws that create social structures that *encourage* fairness, but there will always be unfairness.

Quote from: GeekyBugle on October 06, 2021, 07:47:41 PM
Right because if I do publish them to profit from my creative efforts then you feel entitled to take them and profit from them without my consent and without compensating me for my efforts... Slavery and theft.

Go write the next Harry Potter and put it under public domain, get as rich as JK Rowling then you might have an argument. In the meantime you're just trying to justify theft and slavery.

"You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means."

You're the one who's arguing in favor of non-consensual contractual arrangements.

Stop embarrassing yourself and enjoy this lecture from an actual unashamed capitalist: On Life without Patents and Copyright: Or, But Who Would Pick the Cotton? (PFS 2015)

Quote from: Oddend on October 06, 2021, 04:11:52 PM


Copying is not stealing. It's obvious, irrefutable, and is just something we have to get over and live with.

Except that many folks disagree with it, so it isn't obvious, it has been refuted many, many times, and it does not appear to be going away anytime soon.  Except for those points, you're 100% right.

Quote from: Mishihari on October 06, 2021, 08:33:00 PM

Quote from: Oddend on October 06, 2021, 04:11:52 PM
Copying is not stealing. It's obvious, irrefutable, and is just something we have to get over and live with.

Except that many folks disagree with it, so it isn't obvious, it has been refuted many, many times, and it does not appear to be going away anytime soon.  Except for those points, you're 100% right.

Not a single one of you has presented a counter-argument (hint: "How would I get rich?" isn't an argument), but go ahead and congratulate yourselves.

Quote from: Oddend on October 06, 2021, 05:58:22 AM
Property is something that can be taken from you. For example: the hard drive an RPG trove is stored on? That's property. The PDFs on the drive? Those are information. They're infinitely duplicable; they're not scarce.

Let's focus on this bit because it seems to be the source of your error, and see where the logic goes.   Do you believe in land ownership?  Land can't be taken from you.  It's a location, not a physical object:  if you own land and every bit of the material in it were replaced with something else, you still own the land.  By that logic you shouldn't be able to own land.  Which means I can come in and sleep on your couch without permission any time I want.  Because the only reason I can't do that now is that you own the land.  To head off the obvious rebuttal, yes land and ideas are different, but the logic is identical.  If you're not willing to let random folks sleep on your couch without permission, then there's something wrong with your premise.

Legally, one's property is just something that he has the right to exclude others from using without permission.  There's nothing in the concept that says it has to be a physical object.  It can be an object, an idea, a location, an option, a song, or any number of other things.

As for my views, property is a social construct meant to reduce conflict, incentivize production, and promote the common good.  Neither physics nor morality speak to how property should be defined.  Once it is defined, though. "Thou shalt not steal" is in effect.  IP laws should maximize the common good by balancing incentivizing value creation and reception of value by the public.  I think they currently serve their purpose pretty well but could use some tweaking.  Specifically, music and movie IP duration should be about 10 years, books should be author's lifetime plus 20 years, and patents should be 20 years from the time of the patent grant (not the time of the patent application as is currently the case.)   Those are relatively minor adjustments, thought.  The big point is that I do believe that having IP in the laws promotes the common good.

Quote from: Oddend on October 06, 2021, 08:30:12 PM

Quote from: GeekyBugle on October 06, 2021, 07:47:41 PM
Right because if I do publish them to profit from my creative efforts then you feel entitled to take them and profit from them without my consent and without compensating me for my efforts... Slavery and theft.

Go write the next Harry Potter and put it under public domain, get as rich as JK Rowling then you might have an argument. In the meantime you're just trying to justify theft and slavery.

"You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means."

You're the one who's arguing in favor of non-consensual contractual arrangements.

Stop embarrassing yourself and enjoy this lecture from an actual unashamed capitalist: On Life without Patents and Copyright: Or, But Who Would Pick the Cotton? (PFS 2015)

And to your errors, faulty logic and ideological blindnes we now can add you lying. Please do provide proof of where exactly do I argue in favor on non-consensual contracts.

Quote from: GeekyBugle on October 06, 2021, 07:49:18 PM

Quote from: Shasarak on October 06, 2021, 07:45:54 PM

Quote from: GeekyBugle on October 06, 2021, 02:57:48 PM
Why is it different producing bricks than producing a creative work?

Because a brick is an actual tangible thing where as a creative work has no inherent value.

Right, which is why people gave how much money to JK Rowlings?

Go write the next Harry Potter, put it under public domain and get as rich as her, then we'll talk.

No one paid her for the idea of a boy wizard.

Quote from: Pat on October 06, 2021, 07:54:24 PM

Quote from: GeekyBugle on October 06, 2021, 07:47:41 PM
Right because if I do publish them to profit from my creative efforts then you feel entitled to take them and profit from them without my consent and without compensating me for my efforts... Slavery and theft.

Go write the next Harry Potter and put it under public domain, get as rich as JK Rowling then you might have an argument. In the meantime you're just trying to justify theft and slavery.

How is it slavery, when nobody's forcing you to do anything? How is it theft when no one is taking anything from you?

You can not talk that way to a person of colour.

Quote from: Mishihari on October 06, 2021, 09:01:09 PM

Quote from: Oddend on October 06, 2021, 05:58:22 AM
Property is something that can be taken from you. For example: the hard drive an RPG trove is stored on? That's property. The PDFs on the drive? Those are information. They're infinitely duplicable; they're not scarce.

Let's focus on this bit because it seems to be the source of your error, and see where the logic goes.   Do you believe in land ownership?  Land can't be taken from you.  It's a location, not a physical object:  if you own land and every bit of the material in it were replaced with something else, you still own the land.  By that logic you shouldn't be able to own land.  Which means I can come in and sleep on your couch without permission any time I want.  Because the only reason I can't do that now is that you own the land.  To head off the obvious rebuttal, yes land and ideas are different, but the logic is identical.  If you're not willing to let random folks sleep on your couch without permission, then there's something wrong with your premise.

Thank you. This is just imprecise wording on my part. In this context, "something that can be taken from you" would mean "something over which physical control can be taken from you", which (of course) would include land. And of course, when we say "land" we're usually talking about a delineated space, not the literal dirt, though that can be legitimately owned too.

It's not that land and IP are different; it's that scarce goods and information are different.

Quote from: Mishihari on October 06, 2021, 09:01:09 PM
Legally, one's property is just something that he has the right to exclude others from using without permission.  There's nothing in the concept that says it has to be a physical object.  It can be an object, an idea, a location, an option, a song, or any number of other things.

Quote from: Mishihari on October 06, 2021, 09:01:09 PM
As for my views, property is a social construct meant to reduce conflict, incentivize production, and promote the common good.  Neither physics nor morality speak to how property should be defined.

You're correct that private property is a conflict-resolution tool, but this is exactly why information is out of the picture. A conflict arises when two people want to wear the same hat at the same time. There is no conflict when two people want to sing the same song at the same time, or enjoy the same book (the text, not a physical copy) at the same time.

Once we insist that information can be property, we're actually introducing the opportunity for conflict that was not there to begin with.

Quote from: GeekyBugle on October 06, 2021, 09:04:07 PM

Quote from: Oddend on October 06, 2021, 08:30:12 PM

Quote from: GeekyBugle on October 06, 2021, 07:47:41 PM
Right because if I do publish them to profit from my creative efforts then you feel entitled to take them and profit from them without my consent and without compensating me for my efforts... Slavery and theft.

Go write the next Harry Potter and put it under public domain, get as rich as JK Rowling then you might have an argument. In the meantime you're just trying to justify theft and slavery.

"You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means."

You're the one who's arguing in favor of non-consensual contractual arrangements.

Stop embarrassing yourself and enjoy this lecture from an actual unashamed capitalist: On Life without Patents and Copyright: Or, But Who Would Pick the Cotton? (PFS 2015)

And to your errors, faulty logic and ideological blindnes we now can add you lying. Please do provide proof of where exactly do I argue in favor on non-consensual contracts.

Aren't you in favor of monopoly privilege for content creators? How do you think monopolies work? When an author writes a book, does everyone other than him receive a monopoly-upholding contract in the mail, ready to endorse or decline? Or is that everyone, without their consent or even notification, is coerced on behalf of the author into abstaining from otherwise legal use of their own property?

All of this is discussed in those two talks I linked earlier. Here's a relevant bit from his book:

Quote from: Against Intellectual Property, p35-36
Only tangible, scarce resources are the possible object of interpersonal conflict, so it is only for them that property rules are applicable. Thus, patents and copyrights are unjustifiable monopolies granted by government legislation. It is not surprising that, as Palmer notes, "[m]onopoly privilege and censorship lie at the historical root of patent and copyright." It is this monopoly privilege that creates an artificial scarcity where there was none before.

Let us recall that IP rights give to pattern-creators partial rights of control—ownership—over the tangible property of everyone else. The pattern-creator has partial ownership of others' property, by virtue of his IP right, because he can prohibit them from performing certain actions with their own property. Author X, for example, can prohibit a third party, Y, from inscribing a certain pattern of words on Y's own blank pages with Y's own ink.

That is, by merely authoring an original expression of ideas, by merely thinking of and recording some original pattern of information, or by finding a new way to use his own property (recipe), the IP creator instantly, magically becomes a partial owner of others' property. He has some say over how third parties can use their property. IP rights change the status quo by redistributing property from individuals of one class (tangible-property owners) to individuals of another (authors and inventors). Prima facie, therefore, IP law trespasses against or "takes" the property of tangible property owners, by transferring partial ownership to authors and inventors. It is this invasion and redistribution of property that must be justified in order for IP rights to be valid. We see, then, that utilitarian defenses do not do the trick.

Full book and audiobook: https://mises.org/library/against-intellectual-property-0

Quote from: Oddend on October 07, 2021, 01:46:28 AM
"We see, then, that utilitarian defenses do not do the trick"

A Utilitarian defence of IP only requires that net benefit exceeds net harm, not that IP Law does not do harm. Infringing on other people's rights is a much bigger deal in rights-based theories than in Utilitarian theory.

Quote from: Oddend on October 06, 2021, 08:42:34 PM

Quote from: Mishihari on October 06, 2021, 08:33:00 PM

Quote from: Oddend on October 06, 2021, 04:11:52 PM
Copying is not stealing. It's obvious, irrefutable, and is just something we have to get over and live with.

Except that many folks disagree with it, so it isn't obvious, it has been refuted many, many times, and it does not appear to be going away anytime soon.  Except for those points, you're 100% right.

Not a single one of you has presented a counter-argument (hint: "How would I get rich?" isn't an argument), but go ahead and congratulate yourselves.

I dont think "they can live on charity and good will" is a very compelling argument either. I do thank you for answering my question earlier, and it gave me a lot to think about, but i dont see the benefit in getting rid of IP laws. A lot of it relys on things like reputation, but that didnt help Charles Dickens when people were selling copies of A Christmas Carol without him.

EDIT: i actually just saw your edit to your original reply to me and its given me more to think over on the matter, im not really sold, partially because whats the basis of monetizing a livestream chat or writing advice as neither things are physical property?

I flipflop on the digital "piracy" thing.

I know I'm not alone in having gigabytes of unread PDFs downloaded over the years from the tsunami of freebies available from DriveThru and others. Heck, I've got 50MB worth of PDFs I've bought that I haven't read yet.

I don't like to buy books sight unseen, so at least flipping through a PDF would give me the notion of whether I would buy the dead tree version. Thus, I'm a fan of free PDFs to check out before buying the POD.

Of course, this is fine until "digital books" are great at the table. Some may argue their Kindle or iPad is already better for actual gaming than a deadtree version. So these people would represent a financial loss if PDFs were free.

Maybe. We don't really know the relation between "pirate" and paying customer over the long term. AKA, how many pirates even use (or read) their booty?

I don't know the right answer, but I do know that "PDF piracy" isn't going away regardless of whatever Zwei-bitch might want. I fully expect the Trove to return in some form, if it isn't already out there.