Quote from: Shrieking Banshee on October 11, 2021, 12:42:26 AM
Again, if I made a bunch and just put it on the side of the road with no intent to profit directly. Me doing so difuses a real value.

Nobody's disputed that, as far as I can tell. What does it have to do with IP law?

Quote from: Shrieking Banshee on October 11, 2021, 12:42:26 AM

Quote from: Pat on October 11, 2021, 12:26:22 AMMy strongest moral beliefs are rooted in natural rights.

Which you see as?

Im against government intervention for practical reasons but also moral ones where I do not believe the majority have the right to demand things from the minority by that standing.

I agree with that. Government intervention in many economic matters doesn't work, which is a utilitarian argument. There is a moral component, because damn they've fucked up a lot and made things much worse, but it's somewhat indirect. On the other hand, forcing people to do things against their will is a violation of natural rights, and thus a much more direct violation.

Quote from: Pat on October 11, 2021, 12:55:19 AMI agree with that. Government intervention in many economic matters doesn't work, which is a utilitarian argument. There is a moral component, because damn they've fucked up a lot and made things much worse, but it's somewhat indirect. On the other hand, forcing people to do things against their will is a violation of natural rights, and thus a much more direct violation.

I get a sense we agree on many a things, and are discussing details for communication reasons.
What do you see as natural rights?

Like this 'idea as property, and property as a right' thing I feel is hard to discuss because it touches apon very closely what each person sees as property and what each person sees as an inalianable right. What each person sees as ethical.

It feels wrong for me to say its OK to confiscate land from somebody after its made them enough money, and so it feels wrong for me to say that someboodies intelectual creations can't be theirs after a period of time as well.
But I don't like the idea of ideas/lands centralizing into megacorporate slime hands either.

This is why I brought up ethics earlier and the like. While society can function on purely a level of utility, if it doesn't function on a similar level of ethics it will fall apart. This is why I feel so much stuff like free speech is being undermined. The utility reasons are there, but the individual morals are not.

Quote from: Shrieking Banshee on October 11, 2021, 12:42:26 AM

Quote from: Oddend on October 11, 2021, 12:21:53 AMThis is an assertion that demands quite an explanation. Especially in regards to the software industry, and also the many thriving industries which have no IP law protection at all (fashion and culinary, for example).

Fasion/Culinary is a service and a percieved value market.

What isn't a "perceived value market"? This isn't an argument, it's just dodging the real world elephants in the room which can't be explained in accordance with any argument for IP law. (Why don't culinary recipes need protection, but recipes for drugs do? It's because IP law is arbitrary BS.)

Quote from: Shrieking Banshee on October 11, 2021, 12:42:26 AM
Software has a fuck ton of IP protection in many places. Im not saying things can't exist without IP law. Im just saying its a stretch to say they would all exist without it.

I did not say software cannot have IP protection. Rather, its explosive rate of innovation is directly related to the enormous amount of software published explicitly without IP protection. Probably all closed-source software today is bolted directly onto publicly available open-source software.

Quote from: Oddend on October 11, 2021, 01:05:39 AMWhat isn't a "perceived value market"? This isn't an argument, it's just dodging the real world elephants in the room which can't be explained in accordance with any argument for IP law. (Why don't culinary recipes need protection, but recipes for drugs do? It's because IP law is arbitrary BS.)

Im pretty sure they are. Or people naturally start stretching recipies to recieve IP protection.

Quote from: Shrieking Banshee on October 11, 2021, 12:42:26 AM
Software has a fuck ton of IP protection in many places. Im not saying things can't exist without IP law. Im just saying its a stretch to say they would all exist without it.

QuoteRather, its explosive rate of innovation is directly related to the enormous amount of software published explicitly without IP protection.

And I think its great when people do stuff for no money. But I can't really argue one way or another because I have no historical knowledge of the industry.

Thats why I try to argue more philosophy or theoreticals because then we don't play games of source questioning.

Quote from: Shrieking Banshee on October 11, 2021, 01:14:43 AM

Quote from: Shrieking Banshee on October 11, 2021, 12:42:26 AM
Software has a fuck ton of IP protection in many places. Im not saying things can't exist without IP law. Im just saying its a stretch to say they would all exist without it.

QuoteRather, its explosive rate of innovation is directly related to the enormous amount of software published explicitly without IP protection.

And I think its great when people do stuff for no money. But I can't really argue one way or another because I have no historical knowledge of the industry.

Thats why I try to argue more philosophy or theoreticals because then we don't play games of source questioning.

The reason we keep bringing it up is because the software industry is not a charity case. There is a misconception throughout the thread that "anti IP" = "anti profit". Not so. I actually think the amount of creative people making money would dramatically increase if IP law was abolished tomorrow (i.e. millions more people would be able to start making modest amounts of money with their currently-illegal dream projects). Disney and others might not make as many billions, but they would remain big. They're gigantic businesses for a reason. Nobody is going to stop buying tickets to their theme parks or stop watching their movies just because fans are allowed to produce their own stuff without being harassed.

Quote from: Shrieking Banshee on October 11, 2021, 01:02:34 AM

Quote from: Pat on October 11, 2021, 12:55:19 AMI agree with that. Government intervention in many economic matters doesn't work, which is a utilitarian argument. There is a moral component, because damn they've fucked up a lot and made things much worse, but it's somewhat indirect. On the other hand, forcing people to do things against their will is a violation of natural rights, and thus a much more direct violation.

I get a sense we agree on many a things, and are discussing details for communication reasons.
What do you see as natural rights?

Like this 'idea as property, and property as a right' thing I feel is hard to discuss because it touches apon very closely what each person sees as property and what each person sees as an inalianable right. What each person sees as ethical.

It feels wrong for me to say its OK to confiscate land from somebody after its made them enough money, and so it feels wrong for me to say that someboodies intelectual creations can't be theirs after a period of time as well.
But I don't like the idea of ideas/lands centralizing into megacorporate slime hands either.

This is why I brought up ethics earlier and the like. While society can function on purely a level of utility, if it doesn't function on a similar level of ethics it will fall apart. This is why I feel so much stuff like free speech is being undermined. The utility reasons are there, but the individual morals are not.

I think a lot of our moral sense of outrage is learned, and what's why I went back to root principles and explained things from a utilitarian standpoint. There's been a major cultural shift in how we view ideas in the last 40 or 50 years. As intellectual property laws have been dramatically extended and tightened, more and more people have come to equate them with physical property, and have transferred their instinctive aversion to theft of an individual's personal possessions to ideas. This has happened before. Our nomadic ancestors originally didn't own anything they couldn't carry, but as civilization developed they extended the aversion against theft of an individual's personal belongings, to things like plots of land and warehouses full of goods. This isn't complete; you can see a reaction against it in the hatred of the rich, and it's the whole premise of socialism (where personal possessions are okay but no one person is allowed to own the means of production). But it's useful, because ownership of property results in better outcomes than any other system, for the reasons I explained before.

But extending that to ideas is relatively new. And while there is some utilitarian merit in providing limited monopoly rights to encourage more new works, the traits associated with physical vs. intellectual means the concept of property doesn't translate well. And that's because physical resources are scarce, but intellectual ones are not. The benefits of extending our instinctive aversion against taking something from someone's hand to taking a plot of land someone else owns the title to, are real; and it translates perfectly, because we're still talking about scarce resources. But the logical extrapolation of property rights to ideas will ultimately result in complete cultural lockdown -- because the logical conclusion is every idea everyone has ever had will become owned by someone, who has the exclusive right to that idea. That's difficult to handle from a policing standpoint, because it's a lot harder to draw a line between ideas than between plots of land or to distinguish physical objects (cf. all the problems with patents). And it's utterly terrible from the standpoint of society, because ideas are cumulative. Ideas build upon ideas build upon ideas; all things are ultimately derivative of root concepts like language, or simply logic. We'd end up with everything locked up and rent-seekers taking a toll from everything anyone does, which would destroy our future.

The transfer of the moral revulsion associated with personal integrity and one's personal space to ideas may be ultimately destructive, but in meantime the slow expansion benefits the big corporations, as they slowly carve out more and more of our intellectual heritage and place it under their control. And the reason why it's destructive is because ideas aren't scarce. Only one person can own a specific bat, but any number of people can know how to make a bat. We thus, as a society, will benefit from having the vast majority of ideas free and clear. When we carve out exceptions, for example a monopoly granted to someone who comes up with a new or useful idea or work, the monopoly should be tightly constrained in both time and scope. We want them narrow so as not to lock down whole areas of development; and short-term, so others can build upon their work and take it in new and unexpected directions, as soon as possible. That needs to be balanced against the utilitarian value of the monopoly, which is to ensure people who come up new and interesting ideas and expressions are compensated sufficiently to encourage the creation of new works and the development of new ideas.

You seem to be equating property with protection of any kind, and that if ideas can't be property there are no protections at all. That's not at all true. The distinction I'm making is that ideas aren't property and can't be property, because they're fundamentally different. But if we go back to the utilitarian reasons why we developed the moral principles in the first place, we can look at why property laws are useful, how ideas are different, how radically that changes the utilitarian calculus, and what kind of protections do make sense for ideas.

Quote from: Oddend on October 11, 2021, 01:32:52 AMI actually think the amount of creative people making money would dramatically increase if IP law was abolished tomorrow (i.e. millions more people would be able to start making modest amounts of money with their currently-illegal dream projects). Disney and others might not make as many billions, but they would remain big. They're gigantic businesses for a reason. Nobody is going to stop buying tickets to their theme parks or stop watching their movies just because fans are allowed to produce their own stuff without being harassed.

Well it sounds counter-intuitive, but so does much of economics so maybe it would work that way.
I just do believe some sort of theft protection or idea sabotage protection should exist. Otherwise we get into that corporate espionage/sabotage territory.

I actually do have my work posted for free, but I feel if I didn't want it posted for free my desires should be respected at least on a personal ethics level.

Edit: I know plenty of small youtubers that suffer from having their stuff just reposted. So im not sure having no protections would help them.

Quote from: Pat on October 11, 2021, 01:33:40 AMBut if we go back to the utilitarian reasons why we developed the moral principles in the first place, we can look at why property laws are useful, how ideas are different, how radically that changes the utilitarian calculus, and what kind of protections do make sense for ideas.

We developed morals for social preservation. With our modern technologies creating morals for pure social preservation would make a horrific society. The utalitarian calculus is ultimatly a road down to hell.

Quote from: Shrieking Banshee on October 11, 2021, 01:48:20 AM

Quote from: Pat on October 11, 2021, 01:33:40 AMBut if we go back to the utilitarian reasons why we developed the moral principles in the first place, we can look at why property laws are useful, how ideas are different, how radically that changes the utilitarian calculus, and what kind of protections do make sense for ideas.

We developed morals for social preservation. With our modern technologies creating morals for pure social preservation would make a horrific society. The utalitarian calculus is ultimatly a road down to hell.

Morals need to adapt to new technologies, or we'll be rudderless and have no limits. That's why we have to go back and look at why the morals developed, and how we can apply those principles.

Quote from: Pat on October 11, 2021, 02:11:26 AMMorals need to adapt to new technologies, or we'll be rudderless and have no limits.

Im pretty sure changing old morals to new technologies is what causes us to have no limits. Unless this is a communication issue and this is what you mean.

Old morals where made as limits in the face of problems. Technology has made many of those problems non-existant and has eroded (adapted) those morals in turn. And in practice caused a chain reaction of erosive unforseen side effects with terrible consequences.

Quote from: Shrieking Banshee on October 11, 2021, 02:16:55 AM

Quote from: Pat on October 11, 2021, 02:11:26 AMMorals need to adapt to new technologies, or we'll be rudderless and have no limits.

Im pretty sure changing old morals to new technologies is what causes us to have no limits. Unless this is a communication issue and this is what you mean.

Old morals where made as limits in the face of problems. Technology has made many of those problems non-existant and has eroded (adapted) those morals in turn. And in practice caused a chain reaction of erosive unforseen side effects with terrible consequences.

Can you explain what you mean by chain reaction snd unintended effects? Curious so I can see more clearly the case you make. I agree that erosion/adaptation is happening. This is a topic I spend a bit of thinking on, for analysis and teaching work that I do. A lot of the 'neutral economics' that I have seen goes cleverly into mostly the benefits and does raise the issue of costs of technological innovation. I am suspicious about Marxist 'hermeneutics' on such, though, so some examples of what you mean would help.

Quote from: soundchaser on October 11, 2021, 06:38:33 AM

Can you explain what you mean by chain reaction snd unintended effects? Curious so I can see more clearly the case you make. I agree that erosion/adaptation is happening. This is a topic I spend a bit of thinking on, for analysis and teaching work that I do. A lot of the 'neutral economics' that I have seen goes cleverly into mostly the benefits and does raise the issue of costs of technological innovation. I am suspicious about Marxist 'hermeneutics' on such, though, so some examples of what you mean would help.

A basic example is birth control. Leads to sexual revolution and raised divorce rates, which leads to sub replacement population growth.

Quote from: Shrieking Banshee on October 11, 2021, 02:16:55 AM

Quote from: Pat on October 11, 2021, 02:11:26 AMMorals need to adapt to new technologies, or we'll be rudderless and have no limits.

Im pretty sure changing old morals to new technologies is what causes us to have no limits. Unless this is a communication issue and this is what you mean.

Old morals where made as limits in the face of problems. Technology has made many of those problems non-existant and has eroded (adapted) those morals in turn. And in practice caused a chain reaction of erosive unforseen side effects with terrible consequences.

I think we're talking too vaguely for this to be a useful discussion. I was just saying that new technologies bring new moral dilemmas, and the best way to address them is to look at the reasons why we developed certain moral beliefs in the first place.

Quote from: Pat on October 11, 2021, 09:42:22 AMI think we're talking too vaguely for this to be a useful discussion. I was just saying that new technologies bring new moral dilemmas, and the best way to address them is to look at the reasons why we developed certain moral beliefs in the first place.

This has gotten massively off track. Regardless, I think piracy is immoral most of the time (sans ontaining abandonware and such). It can have benefits, but as an individual action I think it is immoral.

Quote from: GeekyBugle on October 11, 2021, 12:16:57 AM
I own my self, from this it follows that I own that which I make with my own money.

It follows, by this logic, that you therefore also own all the carbon dioxide you have ever exhaled. You should probably sue every farm on earth for theft if you feel that way.

Of course, those farmers will likely countersue, since they own all the oxygen they produced with their own money, and which you steal with every breath.