4 ms·

Where do you believe the rights of ownership derive from? Don't think of it terms of "rights." Think of it in terms of fairness. I don't get to control what

Where do you believe the rights of ownership derive from? Don't think of it terms of "rights." Think of it in terms of fairness. I don't get to control what you do with the money I paid for your product, so why should you get to control what I do with the product?

Cushman 16y ago
See that's just it— you're thinking of a cash transaction as traditional barter. I bring something, you bring something, we exchange them. Each of us loses what we owned before, each of us owns something new. That's obviously not how information works, though. An iPhone costs $600. Possessing an iPhone gives you, in theory, the capability to make new iPhones. However, the right to make your own iPhone would cost a lot more (if anyone would sell it at all). The difference falls under the umbrella of "intellectual property", and it's a lot of things; trademarks, copyrights, patents, probably lots of little trade secrets that aren't patentable, but nobody else has figured out yet. To be explicit, of course, the ideas themselves don't have value. The value is the exclusive right to execution of the ideas, which is provided by the government. That's no different from physical possessions, though; my car would not be worth very much to me if I didn't have the right to exclusive control of my car guaranteed me by the government. The point being this: You want to buy my gizmo. However, you've previously told me that when you get your hands on it, you're going to immediately take it apart, figure out how it works, and tell other people so they can make their own without coming to me. Obviously in this case, I don't gain from selling you the gizmo at any price— in fact it's probably worth a lot to me to keep you from getting one. So either we both stick to our guns — you don't get a gizmo, I don't get any money, both of us are unhappy — or we compromise. I say, you can have it if you promise not to open it. You say you can't make that promise. I say, okay, I guess I don't mind if you open it as long as you don't tell anyone else what's inside. Since you're willing to make that sacrifice, I'm willing to let you have a gizmo for $50. That's one way the conversation could go. There are a lot of other ways, as illustrated by the thousands of different ways there are to license IP— say I agree to let you make copies of the gizmo, but only for yourself, not to sell. Or I agree to let you tell people how it works, but only if you tell them that I made it originally. All of those things have value to me, and if their value isn't properly represented by your barter, I won't make the trade. This is a hairy question— I sure don't have the answer to it. My only real point is that when we're talking about something so fascinatingly complex and delicate, you're doing yourself a real disservice going with your gut based on "fairness".

Cushman 16y ago

See that's just it— you're thinking of a cash transaction as traditional barter. I bring something, you bring something, we exchange them. Each of us loses what we owned before, each of us owns something new. That's obviously not how information works, though. An iPhone costs $600. Possessing an iPhone gives you, in theory, the capability to make new iPhones. However, the right to make your own iPhone would cost a lot more (if anyone would sell it at all). The difference falls under the umbrella of "intellectual property", and it's a lot of things; trademarks, copyrights, patents, probably lots of little trade secrets that aren't patentable, but nobody else has figured out yet. To be explicit, of course, the ideas themselves don't have value. The value is the exclusive right to execution of the ideas, which is provided by the government. That's no different from physical possessions, though; my car would not be worth very much to me if I didn't have the right to exclusive control of my car guaranteed me by the government. The point being this: You want to buy my gizmo. However, you've previously told me that when you get your hands on it, you're going to immediately take it apart, figure out how it works, and tell other people so they can make their own without coming to me. Obviously in this case, I don't gain from selling you the gizmo at any price— in fact it's probably worth a lot to me to keep you from getting one. So either we both stick to our guns — you don't get a gizmo, I don't get any money, both of us are unhappy — or we compromise. I say, you can have it if you promise not to open it. You say you can't make that promise. I say, okay, I guess I don't mind if you open it as long as you don't tell anyone else what's inside. Since you're willing to make that sacrifice, I'm willing to let you have a gizmo for $50. That's one way the conversation could go. There are a lot of other ways, as illustrated by the thousands of different ways there are to license IP— say I agree to let you make copies of the gizmo, but only for yourself, not to sell. Or I agree to let you tell people how it works, but only if you tell them that I made it originally. All of those things have value to me, and if their value isn't properly represented by your barter, I won't make the trade. This is a hairy question— I sure don't have the answer to it. My only real point is that when we're talking about something so fascinatingly complex and delicate, you're doing yourself a real disservice going with your gut based on "fairness".