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> without harm to the owner i don't quite see it. if company A aims at the global market with a uniquely innovative product and then company B brings a copy o

> without harm to the owner i don't quite see it. if company A aims at the global market with a uniquely innovative product and then company B brings a copy of that product to the global market ten years later, then company A has enjoyed profitability of a unique product for ten years. but what if company B spies on company A's process and steals copies of its designs and so brings a copy of that product to market ten months later? isn't that depriving the original owner, company A, of some profits?

geofft 8y ago
Depriving someone of potential profits isn't legally actionable harm. Otherwise we'd have to say that entering a market as a lower-cost and/or higher-quality competitor is a violation of the property rights, a theft of profit, of the existing participants. You may or may not have a right to a fair market, and fairness may or may not include the right to secret research and development, but it's not because an unfair market harms your property rights or is "theft."
- HillaryBriss 8y ago
  ok, but ... you originally said "harm" and now you're saying "legally actionable harm"
  - geofft 8y ago
    What sense of "harm" would it count as? If you entered a market and an existing competitor said "You harmed me, apologize," would you? If you were a doctor with an oath to "First do no harm," would you feel ethically obligated to never take business from another doctor?
    - HillaryBriss 8y ago
      I'm just thinking about profitability. e.g. If I were a consultant to, say, Nvidia, and I told them that they were wasting valuable IT personnel time and resources by locking down and protecting their R&D documents, that all of the computers containing such info were needlessly and wastefully secure, and that, in short, there is no harm in making that info available to the public, including to Intel and AMD -- I mean, I just wonder how I would convince them. Wouldn't they say something like "No. Releasing that info would be harmful to our bottom line, shareholders, and employees whose bonuses depend upon profitability."
      - geofft 8y ago
        If you were a consultant to the British East India Company in 1850 and told them that the world would be a better place for everyone if India were independent and not colonized by Britain, would you expect to convince them? If you failed to convince them, would you then conclude that colonization is actually totally fine? In particular, if someone were advocating for the independence of India in 1850, would you think the British East India Company could justifiably say "You're harming us"? (Sure, they can say it and they probably would say it, but would they have a point?)
        HillaryBriss 8y ago
        I thought we were talking about "harm to the owner" of some IP, not making the world "a better place for everyone." A judgment or evaluation of what would be "totally fine" ethically for the whole world is a different discussion, I think. I don't feel that the arguments you're presenting would be persuasive to the companies whose secrets are revealed. But, I may well be missing something. In any case, my takeaways from this discussion are: 1. You believe these companies don't have a solid legal case, that they cannot prove "harm" in the legal sense. 2. You believe that the system of protecting IP the US currently (in theory) embraces is sub-optimal for the well-being of the world.
        geofft 8y ago
        Okay, fine, rephrase "without harm to the owner" as "without injustice to the owner" if that helps make my comment more understandable. I grant that there is a sense of "harm" under which deposing a dictator from his comfortable life harms the dictator, even if he isn't punished and is allowed to start a new life as a private citizen, and that's not the sense of "harm" I mean. I don't think there's a way you can argue that deposing him would be an injustice towards him.

geofft 8y ago

Depriving someone of potential profits isn't legally actionable harm. Otherwise we'd have to say that entering a market as a lower-cost and/or higher-quality competitor is a violation of the property rights, a theft of profit, of the existing participants. You may or may not have a right to a fair market, and fairness may or may not include the right to secret research and development, but it's not because an unfair market harms your property rights or is "theft."

HillaryBriss 8y ago
ok, but ... you originally said "harm" and now you're saying "legally actionable harm"
- geofft 8y ago
  What sense of "harm" would it count as? If you entered a market and an existing competitor said "You harmed me, apologize," would you? If you were a doctor with an oath to "First do no harm," would you feel ethically obligated to never take business from another doctor?
  - HillaryBriss 8y ago
    I'm just thinking about profitability. e.g. If I were a consultant to, say, Nvidia, and I told them that they were wasting valuable IT personnel time and resources by locking down and protecting their R&D documents, that all of the computers containing such info were needlessly and wastefully secure, and that, in short, there is no harm in making that info available to the public, including to Intel and AMD -- I mean, I just wonder how I would convince them. Wouldn't they say something like "No. Releasing that info would be harmful to our bottom line, shareholders, and employees whose bonuses depend upon profitability."
    - geofft 8y ago
      If you were a consultant to the British East India Company in 1850 and told them that the world would be a better place for everyone if India were independent and not colonized by Britain, would you expect to convince them? If you failed to convince them, would you then conclude that colonization is actually totally fine? In particular, if someone were advocating for the independence of India in 1850, would you think the British East India Company could justifiably say "You're harming us"? (Sure, they can say it and they probably would say it, but would they have a point?)
      - HillaryBriss 8y ago
        I thought we were talking about "harm to the owner" of some IP, not making the world "a better place for everyone." A judgment or evaluation of what would be "totally fine" ethically for the whole world is a different discussion, I think. I don't feel that the arguments you're presenting would be persuasive to the companies whose secrets are revealed. But, I may well be missing something. In any case, my takeaways from this discussion are: 1. You believe these companies don't have a solid legal case, that they cannot prove "harm" in the legal sense. 2. You believe that the system of protecting IP the US currently (in theory) embraces is sub-optimal for the well-being of the world.
        geofft 8y ago
        Okay, fine, rephrase "without harm to the owner" as "without injustice to the owner" if that helps make my comment more understandable. I grant that there is a sense of "harm" under which deposing a dictator from his comfortable life harms the dictator, even if he isn't punished and is allowed to start a new life as a private citizen, and that's not the sense of "harm" I mean. I don't think there's a way you can argue that deposing him would be an injustice towards him.