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> I'm saying that perhaps trade secret laws are good for billionaires, bad for everyone else. Sure. In a certain, short-sighted sense, so are any property righ

> I'm saying that perhaps trade secret laws are good for billionaires, bad for everyone else. Sure. In a certain, short-sighted sense, so are any property rights. Trade secret law is important for anyone who wants to invest in the creation of high value intellectual property that won't be protected with patents. Without such protection, there is much less incentive for investment. Billionaires are one group of people who conduct such investment. Startup founders and early employees are another. Another group that may interest you is anyone who invests through the public market in companies that derive value from trade secret protections. And of course anyone who finds value in the purchase of such goods, or any employee of such a company. I know I personally would not attempt to build high value intellectual property if there were no trade secrets. If I had an idea I thought would be valuable but depended on the scheme, I'd leave and do the work in a country that supported my intellectual property rights.

breck 6y ago
> so are any property rights. The term "Intellectual Property" is a red herring. You cannot have property rights and IP rights. Logically it doesn't work (if you say my computer is my property, but that I can't arrange the bits how I want, then it is not my property). This case is well made in many places so I won't regurgitate much further. But it's important to clarify that the term is a euphemism and is in direct conflict with actual property laws. Better choice of terms include "Intellectual Control Laws", "Intellectual Bureaucracy Laws", or "Intellectual Slavery Laws". > Trade secret law is important for anyone... I am not arguing that trade secret law is unimportant for investors of capital. I agree it is very important for investors of capital. However, it seems to be an unnatural state of affairs, to have the government involved in enforcing secrets among its citizens. Why not let the free market figure it out? To me it seems that would be both more equitable and much more effective in a utilitarian sort of way. However, I don't dispute that it is in the strong financial interests of the top 1% of the population (myself included) to keep these laws as is. I'm just saying they are likely unethical and counterproductive if one were to optimize society for innovation. > I know I personally would not attempt to build high value intellectual property if there were no trade secrets. Mathematically the world would not notice, even if your name was Edison. The most impactful inventions in the world were all invented far before we had copyright and patent laws. We are all putting grains of sand on mountains built by our ancestors.
- asdfasgasdgasdg 6y ago
  > Better choice of terms include "Intellectual Control Laws", "Intellectual Bureaucracy Laws", or "Intellectual Slavery Laws I'll go ahead and keep calling them what everyone else does, thanks. > However, it seems to be an unnatural state of affairs, I'm not overly concerned with what is natural. Many good things are not natural. Why not let the market figure it out? Because the market is known to be inefficient for the production of non-rival, non-excludable goods. Traditional macro econ theory suggests that without protection these goods will be produced less than they ought. There are other solutions to the problem besides government intervention, but the ones I'm aware of require very high levels of consumer coordination. > We are all putting grains of sand on mountains built by our ancestors. Then you shouldn't be too bothered about the restriction on handling of trade secrets by folks other than their owners. I mean if it doesn't matter what gets invented, who cares whether someone owns it or not?
  - breck 6y ago
    > I'll go ahead and keep calling them what everyone else does, thanks. A very pragmatic position. > I mean if it doesn't matter what gets invented... I think inventions matter. But I think our contributions are always marginal compared to what we build upon. If all of the people who say they won't create without monopoly profits stop creating, there will be more than enough people who continue to create that the world won't notice. In fact, it may even improve things. We'd have less intellectual garbage because novelty would stop being rewarded as much as utility.
    - asdfasgasdgasdg 6y ago
      > If all of the people who say they won't create without monopoly profits Trade secrets and monopoly profits are different things. The source code for your business' software is a trade secret, even if you don't have a monopoly. It would be untenable to produce software for profit if any of your employees could walk off with your source code after your investment and set up a competing business selling the same thing at a cut rate. From the sound of it, you might not find this prospect so sad. I can certainly imagine a world where all software is produced by consortiums of users funding development voluntarily. That doesn't seem to be a common general pattern, however, with the exception of a few programs like Blender or Dwarf Fortress. If it were more efficient for producing good software than the status quo I would personally expect to see it happen naturally more often. There's nothing that prevents such arrangements from being created today.

breck 6y ago

> so are any property rights. The term "Intellectual Property" is a red herring. You cannot have property rights and IP rights. Logically it doesn't work (if you say my computer is my property, but that I can't arrange the bits how I want, then it is not my property). This case is well made in many places so I won't regurgitate much further. But it's important to clarify that the term is a euphemism and is in direct conflict with actual property laws. Better choice of terms include "Intellectual Control Laws", "Intellectual Bureaucracy Laws", or "Intellectual Slavery Laws". > Trade secret law is important for anyone... I am not arguing that trade secret law is unimportant for investors of capital. I agree it is very important for investors of capital. However, it seems to be an unnatural state of affairs, to have the government involved in enforcing secrets among its citizens. Why not let the free market figure it out? To me it seems that would be both more equitable and much more effective in a utilitarian sort of way. However, I don't dispute that it is in the strong financial interests of the top 1% of the population (myself included) to keep these laws as is. I'm just saying they are likely unethical and counterproductive if one were to optimize society for innovation. > I know I personally would not attempt to build high value intellectual property if there were no trade secrets. Mathematically the world would not notice, even if your name was Edison. The most impactful inventions in the world were all invented far before we had copyright and patent laws. We are all putting grains of sand on mountains built by our ancestors.

asdfasgasdgasdg 6y ago
> Better choice of terms include "Intellectual Control Laws", "Intellectual Bureaucracy Laws", or "Intellectual Slavery Laws I'll go ahead and keep calling them what everyone else does, thanks. > However, it seems to be an unnatural state of affairs, I'm not overly concerned with what is natural. Many good things are not natural. Why not let the market figure it out? Because the market is known to be inefficient for the production of non-rival, non-excludable goods. Traditional macro econ theory suggests that without protection these goods will be produced less than they ought. There are other solutions to the problem besides government intervention, but the ones I'm aware of require very high levels of consumer coordination. > We are all putting grains of sand on mountains built by our ancestors. Then you shouldn't be too bothered about the restriction on handling of trade secrets by folks other than their owners. I mean if it doesn't matter what gets invented, who cares whether someone owns it or not?
- breck 6y ago
  > I'll go ahead and keep calling them what everyone else does, thanks. A very pragmatic position. > I mean if it doesn't matter what gets invented... I think inventions matter. But I think our contributions are always marginal compared to what we build upon. If all of the people who say they won't create without monopoly profits stop creating, there will be more than enough people who continue to create that the world won't notice. In fact, it may even improve things. We'd have less intellectual garbage because novelty would stop being rewarded as much as utility.
  - asdfasgasdgasdg 6y ago
    > If all of the people who say they won't create without monopoly profits Trade secrets and monopoly profits are different things. The source code for your business' software is a trade secret, even if you don't have a monopoly. It would be untenable to produce software for profit if any of your employees could walk off with your source code after your investment and set up a competing business selling the same thing at a cut rate. From the sound of it, you might not find this prospect so sad. I can certainly imagine a world where all software is produced by consortiums of users funding development voluntarily. That doesn't seem to be a common general pattern, however, with the exception of a few programs like Blender or Dwarf Fortress. If it were more efficient for producing good software than the status quo I would personally expect to see it happen naturally more often. There's nothing that prevents such arrangements from being created today.