6 ms·

Do you have a right to everyone's IP who doesn't fit your expectations for reasonable access and price?

by yters 6y ago

arrosenberg 6y ago
Legally, no. Ethically...maybe? The United States does have a long tradition of allowing grey areas when rightsholders become unreasonable. Oftentimes these wind up being formalized as right-of-ways, easements, or other access rights. In the case of online streaming, its clear that the rightsholders are consolidated and engaged in monopolistic, anti-consumer behavior. Piracy is a natural response to that type of behavior, so is it really wrong for consumers to fight back?
- yters 6y ago
  No one has a right to someone else's labor.
  - danielrpa 6y ago
    Intellectual property protections aren't self-evident or part of nature. They are a human creation that, in theory, exist to encourage innovation and increase prosperity. In almost all cases, intellectual property is based on previous intellectual property. Whenever you create a work of art, or work of intellect, you are using the work of "someone else". The vast majority of stories, for instance, use plot devices and elements invented by other humans. IP laws don't necessarily protect these elements - to a large extent because they can't in practice - but they are used nonetheless without special consideration to "someone else's" labor (the inventor of such elements/plot devices). Many of the arguments for extremely strong IP protections ignore that an enormous percentage of IP is acquired from elsewhere. While many authors add much value on top of these existing elements, we still have the problem of the appropriation of such elements without any authorization/compensation. Just because the law protects YOUR additions to the (unprotected) work of others, don't think that your additions are that special. The protections from the law, including extent, duration and penalties are arbitrary and, as I said, not part of nature. People do work based on ideas that are in the public domain. But the differentiation of public domain and non public domain is also a human creation. Why can't IP go into the public domain 15 minutes after they are created? The protection duration is arbitrary and in practice decided by large business lobbies (just see how they increased over time to the current unreasonable levels). So while a lot of what is being discussed is indeed ILLEGAL, it doesn't mean that it is IMMORAL. I recommend that advocates for strong IP protections examine how much of what they are trying to protect is, indeed, uniquely theirs and not traceable to previous work.
    - yters 6y ago
      Wouldn't that argument undermine all property protection? What if anything of ours is uniquely ours vs somewhat derivative? Tangible property is even more derivative, i.e. inheriting a house. Absolutely no creativity going on in that case, yet it is protected much more strongly than IP.
      - FroshKiller 6y ago
        You're getting closer!
        yters 6y ago
        Exactly. That is why I say such arguments are essentially arguments for communism, and we all know how that turns out.
      - danielrpa 6y ago
        This argument doesn't undermine property protection in general and is fully compatible with strong physical property rights (which I advocate). I'm not particularly interested in convincing anyone, just to share a perspective that others might find useful in their own thought process, so here it goes... The problem of the derivative nature of IP protection is that much of the discussion of IP rights revolves around the full ownership of what's being protected. I say that you can't copy this book, or translate it to Braille because I own it. What I'm arguing is that when someone claims there is a body of thoughts to be protected, they are actually arguing for the protection of a really small percentage of it - because the rest isn't really theirs, it was not transferred to them willingly and is just being freely acquired with no consultation of the original owners of the derivative portion. You wrote this book, but most of it actually came from somewhere else. So they are then charging for this "delta" which they "added" and trying to negotiate a market price for it. Well, if we were to allow that, we should also allow all derivative work and let the market judge the value of the "delta". For instance, can I now create a "Revengers" group of Superheroes that are just like the Avengers, but with tweaked uniforms? (Hint: NO) Then the public can judge whether my uniforms are better and pay me accordingly. But then a judge will say that my addition isn't "enough" or "substantial". Very subjective, isn't it? Law is subjective and we built a useful legal system around it, so it's ok to say that these compromises are needed for society to work. But having to compromise to create A system doesn't mean that the compromise is the right one. There is an illusion that we can clearly identify the origin of all protected original, derivative elements in a work of art, point to their owners and compensate them. And we think that we are actually compensating these people. We are not. There is a large body of precedent and very subjective opinions about all of this. But strong, long IP protection proponents are claiming higher moral ground on these fairly weak subjective options. So sure, say that it's ILLEGAL to copy stuff, but don't come and say that it's IMMORAL to break such laws as they are written and that breaking these laws equate to communism. So about tangible property... Let's set aside whether I can create a copy of tangible property (this is IP rights again) and just focus on the ownership itself. When you buy a lawnmower, there is a very clear, and easy to track chain of ownership of all the components of this lawnmower. The blade was purchased from X, who bought the metal from Y, who paid Z to mine it. The screws, case, box. The property rights of everything in the lawnmower, save the IP, are fully respected due to the clarity of origin of all components that make it. So it's not possible, as I can do with IP, to claim that it's hard to identify the ownership of all parts or that we are applying different standards to the compensation of the owners of these parts. I think you can see how that affects the inheriting property example. All voluntary, all parts and origins clearly identifiable. When you inherit land/house, someone who fully owns was ok with that (otherwise, at least in the US, they would have written a will to the contrary). We have a great system to tracing physical property, and its parts, to their owners and compensating them. Same doesn't exist (and CAN'T exist) for IP. Because, duh, IP and physical property aren't the same thing and we should stop trying to put them in the same bag to begin with ("copying a movie is like stealing from the store" as some say)
  - arrosenberg 6y ago
    Likewise, the rightsholders don't have a right to extort the public for access. Since the companies producing these works rely on the public's attention and sentiment to make money, they can't have it both ways. Either make the works available at a consistent price to all distributors of content, or accept piracy as a cost of gatekeeping.
    - yters 6y ago
      Companies are made out of people, who have an agreement with the rights holders.
      - arrosenberg 6y ago
        Is the implication that the public is the same thing as a narrowly interested group of people? If so, I reject.
        yters 6y ago
        No, but anyone in the public could potentially become part of such a group. So, what they disallow for what they consider a special group they are also disallowing for themselves.
        arrosenberg 6y ago
        Yes, that is essentially how laws and government work. I give up my own individual rights to extort the public, and in exchange I get the security of knowing I won't be exploited.
        yters 6y ago
        The question is who is exploiting whom in this situation.
5560675260 6y ago
Personally I don't think that anything intangible can be property. And whenever I purchase something digital I consider the act to be a donation and/or payment for a service of delivery.
- Veen 6y ago
  It’s an interesting attitude. Of course, if everyone thought that way most of the the things we buy digitally would never be made in the first place.
  - 5560675260 6y ago
    It would be a very different world, for sure. Public funding and patronage would play a significantly larger role than they do now, works produced non-commercially would have bigger prominence. It's harder to say what would happen in absence of patent laws. Higher reliance on trade secrets? Non-competes in every employment contracts? Overall I don't think that we would be significantly worse off, especially now, when it's technically possible for general public to engage in croudfunding.
    - yters 6y ago
      I believe even technocratic communism would fail for the same reasons that agrarian and industrial communism failed. Lack of incentive to work hard, Goodhardt's law, destruction of those who try to retain property rights, etc. Even today's open source movement is very parasitic on the commercial sector. Without big tech companies OS would disappear.
      - 5560675260 6y ago
        I don't thinks that lack of legal protections for IP is in any way an equivalent to communism. Money would still be on the table, it's just the way they are gained would be somewhat different. IP as a concept isn't even that old and our societies managed to exist, produce works of arts and various services just fine. As for the big tech firms - why wouldn't they exist? Would Google be disrupted if tomorrow all patents in the world became unenforceable? Or Amazon? Sure, MS might be in trouble, but what they are doing already feels like a gradual switch to a service/subscription based model.
me_me_me 6y ago
No, and so what? Maybe if you were smarter businessman I would buy it off you instead. But my other option is to get a copy for the 'internet'.

Do you have a right to everyone's IP who doesn't fit your expectations for reasonable access and price?

by yters 6y ago

Do you have a right to everyone's IP who doesn't fit your expectations for reasonable access and price?

Legally, no. Ethically...maybe? The United States does have a long tradition of allowing grey areas when rightsholders become unreasonable. Oftentimes these wind up being formalized as right-of-ways, easements, or other access rights. In the case of online streaming, its clear that the rightsholders are consolidated and engaged in monopolistic, anti-consumer behavior. Piracy is a natural response to that type of behavior, so is it really wrong for consumers to fight back?

yters 6y ago
No one has a right to someone else's labor.
- danielrpa 6y ago
  Intellectual property protections aren't self-evident or part of nature. They are a human creation that, in theory, exist to encourage innovation and increase prosperity. In almost all cases, intellectual property is based on previous intellectual property. Whenever you create a work of art, or work of intellect, you are using the work of "someone else". The vast majority of stories, for instance, use plot devices and elements invented by other humans. IP laws don't necessarily protect these elements - to a large extent because they can't in practice - but they are used nonetheless without special consideration to "someone else's" labor (the inventor of such elements/plot devices). Many of the arguments for extremely strong IP protections ignore that an enormous percentage of IP is acquired from elsewhere. While many authors add much value on top of these existing elements, we still have the problem of the appropriation of such elements without any authorization/compensation. Just because the law protects YOUR additions to the (unprotected) work of others, don't think that your additions are that special. The protections from the law, including extent, duration and penalties are arbitrary and, as I said, not part of nature. People do work based on ideas that are in the public domain. But the differentiation of public domain and non public domain is also a human creation. Why can't IP go into the public domain 15 minutes after they are created? The protection duration is arbitrary and in practice decided by large business lobbies (just see how they increased over time to the current unreasonable levels). So while a lot of what is being discussed is indeed ILLEGAL, it doesn't mean that it is IMMORAL. I recommend that advocates for strong IP protections examine how much of what they are trying to protect is, indeed, uniquely theirs and not traceable to previous work.
  - yters 6y ago
    Wouldn't that argument undermine all property protection? What if anything of ours is uniquely ours vs somewhat derivative? Tangible property is even more derivative, i.e. inheriting a house. Absolutely no creativity going on in that case, yet it is protected much more strongly than IP.
    - FroshKiller 6y ago
      You're getting closer!
      - yters 6y ago
        Exactly. That is why I say such arguments are essentially arguments for communism, and we all know how that turns out.
    - danielrpa 6y ago
      This argument doesn't undermine property protection in general and is fully compatible with strong physical property rights (which I advocate). I'm not particularly interested in convincing anyone, just to share a perspective that others might find useful in their own thought process, so here it goes... The problem of the derivative nature of IP protection is that much of the discussion of IP rights revolves around the full ownership of what's being protected. I say that you can't copy this book, or translate it to Braille because I own it. What I'm arguing is that when someone claims there is a body of thoughts to be protected, they are actually arguing for the protection of a really small percentage of it - because the rest isn't really theirs, it was not transferred to them willingly and is just being freely acquired with no consultation of the original owners of the derivative portion. You wrote this book, but most of it actually came from somewhere else. So they are then charging for this "delta" which they "added" and trying to negotiate a market price for it. Well, if we were to allow that, we should also allow all derivative work and let the market judge the value of the "delta". For instance, can I now create a "Revengers" group of Superheroes that are just like the Avengers, but with tweaked uniforms? (Hint: NO) Then the public can judge whether my uniforms are better and pay me accordingly. But then a judge will say that my addition isn't "enough" or "substantial". Very subjective, isn't it? Law is subjective and we built a useful legal system around it, so it's ok to say that these compromises are needed for society to work. But having to compromise to create A system doesn't mean that the compromise is the right one. There is an illusion that we can clearly identify the origin of all protected original, derivative elements in a work of art, point to their owners and compensate them. And we think that we are actually compensating these people. We are not. There is a large body of precedent and very subjective opinions about all of this. But strong, long IP protection proponents are claiming higher moral ground on these fairly weak subjective options. So sure, say that it's ILLEGAL to copy stuff, but don't come and say that it's IMMORAL to break such laws as they are written and that breaking these laws equate to communism. So about tangible property... Let's set aside whether I can create a copy of tangible property (this is IP rights again) and just focus on the ownership itself. When you buy a lawnmower, there is a very clear, and easy to track chain of ownership of all the components of this lawnmower. The blade was purchased from X, who bought the metal from Y, who paid Z to mine it. The screws, case, box. The property rights of everything in the lawnmower, save the IP, are fully respected due to the clarity of origin of all components that make it. So it's not possible, as I can do with IP, to claim that it's hard to identify the ownership of all parts or that we are applying different standards to the compensation of the owners of these parts. I think you can see how that affects the inheriting property example. All voluntary, all parts and origins clearly identifiable. When you inherit land/house, someone who fully owns was ok with that (otherwise, at least in the US, they would have written a will to the contrary). We have a great system to tracing physical property, and its parts, to their owners and compensating them. Same doesn't exist (and CAN'T exist) for IP. Because, duh, IP and physical property aren't the same thing and we should stop trying to put them in the same bag to begin with ("copying a movie is like stealing from the store" as some say)
- arrosenberg 6y ago
  Likewise, the rightsholders don't have a right to extort the public for access. Since the companies producing these works rely on the public's attention and sentiment to make money, they can't have it both ways. Either make the works available at a consistent price to all distributors of content, or accept piracy as a cost of gatekeeping.
  - yters 6y ago
    Companies are made out of people, who have an agreement with the rights holders.
    - arrosenberg 6y ago
      Is the implication that the public is the same thing as a narrowly interested group of people? If so, I reject.
      - yters 6y ago
        No, but anyone in the public could potentially become part of such a group. So, what they disallow for what they consider a special group they are also disallowing for themselves.
        arrosenberg 6y ago
        Yes, that is essentially how laws and government work. I give up my own individual rights to extort the public, and in exchange I get the security of knowing I won't be exploited.
        yters 6y ago
        The question is who is exploiting whom in this situation.

5560675260 6y ago

Personally I don't think that anything intangible can be property. And whenever I purchase something digital I consider the act to be a donation and/or payment for a service of delivery.

Veen 6y ago
It’s an interesting attitude. Of course, if everyone thought that way most of the the things we buy digitally would never be made in the first place.
- 5560675260 6y ago
  It would be a very different world, for sure. Public funding and patronage would play a significantly larger role than they do now, works produced non-commercially would have bigger prominence. It's harder to say what would happen in absence of patent laws. Higher reliance on trade secrets? Non-competes in every employment contracts? Overall I don't think that we would be significantly worse off, especially now, when it's technically possible for general public to engage in croudfunding.
  - yters 6y ago
    I believe even technocratic communism would fail for the same reasons that agrarian and industrial communism failed. Lack of incentive to work hard, Goodhardt's law, destruction of those who try to retain property rights, etc. Even today's open source movement is very parasitic on the commercial sector. Without big tech companies OS would disappear.
    - 5560675260 6y ago
      I don't thinks that lack of legal protections for IP is in any way an equivalent to communism. Money would still be on the table, it's just the way they are gained would be somewhat different. IP as a concept isn't even that old and our societies managed to exist, produce works of arts and various services just fine. As for the big tech firms - why wouldn't they exist? Would Google be disrupted if tomorrow all patents in the world became unenforceable? Or Amazon? Sure, MS might be in trouble, but what they are doing already feels like a gradual switch to a service/subscription based model.

me_me_me 6y ago

No, and so what? Maybe if you were smarter businessman I would buy it off you instead. But my other option is to get a copy for the 'internet'.