4 ms·

But there are two opposite concepts of morality that people apply to property relations: in one view, the moral 'negative' is attached to depriving a person of

by Gormo 15y ago

But there are two opposite concepts of morality that people apply to property relations: in one view, the moral 'negative' is attached to depriving a person of what he has justly earned or created; in the other view, the moral 'negative' is attached to obtaining the benefit of what you have not yourself earned or created. I'd argue that most libertarians would adhere to the first view, which roots the moral principle in a manifest social context - i.e. the the harm one does to others - as opposed to the latter view, which roots the moral principle in a more solipsistic context - which I assume the be the psychic or spiritual harm one does to oneself. (This is expressed in consequentialist terms, of course, but I'd expect there to be an equivalent deontological dichotomy). It's probably valid to describe the former as a Lockean view, but I don't see how it could justify the extension of property rights to non-rival and intangible goods, such as ideas, since it's literally impossible to deprive anyone of them in the first place.

philwelch 15y ago
You have to examine what it means to deprive one of property though; certainly, depriving one of their property's commercial value is a deprivation. Certainly if I seize your house and rent it back to you, such that you're paying the same for rent as you would for your mortgage, but you lose any equity in your house or the ability to sell it to someone else or pass it on to your children, I've meaningfully deprived you of property. Likewise, if you write a book, the value of that book to you is at least partially commercial, not merely in your ability to possess a copy of it.
- hxa7241 15y ago
  But in the case of copyright, that extra commercial value depends on us already accepting some copyright-like notion. One can only expect to command a copyright-level price for a copy if other people obey a copyright-like law to not make other copies. But that is just going in circles. One cannot justify something based on itself.
  - philwelch 15y ago
    Of course there's limited commercial value in holding intellectual property without legal protection, because there's limited commercial value in holding any type of property without legal protection. But that's completely beside the point of the natural law argument. For what it's worth, I don't actually agree with this argument; I was just pointing out that it's possible to use natural law to argue in favor of intellectual property rights.
- Gormo 15y ago
  If you wrote the book in order to obtain an exogenous financial return, then your creation of the book was a capital investment. Capital investments are speculative by nature, and inherently entail risk, which is the investor's to bear. Using statute law to impose restrictions and obligations on others in order to protect some imagined entitlement to a positive return amounts to externalizing your risk and forcing others to bear it for you. You're completely entitled to enjoy the fruits of your labor after applying your energies to create the book, those fruits being the book itself and the utility that owning it provides to you, which you literally cannot be deprived of due to the non-rival intangible nature of the product (considering that 'book' refers to the conceptual content rather than its physical encoding). The financial return that you obtain by selling your book to others, however, is entirely dependent on their willingness to pay you, which they have no obligation to do in any case, and for which it can't be said that you have any inherent right.
  - philwelch 15y ago
    > Using statute law to impose restrictions and obligations on others in order to protect some imagined entitlement to a positive return amounts to externalizing your risk and forcing others to bear it for you. Copyright is no such thing; most copyrighted works don't have a positive financial return. The only "entitlement" being asserted is literally the right to copy: if I create a book, which is the fruit of my intellectual labor, I then have the right to exchange or extend or license the right to copy that book on whatever commercial, ideological, or personal terms are mutually agreeable to others, and to copy my book without such an agreement is to violate that right. Again, I'm not saying this is my argument or my personal opinion about copyright. My approach to these issues is more pragmatic and realpolitik and less natural law. I am saying that there is a credible natural law argument to copyright. Your argument--that an author still has the right to possess and enjoy the book that he has written--is insufficient as a response, since nearly all property rights extend beyond mere possession and enjoyment. That was the point of the house example. If I make a capital investment in building a house in hopes of selling it, and the state seizes my title without compensation but offers to let me live in the house rent-free in perpetuity, John Locke and most proponents of the natural law theory would be very displeased about the situation. On the other hand, if I make a capital investment in building a house in hopes of selling it and I end up losing hundreds of thousands of dollars because it is the year 2010 and the housing bubble burst in the middle of construction, John Locke and most proponents of the natural law theory can only shake their heads and tell me I'm screwed.

by Gormo 15y ago

philwelch 15y ago

You have to examine what it means to deprive one of property though; certainly, depriving one of their property's commercial value is a deprivation. Certainly if I seize your house and rent it back to you, such that you're paying the same for rent as you would for your mortgage, but you lose any equity in your house or the ability to sell it to someone else or pass it on to your children, I've meaningfully deprived you of property. Likewise, if you write a book, the value of that book to you is at least partially commercial, not merely in your ability to possess a copy of it.

hxa7241 15y ago
But in the case of copyright, that extra commercial value depends on us already accepting some copyright-like notion. One can only expect to command a copyright-level price for a copy if other people obey a copyright-like law to not make other copies. But that is just going in circles. One cannot justify something based on itself.
- philwelch 15y ago
  Of course there's limited commercial value in holding intellectual property without legal protection, because there's limited commercial value in holding any type of property without legal protection. But that's completely beside the point of the natural law argument. For what it's worth, I don't actually agree with this argument; I was just pointing out that it's possible to use natural law to argue in favor of intellectual property rights.
Gormo 15y ago
If you wrote the book in order to obtain an exogenous financial return, then your creation of the book was a capital investment. Capital investments are speculative by nature, and inherently entail risk, which is the investor's to bear. Using statute law to impose restrictions and obligations on others in order to protect some imagined entitlement to a positive return amounts to externalizing your risk and forcing others to bear it for you. You're completely entitled to enjoy the fruits of your labor after applying your energies to create the book, those fruits being the book itself and the utility that owning it provides to you, which you literally cannot be deprived of due to the non-rival intangible nature of the product (considering that 'book' refers to the conceptual content rather than its physical encoding). The financial return that you obtain by selling your book to others, however, is entirely dependent on their willingness to pay you, which they have no obligation to do in any case, and for which it can't be said that you have any inherent right.
- philwelch 15y ago
  > Using statute law to impose restrictions and obligations on others in order to protect some imagined entitlement to a positive return amounts to externalizing your risk and forcing others to bear it for you. Copyright is no such thing; most copyrighted works don't have a positive financial return. The only "entitlement" being asserted is literally the right to copy: if I create a book, which is the fruit of my intellectual labor, I then have the right to exchange or extend or license the right to copy that book on whatever commercial, ideological, or personal terms are mutually agreeable to others, and to copy my book without such an agreement is to violate that right. Again, I'm not saying this is my argument or my personal opinion about copyright. My approach to these issues is more pragmatic and realpolitik and less natural law. I am saying that there is a credible natural law argument to copyright. Your argument--that an author still has the right to possess and enjoy the book that he has written--is insufficient as a response, since nearly all property rights extend beyond mere possession and enjoyment. That was the point of the house example. If I make a capital investment in building a house in hopes of selling it, and the state seizes my title without compensation but offers to let me live in the house rent-free in perpetuity, John Locke and most proponents of the natural law theory would be very displeased about the situation. On the other hand, if I make a capital investment in building a house in hopes of selling it and I end up losing hundreds of thousands of dollars because it is the year 2010 and the housing bubble burst in the middle of construction, John Locke and most proponents of the natural law theory can only shake their heads and tell me I'm screwed.