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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 specula

by 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.
- Gormo 15y ago
  > 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. And how does the right to control the downstream copying of the work emanate from the right to enjoy the fruits of your own labor? The point I'm making is that the direct product of your work is the book itself and nothing more; the right to enjoy that product literally cannot be taken away from you. Other people's copying activities do nothing to diminish your ability to enjoy the direct utility value of the book itself - copying can only diminish the potential return available to you from selling your book to others, but you never had a positive right to a market return in the first place. The argument you're making requires that there's already some legal mechanism by which you can restrain others from copying your work. Your reasoning is circular.
  - philwelch 15y ago
    > And how does the right to control the downstream copying of the work emanate from the right to enjoy the fruits of your own labor? Because the fruits of my (intellectual) labor are the (intellectual) property of the book itself--the unique arrangement of words and images and so forth. Since I created that arrangement, since that arrangement is the fruit of my labor, by natural law I have property rights to it. Keep in mind, I'm only arguing that such an argument could credibly be made. I'm not committing to the idea that it works out in the long run--part of the problem with the natural law approach is that you get caught in all kinds of logical ruts without any concern for what works, and frankly there's a lot about copyright that doesn't work. > The point I'm making is that the direct product of your work is the book itself and nothing more; the right to enjoy that product literally cannot be taken away from you. Property rights extend beyond private enjoyment. Asked and answered. > Other people's copying activities do nothing to diminish your ability to enjoy the direct utility value of the book itself - copying can only diminish the potential return available to you from selling your book to others, but you never had a positive right to a market return in the first place. I never said there was a "positive right to a market return"; that was the entire point of the house example. Asked and answered. > The argument you're making requires that there's already some legal mechanism by which you can restrain others from copying your work. All property rights require some legal mechanism to be enforceable. Without deeds and titles I couldn't even own my house. Asked and answered. You're just repeating yourself without understanding any of my points.

by Gormo 15y ago

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.

Gormo 15y ago
> 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. And how does the right to control the downstream copying of the work emanate from the right to enjoy the fruits of your own labor? The point I'm making is that the direct product of your work is the book itself and nothing more; the right to enjoy that product literally cannot be taken away from you. Other people's copying activities do nothing to diminish your ability to enjoy the direct utility value of the book itself - copying can only diminish the potential return available to you from selling your book to others, but you never had a positive right to a market return in the first place. The argument you're making requires that there's already some legal mechanism by which you can restrain others from copying your work. Your reasoning is circular.
- philwelch 15y ago
  > And how does the right to control the downstream copying of the work emanate from the right to enjoy the fruits of your own labor? Because the fruits of my (intellectual) labor are the (intellectual) property of the book itself--the unique arrangement of words and images and so forth. Since I created that arrangement, since that arrangement is the fruit of my labor, by natural law I have property rights to it. Keep in mind, I'm only arguing that such an argument could credibly be made. I'm not committing to the idea that it works out in the long run--part of the problem with the natural law approach is that you get caught in all kinds of logical ruts without any concern for what works, and frankly there's a lot about copyright that doesn't work. > The point I'm making is that the direct product of your work is the book itself and nothing more; the right to enjoy that product literally cannot be taken away from you. Property rights extend beyond private enjoyment. Asked and answered. > Other people's copying activities do nothing to diminish your ability to enjoy the direct utility value of the book itself - copying can only diminish the potential return available to you from selling your book to others, but you never had a positive right to a market return in the first place. I never said there was a "positive right to a market return"; that was the entire point of the house example. Asked and answered. > The argument you're making requires that there's already some legal mechanism by which you can restrain others from copying your work. All property rights require some legal mechanism to be enforceable. Without deeds and titles I couldn't even own my house. Asked and answered. You're just repeating yourself without understanding any of my points.