6 ms·

I prefer the term "Imaginary Property".

ntakasaki 12y ago
That's true in some respects, but I think most will agree that pretending it's a little like real property has it's benefits. For example, think about ARM Holdings. From Wiki: >Unlike most traditional microprocessor suppliers, such as: Intel, Freescale (the former semiconductor division of Motorola) and Renesas (a former joint venture between Hitachi and Mitsubishi Electric),[40] ARM only creates and licenses its technology as intellectual property (IP), rather than manufacturing and sellIng its own physical CPUs, GPUs, SoCs or microcontrollers. This model is similar to fellow British design houses: ARC International, and Imagination Technologies who have similarly been designing and licensing GPUs, CPUs, and SoCs, along with supplying tooling and various design and support services to their licensees. All they produce, according to you, is imaginary property. But can you deny the importance of their role? How many ARM devices are in use around the world?
- habitue 12y ago
  The argument isn't that it isn't a valuable process, the argument is that it's a process that produces something that is wholly unlike physical property. Information like the kind ARM produces[0] is more valuable to society as a whole the more widely it is disseminated. So an artificial monopoly pretending like information is a scarce resource is probably not the best way to compensate them for doing that kind of work. [0] Some information, like intelligence information, is more valuable the less people have it, which is a major distinguishing feature here.
  - wfjackson 12y ago
    >Information like the kind ARM produces[0] is more valuable to society as a whole the more widely it is disseminated. So an artificial monopoly pretending like information is a scarce resource is probably not the best way to compensate them for doing that kind of work. Doing that without properly compensating ARM is like killing the goose that lays the golden egg. ARM is already trying to make a $20 smartphone. There is already a $25 FF OS smartphone. http://www.engadget.com/2014/05/06/20-dollar-smartphone/ http://www.engadget.com/2014/05/06/20-dollar-smartphone/ How much does ARM make from such a phone after all the physical costs are taken out? a few cents?
    - habitue 12y ago
      As someone who once invested in ARM, and has looked at their balance sheets in depth: yes, it's a cent or two per phone. Your unexamined assumption here is that copyright monopolies are the only way to compensate people for work like this. That's not the case.
      - msbarnett 12y ago
        Genuinely curious: what do you think would be some other practical, achievable ways of ensuring that the people at a company like ARM get compensated for their work without "putting the force of the state behind their 'thought-property'"?
        habitue 12y ago
        We actually have a bunch of examples since there are many industries which don't have the ability to obtain copyright monopolies or patents (or either). Here's a good list (I hope you'll excuse the libertarian source): http://wiki.mises.org/wiki/Without_Intellectual_Property http://wiki.mises.org/wiki/Without_Intellectual_Property People are making money today doing creating intellectual products without the benefit of copyrights and patents, and they're some of the highest margin industries out there.
  - IBM 12y ago
    I don't understand your comment. How else would you compensate them when their business model is designing the processors to be licensed to others and not building it?
    - habitue 12y ago
      Is the point to compensate them with their current business model so they don't have to make any changes as a company? If so, then yes, you've defined the solution into a corner here and copyright monopoly is the only way to go. If, however, we look at the actual thing society has an interest in promoting: to get people to do the hard work of original research and engineering optimization, then we find there are lots of ways to solve that problem without granting monopolies or treating information like physical property.
      - wfjackson 12y ago
        >Is the point to compensate them with their current business model so they don't have to make any changes as a company Doesn't ARM keep coming up with new and innovative designs? Don't they have companies like Intel nipping at their heels waiting for a misstep? Isn't ARM on server an uphill battle for them they are working on? Why do we need to shake up their business model? To what end exactly? To make smartphones a few cents cheaper than they already are? >If, however, we look at the actual thing society has an interest in promoting: to get people to do the hard work of original research and engineering optimization, then we find there are lots of ways to solve that problem without granting monopolies or treating information like physical property. Go on... what are some of the "lots of ways" ? I am genuinely curious.
        habitue 12y ago
        Please see my comment to a similar question above. I was apparently asking for it by not giving examples.
- icebraining 12y ago
  All they produce, according to you, is imaginary property. No, what they produce are useful designs of chips; whether they are - or should be considered - property is a different matter. After all, inventions don't become useless or unimportant the moment their patent expires.
  - IBM 12y ago
    They're considered property in the eyes of the law via patents because this isn't some philosophical question and that's how their product and business is protected in practice.
    - icebraining 12y ago
      They're considered property in the eyes of your particular jurisdiction. They might not be in another - even if probably not for long, since chances are the US will bully them into compliance, as we've been seeing with TPP.
- zanny 12y ago
  ARM would not need to exist if IP didn't exist to restrict the usage of both ASMs and designs of every other semiconductor manufacturer. People would not just stop innovating in the architecture space because they can't profit from it - fab manufacturers who make chips using the architecture can, and do. What you would see is a transition away from everyone reinventing the wheel (how many add instructions do we need?) more towards an open common base set of instructions with extensions per use. And if that standard ever grew obsolete, the technical benefits of any other implementation could be immediately utilized industry wide without the tyrannical abuse of power that is copyrights on the vocabulary and patents on the chip designs.
  - IBM 12y ago
    >People would not just stop innovating in the architecture space because they can't profit from it - fab manufacturers who make chips using the architecture can, and do. Is this real life? I honestly can't believe people actually believe this.
    - lotsofmangos 12y ago
      If you couldn't profit from the IP of a faster computer, you could still profit from having a faster computer. Of course, this might mean that people are less likely to disclose information, which is the main economic benefit of the patent system. I'm not completely against patents, I just think they have grown into something that is now more than slightly ludicrous and needs a serious trim before it becomes un-rescuable.
malandrew 12y ago
I'm going to start using this term. It's accurate, amusing and poignant all at the same time.
archgrove 12y ago
All "property" is imaginary. Having physical things without the backing of the law is just possession. We create a legal notion of property for the benefit of society. Property law adds the force to the state to my possessions, to stop someone beating me on the head and taking them. Intellectual property law adds the force of the state to concepts/ideas/media/etc that originated by the sweat of my brow, to encourage the creation of more, and to enable me to make a living from it. We can argue to what extent this force is necessary, but to claim that intellectual endeavours are just "imaginary" is to do a huge disservice to millions of people who pour their lives into the creation of new and exciting things.
- Natsu 12y ago
  It points out that imaginary property is wholly unlike physical property. One is naturally exclusive, as multiple people cannot all use the same property at the same time. The other is not, as information is more valuable when shared. Importing concepts of physical property is sloppy thinking and detrimental to society because it advocates for an unreasonable and unworkable basis. It's interesting in that vein that you have a "sweat of the brow" concept of copyright interest, when this theory has been directly rejected under US law (Feist v. Rural). The term imaginary property recognizes such contributions to society as the product of the imagination and is more productive as a starting place for discussion thereof, even if it also lumps the disparate legal concepts together to some degree, though this may be unavoidable at this point.
  - tzs 12y ago
    > The other is not, as information is more valuable when shared. If this were true, there would be no need for insider trading laws, we'd play poker with all the cards face up, and targets of blackmail would just laugh it off.
    - Natsu 12y ago
      You're pointing out the asymmetry of the value, rather than disputing it. The information the insiders are trading on is relevant to the stock price (i.e. valuable to stockholders), the poker card info is valuable to the other players (or cheats wouldn't be after it), and the target of the blackmail has something important to hide or they wouldn't pay up.
dkersten 12y ago
When people around me talk about "IP", I usually comment something like "I didn't realise Internet Porn was so important to your business".
tzs 12y ago
That's a horrible term to use, since people will naturally assume it is equivalent to "property that is not real property". However, "real property" means in common law land and fixed improvements to land (e.g., my house and my well are real property, as is the land they are on). My car, my phone, my clothes, and my chess set are examples of property that is not real property, and so in a real/imaginary dichotomy would be imaginary property. Most property falls into a trichotomy: (1) land and fixed improvements to land, (2) physical things other than land and fixed improvements to land, and (3) non-physical things that have been legally given some aspects of property so as to use society's machinery for dealing with property to deal with these non-physical things. There is nothing wrong with the current term, "intellectual property" for things in the third part of the trichotomy. It is property by legal definition, and its origin is the intellect. Another good term would be "intangible property".
- lotsofmangos 12y ago
  I'd say that IP's origin is in the imagination, and only a subset is also from the intellect, the intellect being only a part of creative thought. This is plainly obvious by viewing the general mass of the output of some of the major IP industries, such as Hollywood. Intellect is not required to generate IP, but imagination generally is. Personally I don't care that much if this makes the term seem less weighty, perhaps the term is currently overweighted and made to seem more lofty than it really is. I mean, sure IP is used in areas like like biotech research into cancer treatments, but it also applies to stuff like copies of a kids drawing of a peanut man with the last minute addition of a monocle and spats, and I feel that to refer to the latter as intellectual is to do abuse to the word, however both examples could be accurately said to be products of the imagination.
  - tptacek 12y ago
    Similar sophistry can be used to empty your bank account, because the value of money is also intangible; the money itself is just a number. What natural law prevents the value of that number being altered by application of other numerics? The value of virtually all of the world's currency is imaginary; it's a shared fiction.

That's true in some respects, but I think most will agree that pretending it's a little like real property has it's benefits. For example, think about ARM Holdings. From Wiki: >Unlike most traditional microprocessor suppliers, such as: Intel, Freescale (the former semiconductor division of Motorola) and Renesas (a former joint venture between Hitachi and Mitsubishi Electric),[40] ARM only creates and licenses its technology as intellectual property (IP), rather than manufacturing and sellIng its own physical CPUs, GPUs, SoCs or microcontrollers. This model is similar to fellow British design houses: ARC International, and Imagination Technologies who have similarly been designing and licensing GPUs, CPUs, and SoCs, along with supplying tooling and various design and support services to their licensees. All they produce, according to you, is imaginary property. But can you deny the importance of their role? How many ARM devices are in use around the world?

habitue 12y ago
The argument isn't that it isn't a valuable process, the argument is that it's a process that produces something that is wholly unlike physical property. Information like the kind ARM produces[0] is more valuable to society as a whole the more widely it is disseminated. So an artificial monopoly pretending like information is a scarce resource is probably not the best way to compensate them for doing that kind of work. [0] Some information, like intelligence information, is more valuable the less people have it, which is a major distinguishing feature here.
- wfjackson 12y ago
  >Information like the kind ARM produces[0] is more valuable to society as a whole the more widely it is disseminated. So an artificial monopoly pretending like information is a scarce resource is probably not the best way to compensate them for doing that kind of work. Doing that without properly compensating ARM is like killing the goose that lays the golden egg. ARM is already trying to make a $20 smartphone. There is already a $25 FF OS smartphone. http://www.engadget.com/2014/05/06/20-dollar-smartphone/ http://www.engadget.com/2014/05/06/20-dollar-smartphone/ How much does ARM make from such a phone after all the physical costs are taken out? a few cents?
  - habitue 12y ago
    As someone who once invested in ARM, and has looked at their balance sheets in depth: yes, it's a cent or two per phone. Your unexamined assumption here is that copyright monopolies are the only way to compensate people for work like this. That's not the case.
    - msbarnett 12y ago
      Genuinely curious: what do you think would be some other practical, achievable ways of ensuring that the people at a company like ARM get compensated for their work without "putting the force of the state behind their 'thought-property'"?
      - habitue 12y ago
        We actually have a bunch of examples since there are many industries which don't have the ability to obtain copyright monopolies or patents (or either). Here's a good list (I hope you'll excuse the libertarian source): http://wiki.mises.org/wiki/Without_Intellectual_Property http://wiki.mises.org/wiki/Without_Intellectual_Property People are making money today doing creating intellectual products without the benefit of copyrights and patents, and they're some of the highest margin industries out there.
- IBM 12y ago
  I don't understand your comment. How else would you compensate them when their business model is designing the processors to be licensed to others and not building it?
  - habitue 12y ago
    Is the point to compensate them with their current business model so they don't have to make any changes as a company? If so, then yes, you've defined the solution into a corner here and copyright monopoly is the only way to go. If, however, we look at the actual thing society has an interest in promoting: to get people to do the hard work of original research and engineering optimization, then we find there are lots of ways to solve that problem without granting monopolies or treating information like physical property.
    - wfjackson 12y ago
      >Is the point to compensate them with their current business model so they don't have to make any changes as a company Doesn't ARM keep coming up with new and innovative designs? Don't they have companies like Intel nipping at their heels waiting for a misstep? Isn't ARM on server an uphill battle for them they are working on? Why do we need to shake up their business model? To what end exactly? To make smartphones a few cents cheaper than they already are? >If, however, we look at the actual thing society has an interest in promoting: to get people to do the hard work of original research and engineering optimization, then we find there are lots of ways to solve that problem without granting monopolies or treating information like physical property. Go on... what are some of the "lots of ways" ? I am genuinely curious.
      - habitue 12y ago
        Please see my comment to a similar question above. I was apparently asking for it by not giving examples.
icebraining 12y ago
All they produce, according to you, is imaginary property. No, what they produce are useful designs of chips; whether they are - or should be considered - property is a different matter. After all, inventions don't become useless or unimportant the moment their patent expires.
- IBM 12y ago
  They're considered property in the eyes of the law via patents because this isn't some philosophical question and that's how their product and business is protected in practice.
  - icebraining 12y ago
    They're considered property in the eyes of your particular jurisdiction. They might not be in another - even if probably not for long, since chances are the US will bully them into compliance, as we've been seeing with TPP.
zanny 12y ago
ARM would not need to exist if IP didn't exist to restrict the usage of both ASMs and designs of every other semiconductor manufacturer. People would not just stop innovating in the architecture space because they can't profit from it - fab manufacturers who make chips using the architecture can, and do. What you would see is a transition away from everyone reinventing the wheel (how many add instructions do we need?) more towards an open common base set of instructions with extensions per use. And if that standard ever grew obsolete, the technical benefits of any other implementation could be immediately utilized industry wide without the tyrannical abuse of power that is copyrights on the vocabulary and patents on the chip designs.
- IBM 12y ago
  >People would not just stop innovating in the architecture space because they can't profit from it - fab manufacturers who make chips using the architecture can, and do. Is this real life? I honestly can't believe people actually believe this.
  - lotsofmangos 12y ago
    If you couldn't profit from the IP of a faster computer, you could still profit from having a faster computer. Of course, this might mean that people are less likely to disclose information, which is the main economic benefit of the patent system. I'm not completely against patents, I just think they have grown into something that is now more than slightly ludicrous and needs a serious trim before it becomes un-rescuable.

malandrew 12y ago

I'm going to start using this term. It's accurate, amusing and poignant all at the same time.

archgrove 12y ago

All "property" is imaginary. Having physical things without the backing of the law is just possession. We create a legal notion of property for the benefit of society. Property law adds the force to the state to my possessions, to stop someone beating me on the head and taking them. Intellectual property law adds the force of the state to concepts/ideas/media/etc that originated by the sweat of my brow, to encourage the creation of more, and to enable me to make a living from it. We can argue to what extent this force is necessary, but to claim that intellectual endeavours are just "imaginary" is to do a huge disservice to millions of people who pour their lives into the creation of new and exciting things.

Natsu 12y ago
It points out that imaginary property is wholly unlike physical property. One is naturally exclusive, as multiple people cannot all use the same property at the same time. The other is not, as information is more valuable when shared. Importing concepts of physical property is sloppy thinking and detrimental to society because it advocates for an unreasonable and unworkable basis. It's interesting in that vein that you have a "sweat of the brow" concept of copyright interest, when this theory has been directly rejected under US law (Feist v. Rural). The term imaginary property recognizes such contributions to society as the product of the imagination and is more productive as a starting place for discussion thereof, even if it also lumps the disparate legal concepts together to some degree, though this may be unavoidable at this point.
- tzs 12y ago
  > The other is not, as information is more valuable when shared. If this were true, there would be no need for insider trading laws, we'd play poker with all the cards face up, and targets of blackmail would just laugh it off.
  - Natsu 12y ago
    You're pointing out the asymmetry of the value, rather than disputing it. The information the insiders are trading on is relevant to the stock price (i.e. valuable to stockholders), the poker card info is valuable to the other players (or cheats wouldn't be after it), and the target of the blackmail has something important to hide or they wouldn't pay up.

dkersten 12y ago

When people around me talk about "IP", I usually comment something like "I didn't realise Internet Porn was so important to your business".

tzs 12y ago

That's a horrible term to use, since people will naturally assume it is equivalent to "property that is not real property". However, "real property" means in common law land and fixed improvements to land (e.g., my house and my well are real property, as is the land they are on). My car, my phone, my clothes, and my chess set are examples of property that is not real property, and so in a real/imaginary dichotomy would be imaginary property. Most property falls into a trichotomy: (1) land and fixed improvements to land, (2) physical things other than land and fixed improvements to land, and (3) non-physical things that have been legally given some aspects of property so as to use society's machinery for dealing with property to deal with these non-physical things. There is nothing wrong with the current term, "intellectual property" for things in the third part of the trichotomy. It is property by legal definition, and its origin is the intellect. Another good term would be "intangible property".

lotsofmangos 12y ago
I'd say that IP's origin is in the imagination, and only a subset is also from the intellect, the intellect being only a part of creative thought. This is plainly obvious by viewing the general mass of the output of some of the major IP industries, such as Hollywood. Intellect is not required to generate IP, but imagination generally is. Personally I don't care that much if this makes the term seem less weighty, perhaps the term is currently overweighted and made to seem more lofty than it really is. I mean, sure IP is used in areas like like biotech research into cancer treatments, but it also applies to stuff like copies of a kids drawing of a peanut man with the last minute addition of a monocle and spats, and I feel that to refer to the latter as intellectual is to do abuse to the word, however both examples could be accurately said to be products of the imagination.
- tptacek 12y ago
  Similar sophistry can be used to empty your bank account, because the value of money is also intangible; the money itself is just a number. What natural law prevents the value of that number being altered by application of other numerics? The value of virtually all of the world's currency is imaginary; it's a shared fiction.