Is patent protection good or bad?

[DVaut1]

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Not having patent or copyright protections does not preclude people getting compensated for their creativity, it just means that arbitrary monopolies are not created.

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In other words, as has been noted before, everything any ACist could ever create, think of, make, have, stand on or near -- is theirs and all theirs. Making them part with even one bit of their property is unjustified and immoral coercion.

However, all of the intellectual property they use is the common and free inheritance of all humanity, and attempting to protect your intellectual property is nothing more than jackbooted monopolizing of what they want to use for free.

And corollary to that (just for you pvn) -- everyone should have a pony.

[mmbt0ne]

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Intellectual property rights are essential to the research, development and marketing of the creative output and innovative applications that sustain the modern technological world.

This isn’t about 99 cent plastic widgets. Anything complex and expensive to manufacture requires intellectual property rights be defended for there to be an economic incentive for its development.

Without such private property, the useless parasites that feed off the labor of others would find themselves back in the caves.

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This is a very good response Sharkey. Thank you. I think the drug industry is the best example of something like this. Without the IP rights, companies would be much less interested in creating new drugs, if their profits would be minimized by others being able to make the exact same drug, and package it the exact same way.

Do ACists accept the idea of a monopoly on currency, or is this mostly a barter society?

[hmkpoker]

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Do ACists accept the idea of a monopoly on currency, or is this mostly a barter society?

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The monopoly on money is THE WORST MONOPOLY OF ALL. It is the purest form of taxation without representation. It is the complete power for the monopoly to STEAL at will without repercussion. The Fed and its ties with the government are despised by any competant person who wants freedom. It WILL destroy the American economy.

AC favors fully privatized currency. Gold is the overwhelmingly desired commodity for trade. While businesses would almost universally accept gold (since that's what most people would carry), they would be also allowed to accept any other form of compensation that they wanted; silver, platinum, swiss francs, cocaine, BJ's...anything.

Banks would be a little different. You pay a fee for them to keep your gold. They can't engage in fractional reserve banking; it would be a sign of incredible weakness amongst more secure competition, who could rightfully attack it. There would be no interest on savings; the money gains value naturally. Loans are handled with actual reserves (however, one has to question if home loans would even be necessary in an AC society)

For some excellent background in the history of the money monopoly, watch this movie.

[slickpoppa]

Borodog does not believe in intellectual property because he knows that intellectual property would not exist in an AC society. Ergo, it must be bad.

[The Don]

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Borodog does not believe in intellectual property because he knows that intellectual property would not exist in an AC society. Ergo, it must be bad.

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Not true, if market demand were high enough to make the enforcmement of patents profitable, then it would exist in an AC society. I agree that the probability of that is quite low, but so is the probability that the demand to ban, gambling, or prostitution would be profitable. I am sure that both of us will agree that Boro doesn't believe that anti-drug laws should exist just because they wouldn't exist in an AC society.

The reason is because ideas are not scarce resources (and thus, not an economic good) like other forms of property (from your own life to a loaf of bread that you get at the store). Thus, their enforcement creates artificial monopolies.

[madnak]

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I steal software because:

1) I can do so with impunity.

2) It is of equal quality but infinitely cheaper and therefore better.

3) I can spend the money I don't spend on media on other things.


I win [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]

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What do you have against donating to charity? [img]/images/graemlins/cool.gif[/img]

[madnak]

Please explain why this it true.

Of course an inventor couldn't just invent something and sit on his ass. He could invent something and sell it - obviously if someone stole it or independently invented it in the interim that would cause problems so it's a risky tactic. He could seek out private investment - there are capitalists who know how to make a ton of money by being the first in possession of an invention. He could join a think-tank or R&D team of a company that takes measures to protect its research. He could use a donation model (it's been done with plenty of software). He could use some form of advertising model. He could use his reputation to make him money. He could market the product himself. He could be paranoid and keep his inventions locked away in a safe until he's capable of selling them. He could offer courses on how to use the invention or how it works.

There are probably hundreds of ways he could make money. And do you believe researchers make a bundle in current society? Businesses get the benefits, researchers and inventors make peanuts. Many of them actually take low-paying jobs so they can do the creative work they enjoy.

[VarlosZ]

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Also, "empircally ridiculous"? Don't you think that's an overstatement given the vast quanitity of intellectual products that are created year in and year out largely because of the prospect of compensation?

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Uh, no? Do you disagree that the volume of uncompensated intellectual products each year probably outweighs the compensated ones by a factor of a hundred, if not thousands? For every book that gets copyrighted and published, a hundred are written. For every band that gets signed and makes an album, a hundred labor in the garage and bars. For every movie that makes money at the mainstream box office there are a hundred made that never make a dime.

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Sure, and for every 100 fledgeling authors, musicians, or movie producers, 99 would hope to be compensated and protected from plagiarists if they ever produced something profitable. If they knew there was no prospect of that, who knows how many would quit.

Ominous as that is (or should be), it's irrelevant next to the real idiocy of your notion: its effect on large-scale projects. Sure, there would be artists without patents and copyrights, but things such as pharmaceutical research and industrial breakthroughs require huge investments of money and manpower, and they're simply not going to happen in the private sector if they aren't made profitable retroactively.

[madnak]

"Protected from plagiarists?" Yeah, if I write something I just hope other people will never use it. Damn, that would suck.

But you're saying the real problem is that people won't engage in capital-intensive projects that they can't afford? I'm sure you understand the notion of expected value. If a capitalist or group of capitalists have a reasonable expectation of profit from some research, then it's in their interest to fund the research. If not, then there is no justification for the project in the first place.

If an innovation generates fewer resources than it consumes, then it is bad for society. It's not very innovative at all. You are saying that capitalism is bad because it results in fewer people wasting resources.

[mmbt0ne]

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Do ACists accept the idea of a monopoly on currency, or is this mostly a barter society?

[/ QUOTE ]

The monopoly on money is THE WORST MONOPOLY OF ALL. It is the purest form of taxation without representation. It is the complete power for the monopoly to STEAL at will without repercussion. The Fed and its ties with the government are despised by any competant person who wants freedom. It WILL destroy the American economy.

AC favors fully privatized currency. Gold is the overwhelmingly desired commodity for trade. While businesses would almost universally accept gold (since that's what most people would carry), they would be also allowed to accept any other form of compensation that they wanted; silver, platinum, swiss francs, cocaine, BJ's...anything.

Banks would be a little different. You pay a fee for them to keep your gold. They can't engage in fractional reserve banking; it would be a sign of incredible weakness amongst more secure competition, who could rightfully attack it. There would be no interest on savings; the money gains value naturally. Loans are handled with actual reserves (however, one has to question if home loans would even be necessary in an AC society)

For some excellent background in the history of the money monopoly, watch this movie.

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Thank you for the good, non-condescending response. This is an interesting idea, but seems like a big hassle.

Your movie's long, I'll watch it later tonight.