Debate: intellectual property in a AC land

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this debate is between mmbtone and will magic. please refrain from posting in this thread unless you are mmbtone or will magic.

mmbtone:

I believe that a lack of IP protection would be harmful to the economy. I feel any system that allows this to happen, whether AC or not, would have fewer innovations and therefore progress slower.

will magic:

i largely agree that copyright/patents will be very difficult to enforce in an AC society, but I don't think that this is something uniquely bad about AC, because

a) copyright law and intellectual property is already nearly impossible to enforce in the status quo, and enforcement will only get more and more difficult
b) the concept of intellectual property is ridiculous on face because property rights are meant to deal with scarce resources, and ideas are not scarce
c) the copyright/patent model phasing out doesn't mean the end of innovation, nor does it mean the end of artists creating media, and finally
d) you can still sue someone for explicitly violating a contract in AC.


I will start a thread for discussion for non participants

[mmbt0ne]

I will start with will's point a.

I agree that some parts of IP are very difficult to enforce, and are only going to get harder. But I think that, right now, those are mostly limited to mp3s for music, and video files for tv shows/movies/etc. Yeah, there are eBooks, but I see them on being on a much smaller scale simply based on my the people I know. This is probably because being on a computer for hours at a time reading something is really really boring, but that's beyond the point.

I can't say that I have the answer for IP protection (this isn't a utopia [img]/images/graemlins/tongue.gif[/img] ) but I see it as something that is necessary. Especially when it comes to people making a profit off of something. For instance, I think it's much more important to enforce IP in a case such as YouTube, where a separate company is making money off a non-employees work, than when Jack downloads a song from Bill.

[WillMagic]

Alright, there's actually a number of different debates here. There's the question of whether IP is good or bad, kind of a value debate; there's the question of whether or not the potential lack of IP protection in AC is a reason to reject AC outright; and there's the question of whether IP will be enforceable at all in the near future.

There also is the distinction between patents and copyrights, two very different forms of IP, and the answers to the above questions may differ when we get into talking about either.

But let's start with point a, since that's where 't0ne has begun.

me:

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copyright law and intellectual property is already nearly impossible to enforce in the status quo, and enforcement will only get more and more difficult

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't0ne:

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I will start with will's point a.

I agree that some parts of IP are very difficult to enforce, and are only going to get harder. But I think that, right now, those are mostly limited to mp3s for music, and video files for tv shows/movies/etc. Yeah, there are eBooks, but I see them on being on a much smaller scale simply based on my the people I know. This is probably because being on a computer for hours at a time reading something is really really boring, but that's beyond the point.

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First off...that's most of the media we consume today. Written content, audio content, and visual content. There's not much more out there that falls under IP. You concede that visual IP and audio IP are basically unenforceable right now, but hold out for written content, because there is not yet an attractive enough method to consume it electronically. I say that such a method is certainly coming.

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I can't say that I have the answer for IP protection (this isn't a utopia ) but I see it as something that is necessary. Especially when it comes to people making a profit off of something.

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This is a claim that requires some justification. Why is it necessary? I counter that it is simply not necessary. Media as something that can be bought or sold is just outdated. When the only way to consume audio was to buy an LP, when the only way to consume video was to buy a physical piece of film or a videotape, then yeah, content could be scarce. But it just isn't anymore, and that's not a bad thing, at all, for society.

When scarce goods become not scarce, it benefits the whole of society - what once required them to give up their purchasing power they can now get for free. It means that ideas can spread like wildfire throughout a society. It wasn't bad for society when the automatic icemaker was designed, even though the business model that involved cutting ice out of frozen lakes and shipping it south wasn't profitable anymore.

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For instance, I think it's much more important to enforce IP in a case such as YouTube, where a separate company is making money off a non-employees work, than when Jack downloads a song from Bill.

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Again, you need to justify this claim. It seems like nothing more than a personal whim to me, and it brings me to another point.

In the post-IP world, IP may not be scarce - but delivery methods still will be. What people can now make money at is a service that delivers quality content quickly and cheaply. You can also differentiate your service by indicating that if someone uses it the artist does in fact get paid. But that's what your selling - no longer the content itself, but the method of delivery. I see no substantive moral reason why there is any difference between YouTube and downloading.

[mmbt0ne]

First, I would like to say that while I concede that enforcement of audio and visual IP is very difficult, I won't take the step to say that it is unenforcable. Also, I don't think that this is justification for giving up on the attempt to protect it.

As for the two claims that I need to justify:

1) While I hate giving away anything, I will say that I begin to have a much more serious problem with IP being unprotected when we extend from outside media into the realm of patents, copyrights, and trademarks. Companies' relative advantages in the market come from the ability to see a return on research & design using the best people, and the ability to market their products. Without protections for these two things, I don't see a competitive advantage for a company to invest in such markets.


2) This has to do with theft. I feel like profitting off of work that someone else did should not be allowed. Of course this will get us into a slippery slope about what counts in this scenario. There is certainly knowledge in the public domain that is used by many different companies in whatever ways they see fit. However, I think it is different using the idea "150 workers is the maximum that can work together well as a team" and the idea "using these different chemicals in this way can produce a drug that helps with X."

Similarly, if I create a company, someone else should not be able to capitalize on the work I have done by using the same, or even a similar, name or design on packaging.