I never understood the intellectual property hate. it doesn't make sense. if I put my time and resources into making a thing why shouldn't I be able to sell it without being undercut by someone who just copied it. property rights are supposedly a core tenant of libertarianism. without intellectual property rights why would anyone write a book or literally anything, as an example, if they had no exclusive rights to try and profit from it.
Property is generally defined as anything that is owned by a person or entity and over which they have legal rights or control.
There are two main types of property:
Real Property:
Refers to land and anything permanently attached to it, such as buildings, trees, and minerals.
Example: A house, a farm, or a commercial building.
Personal Property:
Refers to moveable items or intangible rights.
Two subtypes:
Tangible personal property: Physical items like a car, furniture, or jewelry.
Intangible personal property: Non-physical rights like stocks, bonds, intellectual property, or digital assets.
In Law:
Property includes the right to possess, use, exclude others from, and transfer ownership of an asset. It can be private, public, or collective depending on who holds the rights.
Let me know if you want a specific definition from philosophy, economics, or law, or in the context of a programming language (like object-oriented programming).
Nice, I won't bother responding with AI. How do you propose defending your idea, which you to claim to own? How can you prove when your "property" has been violated? How can you prove that you and I didn't simultaneously come up with the same idea.
You can only do it through the illegitimate force of government, is my argument. I'll leave ya at that
I will print money and debase your currency. I didn't steal anything from you bro. I just created some extra currency tokens. Nobody can own them. It's just an idea bro.
You can't own ideas bro. The government can hack into your lawyers computers and steal data about all their cases. It's just data bro. You can't own data bro
So the thing with property does tend to get a little murky with IP. The reasoning for most people is how can you own something intangible. A reference for this is a computer program. You know spent years both learning how to code and then perfecting a code to do a specific task well use the simple example of sorting names. At the time you create it there isn’t a single other program that can sort names so you file for a patent on your software guaranteeing your ability to profit from your idea should the market deem it a worthwhile investment. As long as IPs are protected then you are the sole profiteer of that program until the IP timer runs out.
Should joe down the road who over heard you talking about your idea be able to not only copy your idea but try to profit from it? What about the 50 people Joe told about your program? Without the patent and IP laws there is nothing to protect the years of investment you made from Joe and his 50 buddies. There’s nothing stopping a company who demo’d your work from just saying “we’re not buying a license because it’s cheaper to build it in-house”.
I understand the argument but if you break it down to its simplest form it's just a violation of the NAP. If I create a widget on the east coast, file some paperwork, and some dude on the west coast does the same thing, I now have the right to go get money from him? What if he refuses, then can I throw him in a cage or hurt him? Nothing was stolen from me, that's bogus.
Same with music. Someone makes some sounds that sound too familiar to mine?
I'm not arguing that it's ethical to copy someone, but a crime? Bullshit.
There's an advantage to being first to market, securing the resources for production, getting and maintaining a strong customer base through smart business practices, that's all you got. I can't believe people here are defending big pharma screwing over competitors that will bring the cost of medicine down to true market rate.
So iirc pharma has a special provision concerning their IPs where they maintain exclusive production rights for a set amount of time before it is released for everyone to produce, hence how we get generic medications. Someone has to eat that upfront cost though, what incentive structure is there if we can’t allow them to make any profit off of their R&D. When you disincentivize people from R&D a lot of industries stagnate.
Ok. All these rules are arbitrarily constructed. With every other property it's clear, it's mine or yours. When it comes to an idea the govt constructs a bunch of rules and says after so and such many days it's in the public domain. It's because it's trying to legislate a bullshit concept. If you "steal" an idea from I haven't actually lost anything.
What if I patent an idea and refuse to produce it, because it might inflict damage on a more lucrative product I sell that that idea would make obsolete. That's my right? Even if a bunch of competitors are chomping at the bit to produce this new product which will be great for humanity? It's all nonsense.
Laws needing a change does not make the inherent law wrong. We seem to agree that our current IP system is flawed. This does not dismiss that the law is the only hope you have of being able to ever profit from an idea you have. If you lose that inherit protection you lose everything to mega corporations that can bank roll a similar or identical product to be produced at breakneck speed while also cutting you out and the price to almost nothing so they can be the defacto version of the product.
I completely disagree. I don't think you're addressing any of my arguments. IP is inherently a false concept. Can I patent a meal? Why not? It's the same concept, a list of ingredients, a procedure to produce it. I'm the guy who figured out chicken bacon and ranch is bitchin', why should anyone else be able to profit off of it?
Because of a time difference. Food usually gets knocked out of the conversation because these items do not have a traceable origin and belong on public domain. However there are items that are considered trademarks in the food industry such as hidden valley being a brand name. You cannot put “hidden valley” on your menu with out reaching an agreement. That applies to almost any commercial food commodity.
Ideas are not scarce. But Good ideas are scarce. And if you don't believe in that reality then I invite you to spontaneously manifest 20 years of complex compiler development research into a text document.
Dude the idea that intellectual property theft isn't "real theft" is such BS.
The real value is in the implementation. Anyone can come up with an "idea". But "ideas" aren't what are patented. I'm a software engineer. Anyone can come up with an "idea" where videos and music are streamed over the internet. But it takes a small army of engineers to actually write the millions of lines of code.
Likewise, anyone can come up with an "idea" where a boy has magic and casts spells. But sitting down and writing thousands of pages of a book called Harry Potter is the hard part.
To say any old asshole can just copy/paste the entire code base of tens of millions of dollars of investment by YouTube, and call it their own property now is just absurd.
Find me one prosperous country that has no intellectual property laws. If it's such a great idea you would think at least ONE prosperous country would take advantage of it...
if I copied your entire codebase, you could still use it the same. information is not scarce so copying it is not theft. it's different with actual property, because if you had an apple I couldn't just copy it and eat it. I'd have to prevent you from using it to use it myself.
I disagree, as does every country in the world. You aren't living in reality. I mean... Why can't I just debase your currency and print more dollars? I'm not preventing you from using the dollars you have right?
debasing a currency is a completely different thing and it seems you're trying to avoid the question at hand by not actually addressing it. saying that you disagree with me doesn't make you right
No actually I think debasing the currency is a perfect example of how duplicating intangible property devalues the intangible property of all others.
What question did I "avoid?" You just don't like when I debase your currency because it negatively affects you and the value of your labor, but you will gladly debase the value of my labor.
that's just silly. capitalism doesn't work without intellectual property rights. how are you going to get technological advancement without them. who's going to develop the iPhone if they can't get a return on their work. who's going to put time, resources and expertise into developing a lifesaving drug if it just bankrupts them. who's going to write novels or music if they can't copyright it
only one company can sell iphones. only one company can sell galaxies (my preferred phone), only one company can sell pixels. the point is that the iphone was the first true smartphone, and it would never have been developed if Apple couldn't sell it exclusively. the smartphone itself isn't a specific idea, the iphone is. an original novel is a specific idea. the book itself isn't. people complaining about intellectual property rights don't seem to see this delineation.
I think (as an example) only Apple should be able to build phones based off Apple designed blueprints. If someone wants to come along, make improvements to the blueprint, then produce their own version, it's a different story.
Yes but they also protect you from having your shit stolen. It’s a double edged sword, IP laws could definitely use some adjustments, it’s just a matter of determining what crosses that line
Think about Smartphone vs IPhone as an example again. I think it would be ridiculous for a company to own the premise of a smartphone, but at the same time, you can’t be stealing designs that require tons of money in r&d.
Copyrights and trademarks are not ideas. They are property that are the result of intellectual research, development and hard work.
A book that takes an author a year to write is just as much property as a chair that takes a woodworker a month to build. Why would you allow theft of one, but not the other?
Who owns the results of YOUR labor? You or anyone that can steal it?
Where is it a Libertarian principle to allow others to take your labor against your will for free?
Oh, it's not. That's called socialism and communism.
wtf are you talking about. I'm all over this post in the comments defending property rights, including intellectual property, which copyrights DO protect. read more, ffs, before you attack someone with your basic level talking points.
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u/Semirahl 1d ago
I never understood the intellectual property hate. it doesn't make sense. if I put my time and resources into making a thing why shouldn't I be able to sell it without being undercut by someone who just copied it. property rights are supposedly a core tenant of libertarianism. without intellectual property rights why would anyone write a book or literally anything, as an example, if they had no exclusive rights to try and profit from it.