Philosophy of Copyright

Great Debates
1

I want to discuss what is owned. How is intellectual property owned?

By the law of the jungle, Intellectual Property cannot be owned, it is an impossibility, once it’s shared it may be used. However as a society we have deemed it within society’s best interest to have copyrights to encourage creativity.

So in your estimation what is the purpose of a copyright? Do you believe that copyright holder’s have some divine right to their creation? Do you believe that it’s only a matter of societal good will in order to propagate good ideas? Where do you stand on this issue?

Remember, policy debates are completely useless within this line of discussion. Whatever the current US or EU policy is, is irrelevant.

I personally believe that the idea of intellectual property is laughable, the idea that a person can own an idea is absolutely stupid and ludicrous. I believe the same about physical property, however, I do realize that capitalism is the most functional system to date, and that under capitalism property rights are paramount. As a pragmatist, I don’t think there is such a thing as good or evil, only right or wrong i.e. what works and what doesn’t.

So given this, my view on intellectual property is that it’s a gift of society to a creator, rewarding them for their good work for the benefit of society. We are more or less saying “Hey, you have proven yourself worthy to be the only person who can pursue this idea by the very fact that you came up with this idea in the first place.”, so we allow them to pursue the profit because it’s motivation for them to expand upon their ideas. Not only that, but if frees them from having to work for subsistance, in otherwords it allows for specialization within society, which in the end benefits all of society.

How this differs from physical property. Well in the case of physical property, upon the death of the creator it wouldn’t behoove society to split up a company, or estate owned by one person because the whole is greater than the sum of it’s parts. It would wreck the economy to break up a company owned by one person, therefore we allow it to be passed on. However, this is not the case with intellectual property. Society benefits MORE from the intellectual property being freely disseminated.

I do not believe in “meal tickets”, in otherwords I don’t think that heirs have ANY rights whatsoever to the fruits of their parents labor. If they are lucky enough to inherit, then that benefits them and more power to them, however I think the benefit that it gives to society is paramount, and at heart I believe that capitalism is the best system.

So how long do YOU believe that copyrights should be held, and what do you believe their purpose in being held, actually is?

Erek

2

Well if we set aside your political views, and agree that, good or not, capitalism is the pervading system, copyright (I prefer that to Intelluctal Property) is there to allow an individual to benefit from his novel idea - be it an invention of a work of art. You seen to argue that the creator deserves no benefit for his work. I don’t see much difference between a work of art and an invention so I’ll treat them the same.

It wouldn’t be fair if you wrote a book eg “The catcher in the Rye” and got someone to print it for you. In a wold without copyright there wouldn’t be any publishers only gyus with printing pressess.

As soon as you sold it, a few people might find it entertaining and realise that others might like to read it. Off to the photocopier with them or to another printer and suddenly there are hundreds of people merrily printing and selling copies of your book and none of them paying you anything for it.

I bet you wouldn’t write a second book.

It’s necessary that the creator can benefit for a period after the invention so that he may profit from his work. This also creates the environment where others can innovate or create with the possibility of profiting from the work. Don’t forget that the mojority of books and inventions don’t make a penny for the creators.

The main question, as far as I’m concerned, is: For how long should they benefit? I don’t know the correct answer but 25 years or the creator’s life (whichever is the longer) seems fair.
Any longer and you are likely to run into the problem of lack of access to works as they will go out of print and the copyright owner may not wish to reprint etc.

Whatever the case, 70 years is too long!

3

If there is no intellectual property of the work that has possibly cost the author a great deal of time and effort, How does the author generate income (given that releasing his work into the public domain would permit people to copy it themselves)?
If the author is expected to generate income independently, does that not provide a serious disincentive?

4

Well, at least the US copyright law is not supposed to reward an author, but to encourage further creations.

5

Good question! We may lay our hands on gold, claiming it to be our own, but what of knowledge? In the case of material goods they exist as a commodity to be traded to enrich oneself. To treat knowledge in the same way is unethical and invites disaster. I think the key difference is although you can take a particular gold nugget for yourself, someone else may arrive at the same knowledge you have found. So the term intellectual property is not really “to own” in the real sense, but to profit from materially, and deny others the opportunity of profiting materially.

6

There’s a fair bit of overlap though, isn’t there, between the concepts of rewarding the author and [encouraging further creations*.

7

I don’t know if it makes a difference to this thread, but present copyright schemes protect the expression of an idea, but not the idea itself. People are free to do with ideas what they will; they are not allowed to intrude upon certain rights relating to the expression of that idea embodied in a different author’s work.

8

Well a few of you are touching on the issue.

The reason I brought this up, is because I see a lot of people using language that implies some sort of divine ownership of a work that you create. In my mind, there is nothing of the sort, if I read your novel, it becomes as much mine as it is yours at that point.

I think that when people ask “What about the heirs?” there is some preconception that people deserve to have an inheritance. This idea is repugnant to me. I don’t think that ANYONE deserves and inheritance. In fact for the most part inheritances were reserved for the wealthy throughout most of history. Most people throughout history have had very little to inherit. I don’t think anyone DESERVES an inheritance, and by that token I don’t think copyright should have anything to do with the heirs, I think it’s a contract purely for pragmatic purposes, in that we want to encourage the creativity that created the work to begin with.

So does anyone out there believe that when you come up with an idea it BELONGS to you?

Erek

9

Well, mswas is this your thread? Your question?

Are you responsible for its creation? Are you the owner or author of the words you have written here? Do you stand by them?

I suspect no one else will claim ownership so there is no competition to possess your words. But in as much as they are your words do you not own them? To some extent are you not responsible for their meaning? After all they represent you.

10

Yes, I do think that it’s important that my words are not misrepresented, however you do not need a copyright to defend against that.

As for the ideas that I am presenting if someone agrees with them 100% then they belong as much to them as they belong to me. Even if they weren’t clear on their stance until after they heard me speak, and I would never deign to ask for credit if they chose to write an essay or book on the subject.

Erek

11

While no one may “deserve” an inheritance, I would argue that it is the right of the person who earned the money to do what they wish with it, which is probably to pass it on to their heirs. In the case of the copyright, they should be able to pass their “rights” on too. To argue otherwise, you can’t believe in the notion of private property, IMHO.

To address your other question, while the idea itself may not belong to me, the right to profit from it does.

Paul

12

There are only two schemes I know of in the law that allow “ownership” of ideas. Patents allow an inventor to monopolize the use or disuse of an idea for a limited time. Trade secrets allow “ownership” of an idea as long as that idea is kept a secret, or the owner takes reasonable steps to keep it secret. Under trade secret law, if someone else independently develops your idea, they can use it freely.
Copyright law is about rights for the expression of ideas. If an author comes up with a novel idea, other people can use it. What other people can’t use the original expression of that idea, though there are some exceptions to this.

13

pbaldy: I personally don’t believe in personal property past the inherent pragmatism of it, in that it makes sense to give the property to the person who has the most likelihood of putting it to good use. That’s why oil companies can own oil fields, that sort of thing. I believe that capitalism is a good system and that it works, but I don’t think that it’s ideas of ownership are inherent, as much as implied by the system.

As to your mention of the “right” to pass on the wealth accumulated, I agree with this, however, I don’t think that this should apply to the copyright necessarily, only the money gained from that copyright.

So therefore I am perfectly capable of believing in property rights, and arguing with you otherwise.

Erek

14

Erek, I would argue that you can not say that you “believe” in private property rights, based on your own statements. Your pragmatic solution is fraught with problems. Who would you say has the right to “give the property to the person who has the most likelihood of putting it to good use”? What if while they’re using it, someone else comes along that has a “better likelihood of putting it to good use”? Someone has a tremendous amount of power here, which just about guarantees corruption. No one would really have property “rights” under that system.

I’ll take my chances with private property.

Paul

15

Well part of your problem paul is you’re hijacking this thread. This thread isn’t about me. It’s exactly about what YOU think of intellectual property. I mean I can sit here and defend my beliefs the whole day, but there have been only a couple people actually saying what they think of intellectual property and WHY we have copyrights.

So I think I’m going to quash your hijack at this point. However if you want to discuss what YOU believe then go right ahead, I’ve very interested.

Erek

16

Funny; when I read my first thread, I see 3 definitive statements of belief. If you see it as a hijack and not stating my beliefs…well, I’m sorry.

17

Well I have no problem defending my views, however it seems that you prefer to harp upon my differences in belief on intellectual property. And I wouldn’t mind the hijack if you offered your actual belief in response instead of a smug response like: I’ll take my chances with private property.

So if you’d like to explain your beliefs on private property and how it pertains to intellectual property, I will gladly do a comparison of my views vs yours.

Erek

18

Pbaldy: Here’s where the confusion lies. You keep throwing around the word “right” and the entire point of this thread is to address whether or not it is a right, and why it is a right or not. So saying “It’s their right to pass on their property…” does nothing to further the discussion, even though it is, a statement of belief.

Erek

19

I agree with the OP. No one has any moral ownership over an idea; copyright is only useful so far as it encourages the flow of works from authors’ minds into the public domain.

A pit stop in profit-land is necessary to provide an incentive to create, but if works never enter the public domain (as is the case with anything created after the 1920’s, under current and probably future U.S. law), copyright is pointless.

20

I think we are getting confused with this “idea” thing. A general idea cannot be copyrighted. However, (as I mentioned in a previous thread) my photograph of Yosemite’s Half Dome can be copyrighted. It is a very specific entity. I was there, I took the picture, I own the negative. I don’t “own” the “idea” of Half Dome—no one does. I can’t prevent other people from going to the same identical spot at the same time of day under the same weather conditions at the same time of year and getting an almost identical photo of Half Dome. However, I can (under current copyright law) prevent someone else from taking my photograph, based on the negative that I own, and using it for their own profit.

And I am guessing that some of you want to wrest my photograph, based on my negative away from me? Like you can’t take your own negative of Half Dome?

So, do I “own” my negative, and what happens to it? I think I do. I think I have a right to control what happens to the photo that I take. However, I have no right to control what other people do with every image of Half Dome. And there are a lot of images of Half Dome that have been taken.

I understand that I am talking about a very specific thing (a picture of Half Dome), but then again, a lot of things that are copyrighted are very specific. 12 lines of prose, a 90 minute movie, and whatnot. Not the general “idea”, but the actual thing that they worked on.