Property is something we find in natural law, the result of mixing your labor with natural resources. Intellectual property cannot be found in natural law, it is a construct in prescriptive law.
Intellectual property is grounded in the theory if you mix your ideas with others, you own the entire idea. Set aside the problems of "owning" idea, and look at just mixing your labor with others' ideas. The labor in this case is thinking. We all get paid to think, to some degree. So thinking can be an example of productive labor.
One way, of the countless ways, Intellectual Property Rights theory goes wrong is it assumes, once thought, always owned (or for some length of time set by statute). Where as property is valuable only to the extent it can be worked, Intellectual Property can be valuable to the extent that anyone works it.
My Fair Lady (Pygmalion), the George Bernard Shaw play that promotes the idea of scientific racist eugenics (the scientist ultimately rejects his "do little" untermenschen) can be put on by others if they pay for the "property. " But wait! To mount a play, any play, people who must apply the labor of their minds to organizing and producing a play along with the countless details to attend to in order to make the play happen, including invest considerable amounts of money. Why should they have to pay Shaw, or Shaw's estate anything at all, since Shaw is not offering any thinking power to the present effort?
You'll say "but Shaw thought up the play." Nonsense, Shaw stole the idea from Ovid. Shaw married the ancient plot with modern scientific racism, thought up some clever dialogue and sold it in 1916 to a widespread audience eager to be socially conditioned to scientific racism. Most of Shakespeare's plays can be traced back to earlier plays. Both sellable parts of the play are ideas Shaw "stole" from others, in the case of My Fair Lady, Ovid and scientific racists. Shaw got paid for his work in 1916, and for decades thereafter, as people consulted him on subsequent productions and movies. The play made Shaw rich because Shaw kept producing in relation to the play. Making people feel warm and fuzzy about scientific racism takes talent.
Shaw no longer is breathing, let alone thinking and working. Why should anyone pay anyone else for an effort to mount a play that in no way takes anything away form anyone else? If I light your candle with my candle, do you owe me money for the flame on your candle? How come? I might agree to pay, but if you are not around and I light my candle, do I owe you?
I write books, and print them and make money from them. Selling books is how I get paid for my time spent thinking. Don't I want my kids to have the "royalties" from my books after I an dead? I am an anarchist, and I do not like kings (an + archy = no king) or their royalties. If my kids want to make money off my books let them print them up and sell them, like anyone else. If they want to make money off ideas, let them produce a version of the ideas they can sell. A theatre and a production of a play, and a book, are property. We do not need "intellectual property rights" and laws to make money from our ideas and thinking. We do need property rights, something we find in natural law.
Feel free to forward this by email to three of your friends.
Intellectual property is grounded in the theory if you mix your ideas with others, you own the entire idea. Set aside the problems of "owning" idea, and look at just mixing your labor with others' ideas. The labor in this case is thinking. We all get paid to think, to some degree. So thinking can be an example of productive labor.
One way, of the countless ways, Intellectual Property Rights theory goes wrong is it assumes, once thought, always owned (or for some length of time set by statute). Where as property is valuable only to the extent it can be worked, Intellectual Property can be valuable to the extent that anyone works it.
My Fair Lady (Pygmalion), the George Bernard Shaw play that promotes the idea of scientific racist eugenics (the scientist ultimately rejects his "do little" untermenschen) can be put on by others if they pay for the "property. " But wait! To mount a play, any play, people who must apply the labor of their minds to organizing and producing a play along with the countless details to attend to in order to make the play happen, including invest considerable amounts of money. Why should they have to pay Shaw, or Shaw's estate anything at all, since Shaw is not offering any thinking power to the present effort?
You'll say "but Shaw thought up the play." Nonsense, Shaw stole the idea from Ovid. Shaw married the ancient plot with modern scientific racism, thought up some clever dialogue and sold it in 1916 to a widespread audience eager to be socially conditioned to scientific racism. Most of Shakespeare's plays can be traced back to earlier plays. Both sellable parts of the play are ideas Shaw "stole" from others, in the case of My Fair Lady, Ovid and scientific racists. Shaw got paid for his work in 1916, and for decades thereafter, as people consulted him on subsequent productions and movies. The play made Shaw rich because Shaw kept producing in relation to the play. Making people feel warm and fuzzy about scientific racism takes talent.
Shaw no longer is breathing, let alone thinking and working. Why should anyone pay anyone else for an effort to mount a play that in no way takes anything away form anyone else? If I light your candle with my candle, do you owe me money for the flame on your candle? How come? I might agree to pay, but if you are not around and I light my candle, do I owe you?
I write books, and print them and make money from them. Selling books is how I get paid for my time spent thinking. Don't I want my kids to have the "royalties" from my books after I an dead? I am an anarchist, and I do not like kings (an + archy = no king) or their royalties. If my kids want to make money off my books let them print them up and sell them, like anyone else. If they want to make money off ideas, let them produce a version of the ideas they can sell. A theatre and a production of a play, and a book, are property. We do not need "intellectual property rights" and laws to make money from our ideas and thinking. We do need property rights, something we find in natural law.
Feel free to forward this by email to three of your friends.
5 comments:
Great piece! A keeper. I'm stealing it.
There is a sense in which we want the person who thought up the play to profit the most from it while he/she wishes to. As in, we would want that person to be able to be able to control who produces and sells the play he thought up.
I'm not which type of property that mechanic would fall under (intellectual/natural). In short, I have no clue about these things and I feel like the article raises more questions after answering previous ones.
In what sense would that be? You need to articulate in what sense that would be. As I pointed out, with no intellectual property rights, we can still market our ideas and make money. Shaw was in demand, with or without IPR. Why is control of any sort necessary?
I'll post more on this so more fundamental questions might be answered.
Well, in the same sense a lot of song writers today would not want their songs to be commercially distributed by someone without their consent (and they of course want to be credited for their work at all times), just as a fundamental human right artists supposedly have.
Often artists might even object to the non-commercial distribution of their work without consent (piracy), because it doesn't give them an opportunity to present their work in the proper manner to the affected audience (song not being distributed at proper quality or completeness).
Some sort of control is within their rights here, I suppose. The problem a lot of people see is not the existence of copyright, but the implementation of it.
What is the fundamental human right that artists are supposed to have? "Wants" are not rights. If someone distributes my work without my consent, well, I address that here:
http://hbhblog.blogspot.com/2012/03/against-intellectual-property-law.html
The personal preference as to how something is presented in completeness or quality is mere aesthetics, if someone changes those, how is the work yours? It is now different.
If the impresario uses his productive capacity to reach an audience of his own, why does he owe the artist anything for his efforts? "Just because..." is not much of an argument.
There is nothing to keep the artist from exploiting the market the impresario has found.
And fundamentally, IPR is grounded in violence, and requires 4th and 5th parties to pay 3rd parties to visit violence on 2nd parties to benefit the first party. Why don't we just let the first party figure out how to make money like the second party, or joint venture with the second party, instead of this violence-based wasteful, unnecessarily complicated and violent system?
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