I am strongly convinced that the possession of ideas and creations of the intellect is not possible. In my opinion, only physical things can be possessed, that is, things that are limited, that is, that can only be in one place. The power or the freedom to do with the object what one wants corresponds to the concept of possession. This does not mean, however, that one must expose everything openly. It is ultimately the difference between proprietary solutions, where the “construction manual” is kept to oneself, and the open source philosophy, where this source is accessible to everyone.
As the title says, I would oppose this thesis to your arguments and hope that together we can rethink and improve our positions. Please keep in mind that this can be an enrichment for all, so we discuss with each other and not against each other ;)
While I agree, the usual argument is that intellectual property provides an important incentive to creative types and the patrons who would fund their work. A total abolition of intellectual property could only be coupled with a massive shift in how modern societies function, including a universal basic income and automated labor, completely divorced from scarcity and competition. Less extreme changes, such as scaling down the number of years that IP can be claimed, are probably feasible but I can’t imagine any of these being popular with the centers of wealth that already own their share. Are you after a white room discussion on the ethical merits of IP abolition or are you more of an activist looking to brainstorm how to nudge society in that direction?
You are very right about the change. I also think that a sustainable and long-term change is only feasible in stages and together with a shift in consciousness among the population. So after each small step, you can always weigh up whether it is still the right way to go.
Nevertheless, it is important to have certain ideals that make it easier to position oneself in the decisions of everyday life. It is precisely these ideals that I am concerned with in this discussion. I want to put my views to the test and challenge the views of others in a joint exchange. So it is indeed very philosophical and I am aware of that. But I think that this is the best way to test the core of a theory.
Nice, I like doing it in stages and I like the idealism. Saw you provoked some discussion over on a piracy community I sub to. Good stuff, keep at it!
Coming from the viewpoint that the greatest threat to free markets is the artificial beings created by government called “corporations”, I fully believe that some form of IP, appropriately time-limited and only licensable, not transferable, is a perfectly valid way to protect individual human creators, but that it cannot be granted to anything other than natural human citizens.
It’s not about prevention of use by others, it’s about prevention of monetization by others…
Sure, I’m also more of a civil/technolibertarian. I fear the power of the government and the power of big corporations equally. There are different ways to mitigate this problem but the main ones are:
- Try to restrict everything and close every loophole
- Make no distinctions and allow everybody to do with the assets they control to to whatever they want as long as it does not directly harm the other person
And as you see I’m leaning towards the second one. Bear in mind that the corpos arent the only ones who can copy everything and redistribute it. Everything they make is also freely accessible. I think many people tend to forget that abolishing IP is a bigger threat to corporations than small individuals. Just think about it: Could monopolists as big as Microsoft, Google, Apple still exist if every invention could be copied by other big companies? Wouldn’t they be more likely to keep each other in check, so that no one could achieve such an oversize?
