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1 edit | The big problems with "intellectual property" There are many, many issues with intellectual property that I have elaborated on before (mostly under my old anon. "Broadbanderexpanderc moniker). You can see a particularly spirited discussion that occurred beneath the article about the pirating of the Harry Potter book.
A few of the problems with intellectual property...
A) Art is not product (within the confines of a capital/mercantile system)
I've done this before here ...
Products have demand
Art sometimes has demand
If demand for a "product" ceases, the product will cease to be made.
Subset (a): If people stopped paying for art, I personally would continue to produce it.
If art ceases to be in demand, it will continue to be made
_____
Thus art is not product
Next we must ask "so if art isn't the product, what is it we're paying for when we buy a CD? Clearly, we're paying for something." Again, see my old posts for my feelings on this ...
B) In a capital system, according to Ricardo, Smith, Marx and even Walras, cost of production has a relation with price. Intellectual property has no "cost of production," just like doing a dance alone in your house has no "cost of production." Yes, the individual producing the art usually must pay for some sort of material. HOWEVER, those materials are NOT the intellectual property in question. How does one determine the price of an idea? Is it contingent upon value? Does the value has do with the demand side? Isn't value, according to Marx and Ricardo, determined by man-hours of production?
C) Copyright laws were intended to prevent individuals from making money without compensating someone for their idea. Take for instance, the inventor of monopoly. He brought his work to a company. They made an offer. He said no. They stole the idea and made it anyway. In the case of file-sharing (pro-term)/piracy (con-term), hypothetical money is not being made. However, no one is stealing money. How does one postulate on money yet to be created? It is quite possible, philosophically, that all individuals who download for free would not have purchased the product anyway, and thus are not A) violating the spirit of copyrighting and B) hurting the market in any way.
There are a host of others, but I'll spare everyone the hours of philosophical debate into the nature of sound and performance/construction of ownership since 1950. | |
| The one question that never seems to get asked much less answered in such proclamations of "lost revenue" is:
What is the impact of P2P vs. the impact of the huge numbers of bootleg CD/DVD/VHS turned out in countries like China where there are essentially no copyright laws?
Here's an old article on Software Piracy:
»www.unt.edu/UNT/departments/CC/B···racy.htm
OK.. I'm wrong.. here's a screed from Jack Valenti that addresses the issue..but promptly blows it off to make THE INTERNET COPYRIGHT ENEMY #1
»www.copyrightassembly.org/briefi···1202.htm
Too bad they arent putting any resources to something useful like jailing SPAMMERs. | |
| reply to broadbander
said by broadbander:It is quite possible, philosophically, that all individuals who download for free would not have purchased the product anyway, and thus are not A) violating the spirit of copyrighting and B) hurting the market in any way. if they wouldn't have purchased the product, then they wouldn't have the product, and they would have to find something else to do instead, like buying something they would pay for.
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noogoo vs. the copyright law - »noogoo.blogspot.com/ | |
| Re: The big problems with "intellectual property"
said by broadbander :
It is quite possible, philosophically, that all individuals who download for free would not have purchased the product anyway, and thus are not A) violating the spirit of copyrighting and B) hurting the market in any way.
if they wouldn't have purchased the product, then they wouldn't have the product, and they would have to find something else to do instead, like buying something they would pay for.
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wtf do you care somuch about business? how doees it benefits you or the poor? are you so in your head that you think it is good for the rich to get richer and the poor get poorer???
 | |
| reply to broadbander
said by "broadbander":
A few of the problems with intellectual property...
A) Art is not product (within the confines of a capital/mercantile system)
I've done this before here ...
Products have demand
Art sometimes has demand
If demand for a "product" ceases, the product will cease to be made.
Subset (a): If people stopped paying for art, I personally would continue to produce it.
If art ceases to be in demand, it will continue to be made
Ah! Very good points - but you seem to ignore the flip-side of that position. The demand for "Art" (creative works, distributed as information), often *increases* with increased exposure. It's called a "network effect". This is precisely why MS *allowed* widespread piracy of Win3.x back in the day, to gain market share (by any means possible), and why record-company execs continue the fine tradition of "payola" to radio stations - causing them to play certain specific song (recently-released on CD, coincidentally), at a frequency far beyond the percentage that the song's actual listener popularity might suggest. The reason, of course, is to drive the sales of those CDs, by forcibly exposing the "art" to as many people as possible, thus expanding the market.
Just think - P2P networks do the same thing - for free! But the reason that P2P networks are "evil" in the eyes of the record companies, is that they will *never* be able to totally control that market-distribution channel, as their current retail CD cartel is essentially able to. If they allowed that technology to legitimize itself, then they would be *forced* to adapt, and to change their business plans and approach, to more fairly compete on an open and free market for demand of their "goods". They don't like that, because it would cause the walls of their exclusive cartel-like control fiefdom to break down, and their profit margins reduced, and the overall costs of those "goods" would become lower - *exactly* the benefits that a true free-market economy are suppsed to benefit the public.
So it could be said that P2P networks enable a true free-market, and that record companies are vehemently opposed to the existance of any sort of true free-market, because that would imply them losing absolute control.
Even though, if they learned how to adapt and to utilize those P2P networks for their own legitimate, legal, for-profit distribution of their works, that they could save a large amount of money regarding distribution and promotion costs. Good content promotes itself - through sharing, and legitimate "fair use" of that content.
So, while one person paying for a work, and another person copying that work without paying, doesn't necessarily "cost" the company that extra profit that they could have made, had their sold their work to both - what it does do, is *increase and expand the market itself*, for potential future sales. (This is the "I listened to this artist for the first time off of a P2P network, and I like them, and now I'm going to buy all of their CDs!" effect. And in many cases, it is in fact true.)
What these flawed "piracy costs surveys" really should be taking into account, is "true demand", versus "false demand". False demand is easy, it is the number of copies of the work, in relationg to the number of purchases made of that work. True demand is a bit more difficult to gauge - it involves the number of the legitimate purchases of a work, that were made *because* that purchaser, had previously made a copy of a work without paying. IOW, the "free sample" that eventually led to a future sale. Eliminating piracy totally (if such a thing could ever be done), would also *eliminate these sales*. Thus it would lead to *actual loss of profits*, not just speculative "losses due to piracy".
But cutting off their noses to spite their face, is nothing new to these companies - they originally wanted to ban the VCR as a "piracy device" - even though, eventually, such technology EXPANDED the market for their works, so much so that home-video sales of movie titles eventually generally outgrossed the money made from their theatrical releases.
It's all about true demand, of which the *consumer* is still in control, not the company. The sooner that they learn this, and adapt to that fact, and learn to actually produce products and distribute them *in the ways in which the consumer wants them*, then the sooner that they will be able to legitimate profit from that.
Until then, their "losses due to piracy", are nothing more than lies, because they don't include figures on "losses of profit due to elimination of piracy", leading to fewer future sales.
Another way of saying that, is that a vice-like grip on the market: 1) doesn't preclude potential customers from simply choosing not to purchase the product, and 2) prevents that market from ever being able to expand, due to increased exposure! In effect, "anti-piracy" activities contribute directly to having a smaller market for creative works. Price the legitimate works low enough that customers choose to purchase rather than pirate, and allow "fringe piracy" to increase the market, and one can create both a thriving and expanding legitimate market! Listen well RIAA/MPAA - your very future is at stake here! | |
| reply to DONKEYKONG01
said by DONKEYKONG01:wtf do you care somuch about business? how doees it benefits you or the poor? are you so in your head that you think it is good for the rich to get richer and the poor get poorer??? like the actual poor are really pirating high requirement software on their high-end computers and are dying to get the latest albums on their 50GB mp3 players?
they don't need to pirate to live.
actually by pirating, the rich get richer right?
like some say, they pirate a song and then buy the song. they pirate software then buy software.
if people didn't pirate, they could look for other music and software made by... the poor people or people not getting richer.
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noogoo vs. the copyright law - »noogoo.blogspot.com/ | |
| said by noogoo:said by DONKEYKONG01:wtf do you care somuch about business? how doees it benefits you or the poor? are you so in your head that you think it is good for the rich to get richer and the poor get poorer??? like the actual poor are really pirating high requirement software on their high-end computers and are dying to get the latest albums on their 50GB mp3 players? they don't need to pirate to live. actually by pirating, the rich get richer right? like some say, they pirate a song and then buy the song. they pirate software then buy software. if people didn't pirate, they could look for other music and software made by... the poor people or people not getting richer. you still don';t get it yet do you? cluess still? buahahahaha! iw ont explain itthought. my iq surpasses that of any average person so I won't go out of my way just so you will realize how wrong you been and that the majority is right most of the time. | |
| said by DONKEYKONG01:you still don';t get it yet do you? cluess still? buahahahaha! iw ont explain itthought. my iq surpasses that of any average person so I won't go out of my way just so you will realize how wrong you been and that the majority is right most of the time. guess someone else will have to. if majority is right most of the time, and you're above average, are you not right most of the time?
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noogoo vs. the copyright law - »noogoo.blogspot.com/ | | |
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| reply to DONKEYKONG01
That part of the argument has nothing to do with how I feel about "rich" and "poor." If you'd actually read ANY of my other posts here, you'd know I'm pretty markedly Ricardian about economics and believe that labor side should have alot more to do with price. I don't know what stating a philosophical point about the nature of downloading materials has to do with my views on the wealthy and the poor. My point was mainly for those in the Smithian camp who worry that downloads hurt the market. Generally, they argue that those downloads are lost sales and thus, are bad for the market. My thesis and explanation of what copyright is meant to protect is an attempt to speak to them. The market is more their concern than mine. | |
| reply to noogoo
said by noogoo:said by DONKEYKONG01:you still don';t get it yet do you? cluess still? buahahahaha! iw ont explain itthought. my iq surpasses that of any average person so I won't go out of my way just so you will realize how wrong you been and that the majority is right most of the time. guess someone else will have to. if majority is right most of the time, and you're above average, are you not right most of the time? nukular!
nukular!
nukular! | |
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