When did IP become so worthless to people?

[jfrost]

I'm just using common sense - if you take but never give, what incentive does the producer have to continue to make anything worth taking?

I'm cool with arguing economics (I'm a econ geek myself), but you should notice that your very question pressuposes a moral position (namely, that the producer should continue producing whatever he's making; that's a pretty big assumption, actually).

The fact of the matter is that intellectual property law has costs. Not only in enforcement, but in the fact that it is necessarily arbitrary to establish some set of stuff that can be subject to IP and other stuff that can't.

Also, it can't be argued for sure that IP has brought more economic prosperity than there would otherwise be. Reproduction of creative works surely has value, a value that is lost or suppressed when there's IP law. You really can't be sure that IP is Pareto optimal.

So, IP doesn't only promote innovation; it also gimps innovation in other areas. In fact, since things that are subject to property law can be sold for above market prices, they will suck the resources from areas that can't.

(However, I should note that there are a lot of creative industries that have no IP and are doing fine. Fashion industry comes to mind, as well as culinary.)

In the end, you might ask what would be the incentive to create stuff if the producer isn't granted a monopoly price. There might be none, there might be some, there might be a big incentive. Either way, I don't think you can be sure that IP is the best solution in general if you're arguing economics.

[Hatta]

Or create incentive to dissuade undesired behavior, another tenet of economics.

In order to create a meaningful disincentive, you have to make the long term payoff negative. The risks have to outweigh the benefits. Mathematically, that means the chance of getting caught times the penalty must be greater than the benefit. For this to be the case, you need a high chance of getting caught, or a high penalty.

Statutory damages are already in the tens of thousands of dollars per work, it doesn't seem to be working. Higher damages would be meaningless since you can't fine people money they don't have.

The other possibility is to increase the chances of getting caught. Encryption technologies make this impossible without serious hardware level big brother restrictions on copying of any sort, essentially undoing the information revolution (as well as any illusion of freedom we may have had). This would be far worse for creative types than the status quo.

So QED. You can't do it. The cat is out of the bag. An IP free economy might seem strange to us today, but think of how our economy would look to feudal lords. This is just progress. We'll adapt and everything will be OK in the long run. The only question is how violent the death throws of the copyright cartels will be. That's what I'm scared of, they may seriously choose option 2.

[Flake]

@jfrost

There is no moral question in debating if a producer should continue to produce. As long as revenue is a sufficiently larger than opportunity costs, it's logical for a producer to produce. Nothing moral there.

IP's might be inconvenient for some but defense of intellectual property is one of the cornerstones of capitalism. If a person invents something and doesn't have any reason to believe that they will be able to benefit from it due to a strong and stable legal system, why should they either A) share it with the rest of the world or B) invent something else tomorrow?

Same thing with games.

Again, this isn't a moral thing. I think that game publishers are really stupid these days with their insistence on charging $60 for a PS3/360 game or $50 for a Wii game - without any adjustment to the price based on the perceived value or marketability of their game.

If game publishers would sell their games at costs that actually reflected demand for the game they are putting on the shelf, they would be able to undermine the used game market and diminish the appeal of piracy. But it's like no one who markets games these days has ever even taken a single intro to economics class.

*Snip

I'm not saying you're wrong about how things might turn out - but in an IP free society, prepare to be really bored / disappointed with whatever entertainment gets turned out. If people can't expect to profit from their work, they have zilch incentive to create.

[DinnerX]

IP's might be inconvenient for some but defense of intellectual property is one of the cornerstones of capitalism. If a person invents something and doesn't have any reason to believe that they will be able to benefit from it due to a strong and stable legal system, why should they either A) share it with the rest of the world or B) invent something else tomorrow?

I wouldn't say copyrights or patents or whatever are cornerstones of capitalism. Capitalism is all about having faith in the market to do what needs to be done. Not that I hate all copyright laws, but they are government involvement in the economy. Jfrost has a great point about fashion. Fashions get ripped off left and right. Yet designers aren't gone and they certainly continue to make new things.

I'm not saying you're wrong about how things might turn out - but in an IP free society, prepare to be really bored / disappointed with whatever entertainment gets turned out. If people can't expect to profit from their work, they have zilch incentive to create.

People can't expect to profit from a work right now really. You aren't guaranteed money when you make something. Also a lot of people make things simply because they enjoy making comics or whatever. Money doesn't always matter. There is more great free entertainment now than there has ever been thanks to the ease of publishing stuff on the internet. It's not all low quality either.

[jfrost]

IP's might be inconvenient for some but defense of intellectual property is one of the cornerstones of capitalism. If a person invents something and doesn't have any reason to believe that they will be able to benefit from it due to a strong and stable legal system, why should they either A) share it with the rest of the world or B) invent something else tomorrow?

They shouldn't. Nobody is forcing them to do anything. They don't need to invent or share anything. Then again, nor can they expect perpetual profits from an idea only because he came up with it. Or so I think it should be.

(By the way, I disagree with the notion that IP is a "cornerstone of capitalism" - and I'm a libertarian. The cornerstone of capitalism is property, which solves conflicts that arise from scarcity. Ideas aren't scarce. Rather than solving conflicts, IP creates more by enclosing things that can be and are indefinitely reproduced.)

[o.pwuaioc]

Flake: I understood what you were drawing just fine. That's selling used games and buying new ones. I'm talking about buying used games. Two different scenarios entirely. A person can spend their whole life buying used games from company A, thereby never generating company A *any* profit at all while still benefiting from their product.

I don't know that the used item defense works. You bought that game, movie, cd. You retain the right to sell it.

Then why doesn't that extend to the right to copy it?

[Mendoza]

Flake: I understood what you were drawing just fine. That's selling used games and buying new ones. I'm talking about buying used games. Two different scenarios entirely. A person can spend their whole life buying used games from company A, thereby never generating company A *any* profit at all while still benefiting from their product.

I don't know that the used item defense works. You bought that game, movie, cd. You retain the right to sell it.

Then why doesn't that extend to the right to copy it?

I think you should be able to copy it for your own use, but not for distrusting online.

I don't think its really right to copy it and then sell the original either, but i dont have a problem backing up your media for your own use, particulalry for rare retro games that can be messed up.

[Flake]

I wouldn't say copyrights or patents or whatever are cornerstones of capitalism. Capitalism is all about having faith in the market to do what needs to be done. Not that I hate all copyright laws, but they are government involvement in the economy. Jfrost has a great point about fashion. Fashions get ripped off left and right. Yet designers aren't gone and they certainly continue to make new things.

People can't expect to profit from a work right now really. You aren't guaranteed money when you make something. Also a lot of people make things simply because they enjoy making comics or whatever. Money doesn't always matter. There is more great free entertainment now than there has ever been thanks to the ease of publishing stuff on the internet. It's not all low quality either.

Fashions don't get ripped off. Trends get copied. Totally different. Fashion companies jealously guard their trademarks and designs from counterfeiters because their name, their style, their intellectual property - these are the things that make a fashion label stand out to the consumer. This is why you have that stereotype of fashion conscious women who can pick out particular brands from across a room.

And intellectual properties are sure as shit a cornerstone of capitalism. If you disagree, I would ask you to please point out to me any time in our modern capitalist history that people did not fight over their intellectual property or make an effort so assert their ownership? Hell, I can think of examples of intellectual property being protected by governments as far back as the Victorian era. Even further if you want to treat religious institutions as forms of government.

I mean, why do you think we call it Pasteurizing milk instead of the 'boil it, drink it' method? You think it's any mistake that Great Expectations is universally recognized as a Dickens novel? Or that band-aids are made by a company called 'band aid'? We wear Levi's - that's not just a clever name for dyed canvas that some dude came up with.

The apple logo - instantly identifiable, even if you hate Macs. Where else do you see that logo? The SEGA chime from your childhood. Definitely didn't make it to any SNES titles. The fact that people refer to the King James Bible as specifically 'The King James' Bible and not just 'The British version'?

The colony of Virginia, chartered to the Virginia trading company. The East Indie Tea Company - the absolute definition of Capitalism - you think they didn't make sure people knew which tea blends were theirs and which weren't?

It's all intellectual property - people come up with ideas that catch on and there are laws in place to protect their ownership over those ideas. Hell, why do you think the United States was known as the land of opportunity? Because it was started by capitalists who wanted individuals to be able to own their work and profit from it instead of watching a corrupt government take it from them.

But hey, try putting yourself into the shoes of someone who has created something with some kind of economic viability. It's easy to clamor for a world with no IP protection when you haven't made anything yourself.

[o.pwuaioc]

I don't think its really right to copy it and then sell the original either, but i dont have a problem backing up your media for your own use, particulalry for rare retro games that can be messed up.

I have a really hard time imagining any moral argument for why someone can't *buy* something, copy it for their own use, and then sell it. Company A gets their profit from the sale, Person B gets their use and legitimately buys it, and Person C who might otherwise not ever have bought the item from Company A, now also gets to enjoy it. Why does the action of copying it make it wrong?

[Flake]

Why does the action of copying it make it wrong?

Because copyright law stipulates that you purchase an item but not the rights to produce and market that item.

As for copying it, that's fine. It's when you try to give those copies away that you are violating someone else's rights.