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Is IP (Intellectual Property) Real?

Submitted by TX Politico on Mon, 01/19/2009 - 15:01
in

Here is an interesting discussion of the existence (or non-existence) of intellectual property rights.

Libertarians fighting over whether or not you can own "intellectual property."

What do you think?

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Comments

Environmentalists argue whether one can "own" land.

Submitted by birdmojo on Mon, 01/19/2009 - 15:44.

The pragmatic answer is that, at the end of the day, it can be owned if you can get sufficient people to volunteer to show up with guns to help you protect it.

Other than that, keeping trade secrets is pretty much the only way to keep on top of one's own IP. The only stuff that China/India doesn't have that we do is the stuff that we can make that they can't reverse engineer.

I think it's a lot of navel-gazing.

Submitted by centerfire on Mon, 01/19/2009 - 15:53.

"Property", at essence, is nothing more or less than the right to possess and/or control.  Such a right is natural in a free individual with respect to the fruits of his own labor.  Inventions and expressions, the subjects of intellectual property law, are produced through labor; therefore, the inventor or expressor has a natural right to possess and/or control his invention or expression.  So of course you can "own" intellectual property; to claim otherwise is entirely perverse and not libertarianism, but collectivism.

We can certainly have a fruitful discussion of whether patent and copyright are the best mechanisms for protecting possession and control of intellectual property.  But to argue that there's no such thing as intellectual property in the first place?  Absolute rubbish.

Agreed

Submitted by LnGrrrR on Mon, 01/19/2009 - 23:14.

I think it's far more interesting to discuss people in China who farm for VIRTUAL gold in MMORPGs to make actual money... and whether or not you could sue someone for stealing your avatar. I am a geek though.

Agreed

Submitted by TX Politico on Tue, 01/20/2009 - 10:15.

I definitely fall on the Randian side of this debate: you poured your effort into it, you sacrificed and developed and created it, you had the spark of ingenuity that made it possible where nothing existed before . . . it's yours.

Without that right, no one would bother to create anything since the Looters would immediately plunder it for "the benefit of all" or, in modern parlance, "for the children!"

well, when it comes to most Republican elected officials

Submitted by Ironman on Mon, 01/19/2009 - 19:21.

we know there's no intellectual property at all

Now THAT'S Funny ;-)

Submitted by TX Politico on Tue, 01/20/2009 - 10:09.

Thanks for the laugh.