Defining Private Property

[Traitorfish]

That's an argument for me not distributing his music without permission, perhaps, but it's hardly an argument for me being bopped round the head for doing so.

 

[Cutlass]

Would it not be correct to say, however, that the reason he the musician needs copyright to sustain himself is because he lives within a world of private property? That his dependence upon his monopoly on the distribution of the music he produces is a product of his dependence on a system of commercial exchange, a system which is maintained a defended through, at the most fundamental level, the systematic use of violence. So is the violence which the musician suffers really to be attributed to me, or to those who have made him dependent on a system of market exchange?

Assuming a market exchange is violence is no more real than assuming a non-market exchange is violence. So we have essentially concluded that there is no form of human interaction that is not violence.

 

[innonimatu]

Copyright is a tool used to make creative work remunerative work.

Copyright is a strategy to squeeze money out of people who do no more that what your "musician" did in the first place: repeat and reuse what others before them did.

"Remunerating" creative work through a privilege to squeeze money out of anyone who repeats it is totally stupid, because everyone is copying other people all the time! If you were serious about it you'd create a hell of transaction costs where nothing else would get done in the world! Human society could not possibly work in a world where copyright (remember: everything is copyrighted on "creation" by default now!) was taken seriously.

In real life, outside the theoretical insanity of copyright, people freely copy and reuse what other people did and said all the time without even thinking of payments. You "musician" absolutely did it, unless he was a savage raised by wild animals. Language traditions, music scores, ways of thinking, stories... it's all built on top of prior experiences! Each individual adds but a tiny bit more to the whole. And yet you want me to believe that somehow this "musician" should have the privilege to tax me for reusing what he produced by reusing what other people before him produced by reusing... well, you should get the idea.

Taking away the tools needed for a musician to earn his daily bread is no different from taking away the tools of a farmer or a craftsman. You render them unable to work effectively enough to feed themselves.

You talk as if the farmer earned a living by taxing each and every person who reused seeds he had grown - well, I guess you must be a big fan of Monsanto and its ilk.

Fortunately farms still earn their living the way they have done for thousands of years: by selling their products without attempting to attack any strings to them. Musicians did that for thousands of years also. Now you want me to believe that they cannot make a living that way, and instead should be allowed to tax other people who happen to repeat them, in perpetuity?. bullcrap.

And I won't even go into the whole business of who actually profits from copyright, if it is your alleged creator or the middlemen, the tax farmers supposedly working for the creators. Because, in your weird copyright world, the creator's privileges are treated as trade product that can be sold and transfered!

If I create music, then you have no right to illegally copy it and sell it without my permission, or to illegally pirate it, in either case you are preventing me from making money off something I CREATED and doing so yourself instead, either by getting something free or making it a sale. I'll never be able to sell said music to those people again.

I'm not impressed by the work "illegaly", young man. Not am I impressed by your brand of creationism however much you shout your supposed uniqueness and worthiness as CREATOR.

 

[ParkCungHee]

If you're going that route, then there's no action which is not violence. So talking about a world without violence is entirely pointless.

You've already gone down that route. And if we're accepting the idea that all actions are violence, what exactly is wrong about copying his music, or for that matter, taking his saxophone and selling it for scrap metal?

 

[innonimatu]

the OP used pirating CDs as an example, and it aint public information - its a musician's creation after years of effort...

If its copyable and immaterial it's information. Whether it is music, images, stories, formulas, or other such things, anything that can be put down as a codified description, it is information.

And if it's being shared among people, it it's "out there", it's public. Public or private, regarding information, is about the present degree of dissemination. How many seconds, minutes, days, years, or centuries it took to compose is irrelevant to that. (incidentally, I don't believe in online privacy policies - empty promises).

Once information is out there, you cannot control the way it gets used and reused without employing coercion.
In fact you cannot even expect to control it using coercion! If it spreads enough it will be too difficult to police each and every new copy and derivative, and the way it may get used.

 

[Cutlass]

You've already gone down that route. And if we're accepting the idea that all actions are violence, what exactly is wrong about copying his music, or for that matter, taking his saxophone and selling it for scrap metal?

You keep missing my point. I'm looking to find the minimum possible amount of violence. And I keep being confronted with "If we remove all restrictions on violence, then by definition violence will cease to happen!"

Explain to me how your system will result in less violence than my system.

 

[Ayatollah So]

How is the current system of copyright, or anything like it, less violent than just letting everyone play whatever music they want? I could give one, maybe two cheers for copyright, but that would be on account of its growing the economy (which it might do with some serious reforms). I guess you could say that economic prosperity increases people's freedoms, but that's not the same as reduced violence.

 

[Cutlass]

How is the current system of copyright, or anything like it, less violent than just letting everyone play whatever music they want? I could give one, maybe two cheers for copyright, but that would be on account of its growing the economy (which it might do with some serious reforms). I guess you could say that economic prosperity increases people's freedoms, but that's not the same as reduced violence.

You are telling a person that he is not permitted to eat. How is that not a very serious act of violence?

 

[Traitorfish]

Assuming a market exchange is violence is no more real than assuming a non-market exchange is violence. So we have essentially concluded that there is no form of human interaction that is not violence.

I'm afraid I don't know what "no more real" means.

You are telling a person that he is not permitted to eat. How is that not a very serious act of violence?

That's our critique of private property, yes.

 

[Hygro]

You are telling a person that he is not permitted to eat. How is that not a very serious act of violence?

Logically let's think through this. If someone decided to collect dust, dander, and mold and sold them to homeowners, and nobody bought it, by your logic you would be telling that person they had to starve. Well shoot, of course they'd have to starve (in a system absent of charity, welfare, etc) they picked a terrible job. There's no reason why a musician "has to eat" over anyone else.

That said, we've seen that "pay what you want" (including free), concert performances, and the convenience of store sold music (this is a big one), has provided some musicians with plenty of money. Most musician-artists who couldn't do the aforementioned aren't making money with copyright anyway.

The fact is, the government through copyright is basically saying "we value music to the point that we will employ force to make sure those consuming it are subsidizing our music." We might agree that this is good, but it's still more violent.

Cutlass I agree that a completely free-for-all, anarcho-capitalist, market results in more violence both from market equilibrium and the lack of state-violence-monopoly, but the fact is copyright is an example of greater, not less overall violence.

 

[BasketCase]

That's a bit of a bizarre conclusion to reach, given the sheer weight of violence which was required to convince the majority of the human race to accept private property in the first place. It seems to me that a compromise would involve rather more, well, compromise...?

That's what the current system already is. Before the current system, kings and queens would take property for themselves at the point of a sword. Before that, the physically strong held onto whatever land they wanted, with their fists, at the expense of everybody else.

Next time you go for a stroll and you happen to stroll past the household of somebody who owns a dog? Why do you think the dog runs up to the fence and growls at you? That's the way the world was before civilization; animals needed territory in order to find food, so any stranger who walked onto that territory was a threat to one's food supply.

The private property system of today is simply the best compromise humans are capable of.

 

[ParkCungHee]

You keep missing my point. I'm looking to find the minimum possible amount of violence.

Well, based on your definition of violence, your answer should probably be that people should voluntarily recuse themselves from economic activity.
The musician, and the factory worker and the farmer should all cease their production, as you've defined it as a fundamental act of violence. If copyright infringement results in their act of violence being less rewarding, you would think it would help your goal.

 

[Cutlass]

I'm afraid I don't know what "no more real" means.


That's our critique of private property, yes.

Then why are you opposing private property and stripping people of the right to eat in the same sentence?

 

[Cutlass]

Well, based on your definition of violence, your answer should probably be that people should voluntarily recuse themselves from economic activity.
The musician, and the factory worker and the farmer should all cease their production, as you've defined it as a fundamental act of violence. If copyright infringement results in their act of violence being less rewarding, you would think it would help your goal.

The difference is that I am trying to protect them from violence, and best as I can tell, you are saying people have a moral obligation to be victims.

 

[Traitorfish]

That's what the current system already is. Before the current system, kings and queens would take property for themselves at the point of a sword. Before that, the physically strong held onto whatever land they wanted, with their fists, at the expense of everybody else.

Next time you go for a stroll and you happen to stroll past the household of somebody who owns a dog? Why do you think the dog runs up to the fence and growls at you? That's the way the world was before civilization; animals needed territory in order to find food, so any stranger who walked onto that territory was a threat to one's food supply.

Well, that's basically all complete bollocks. To be entirely frank with you, I don't think you know the first thing about anthropology or pre-modern history or... Anything much to do with the development of property-forms whatsoever. I'm sorry to be rude about it, but your narrative is just so totally cartoonish that it's hard to even hammer together a serious criticism of it.

The private property system of today is simply the best compromise humans are capable of.

Conspicuously unfalsifiable claim is conspicuously unfalsifiable.

Then why are you opposing private property and stripping people of the right to eat in the same sentence?

Is that what I'm doing?

 

[Cutlass]

Is that what I'm doing?

Far as I can tell it is. You're saying people don't have the right to produce something to feed themselves.

 

[Traitorfish]

Of course they can. I'm just saying that they can't justify clobbering people who refuse to subsidise them for it. If they can't feed themselves without clobbering folk, then I would tend to think that they need to find another occupation- or, perhaps, another way of relating to those around them, if you're willing to believe that such a thing is possible.

 

[Cutlass]

Of course they can. I'm just saying that they can't justify clobbering people who refuse to subsidise them for it. If they can't feed themselves without clobbering folk, then I would tend to think that they need to find another occupation- or, perhaps, another way of relating to those around them, if you're willing to believe that such a thing is possible.

At no point was it ever suggested that anyone clobber anyone else, except when people suggested the work of others could be appropriated at will. If you don't want to listen to someone else's music, you are not compelled to do so. If you chose to do so, they deserve a return for their work.

 

[Traitorfish]

At no point was it ever suggested that anyone clobber anyone else, except when people suggested the work of others could be appropriated at will. If you don't want to listen to someone else's music, you are not compelled to do so. If you chose to do so, they deserve a return for their work.

I don't disagree. But why does that mean they get to clobber me?

 

[Cutlass]

I don't disagree. But why does that mean they get to clobber me?

In what way are they clobbering you?