[gurps] Treaty on Public Utilities and life support

[David Scheidt]

On Sun, Mar 1, 2009 at 5:01 AM, Jeff Wilson <jwilson at io.com> wrote:
> From: David Scheidt <dmscheidt at gmail.com>
>>
>> No.  It's not an opinion.  It's the definition of intellectual
>> property.  IP is a monopoly granted by the state (or whatever proxy
>> for the state exists) that allows the owner of the IP to extract a
>> rent from the IP.  In the absence of the protection granted by the
>> state, there is no way to extract the rent. That makes it a distortion
>> of the free market.
>
> The quoted definition of free market *did* include an allowance for laws
> protecting property rights, without excluding IP.

It's from Wikipedia.  It's less than accurate; in particular, it's
woefully incomplete.  It's worth noting that "intellectual property"
is a 20th century idea, even though the protection mechanisms go back
much farther.  It's new speak to confuse the issue.

Intellecutual property isn't property in any normal sense of the word.
 Its consumption is non-rivalarous.  If you have a physical thing, and
I steal it from you, your ability to use the thing is eliminated.  If
you have an idea, and I steal it from you, your ability to use the
idea is not reduced.  (What may, or may not, be reduced is the ability
to benefit from the positive externalities of that idea.  That is, the
ability to corner a market, or collect royalities, what economists
call a rent.)


-- 
David Scheidt
dmscheidt at gmail.com