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jmcrae
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Of course there is - you said so yourself. It exists in the mind of the creator. But if there is no profit to be had in getting it out into the world, then who would bother?
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johnwis
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Yes he profited from his ideas, but he refused to patent his inventions.
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johnwis
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The “mind of the creator” is a physical object composed of neurons.
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system
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Wow. I would love to see that. Any links to reference to that?
I didn’t give any references to the software bootlegging on the corners in China because it has been in the news so often the last decade or so.
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jmcrae
Guest
If so, then it has physical existence, and belongs to that person alone - nobody else can even touch it.
In any case, if you were a creative person, and did any work of any kind to come up with ideas, you would not be arguing in favour of people being allowed to steal them.
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system
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So - Your problem is really with Patent Law? Earlier, it was with advertisers:shrug:
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PaulinVA
Guest
John,
This is an interesting discussion. I can talk about copyright law, and in terms of the underpinning, “feeding my kids” has always been enough of a reason.
I’m intrigued by your concept that once I put my ideas down on paper they are no longer mine and I do not control them. That is really strange.
Why should people that think for a living be penalized in that way?
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system
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Exactly.Of course there is - you said so yourself. It exists in the mind of the creator. But if there is no profit to be had in getting it out into the world, then who would bother?
I already work a 40-60 hr week. For me to produce something creative, I’m putting in dozens of additional unpaid hours on the hopes that the end result will sell. And if it does sell, I make a few extra bucks for the family.
If it didn’t work that way, I would definitely spend all of those hours hanging out with my wife and kids, and playing tunes for fun. And I would still be a decent Catholic doing so.
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system
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Agreement of Employment
John, I’m intriqued by your ideas.I understand that they exist only in the neurons in your brain.
Please do the necessary surgeries involved in sending me your ideas. I understand that this will cost me nothing.
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JimG
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Well, wouldn’t this put the damper on creativity!
Most book publishers not so flush with cash that they would be willing to hire a large stable of writers. Sure they would be willing to hire the really popular ones who generate millions in sales. But those are the ones who wouldn’t go for such a scheme. And suppose they do pay a few mil to hire on a top name author; then his book flops. There goes the profit margin, and maybe the company as well. Lot of jobs down the drain.
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johnwis
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My ideas do not exist only in my brain. They also exist in whatever other objects in which they are embedded.
I own my brain, but I do not own the storage media in the servers hosting this website on which my some of my ideas are stored. If I want to maintain exclusive control of my ideas, I should not embed them in other people’s property, or in places where they will be embedded in other people’s property through natural forces.
My point was that if a work of literature, or a song, or a piece of software does not exist outside the physical objects in which it is embedded, it can not be owned aside from owning the physical objects in which it is embedded and there can be no such thing as intellectual property. Note that I’m not saying intellectual property is wrong, I’m saying it doesn’t exist and therefore can be neither right nor wrong.
If someone wants to claim that there are justifications for copyright and similar laws for reasons other than intellectual property, then that’s something I’d like to discuss. To defend copyright on the basis of intellectual property is irrational if intellectual property doesn’t exist.
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johnwis
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In looking for the material from Thomas Jefferson that I had previously seen, I encountered some that stated that he did do some work in framing our initial copyright laws. I apologize for misrepresenting this matter.
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jmcrae
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If intellectual property didn’t exist, then there’d be nothing to put into books, nothing to paint, and nothing to write songs about.
By the way, when you signed on to this Forum, you clicked “AGREE” that anything you write on it is the property of Karl Keating.
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johnwis
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You still have human perceptions of arrangements of physical matter to reproduce, even without intellectual property.
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jmcrae
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Why would anyone bother, if they didn’t have an idea (intellectual property) that they were trying to convey?
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JimG
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Intellectual property consists of ideas that are expressed in some way: as a piece of writing, a screenplay, a composition. Once the manuscript is written, it can be copyrighted, but not if it’s unexpressed. Letters of the alphabet can’t be copyrighted, but my particular arrangement of them to form a novel or a screenplay can be. It’s that arrangement that is copyrighted, not the piece of paper on which it’s written.
You can argue that the only “product’ here is the paper or the disk with the particular arrangement of words on it. But the paper is only a substrate. A blank ream of paper has little value compared to a ream of paper with an original novel by John Grisham written on it.
He writes it primarily for the purpose of being duplicated and sold, copy by copy. The publisher buys the rights to do the physical copying and selling. Unless he sells the publisher all rights, the author will be paid royalties on each copy sold. That is just, because it remunerates him as a percentage of the total profits earned by the novel: it sells more, he earns more; it sells less, he earns less. If it’s a complete flop, the publisher absorbs the loss, and hopes for better on the next one.
This doesn’t seem all that complicated, nor does it appear to lack in justice or morality.
You can argue that the only “product’ here is the paper or the disk with the particular arrangement of words on it. But the paper is only a substrate. A blank ream of paper has little value compared to a ream of paper with an original novel by John Grisham written on it.
He writes it primarily for the purpose of being duplicated and sold, copy by copy. The publisher buys the rights to do the physical copying and selling. Unless he sells the publisher all rights, the author will be paid royalties on each copy sold. That is just, because it remunerates him as a percentage of the total profits earned by the novel: it sells more, he earns more; it sells less, he earns less. If it’s a complete flop, the publisher absorbs the loss, and hopes for better on the next one.
This doesn’t seem all that complicated, nor does it appear to lack in justice or morality.
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cameron_lansing
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johnwis, this has accumulated some posts since the other day. I couldn’t keep up with that dizzying pace and the other issues, but I will respond back to post 11, and let the rest of you continue with the other aspects of the discussion.
Certainly, LE says that "The key problem of social ethics in this case is that of just remuneration for work done. In the context of the present there is no more important way for securing a just relationship between the worker and the employer than that constituted by remuneration for work. " However, I do not think one can reach a conclusion in the sense that LE fails to envision that remuneration is due to those whose work is not associated with employment. Otherwise those who are not employees would have no right to any fruits of their work. They could create nothing that could be identified as “one’s own” (Latin, “propria,” from which “property” originates).
** Recall that LE does not limit human work to either manual work or work exercised as employment by others. The notion of work is expressed far more broadly than that: **“And work means any activity by man, whether manual or intellectual, whatever its nature or circumstances; it means any human activity that can and must be recognized as work, in the midst of all the many activities of which man is capable and to which he is predisposed by his very nature, by virtue of humanity itself.”
Whether physical or intellectual, the possession of property is the result of work. Surely, in many cases, this resides as remuneration in the wages or salary of the worker and social benefits. The worker obtains the right to the use of these fruits to sustain life, provide health care, food, clothing, shelter, raise a family, have a basic dignity and security, suitable recreation, etc. In short, all those things that are considered fundamental human rights. in Catholic social teaching.
When a book is copyrighted, the usufruct derived from the intellectual labor belongs to the author or owner. The author or owner has the right to convey it for consideration or to grant it freely to others. When it is sold, the author or owner conveys this usufruct to the buyer for a consideration, which is essentially a remunerative consideration but it also just be called a reward. From that point of view, there is an implicit contract.
In the case of a copied book, the copier makes usufruct available to a third party without consideration to the author or owner, even though it is not his right to do so, and the recipient enjoys it. If the author or owner places it in the public domain, the original right is surrendered to the common good.
I do not think my reading of Catholic social teaching here is off the mark. **The Holy See, at least, has acted consistently to assert that the notion of private property includes intellectual property and this must be respected **(see its intervention at the 5th Ministerial Conference of the WTO, Cancun, September 13, 2003 and one at the WTO plenary council on trade related aspects of intellectual property rights, June 20, 2001; both are at the Vatican website.
“The raison d’être of intellectual property protection systems is the promotion of literary, scientific or artistic production and inventive activity for the sake of the common good. That protection officially attests the right of the author or inventor to recognition of the ownership of his work and to a degree of economic reward, at the same time as it serves the cultural and material progress of society as a whole.” (Permanent Observer Mission of the Holy See to the United Nations in Geneva submitted to the World Intellectual Property Organization "Document of the Holy See on Intellectual Property and Genetic Resources, Traditional Knowledge and Folklore, for the First Session of the WIPO Intergovernmental Committee on Intellectual Property and . . . "April 25, 2001).
Since LE recognizes both manual and intellectual work as work, whatever had been said in magisterial teaching regarding the fruits of labor, although heretofore expressed in terms of manual labor in distinction to capital, becomes implicitly applicable to the fruits of intellectual labor, including the right to remuneration and the right to private property.
Certainly, LE says that "The key problem of social ethics in this case is that of just remuneration for work done. In the context of the present there is no more important way for securing a just relationship between the worker and the employer than that constituted by remuneration for work. " However, I do not think one can reach a conclusion in the sense that LE fails to envision that remuneration is due to those whose work is not associated with employment. Otherwise those who are not employees would have no right to any fruits of their work. They could create nothing that could be identified as “one’s own” (Latin, “propria,” from which “property” originates).
** Recall that LE does not limit human work to either manual work or work exercised as employment by others. The notion of work is expressed far more broadly than that: **“And work means any activity by man, whether manual or intellectual, whatever its nature or circumstances; it means any human activity that can and must be recognized as work, in the midst of all the many activities of which man is capable and to which he is predisposed by his very nature, by virtue of humanity itself.”
Whether physical or intellectual, the possession of property is the result of work. Surely, in many cases, this resides as remuneration in the wages or salary of the worker and social benefits. The worker obtains the right to the use of these fruits to sustain life, provide health care, food, clothing, shelter, raise a family, have a basic dignity and security, suitable recreation, etc. In short, all those things that are considered fundamental human rights. in Catholic social teaching.
When a book is copyrighted, the usufruct derived from the intellectual labor belongs to the author or owner. The author or owner has the right to convey it for consideration or to grant it freely to others. When it is sold, the author or owner conveys this usufruct to the buyer for a consideration, which is essentially a remunerative consideration but it also just be called a reward. From that point of view, there is an implicit contract.
In the case of a copied book, the copier makes usufruct available to a third party without consideration to the author or owner, even though it is not his right to do so, and the recipient enjoys it. If the author or owner places it in the public domain, the original right is surrendered to the common good.
I do not think my reading of Catholic social teaching here is off the mark. **The Holy See, at least, has acted consistently to assert that the notion of private property includes intellectual property and this must be respected **(see its intervention at the 5th Ministerial Conference of the WTO, Cancun, September 13, 2003 and one at the WTO plenary council on trade related aspects of intellectual property rights, June 20, 2001; both are at the Vatican website.
“The raison d’être of intellectual property protection systems is the promotion of literary, scientific or artistic production and inventive activity for the sake of the common good. That protection officially attests the right of the author or inventor to recognition of the ownership of his work and to a degree of economic reward, at the same time as it serves the cultural and material progress of society as a whole.” (Permanent Observer Mission of the Holy See to the United Nations in Geneva submitted to the World Intellectual Property Organization "Document of the Holy See on Intellectual Property and Genetic Resources, Traditional Knowledge and Folklore, for the First Session of the WIPO Intergovernmental Committee on Intellectual Property and . . . "April 25, 2001).
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johnwis
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They did have an idea, or a particular physical composition/process, in their brain, which was what they were trying to convey. When other physical matter, like paper and ink, are reconfigured in an attempt to cause a similar physical composition/process in the brains of other humans, this physical matter is not the same thing as the physical composition/process of the author’s brain, nor is it the same thing as the other matter reconfigured to produce a similar result in the brains of other humans. If it were, every time a reader highlighted a word in a book, it would be highlighted in all other books that were copies of the same original book and in the mind of the author.
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JimG
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It’s instructive to notice that some of the photos on Flickr.com, for example, have a copyright notice with “all rights reserved.” Others have only “some rights reserved.” The photographer might be willing to allow the photos to be copied only with attribution, for example. There are several categories of restrictions. However, it’s up to the individual who created the photos as to how much or how few rights will be retained, and whether and to what extent copying will be allowed.
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johnwis
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Ok, so intellectual property is legitimate.
An issue I would like more information on is what are just terms of copyright. If anyone has any thoughts, I would appreciate them.
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