A comment on intellectual property I thought worth spreading.

[brooksmoses]

This came up in a conversation on rec.arts.sf.composition lately, and I wanted to record it here because it's seems like a very sensible way of looking at the matter -- much more so than ways I'd previously seen. It's from Erol K. Bayburt (with quote from David Friedman left in for context), in a thread entitled "Re: Second Person" (yes, there was much topic drift), posted 03 Mar 2005:

>Surely you have seen the same pattern in discussions of copyright 
>violation? There too, the routine defense is "copying his book doesn't 
>hurt him--he still has the book." And there too, to some people it is 
>obvious that intellectual property is the moral equivalent of physical 
>property, and violating it the moral equivalent of theft, and to some 
>people it is obvious that it isn't.

To me, violating IP rights is much more akin to *tresspass* than to
theft - still a property rights violation, but a different one.
Calling it "theft" weakens the case, IMO, while the analogy to
tresspass allows one to talk sensibly about the IP equivalents of
right-of-way, squatting, etc.

Perhaps there is some value to seriously looking at the question of "how can this be stolen if you still have it?", rather than merely dismissing it as irrelevant. This seems a good answer; property violations don't have to be theft to be violations.

Comments

[jenett]

Oh, I like that a lot!

I tend to use the example of borrowing, myself: you may be willing to lend stuff to friends, but you generally want to be asked first, or have some sort of pre-arrangement. And you definitely don't want random strangers borrowing your car, even if they bring it back.

But I think the trespass one is a lot cleaner.

[novalis.livejournal.com]

But presence on physical property is still rivalrous, while information isn't.

[leback.livejournal.com]

That analogy works for me. Theft is all about depriving someone of their right to possession and use of their property; trespass is about infringing on their right to *exclusive* possession and use. And trespass is considered a violation of a property right, as a matter of general principle, even if there's no resultant material impact on the property owner.