SamuelRSmith said:
sc94597 said:
You're an ancap right? Rothbard was for copyright and against patents. He says that property rights can be split apart and if somebody chooses to sell the part of property that allows one to reproduce and distribute an item while removing the right to sole use of said item he/she can do so. Obviously you would disagree with Rothbard in this matter. I'm interested in your justification (as I want to see both sides of the viewpoint from an ancap perspective.)
(Personally I consider violation of copyright as property damage, not theft.)
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I'm not quite sure I understand the bolded.
My view is simple, a contract can be between consenting parties only. A publisher may sell a book to you, and form a contract between you and them. That contract may specify that you may not reproduce the book.
If you go ahead and reproduce that book and then give me a copy, you void your contract, so the publisher can go after you. However, I never consented to any contract with the publisher, the publisher should have no moral justification for coming after me.
I tend to take the Stephan Kinsella approach to IP. He's written for the Mises Institute, and has talks on Youtube, if you want to get the nitty-gritty philosophical take on this side of the argument.
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I don't understand Rothbard's argument clearly, but Rothbard goes even further and explains that one can go after a third party who externally reproduces the material as well.
http://www.economicpolicyjournal.com/2013/04/intellectual-property-as-usual-rothbard.html
Violation of (common law) copyright is an equivalent violation of contract and theft of property. For suppose that Brown builds a better mousetrap and sells it widely, but stamps each mousetrap “copyright Mr. Brown.” What he is then doing is selling not the entire property right in each mousetrap, but the right to do anything with the mousetrap except to sell it or an identical copy to someone else. The right to sell the Brown mousetrap is retained in perpetuity by Brown. Hence, for a mousetrap buyer, Green, to go ahead and sell identical mousetraps is a violation of his contract and of the property right of Brown, and therefore prosecutable as theft. Hence, our theory of property rights includes the inviolability of contractual copyright.
A common objection runs as follows: all right, it would be criminal for Green to produce and sell the Brown mousetrap; but suppose that someone else, Black, who had not made a contract with Brown, happens to see Green’s mousetrap and then goes ahead and produces and sells the replica? Why should he be prosecuted? The answer is that, as in the case of our critique of negotiable instruments, no one can acquire a greater property title in something than has already been given away or sold. Green did not own the total property right in his mousetrap, in accordance with his contract with Brown—but only all rights except to sell it or a replica. But, therefore Black’s title in the mousetrap, the ownership of the ideas in Black’s head, can be no greater than Green’s, and therefore he too would be a violator of Brown’s property even though he himself had not made the actual
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