In the development of new ideas or creative works, there is legitimate “intellectual property,” but only as a metaphor. By confusing this with real property, we invite the use of force against the free flow of ideas, and governments are happy to accept! This metaphor of intellectual property can be very important in the development of new ideas and in research and development. When ideas are held in secret through the exercise of property rights and contractual agreements, that is legitimate. When government force is used against ideas or data, that is a criminal violation of someone’s real property rights.
The concept of “intellectual property” as we know it today directly contradicts real property rights. If you own physical property, and want to copy music on your computer, write down something someone else said in a notebook, or carve a stone into a wheel, you don't owe anyone for the use of ideas that you have used your own real property to recreate. The creator of ideas can control how ideas are shared, but only once. After that, the only way to control the flow of ideas is to use the government to violate the real property rights of others.
The most offensive part about the intellectual property racket is how it shifts the focus from innovation to stopping innovation. In a true free market, which is by definition free of coercion-based intellectual property, (as the world had been for ages until relatively recently) the focus is on the next idea. If we want to compete and stay ahead, we have to be the most creative. That's what is rewarded. We wouldn't say the fashion industry lacks innovation because specific styles can’t be patented. Imagine a world in which the cut of a sleeve can’t be copied. Or the idea of pants! If only one company was allowed to make jeans and someone else tried, they could send police to shut down their operation. Or food! Imagine if chefs couldn't copy recipes!
In the media today, the ravages of IP are plain to see. Look at the consolidation of power in the music industry. How much better would our lives be if everyone who made music was making it for the love of innovation and what we heard wasn't decided by radio stations and record labels? Same with movies! We should not have so much power concentrated in the large corporations that come to dominate any field subject to the intellectual property racket. Taking away this corporatist advantage would radically improve creative innovation.
As for inventions that require massive development costs, the ideas should be allowed to go to those most efficiently capable of producing the goods people want to consume. For inventors, this would mean we can't come up with one idea, file a patent, then sit back and collect royalties. This would open the field up to everyone, make it more competitive. To make money as an inventor, we would have to be good enough that people would want to support our next idea, which is essentially what corporations do when they take the best minds into their labs and claim to own their ideas. Crowdfunding is one thriving alternative model. The same principles apply to software development. Working on code in the sequestered way dictated by “intellectual property” (as opposed to open source) means stifling collaboration.
In the case of the pharmaceutical and medical technology industries, the intellectual property racket has had disastrous consequences. Instead of developing drugs that best serve our needs and save lives, resources are diverted to developing drugs that make more money due to artificial incentives. Lives are lost because market forces are kept from bringing down the cost of new drugs.
The internet has removed so many barriers to sharing ideas that some business models based on the intellectual property racket can no longer compete with those based on free data. Without the need for physical distribution networks for music, video, and everything else that can be digitized, it is easy for anyone to compete as a content creator on the merit of their creative works. Content creators who want us to benefit from their work will encourage sharing.
Because it is morally wrong to use force to impede the free flow of ideas, as free people, we have the right to copy music, movies, text, and ideas. Because the free flow of ideas is essential to human progress and happiness, we also have a right to defy and resist any attempt to take our real property in the name of the dangerous fiction commonly referred to as "intellectual property."
Chapter 7 Section VI From FREEDOM! by Adam Kokesh
I am the author of FREEDOM!, a book endorsed (I mean banned) by the US Department of “Justice.” You can get a copy here. I’m running for Not-President in 2020 on the platform of the peaceful, orderly, and responsible dissolution of the United States federal government. You can find out more here. You can find an event near you here. Whoever has the top comment on this post after 24 hours can claim a free signed copy of FREEDOM! by sending me a message with their address.
that's part of why a lot of my content I'm unlicensing as cc0/public domain. Thanks a lot for talking about steem on your great video channels and the cool tour!!!
https://steemit.com/war/@fatkat/drug-war-stories-13-lanced-in-laconia
or learn to play guitar or make your own guitar teaching channel using this public domain content
https://steemit.com/education/@learnguitar/learn-guitar-1-basic-stuff-video
The most valuable thing is what we produce and the free flow of ideas is essential to human progress
Agreed!
Good points!
Thanks!
Open source is the way!
Beep! Beep!Ooh-Rah!
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Thank you as always!
The rare day when I actually agree with a kokesh post...
You've hit the nail the head. The central contradiction of intellectual property is that it is very obviously nothing more than a restriction imposed on the freedom of all others but the owner. Indeed, you might say that intellectual property is intellectual theft!
Well said!!
"Every man is guilty of all the good he did not do." - Voltaire
You are doing a lot Adam, Thanks from here. <3
I've wondered about this for a long time. The old argument is "but shouldn't the inventor be rewarded?" And I think they should. I like your opinion that they use their inventions to "market themselves" into a new job or have people pay them to come up with new ideas.
It just occurred to me that the term 'intellectual property' is such an oxymoron. No one can own someone's mind or the products of it.
In Pakistan, people mostly use pirated versions. So intellectual property here and people don't have good economic conditions to buy them.
More interesting with your posts , this is really good one .. :)