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NOTE Debate on Logorights, Copyrights, and the Free Market

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Alright, the format tonight is going to be a little bit irregular as far as what we've allocated is a half hour to each side for their presentations and then five minutes for rebuttal to each side, but in view of the length of the remarks that have been prepared by the speaker for the affirmative, could you give him latitude and let him use the time that, use extra time on his presentation against his rebuttal?

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We each have 35 minutes total to allocate as we use it up.

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In other words, whatever Wendy doesn't use up during her presentation, she can use in her rebuttal after.

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In other words, it's not really a debate.

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Yes, it is.

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When all of that's done, we'll open the floor to questions from everyone here.

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So, is there any timer is ready? Let's see if there's an assist with that.

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There we are. You're ready.

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Could we wait just a minute until the ice cream is here?

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Is copyright a natural right? I'm taking the affirmative. Introduction.

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I'd like to start off with an image to have in your minds during the course of this debate, and this image is a mnemonic, a memory aid for a point I want you to remember.

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You're in the land of Oz, and you come across Dorothy, Tin Man and Scarecrow, at a fork in the yellow brick road leading to the Emerald City.

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Emerald City

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Dorothy is arguing to go down one fork of the road, and Scarecrow is arguing that they

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go the other way.

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After the debate between Dorothy and Scarecrow has gone on pointlessly for what seems an

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eternity, Tin Man turns to Dorothy and says,

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We're never going to settle anything this way, Dorothy.

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Don't you realize that you're arguing against a straw man?

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Now, I didn't say that just to make an atrocious pun.

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I want you to keep that image firmly in mind, and I think this will help.

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The reason I started out with this mnemonic, this memory aid, is because I don't want

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to have to answer or defend all the theories of copyright that I will not be advocating

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tonight. So let me start out by stating what I am not talking about when I defend copyright.

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I am not talking about a grant of privilege from the state. If it can be demonstrated

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to me, but I don't think it can be, that the only way the concept I am advocating can exist

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is through the state granting it as a privilege, then I will concede outright that it has no

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place in libertarian theory or practice and the concept should be abandoned.

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I am also not going to be talking about a defense of ideas as property or defending what historically has been called intellectual property.

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Whatever the merits of these concepts, they are not part of the concept I am going to be putting forward tonight.

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Therefore, any attack on copyright which involves disproving the validity of ideas as property or intellectual property will be arguing against a straw man.

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What I am going to be doing tonight is to put forward what I believe to be a new and

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original theory of copyright, a new concept of copyright, a word which I will be replacing

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in a few minutes as inadequately defined for the concept I'm really advocating, defining

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a new concept.

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There are two kinds of definitions that can be given.

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The first way to define a concept is with a lexical definition, that is, with a definition

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by other words, such as you'd find in a dictionary.

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The second way to define a concept is with an ostensive definition, that is, with a definition

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abstracted by pointing out with several examples just what it is you're trying to define and

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demonstrating what is common to each example and can therefore be induced from the examples

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as an isolated concept.

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With a new concept, it's always better to give the ostensive definition before the lexical

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so you can get an idea of some of the contexts in which the new concept appears.

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So before I give you a dictionary definition of this new concept, I'm going to define it

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by example several times. I think the best first example is to be found in the following

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question. Is computer hardware the only thing that can be property, or can computer software

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be property also? And I'd better define those terms for those of you who aren't familiar

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with computer jargon. In computer terminology, hardware is the computer itself and all the

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machinery used with it. The microprocessors, the disk drives, the monitor, the printer,

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and software is all the recorded orderings of bits, recorded information signals that

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And let me be exact in my meaning. Because a computer disquette, a round piece of plastic with a magnetic coating, is what software is usually stored on. It is common use to refer to computer disquettes as software, but really, the disquette is hardware too, and the information on it is actually the software.

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If you don't believe me on this last point, then listen to the language that comes out of the mouth of a computer user who plunks down 300 bucks for a couple of diskettes labeled WordStar that a salesman says contains information that tells the computer to do word processing.

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When the user gets at home, she discovers that she's just purchased two diskettes with random meaningless characters.

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Is it the diskettes themselves that the user has just paid 300 bucks for?

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If so, she just got overcharged by around $292. She can buy two blank disquettes for about $8.

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Okay, here's my second example, the same concept in a different context.

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You go into B. Dalton's and plunk down $3.95 for a book that says on the cover, Atlas Shrugged.

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You get it home, and the first sentence is,

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It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.

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Now, what you bought is a book, and this book has got everything that makes a book a book.

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A binding, hundreds of sheets of paper with printed ink impressions, and a cover.

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Let's even pretend that the book you took home has the same number of pages, the same dimensions and weight,

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the same binding and style of printing as the book with the composition called Atlas Shrug.

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Do you have any just cause of complaint if the composition of words inside the book turns out to be something other than what the cover says?

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If you answer no, then you got everything you paid for.

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But if you answer yes, then you are saying that the composition of words makes this book a different commodity

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from the book you thought you were buying, and therefore you are rightfully entitled to a copy of the composition of words labeled Atlas Shrugged.

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Next definition by example.

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A college student figures out a way to put together a few commonly available hardware items into a cheap device that moisten stamps without having to lick them.

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Nobody has ever put together these commonly available items in this configuration before.

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Has she invented anything? Is there anything new that didn't exist before? Has she in effect performed an act of creation?

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Last example. An artist does a design logo for a company's product. Let's call this product a stamp moistener called Stamplex.

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Stamplex stamp moisteners are put on the market with that design logo on it, and two weeks later, the company's competitor puts that same Stamplex logo on a different type of stamp moistener, their marketing and competition.

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Is that second company violating anybody's property rights?

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Now, you might have already abstracted the concept from the examples, but I have to assume you haven't for the sake of completeness.

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In the first case, software, what I was discussing was orderings of information.

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In the second case, the composition of words in a book.

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In the third case, a new configuration of materials.

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In the fourth case, an identifying mark.

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And what is common to each of these is logos.

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Logos was a word used by the ancient Greeks.

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In fact, logos was the word the Greeks themselves used for word.

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But they meant a good deal more than that.

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Logos meant not only word, but also thought, speech, science, study, reason, and rational principle.

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Logos meant the pattern of creation manifest in the universe.

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What we libertarians might refer to as the principle behind natural laws and natural rights.

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Later on, the Christians adopted logos to mean the second person of the Christian Holy Trinity,

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identified by them as Christ when according to them he visited earth,

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and the Gospel of St. John accordingly starts out,

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Logos meant knowledge. It's the root behind the suffix "-ology," found at the end of biology, psychology, technology, ornithology, herpetology, and radiology.

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Logos is the root word behind logic. Logos is also preserved in the modern words logistics, logarithm, and logo, short for a commercial logogram.

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In using the word logos, I'll be going back to what is meant by all those usages, all of which refer to an observable order, array, pattern, form or identity to be found in the universe.

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It is the logos of information imposed onto a blank computer disk that makes it software.

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It is the logos of words in a book that makes it a novel.

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It is the logos of an object to make it perform a particular task that makes it an invention.

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It is the logos of a mark that gives us the ability to identify a particular product.

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And it is property rights in logos that I'll be advocating tonight.

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I told you before that the word copyright is inadequate to define the new concept I am advocating, which you now know is property rights in logos.

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So I'm going to give you a new word to replace the concept of copyright and proceed from there.

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The new word I'm going to use for property rights in logos is logo-right.

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Now, for me to defend a particular kind of property rights, you need to understand first

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what natural rights and property rights are in general, secondly, what property is in

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general and how it comes to exist, thirdly, how property rights are established and what

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they mean in practice. After that, I'll get to the case for logo rights in particular.

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Natural Rights and Property Rights Natural rights and property rights theory

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has a long history of development, but it is my purpose here to define natural and property

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The best short definition of national rights and property rights I can give you is to be

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found in five paragraphs from Ayn Rand's essay, Man's Rights, in the book The Virtue

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of Selfishness, copyright 1963 by the Objectivist Newsletter, Inc., and reproduced here under

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the Doctrine of Fair Usage.

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I am quoting now.

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I am quoting.

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A right is a moral principle defining and sanctioning a man's freedom of action in a

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social context.

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There is only one fundamental right, all the others are its consequences or corollaries,

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a man's right to his own life.

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Life is a process of self-sustaining and self-generated action.

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The right to life means the right to engage in self-sustaining and self-generated action,

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which means the freedom to take all the actions required by the nature of a rational being

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for the support, the furtherance, the fulfillment and the enjoyment of his own life, such as

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the meaning of the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

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The concept of a right pertains only to action, specifically to freedom of action. It means

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freedom from physical compulsion, coercion, or interference by other men. Thus, for every

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individual, a right is a moral sanction of a positive, of his freedom to act on his own

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judgment for his own goals by his own voluntary uncoerced choice. As to his neighbors, his

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rights impose no obligations on them except of a negative kind, to abstain from violating

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his rights. The right to life is the source of all rights, and the right to property is

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is their only implementation. Without property rights, no other rights are possible. Since

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man has to sustain his life by his own effort, the man who has no right to the product of

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his effort has no means to sustain his life. The man who produces while others dispose

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of his product is a slave. Bear in mind that the right to property is a right to action

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like all the others. It is not the right to an object, but to the action and the consequences

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of producing or earning that object. It is not a guarantee that a man will earn any property,

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And only a guarantee that he will own it if he earns it. It is the right to gain, to keep, to use, and to dispose of material values."

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Now, Rand uses two phrases in the section I just quoted which give us the beginnings of what property is and how it comes about.

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So I'll focus on these, then expand on them in detail.

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The first phrase, when interpolated slightly, is the product of a man's effort.

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The second phrase is material values which are gained, kept, used, and disposed of.

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These two phrases lead us right into the discussion of what property is and how it comes into existence.

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The creation of property.

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What does it mean to say that property is the product of a man's, or using the word

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I prefer, a person's effort?

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Do we mean property is that which a person creates?

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If so, we need a concept of creation.

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We are told by physicists and chemists that we live in a universe where matter and energy

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can be neither created nor destroyed, but only changed.

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This change may include the transformation of matter into energy, or theoretically energy

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Existence does not allow us the possibility of creation ex nihilo out of nothingness.

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If we start with this premise, then it becomes curious, at the very least, how human beings have talked casually for quite some time about how anybody creates anything.

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Why do we speak of engineers building, musicians composing, architects designing?

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Each of these speaks of people by their actions, bringing into existence something that wasn't there before.

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Here's where the concept of logos comes into play again.

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Creation is a person's action which imposes that person's logos on something which exists

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to give that thing an identity it did not previously have.

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The fundamental act of creation is the act of patterning a logos on something, patterning

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notes into a musical composition, patterning words into a novel, patterning bits into a

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computer software, patterning ink into a blueprint, patterning steel into an automobile, patterning

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There are, of course, questions about greater and lesser orders of logos that can be brought up now, but I am not arguing that every act of creation is on an existent that previously had no identity at all. I am merely saying that the act of creation is the act of imposing an aspect of a person's identity, a logos, on something to give that object an identity it did not previously have. From a physicist's point of view, we can consider creation as a

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The Person's Revolt Against Entropy

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Entropy is that universal process which takes things from a state of greater improbabilities to a state of lesser improbabilities, commonly thought of as the decay of order into chaos.

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Creation, the act of imposing on natural objects a logos not naturally found, is the act of moving things from a state of lesser improbabilities to a state of greater improbabilities.

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Some specific examples. Iron and carbon are both elements found in nature. In fact, iron

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ore can contain carbon in large amounts. But steel, which requires the combining of a specific

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ratio of iron to carbon at specific temperatures for a specific span of time, is rarely if

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ever produced by the automatic processes of nature. If you make iron and carbon into steel,

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the resulting substance is much less probable. Therefore, it is proper to say that an act

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of taking iron and carbon and creating steel is lowering the entropy of that iron and carbon.

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If you take that steel and press it into rectangular sheets of even thickness, length, and width, the result is even less probable, therefore it is proper to say that the act of finding steel and creating sheet metal out of it is lowering the entropy of that steel.

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And if you take that sheet metal, form it into the body of an automobile, and paint it so the steel doesn't rust, the result is less probable still, and it is proper to say that the act of taking sheet metal and creating painted autobodies is lowering the entropy of that sheet metal.

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Bridges are less probable than rivers,

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symphonies are less probable than bird songs,

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and houses are less probable than caves.

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Engineers, composers, and architects each leave the universe a little less probable than they found it.

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Specifically then, creation is the act of patterning less improbable substances and objects

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to produce things more improbable of having resulted from the automatic processes of nature.

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Now, the only sort of creation we're concerned with in this discussion is the creation of property,

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If you then compare this definition with the two phrases drawn from Rand, the product of a man's effort, and material values which are gained, kept, used, and disposed of, you find no contradictions and a good deal of implied overlap.

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Now, I want to focus on Rand's phrase, material value, long enough to point out the following.

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Rand's definition of value is that which one acts to gain or keep,

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and a material value would by her definition be something material which one acts to gain or keep.

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Since the question of materiality is one which will come up again later,

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I wish to point out that Rand's use of the word material in this context

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did not prevent her from referring to as property things not comprised of matter,

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such as radio frequencies, in her essay, The Property Status of Airwaves, in Capitalism, The Unknown Ideal,

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or patents and copyrights in Patents and Copyrights, her very next essay in that book.

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Before I leave the area of defining property, I wish to bring out what libertarian theoretician Robert Lefebvre uses for his tests.

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Lefebvre asks three questions.

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First, is that which is said to be property valued by somebody?

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Second, does that which is said to be property have boundary limits?

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And third, is that which is said to be property under an owner's control?

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And these lead us to the last discussion necessary before we get to logo rights, establishing and using property rights.

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Let me quote once more Rand's statement on property rights.

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Bear in mind that the right to a property is a right to action, like all the others.

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It is not the right to an object, but to the action and the consequences of producing or earning that object.

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It is not a guarantee that a man will earn any property, but only a guarantee that he will own it if he earns it.

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Therefore, a property right, by its very nature, refers to an action with respect to a property.

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The question arising in the establishment of property rights is, what actions are required to gain rights with respect to that property?

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And the definitions of property we've already discussed provide, in no particular order, the following answers to the establishment of property rights.

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That which is to be your property must be valued. That is, you must act to gain or keep it.

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That which is valued as your property must be claimed as property. That is, it must be publicly available knowledge that you are declaring it to be your property.

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That which is being claimed as property must in some sense be a product of human effort. It must be created. That is, a person must take it from a state of lesser improbability to a state of greater improbability.

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The claim to the property must be defined within observable boundary limits, and the property must be subject to the control of the person claiming it.

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The question arising once property rights have been established are, what actions is the owner permitted respecting that property?

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And the question of what actions the owner is permitted respecting that property are dependent on the question, what rights specifically does the owner have in this property?

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The best way to show the import of this is to give some examples.

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Do I have the right to build a house on this lot and live in it?

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Do I have the right to raise the building on the next lot over and build a three-car garage?

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Do I have the exclusive right to use this driveway, or is there a public right of way?

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Do I have the right to eat this sandwich?

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Do I have the right to divert this stream so the water doesn't flow to the next parcel of land?

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Do I have the right to broadcast radio signals on a certain frequency at a certain power output from a certain location during certain times of the day?

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Do I have the right to take this book home from the bookstore, and what may I do with it when I get it home?

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Note that none of these actions requires the property itself to be anything.

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The property right, being a statement referring to the definitions of moral action, adheres not to the property, but to the owner and actions that owner may or may not take with respect to that property.

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One last set of property rights concepts, and then we'll be ready to discuss logo rights.

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Exclusive use, consumption, bundles of rights, and properties.

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From the instant a property is created and claimed by a person, all rights to that property are held by that person, who I'll refer to as the property's first owner.

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Since property results from an act of lowering entropy, creation, it should come as no surprise that the answer to the question of what an owner may do to a property includes the act of raising entropy again, consumption.

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An owner may exercise property rights to the complete destruction of that property without the consent of anyone who does not share rights in that property.

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The ownership of a property consists of all rights to exploit, consume, keep unconsumed, control, destroy, trade or otherwise decide the ultimate disposition of a property

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without sharing the decisions regarding that property or its benefits with anyone else.

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That property, by its very nature, is owned monopolistically, and the use of that property by anyone other than the owner requires the owner's permission.

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When an owner creates a property, that property is totally and exclusively its owners.

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Here we have the necessity of property rights to begin with.

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The origin of property rights stems from the need of adjudicating conflicting claims about the exclusive use of something.

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Since a property can only be owned monopolistically, property rights are the means of determining who holds the monopoly claim on that property.

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Utilitarians argue that these claims should be adjudicated for the benefit of society as a whole, the greatest good for the greatest number.

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The utilitarian premise is at the base of all non-theistic political systems, democracy, republicanism, communism, fascism, socialism, national socialism and militarism.

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Even the worst dictator claims to act in the best interest of the people, or the will of the blood, or the proletariat, or the folk.

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Libertarians, on the other hand, say that property rights adhere not to society, but to the individual person, arising out of the specific nature of humans having to control their material environment in order to survive as rational beings.

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To survive a human being must be able to control the environment, the human being's domain.

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To control that domain, the human being must identify the nature of each existent in the

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environment and arrange them all in such patterns that they contribute to the purposes of survival

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and well-being.

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The necessity of property being by nature exclusive stems from the necessity of dedicating

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an object to a specific function, giving a form to perform that function and having some

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Now, because the first ownership of any property is a total and exclusive ownership, the owner

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can dispose of the property in any fashion that owner sees fit. The owner can choose

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to abandon the property, in which case it reverts to a state of not being owned anymore

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and it is open to a new claimant. The owner can choose to sell the property. The owner

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can choose to break up the property into smaller parts and sell those parts. Now, using the

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From the first definition of property found in Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, quote,

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a quality or trait belonging to and especially peculiar to an individual or thing, unquote,

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it is correct to say that this property consists also of its constituent properties. And we

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can see from this first definition how use of the word property as something belonging

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to an owner came about. That which was owned was thought of as a quality or trait, a property

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in the first definition of the owner itself.

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Therefore, it is equally correct to refer to each property, each quality or trait adhering

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to that which is owned as a whole, as a property as well.

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This leads us to the additional possibility that an owner may choose to break the property

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down into its constituent properties, that is, each of the various qualities or traits

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adhering to the property as a whole, and sell, as a separate property, the right to exploit

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that quality or trait.

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When this is done, a property is said to be made up of a bundle of rights.

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Two cases showing how bundles of rights are dealt with in respect to land use will illustrate

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this.

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First case.

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If I own a parcel of land outright, what is called in fi simple, then I own all the rights

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in that parcel of land and I may dispose of it as I see fit.

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As I've said, this is the situation enjoyed by a property's first owner or creator.

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Second case.

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However, and this is a big however, if a previous owner has broken a parcel of land into a

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If a property is sold to a bundle of rights and sold me only the right to build a house on that land and the right to dig a coal mine there is owned by someone else, then the property is said to be fee entailed, that is, the rights to the various actions that can be taken with respect to it have been divided up by quality or trait among more than one owner, and the owner of each particular property right must exercise that right in such a way that it does not interfere with rights held by other rights holders. The various discrete properties taken from the original property are still owned exclusively,

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The original property itself is no longer on the exclusive domain of a single owner.

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We are now ready to ask whether there are in fact property rights in logos, whether

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logo rights can be property.

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Does logo right exist?

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Earlier in this discussion, I referred to the necessity of imposing a logos on material

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objects as a precondition to creating them as property.

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This is not the point being debated tonight.

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Having established that an object receiving an imprint from a person's logos becomes that

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When a Logos is imposed on matter, creating a new property, the Logos becomes a material

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quality of the property it is imposed upon.

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Simultaneous with the creation of a new property, the Logos becomes the trait of that property

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to display the Logos itself, which includes the possibility that the Logos can be copied

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Starting from the creation of a new property, the first owner has total and exclusive ownership

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of that property and all its different parts, qualities and traits.

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One of the properties included in this total ownership of the created property is therefore

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the logos itself.

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Consequently, if the first owner, or any subsequent owner of the total property, decides to break

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the property into bundles of rights and maintain ownership of some of those rights while selling

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and others, that is, entailing some rights, this is perfectly within that owner's prerogatives.

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Now this next point is crucial. Placing any restrictions on how the owner may dispose

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of the property or its constituent properties would deprive that owner of the exclusive

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and total ownership which belongs to a first owner. You cannot attack the rights of a total

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owner to divide up rights to that property without destroying the concept of property

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being exclusively that owner's. And a property right not exclusively owned is not a property

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Once the property is broken up into its separate properties, each property requiring a separate

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right to exploit that quality right aspect, each property right from the original bundle

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of rights can be traded separately.

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Remember, rights, being moral sanctions of what action a person may take with respect

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to a property, adhere not to the property itself, but to the owner.

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If you declare that property rights are inherent in the property rather than in the owner,

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When you are reduced to the absurdity of saying that property, apart from the actions of its owner, is capable of committing moral or immoral acts.

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Thus, it is perfectly within the prerogatives of that owner to maintain ownership to the rights and the logos and tail the logo rights in that property by valuing it, claiming it, defending its boundaries and continuing to control it.

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Let's take those four points one at a time.

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First, is the logo right of value? Yes, remember Rand's definition of value, that which one

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acts to gain or keep. The owner has either created the logos, thus demonstrating that

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it is something worth gaining, or the owner maintains ownership in it, thus demonstrating

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that the logo right is something worth keeping. If you say that the logos doesn't have value,

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then why does imposing a logo on two $4 computer diskettes make them $300 worth of software?

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A blank diskette and the diskette with the logos of information on it are two separate goods with two separate qualities, two different properties which can easily be told apart.

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Perhaps you can't tell those diskettes apart by looking at them, but my computer surely can.

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If I stick in one diskette with a certain logos of information on it, the computer's display gives me an opening menu.

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When I stick in a blank diskette, otherwise identical, it says, not a valid system disk.

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And if a Logos has no valid value as a separate property from that object which it is imposed upon,

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why would you be upset if you brought home the book you thought was at least shrugged

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and found that the first sentence was not, who is John Galt?

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To state the principle explicitly, if a Logos has no value in itself,

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then removing it from the objects on which it is found should make no difference in the values found in those objects.

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As a corollary, the value of the Logos is demonstrated by removing it from an object

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and seeing whether that object is valued as a separate good or commodity.

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Second, does the owner claim the logo right?

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Yes, and here's where the term copyright can be used exactly for once.

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Copyright is a claim of a logo right, and the claim is made by embedding what is called a copyright notice

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onto the logos being claimed, putting anyone finding that logos on notice

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that the property rights and logos are owned and not open for a new claimant.

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The nearest equivalent in common law requires the posting of no trespassing signs on land if you wish to preserve the exclusivity of your property rights to prevent the land from lapsing into being a public thoroughfare.

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I might also add at this point that registration of the copyright is the exact equivalent to the registration of the deed on a piece of land, a formal recorded proof that the property rights are claimed as of a certain date by a certain owner.

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Such registration, of course, need not be with the state, but merely with a person, company or organization generally trusted to maintain such records.

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As an example of private copyright registration, the Writers Guild of America West maintains an office for depositing copies of screenplays and screen treatments as proof that a certain person had possession of it on a certain date.

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Such proof is commonly used in private arbitrations performed by the Writers Guild regarding disputes over rights and credits.

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Third, can the owner of the logo right ascertain the boundaries of her property rights, that

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is, are there limits to that which is being claimed?

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The answer to boundaries, limits, on logos is again, yes, but, and this is a crucial

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point to be understood, limits always are dependent on the nature of the property right

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being claimed.

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Let me explain.

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When one speaks of boundaries of property rights in land, one speaks of dimensions of

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area.

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When one speaks of property right boundaries in the radio spectrum, complaining that there

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There is no boundaries of an electromagnetic waves area would be meaningless in defining

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the limits of that kind of property when rightly speaks of limits and an electromagnetic waves

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amplitude and frequency.

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And when one speaks of the property boundaries on a logos, one speaks of the limits of identity.

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Each logos has a specific identity that differentiates, binds and delimits its nature, the qualities

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and traits through which it is capable of being exploited.

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Now I can anticipate the following question at this point.

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Since a Logos can be copied infinitely without depriving the owner of the original, how can

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you say that a Logos is a scarce resource and therefore an economic good?

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The first answer here is, the scarcity of the Logos is a function of its being, like

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all other kinds of property, a product of human effort. Someone had to put work, the

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scarce resource of human labor, into the production of the Logos in the first place, and storing

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that labor in a recorded form, patterning the Logos into a material object as a material

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and Social Value constitutes the creation of a scarce good, a property.

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But the answer here that I prefer to give is, if this logos is so damned unlimited as not to be an economic object, then why do you want to reproduce mine?

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The limits on this kind of good are not drawn by its infinite ability to replicate itself, which is a way in which the logos is not limited.

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However, just as property rights in the radio spectrum are not limited by area, but by amplitude and frequency,

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the limits on logo right are not to be found in its ability to be infinitely reproduced,

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In terms used by economists, when defining the limits on a logos, we must look to limits of horizontal competition between different kinds of goods rather than to the limits of vertical competition within a kind of good.

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The fourth and last test. Does the logo rights owner control the logo right? Most definitely.

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An owner controls property rights and logos by maintaining ownership of the logo right and licensing, that is, leasing the various rights.

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You hear libertarians speak a lot about human rights and property rights, but what I'm most used to hearing about as a working writer

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are primary rights and subsidiary rights, hardcover rights, trade paperback rights, mass market paperback rights, first serial rights, transcription rights,

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Transcription Rights, Character Rights, Story Rights, Merchandising Rights, Movie Rights, TV Rights, Radio Rights, English Rights, and Foreign Language Rights.

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Each of these is a separate right in the bundle of rights created with the original property, and each one can be sold or licensed as the logo right owner wishes.

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Answering some objections. Very briefly, I'd like to anticipate the foremost common objections to copyrights and patents, and show why they do not apply to logo rights as I've talked about them.

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Objection 1. How can you say that a logos is a separate property since it can be imposed on someone else's property?

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Answer. The same way that a house can be a separate property from the land it is on.

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Objection 2. What about two or more people who come up with the same invention or story independently? Who owns the logos then?

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Answer. As I've discussed earlier, creation means the taking of something from a state of greater probability to a state of lesser probability.

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To the extent to which a given logo of invention or story can be produced independently more than once, to that extent the probability is still low enough to question whether an act of creation has been performed at all.

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In the case, however, where it is generally conceded, each logo is something rather improbable anyway, and it can be proven each was created independently, whatever small differences there are between each logo is sufficient that each logo can be owned separately.

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In a practical sense, however, I think this is about as likely as a million monkeys typing for a million years and producing the play Hamlet.

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Objection 3. What about a person who copies the logos accidentally? Isn't that person potentially a victim of the owner of logo rights?

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Answer. This case is exactly equivalent of an accidental trespasser on someone's land.

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In common law decisions, it has been determined that land must be clearly posted with no trespassing signs to remove the liabilities involved in a trespasser coming to harm your land.

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The Copyright Notice is prominently placed on logos for the same reason, to warn trespassers that they are responsible for their own liabilities if they violate the owner's property rights.

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Objection 4. Doesn't a logo right restrict the contents of a person's mind? Are you going to say a logos can't be memorized, that is, the logos imposed on a human brain?

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Answer. The question of whether a logos can be imposed intact on a human mind is one that current neurology can't answer.

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Memorization may involve other principles and the principles of imposing a logos on matter in some intact form.

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The Theory of Money and Credit

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If money or reproduces an invention from memory, then the logos to be found in matter must still be regarded as the property of the logo rights owner.

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In essence, the person reproducing the logos without obtaining the rights has just erected someone else's house on their own land, and the true owner has the right to demand that her property be returned or destroyed.

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Conclusion

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If, after all this, you still think that logos can't be property because it isn't a scarce

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economic good, or if you think creation isn't essential to the origin of property, then compose

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your own damn symphonies, write your own damn novels, invent your own damn computer, much

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less figure out how to program it, design your own damn houses, film your own damn movies,

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and come up with a damned recipe for bread on your own, because a person who makes his

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or her living by creating logos for license isn't going to work for free.

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If logo rights aren't recognized as property, a creator of a logos is left with two choices.

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Limit the circulation of the logos only to those who sign contracts agreeing not to copy

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it, and pray that someone doesn't accidentally leave a copy unprotected for an hour in the

386
00:35:01.780 --> 00:35:07.180
vicinity of a Xerox machine or camera, or produce only the least labor-intensive sort

387
00:35:07.180 --> 00:35:10.340
of logos that can be quickly exploited in the few weeks before someone can undersell

388
00:35:10.340 --> 00:35:14.180
the licensed product by reproducing its logos without having to pay royalties.

389
00:35:14.180 --> 00:35:17.980
And don't kid yourself, Ayn Rand wouldn't have spent ten years writing Atlas Shrugged

390
00:35:17.980 --> 00:35:21.660
If the marketing choices were limited to private circulation among readers signing contracts

391
00:35:21.660 --> 00:35:26.060
agreeing not to copy it, or having the first edition copied by every moocher, out to make

392
00:35:26.060 --> 00:35:29.380
a quick buck off the author of The Fountainhead by printing her next book without having to

393
00:35:29.380 --> 00:35:31.060
obtain rights from the author.

394
00:35:31.060 --> 00:35:34.860
If you don't think of logos as the scarce good, you'll find out how scarce it is damned

395
00:35:34.860 --> 00:35:37.500
quickly if you declare open season on ripping them off.

396
00:35:37.500 --> 00:35:39.700
And yes, I did say rip-off.

397
00:35:39.700 --> 00:35:43.400
Logo rights are property rights, and they are entitled to the same respect and protection

398
00:35:43.400 --> 00:35:48.480
as Property Rights in Land, Butter, Guns, Cars, Radio Frequencies and Gold that I have

399
00:35:48.480 --> 00:35:52.800
heard libertarians defending endlessly over the last dozen years. Just as the communist

400
00:35:52.800 --> 00:35:56.820
anarchist argues that it is only the monopolistic grant of privilege from the state that makes

401
00:35:56.820 --> 00:36:00.940
property itself possible, so the anarchist opponent of copyright has been arguing that

402
00:36:00.940 --> 00:36:05.320
it has only been the monopolistic grant of protection from the state that makes copyright

403
00:36:05.320 --> 00:36:10.720
possible. As a propertarian anarchist, I see that both are making the same error. If anything,

404
00:36:10.720 --> 00:36:15.080
The state is constantly violating logo rights by imposing through fiat the state's own

405
00:36:15.080 --> 00:36:17.820
copyright laws on logo right owners.

406
00:36:17.820 --> 00:36:21.120
Statists are willing enough to have the Rockefellers hand down the family trust for generation

407
00:36:21.120 --> 00:36:26.840
after generation, but the logos that an inventor creates, with its meager recognition in patent

408
00:36:26.840 --> 00:36:31.240
laws, is to be thrown into the public domain after a few years, depriving that inventor

409
00:36:31.240 --> 00:36:32.920
of her property rights.

410
00:36:32.920 --> 00:36:37.480
The current status laws regarding copyright are less noxious, but any restrictions at

411
00:36:37.480 --> 00:36:42.080
all on an owner's maintenance of property rights is coercive, and that is why, as a

412
00:36:42.080 --> 00:36:46.000
propertarian anarchist, I proudly declare that the presentation I've just read you

413
00:36:46.000 --> 00:36:50.720
is my property, herein claimed by giving you the notice that this Logos is copyrighted

414
00:36:50.720 --> 00:36:56.180
by J. Neal Schulman, 1983, and anyone who attempts to violate my property rights in this Logos

415
00:36:56.180 --> 00:37:01.180
should expect to hear from the legal firm of Smith & Wesson.

416
00:37:01.180 --> 00:37:10.780
Now, I went a little over time, so I assume that compensation will be given to Wendy in

417
00:37:10.780 --> 00:37:11.780
additional time.

418
00:37:11.780 --> 00:37:17.460
If this were a formal debate, you'd be disqualified, however, for having documentary proof that

419
00:37:17.460 --> 00:37:23.020
you are long-winded.

420
00:37:23.020 --> 00:37:29.420
My terms for agreeing to appear here was that I get to read this presentation in whole and

421
00:37:29.420 --> 00:37:48.900
Copyright, which is the natural claim of ownership, the legal claim of ownership over a particular

422
00:37:48.900 --> 00:37:53.980
arrangement of the alphabet, is a complicated issue because it is a claim of ownership over

423
00:37:53.980 --> 00:37:57.100
an intangible.

424
00:37:57.100 --> 00:38:02.440
Copyright, what it claims ownership over, has no mass, it has no shape, it has no color.

425
00:38:02.440 --> 00:38:06.760
But the property being claimed is not the specific instance of any book, but it's the

426
00:38:06.760 --> 00:38:14.240
idea of the book and all potential instances of that book, real or imaginary.

427
00:38:14.240 --> 00:38:19.880
The title of a recent work called, Who Owns What's in Your Mind, concretizes a common

428
00:38:19.880 --> 00:38:22.720
sense objection to the idea of copyright.

429
00:38:22.720 --> 00:38:27.640
Most people in this room would gladly proclaim, no one owns what's in my mind. And yet, if

430
00:38:27.640 --> 00:38:32.360
you own what is in your own mind, you must have the right to use and control it, because

431
00:38:32.360 --> 00:38:37.600
that is what ownership and libertarianism means, the right to use and dispose of something.

432
00:38:37.600 --> 00:38:42.860
And if what is in my mind is a novel that begins with the sentence, who is John Galt,

433
00:38:42.860 --> 00:38:46.880
and I do not have the right to put it down on paper, does that not say that I'm Rand

434
00:38:46.880 --> 00:38:52.000
assuming living Rand is the one that owns what's in my mind and not me?

435
00:38:52.000 --> 00:38:57.000
Now, since I've already said that sentence, which is reproducing it, and no one has run to the door to call a cop,

436
00:38:57.000 --> 00:39:01.000
I imagine that people don't consider this a very significant violation.

437
00:39:01.000 --> 00:39:05.000
And this is one of the problems of this debate. It's very vague. What is a violation? What is not?

438
00:39:05.000 --> 00:39:08.000
It's also a very unusual debate, because both Neil and I are writers,

439
00:39:08.000 --> 00:39:15.000
and you would assume that both of us have vested interest in what should be a protection of what we create, copyrights.

440
00:39:15.000 --> 00:39:20.000
If I wanted to needle Neil, I would say that, previous to this debate anyway,

441
00:39:20.000 --> 00:39:37.000
I would quote Tucker who said that anarchists who advocate copyright are free traders who declare for protection in the sphere which involved their special interests.

442
00:39:37.000 --> 00:39:40.000
But of course I won't do that.

443
00:39:40.000 --> 00:39:47.000
And as a matter of fact, I advocate a form of copyright, a type of copyright, which could be called free market copyright.

444
00:39:47.000 --> 00:40:00.000
In other words, I consider copyright, the protection of ideas in words, to be a very useful social convention that should be protected by free market means, by contracts and other market mechanisms.

445
00:40:00.000 --> 00:40:13.000
Now, since Neil believes, or the other side of this debate would have believed, that copyright is a natural law, can be derived from natural rights, he would have said that in fact it should be protected by law.

446
00:40:13.000 --> 00:40:17.880
by Law. If not state law, then the laws of a defense agency, because in fact it is yours

447
00:40:17.880 --> 00:40:22.320
by right. There is no contract that is necessary to protect it. And that is the essence of

448
00:40:22.320 --> 00:40:26.920
the difference between this debate. Do you need a contract? Is it something like labor

449
00:40:26.920 --> 00:40:30.800
in which I have no right to Jeff's labor and I must contract in order to have a claim

450
00:40:30.800 --> 00:40:34.420
to it? Or is it something that I have the right to, such as money I've earned, and

451
00:40:34.420 --> 00:40:40.720
I need no contract to say this is mine, you may not have it, I will fight in order to

452
00:40:40.720 --> 00:40:55.720
What is Property and What is an Idea? Does an idea embody the essential characteristics which makes something property, which makes something ownable?

453
00:40:55.720 --> 00:41:12.720
But before going on to a discussion of theory, a discussion of what is property, I want to address an implication that often lurks beneath the surface, swimming like a shark, of criticisms behind free market copyright, and that is an argument of market failure.

454
00:41:12.720 --> 00:41:25.720
As libertarians, we have all heard this argument in regard to free market defense systems, the inability of the free market to establish medical standards, for example.

455
00:41:25.720 --> 00:41:35.720
In copyright, it is said that the free market cannot protect writers, cannot protect inventors who wish to throw their work out into the public.

456
00:41:35.720 --> 00:41:38.720
This is new wine in an old bottle.

457
00:41:38.720 --> 00:41:51.720
Now, I deal with the used book business quite a bit, and one of the things that has happened is, even being very free market, I've been astonished at how well it regulates ethics and basically how business practices are set up.

458
00:41:51.720 --> 00:41:59.720
It's not unusual, for example, for a stolen book or forgery that's spotted in New York to be known in LA stores the next day.

459
00:41:59.720 --> 00:42:05.720
This is because the free market tends to set up the standards, tends to put a very high premium on reputation.

460
00:42:05.720 --> 00:42:15.720
and what someone who claims that free market cannot work is saying is that in fact the market is incompetent to deal with this issue, that again we must appeal to laws.

461
00:42:15.720 --> 00:42:22.720
So the question between Neil and I is not whether there should be protection for ideas, both of us agree with that.

462
00:42:22.720 --> 00:42:30.720
It's whether it should be on a free market basis or whether we make the statement there ought to be a law, a law by state or a law by a private defense agency.

463
00:42:30.720 --> 00:42:51.720
And again this reduces to the question of whether ideas, in which category I place things such as logos, patterns of ideas, the sort of pattern of poetry as opposed to specific ideas that a poem expresses, that category I place logos into, into ideas, whether it can be property.

464
00:42:51.720 --> 00:42:56.720
And this again breaks down to the question of what are the characteristics of property?

465
00:42:56.720 --> 00:43:00.720
What is it that makes something ownable? Because not everything is ownable.

466
00:43:00.720 --> 00:43:04.720
Human beings are not ownable, for example. Many people believe animals are not ownable.

467
00:43:04.720 --> 00:43:09.720
Simply because something exists does not mean it can be property, cannot be owned by someone.

468
00:43:09.720 --> 00:43:16.720
Now, Benjamin Tucker, of whom I'm very fond, addressed this problem in fundamental terms.

469
00:43:16.720 --> 00:43:22.720
What is it about the nature of man and the nature of reality that makes the concept of property even necessary?

470
00:43:22.720 --> 00:43:30.720
And he speculated that what made the concept of property arise in human society is the issue of scarcity.

471
00:43:30.720 --> 00:43:40.720
Because the same glass of water cannot be used by the two people in the same regard, at the same time, for the same purpose, someone must decide who will use this glass of water.

472
00:43:40.720 --> 00:43:47.720
The standard by which you decide who will use this glass of water is who owns the water.

473
00:43:47.720 --> 00:43:52.720
Basically, you make a property claim. Who rightfully has the claim?

474
00:43:52.720 --> 00:43:53.720
Tucker wrote,

475
00:43:53.720 --> 00:44:09.720
If it were possible, and it had always been possible, for an unlimited number of individuals to use to an unlimited extent at the same time and in an unlimited number of places the same item, there never would have been any such concept as property.

476
00:44:09.720 --> 00:44:29.720
Now since the same idea or pattern of idea can be used in unlimited extent to an unlimited number of purposes in unlimited places, he concluded that copyright ran counter to the very purpose of property itself, which was to ascertain the correct allocation of a scarce resource.

477
00:44:29.720 --> 00:44:38.720
Copyright also contradicts, he claimed and I claim, the essential characteristics of what is property, what makes something ownable.

478
00:44:38.720 --> 00:44:43.720
One such characteristic is that it be transferable, that it be alienable.

479
00:44:43.720 --> 00:44:56.720
The individual anarchist James L. Walker commented, the giver or seller of an idea or anything that can be claimed as property, if you claim property in ideas, it must be true of ideas.

480
00:44:56.720 --> 00:45:04.720
The giver or seller parts with it in conveying it. This characteristic distinguishes property from skill and information.

481
00:45:04.720 --> 00:45:11.720
For example, when you go into a doctor for a checkup and you give him money, you are not paying for property, you are paying for skill and information.

482
00:45:11.720 --> 00:45:17.720
And the thing that distinguishes that transaction from paying for property is the doctor does not alienate that from himself.

483
00:45:17.720 --> 00:45:24.720
You do not in fact walk out having something that the doctor had before and has no longer.

484
00:45:24.720 --> 00:45:28.720
He cannot transfer it to you, he can merely share it with you.

485
00:45:28.720 --> 00:45:34.720
Now, it was this point that made Thomas Jefferson reject ideas as property.

486
00:45:34.720 --> 00:45:39.720
He drew the distinction, I think it's a very nice analogy, between ideas and candles.

487
00:45:39.720 --> 00:45:44.720
He said, ideas are like candles. I take my taper, I go up to yours and I light it with your consent.

488
00:45:44.720 --> 00:45:48.720
Because without your consent is a violation of your self-ownership.

489
00:45:48.720 --> 00:45:51.720
But with your consent, I light that candle.

490
00:45:51.720 --> 00:45:56.720
I have taken nothing from you, yet I have a lighted candle to guide my way.

491
00:45:56.720 --> 00:46:02.720
There has been a transaction in which both benefit and neither has anything taken from them.

492
00:46:02.720 --> 00:46:08.720
Jefferson went on to say, if nature has made any one thing less susceptible than all others of exclusive property,

493
00:46:08.720 --> 00:46:18.720
it is an idea which an individual may exclusively possess as long as he keeps it to himself, a point I will return to.

494
00:46:18.720 --> 00:46:27.720
But the moment it is divulged, it forces itself into the possession of everyone, and the receiver cannot dispossess himself of it.

495
00:46:27.720 --> 00:46:33.720
That is another characteristic of an idea which keeps it from being property. You cannot dispossess yourself from my words.

496
00:46:33.720 --> 00:46:40.720
Right now you have heard them. You cannot go into your brain, at least now with technology, and electronically take it out of it.

497
00:46:40.720 --> 00:46:45.720
When a poet reads or sells his poems without a contract,

498
00:46:45.720 --> 00:46:51.480
When he throws his ideas and his patterns into the public realm, the listeners are receiving

499
00:46:51.480 --> 00:46:54.200
information, they are not receiving property.

500
00:46:54.200 --> 00:46:59.240
For the publicized poem to be property, it must be transferable, alienable.

501
00:46:59.240 --> 00:47:02.980
Yet as the egoist J.B. Robinson said, what is an idea?

502
00:47:02.980 --> 00:47:05.840
Is it made of wood or iron or stone?

503
00:47:05.840 --> 00:47:08.320
The idea is nothing objective.

504
00:47:08.320 --> 00:47:13.420
That is to say the idea is not part of the product, it is part of the producer.

505
00:47:13.420 --> 00:47:19.380
In other words, if the poet maintains that he has a claim to the words that you have

506
00:47:19.380 --> 00:47:24.340
heard and are now in your mind, what he is claiming is an aspect of slavery, for he is

507
00:47:24.340 --> 00:47:31.980
claiming ownership in something that is within your own body, an aspect of you physically.

508
00:47:31.980 --> 00:47:37.140
And keep in mind that ownership means in libertarianism the right to use and dispose.

509
00:47:37.140 --> 00:47:41.140
So if he claims the right to use and dispose something which is physically within your

510
00:47:41.140 --> 00:47:56.140
He is claiming that the electronic impulses in your brain, in the same way he would be claiming the blood that is running through your veins.

511
00:47:56.140 --> 00:48:05.140
Don't deny that you can buy blood, but what I'm saying is you buy it as a contractual arrangement, you do not buy it as your natural right, which is the subject of this debate.

512
00:48:05.140 --> 00:48:14.140
Now, the reason that title, ownership claim to the poem that's being read, is not transferable.

513
00:48:14.140 --> 00:48:18.140
And again, I don't mean, it's very clear, you have to be very clear, I don't mean any specific poem.

514
00:48:18.140 --> 00:48:25.140
I could hand this piece of paper to you and you would have the specific instance of this part of my talk.

515
00:48:25.140 --> 00:48:29.140
But what is being claimed in copyright is almost a platonic ideal.

516
00:48:29.140 --> 00:48:33.140
Not just this specific instance, but all instances possible.

517
00:48:33.140 --> 00:48:37.140
The Platonic Arrangement of the Alphabet that constitutes this page.

518
00:48:40.140 --> 00:48:44.140
The reason it cannot be transferred is because it is intangible.

519
00:48:44.140 --> 00:48:48.140
Those who try to claim property rights in something that is intangible and untransferable

520
00:48:48.140 --> 00:48:52.140
are trying to bring two mutually exclusive concepts together.

521
00:48:52.140 --> 00:48:56.140
People who claim ideas of property are trying to do something very similar

522
00:48:56.140 --> 00:49:02.140
to what Ados Huxley did when he defined God as a gaseous invertebrate.

523
00:49:02.140 --> 00:49:15.140
Now in the example of a poet reading his work, the important factor is the act of throwing

524
00:49:15.140 --> 00:49:18.860
the poetry into the public realm.

525
00:49:18.860 --> 00:49:22.700
Because there's a great difference here between public and private ideas.

526
00:49:22.700 --> 00:49:27.740
And by these terms I mean ideas, private ideas, ones that you keep to yourself, public ideas,

527
00:49:27.740 --> 00:49:56.740
Everyone owns every idea that is in his own mind, and no one else has any right to that specific instance of the idea, even if that specific instance is the only instance, if it is a doctor who has created a cancer cure and he decides not to tell it, as long as it is in his own mind, he is the sole proprietor of it, as long as he basically produces it by contract, he also is the sole proprietor of it.

528
00:49:57.740 --> 00:50:14.740
And this is because this idea is protected by his self-ownership, his right to live in peace, his right to have his body in violet, and there's no way to get at that idea without in fact attacking his body in some way, in fact violating his rights.

529
00:50:14.740 --> 00:50:25.740
To restate this, I own my ideas, the ideas that are in my mind, very much the same way I would own a stack of money, a stack of dollar bills that's locked inside a vault.

530
00:50:25.740 --> 00:50:31.860
in a vault. However, if I throw open the doors of the vault, I take the stack of dollar bills

531
00:50:31.860 --> 00:50:37.240
and I throw them into the air, into the wind, into the street. The people who pick up this

532
00:50:37.240 --> 00:50:41.640
money that I have thrown into the street are no more thieves, have no more violated my

533
00:50:41.640 --> 00:50:46.840
rights than do the people who pick up the ideas that are thrown by the poet out into

534
00:50:46.840 --> 00:50:51.680
the air. If you take what I am saying right now and use this analogy tomorrow, you have

535
00:50:51.680 --> 00:50:57.680
I have not violated my rights, for I have thrown it into the air, and you are merely picking it up off the ground where it landed.

536
00:50:57.680 --> 00:51:03.680
The ground being your fertile and receptive and sympathetic brains.

537
00:51:03.680 --> 00:51:09.680
And yet, the poet might respond, no one is forced to absorb what I have to say to him.

538
00:51:09.680 --> 00:51:15.680
No one is, you are not chained here, surely your being here is a matter of implied consent.

539
00:51:15.680 --> 00:51:24.680
The little electrons running around the synapses of your brain right now are there because in fact you agreed to sit and listen to what I have to say.

540
00:51:24.680 --> 00:51:35.680
Well, Victor Yaros, Tucker's main opponent on copyright in the 19th century movement, an anticipator of Neil Schulman, claimed very much the same thing when he wrote,

541
00:51:35.680 --> 00:51:44.680
All Mr. Tucker has the right to demand is that these things shall not be brought to his own private house and placed before his eyes.

542
00:51:44.680 --> 00:51:51.680
In other words, all he has the right to say is that he should be not forced into a position of absorption.

543
00:51:51.680 --> 00:51:54.680
If he chooses to absorb, he has a liability.

544
00:51:54.680 --> 00:51:56.680
Tucker responded,

545
00:51:56.680 --> 00:52:07.680
Some man comes along and parades in the streets, and we are told that in consequence of this act, on his part, we must either give up our liberty to walk the streets or our liberty to ideas.

546
00:52:07.680 --> 00:52:16.680
Not so fast, sir. Were you compelled to parade on the streets? And why do you ask us to protect us from the consequences of your acts?

547
00:52:16.680 --> 00:52:23.680
Moreover, the introduction of implied contract between a listener and the person who is dispelling the ideas

548
00:52:23.680 --> 00:52:30.680
basically grants the case that intellectual property or copyright is a matter of contract and not natural rights.

549
00:52:30.680 --> 00:52:34.680
For to fall back on contract is to say you have no natural right to it.

550
00:52:34.680 --> 00:52:40.680
If I leave a wallet on the table and someone steals it, I don't say that it's wrong because I had a contract with that person not to do that.

551
00:52:40.680 --> 00:52:43.680
I say it's wrong because it was mine by right.

552
00:52:43.680 --> 00:52:48.160
To imply a contract is an explanation as to say you had no natural right to it.

553
00:52:48.160 --> 00:52:52.780
Now, historically, copyright has been handled differently than patents.

554
00:52:52.780 --> 00:52:56.640
Many people, and as I said, it's somewhat of a shock, the idea of the stamp

555
00:52:56.640 --> 00:53:02.280
liquor, because before that Neil had been included in the concept of rejecting

556
00:53:02.280 --> 00:53:08.280
patents, but many people accept copyright while rejecting patents.

557
00:53:08.280 --> 00:53:11.040
And the distinction is usually based on two points.

558
00:53:11.040 --> 00:53:16.440
First of all, literature is considered pure personal creation, and this is opposed to

559
00:53:16.440 --> 00:53:20.160
inventions which basically go out and say there is a relationship between nature such

560
00:53:20.160 --> 00:53:24.400
as electricity and I am discovering it and someone else due to state of science two seconds

561
00:53:24.400 --> 00:53:28.520
later would have discovered it had I not done so. That's the difference basically historically

562
00:53:28.520 --> 00:53:33.160
between patents and copyrights. The issue of probability, the fact that it is pure personal

563
00:53:33.160 --> 00:53:36.960
creation and it's not likely that two seconds after Shakespeare wrote Hamlet someone else

564
00:53:36.960 --> 00:53:48.960
The second one is exactly what I have said, again, independent creation, close link between the true personal creation that cannot be done independently by someone else.

565
00:53:48.960 --> 00:53:53.960
Most people agree that ideas can be created independently and even simultaneously.

566
00:53:53.960 --> 00:54:05.960
In Austrian economics, for example, the instance of Walra, Jevons and Menger all coming up with the idea of marginal utility around the same time is pretty well substantiated.

567
00:54:05.960 --> 00:54:18.960
And the specific issue in copyrights is that patterns. No one could come up with a specific arrangement of the alphabet embodied in atlas shrugged independently. It is totally impossible, we're told.

568
00:54:18.960 --> 00:54:25.960
Well, the issue of duplication of the style or the patterns of an idea raises interesting questions.

569
00:54:25.960 --> 00:54:32.960
For one thing, it's certainly not unknown for poetry, especially short poems, to closely resemble each other.

570
00:54:32.960 --> 00:54:41.960
And the question is, do these chance similarities violate copyright laws? Does similarity constitute duplication?

571
00:54:41.960 --> 00:54:46.960
If they don't, and this is an important question, which if Neil does a rebuttal, I wish he would answer,

572
00:54:46.960 --> 00:54:54.960
if they do not, what is it that stops me from taking Atlas Shrugged, changing every the in the book to an a, or an an,

573
00:54:54.960 --> 00:55:00.960
changing the pattern, that irrevocably changes the pattern, and publishing it under my own name,

574
00:55:00.960 --> 00:55:23.960
If, in fact, it is not duplication that is being prohibited, but similarities, such as the similarity that I'm suggesting right now, then we're in a totally different ballpark, because even though I might concede that duplication is extremely unlikely, I wouldn't ever say that similarity is unlikely. It's happened too often in literature. Literature is my second love and I'm well aware of many similarities.

575
00:55:23.960 --> 00:55:31.760
Moreover, in Handing Probability, Tucker pointed out that this factor should have no relevance to the forming of laws themselves.

576
00:55:31.760 --> 00:55:32.560
He wrote,

577
00:55:32.560 --> 00:55:36.260
To discuss the degrees of probability is to shoot wide of the mark.

578
00:55:36.260 --> 00:55:41.160
Such questions as this are not to be decided by rule of thumb or the law of chances.

579
00:55:41.160 --> 00:55:45.560
They are to be determined by reference to a general theory of rights.

580
00:55:45.560 --> 00:55:46.960
He continued,

581
00:55:46.960 --> 00:55:53.120
Among the things not logically impossible is that I know of few nearer the limit of possibility

582
00:55:53.120 --> 00:55:57.320
that I should ever desire to publish in the middle of the desert of the Sahara.

583
00:55:57.320 --> 00:56:01.920
Nevertheless, this would scarcely justify any great political power in giving someone

584
00:56:01.920 --> 00:56:07.480
the right to stake out a claim and prohibiting me from publishing into the Sahara.

585
00:56:07.480 --> 00:56:13.820
In other words, the possibility or the probability of him doing something is not to be the determining

586
00:56:13.820 --> 00:56:40.820
In short, a discussion of rights must be determined by a general theory of rights, no likelihood of circumstance. Circumstance is applied after the general theory is established.

587
00:56:40.820 --> 00:56:44.820
In regard to the ownership of a form of expression, Tucker wrote,

588
00:56:44.820 --> 00:56:50.820
A particular combination of words and arrangement of the alphabet belongs to neither one of us.

589
00:56:50.820 --> 00:56:54.820
The method of expressing an idea is itself an idea.

590
00:56:54.820 --> 00:56:58.820
An arrangement of words and letters is itself an idea.

591
00:56:58.820 --> 00:57:03.820
If you are not talking about this specific instance, if you are talking about the platonic conception of this,

592
00:57:03.820 --> 00:57:07.820
which basically all specific instances are merely reflections,

593
00:57:07.820 --> 00:57:16.820
It is an idea we are discussing when we are discussing the patterns and to say that that's not covered by intellectual property is absurd.

594
00:57:16.820 --> 00:57:36.820
So, basically examples of styles of patterns surround us everywhere and it's rather bizarre to me to think of copyright because around us everywhere there are examples of chairs, shoes, hairstyles, gardens, recipe, clothing, wallpaper, even the use of slang, idioms, which are patterns of style.

595
00:57:36.820 --> 00:57:45.820
And if it's out of respect for style that a publisher cannot duplicate a book, then for that same reason a shoemaker may not duplicate shoes.

596
00:57:45.820 --> 00:57:51.820
For that same reason no one can make the same garden that they've seen in their neighbor's home.

597
00:57:51.820 --> 00:57:59.820
It is only with the sonnet, with the book, with the pamphlet, with the arrangement of alphabets,

598
00:57:59.820 --> 00:58:05.820
that we find someone appealing to law to protect a particular pattern that they say they have originated.

599
00:58:05.820 --> 00:58:19.820
If copyright were not the norm, if all of us had not grown up with it, we might well consider it as absurd as arresting a houseowner because he painted his house with the same pattern of colors as another house three blocks over had done a week earlier.

600
00:58:19.820 --> 00:58:40.820
And to be consistent, anyone who advocates copyright has to be reduced to the statement that since every sentence he utters or anyone else utters is a unique personal combination of words that another person would not have have uttered in exactly the same way, that in fact he is a claim to every single sentence he has ever uttered.

601
00:58:40.820 --> 00:58:54.820
A claim so complete that he can stop anyone else from uttering these sentences, and in fact, Lysander Spooner, usually the person quoted in libertarianism to defend copyright, comes very close to this position.

602
00:58:54.820 --> 00:59:04.820
At one point he writes, so absolute is the author's rights of dominion over his ideas that he may forbid their being communicated even by human voice if he pleases.

603
00:59:04.820 --> 00:59:14.820
Now, you should think about this, because this is a rather frightening statement, just like vice police who might have word police going around checking our conjugations to see whether they match exactly other people.

604
00:59:14.820 --> 00:59:26.820
Now, I want to end by dealing with the most complicated instance of intellectual property, and that is the owning of an arrangement of the alphabet, which is known as your own name.

605
00:59:26.820 --> 00:59:36.820
Assuming at this moment I am the only Wendy McElroy in the world, do I have the right to prevent other instances of Wendy McElroy from occurring?

606
00:59:36.820 --> 00:59:43.820
No, no shouts in the audience that I have the duty, just do I have the right?

607
00:59:43.820 --> 00:59:48.820
Now, understand what this right would entail.

608
00:59:48.820 --> 00:59:53.820
It would mean that I could go into the home of every other Mappleroy family in the world

609
00:59:53.820 --> 00:59:56.820
and prohibit them from naming their daughters Wendy.

610
00:59:56.820 --> 01:00:00.820
Or that I could at least prohibit her from ever publishing in my area

611
01:00:00.820 --> 01:00:06.820
and competing in the area that I had staked out as being the Wendy Mappleroy in this area.

612
01:00:06.820 --> 01:00:11.820
But if such a right is absurd as I claim it is, what would prevent someone from using,

613
01:00:11.820 --> 01:00:16.820
if I don't have that claim, if I can't assert it, what would keep someone from using my name

614
01:00:16.820 --> 01:00:28.820
I'm putting on a book of inferior quality or taking my book for that matter and putting their name on it and taking from me the royalties or whatever contractual things that I have negotiated for.

615
01:00:28.820 --> 01:00:33.820
Well, I think there are three factors that basically in the free market would mitigate against that.

616
01:00:33.820 --> 01:00:45.820
The first is that the free market in which reputation becomes far more of a business necessity than it is right now with minimum state standards or laws to back it up, tends to be self-regulating.

617
01:00:45.820 --> 01:00:49.820
I gave the very flitting example of the views book business. You can go on and on.

618
01:00:49.820 --> 01:00:52.820
Basically, books have been written on the subject.

619
01:00:52.820 --> 01:00:56.820
Now, I don't claim here that the free market would basically solve the problem.

620
01:00:56.820 --> 01:00:58.820
There would never be instances of injustice.

621
01:00:58.820 --> 01:01:02.820
I'm just saying, compared to what's going on right now, there always will be instances of injustice.

622
01:01:02.820 --> 01:01:05.820
However, it tends to be a fine regulating mechanism.

623
01:01:05.820 --> 01:01:11.820
The second thing is that as much as possible, I would sell my works in a manner in which to protect them.

624
01:01:11.820 --> 01:01:18.820
3. Anyone presenting work in such a manner as to mislead the public, such as putting my name on a book, and advertising in such a way as the public would reasonably expect that they would be receiving the work of such a person.

625
01:01:41.820 --> 01:02:11.020
I don't believe copyright protects the just profits of an author, and that's exactly

626
01:02:11.020 --> 01:02:31.020
George Bernard Shaw contended that copyright is the cry of men who are not satisfied with being paid once for their work, but insist upon being paid twice, twice and a dozen times over.

627
01:02:31.020 --> 01:02:41.020
I think free market copyright would temper the immense profits that are presently available to writers in terms of movies and best-selling books.

628
01:02:41.020 --> 01:02:51.020
What would probably happen is that the profits would lessen, the field would be more open to writers to make a modest profit, just as when you break a union.

629
01:02:51.020 --> 01:02:54.020
When you break any state monopoly, that usually is what happens.

630
01:02:54.020 --> 01:03:03.020
As to the claim that most of the world's literature, most of the innovation, most of the creativity in the world would dissolve if we basically took away this law protecting...

631
01:03:03.020 --> 01:03:08.020
All you have to do is point out that most of the literature in the world to date has been written without copyright law.

632
01:03:08.020 --> 01:03:13.020
Shakespeare was not protected by the state. He basically wrote his works, did his plays.

633
01:03:13.020 --> 01:03:18.020
Most inventions have not been... Copyright is a relatively recent thing.

634
01:03:18.020 --> 01:03:27.020
It has existed for some time in the common law tradition, but in terms of basically being an enforceable claim, it's a fairly recent thing.

635
01:03:27.020 --> 01:03:31.020
And as for the possible destruction of the publishing industry if copyright were absent,

636
01:03:31.020 --> 01:03:38.020
Benjamin Tucker, who was a journalist and a publisher, explained what he considered the situation to be when he said,

637
01:03:38.020 --> 01:03:46.020
Why did two competing editions of the Krutzer Sonata, something he published, appear on the market before mine had even been there two months?

638
01:03:46.020 --> 01:03:52.020
simply because money was pouring into my pockets with a rapidity that nearly took my breath away.

639
01:03:52.020 --> 01:03:56.020
And after my rivals took the field, it poured in faster than ever.

640
01:03:56.020 --> 01:04:03.020
Now, I believe that someday I will be a successful commercial writer, and I'm eager to maximize my profits.

641
01:04:03.020 --> 01:04:08.020
But I'm not so eager that I will make the claim that I own what is in your mind.

642
01:04:08.020 --> 01:04:13.020
My attitude toward writers and lecturers who throw their products into the streets,

643
01:04:13.020 --> 01:04:18.800
To throw them on the wind to be disseminated like seeds, and yet wish to have an invisible

644
01:04:18.800 --> 01:04:25.620
thread attached to every single idea that claims an ownership, a court claim on these

645
01:04:25.620 --> 01:04:31.180
seeds is basically, if you want your ideas to yourself, for goodness sake, keep them

646
01:04:31.180 --> 01:04:33.180
to yourself.

647
01:04:36.180 --> 01:04:58.180
Well, there's a lot of fertile ground here. I want to start off basically, a lot of Neil's remarks at first, Dorothy, Wizard of Oz, straw man, were introductory, so I want to go basically out to the meat of what he was saying.

648
01:04:58.180 --> 01:05:11.180
He fell back upon Randian definition of natural rights and property, basically, and said that other than a fair usage doctrine, that this is how he was going to be using property.

649
01:05:11.180 --> 01:05:22.180
I'm interested for one thing in what he means by fair usage doctrine, because fair usage is either an appeal to a state law, or it's an appeal to a social convention that's arisen.

650
01:05:22.180 --> 01:05:27.180
I believe it's an appeal to a social convention, and if in fact it is that sort of a thing,

651
01:05:27.180 --> 01:05:35.180
it more or less proves the point that the free market can regulate, can give that kind of fair usage to copyrights.

652
01:05:35.180 --> 01:05:43.180
Now the interesting thing about the Randian definition, which is something that one seeks to gain, to keep, to dispose of,

653
01:05:43.180 --> 01:05:49.180
is that it never specifies how ownership is acquired, which is of course the main thing here,

654
01:05:49.180 --> 01:05:55.180
The two points about property which relate specifically to ideas are that not everything is ownable.

655
01:05:55.180 --> 01:05:59.180
Not everything has characteristics that make it subject to ownership.

656
01:05:59.180 --> 01:06:08.180
And the very question that's presupposed in applying this Randian definition to ideas is what's being debated here.

657
01:06:08.180 --> 01:06:11.180
Is this something that one can own?

658
01:06:11.180 --> 01:06:15.180
First of all, what are its characteristics and how is it acquired?

659
01:06:15.180 --> 01:06:20.180
Now, those are not basically dealt with in the Randian definition.

660
01:06:20.180 --> 01:06:24.180
Neel goes on to talk about creation of property.

661
01:06:24.180 --> 01:06:27.180
Creation is a very vague term.

662
01:06:27.180 --> 01:06:32.180
One creates a child, yet one does not say one has rights in the child,

663
01:06:32.180 --> 01:06:35.180
that one can own another human being.

664
01:06:35.180 --> 01:06:38.180
Creation, according to Neel's definition, is patterning.

665
01:06:38.180 --> 01:06:43.180
Now, this is a unique definition that's true, maybe because I've never used it before.

666
01:06:43.180 --> 01:07:01.180
The creation being patterning raises a lot of problems. For example, what about discovery? I walk down the street, I pick up a diamond. In libertarian theory, I am the claimer of that diamond, yet I have patterned nothing.

667
01:07:01.180 --> 01:07:20.180
There is also the issue of homesteading. If in fact patterning or creation is to be defined as a position of entropy, taking something from a lesser state to a higher state, what happens to the whole libertarian doctrine that if something is abandoned, I can come in and claim it as the first claimant.

668
01:07:20.180 --> 01:07:30.180
I'm adding nothing, I'm just claiming. I'm basically going in, moving in the house and sitting there. So basically homesteading is thrown to one side.

669
01:07:30.180 --> 01:07:46.180
I'm not saying that this is what Neil intends to do, I'm saying that his definition of creation patterning being the criteria of ownership and property creates at least as many problems as it answers, and it's one that I haven't read the answers for.

670
01:07:46.180 --> 01:07:57.180
Now, it's very confusing, logos rights, because first of all, I came prepared to talk about copyright, and logos rights seems to be a synonym for intellectual property.

671
01:07:57.180 --> 01:08:07.180
Because under logos rights, you talk about someone who invents a stamp-licking machine, and that is patent laws.

672
01:08:07.180 --> 01:08:17.180
So there is a defense of patent laws in here. If someone is the first one to create a machine that licks stamps, it's not that concept, that logo to the machine, theirs.

673
01:08:17.180 --> 01:08:32.180
Well that's consistent anyway with intellectual property and copyright, but it's an advocacy of patents. It's also an advocacy of ownership of your own name. It's an across-the-board advocacy of intellectual property.

674
01:08:32.180 --> 01:08:35.460
And whether you call it logo rights or not really doesn't matter once you get down to

675
01:08:35.460 --> 01:08:38.260
the description that's what it is.

676
01:08:38.260 --> 01:08:44.820
So to deal with patents a little bit my understanding before coming into the debate was that Neil

677
01:08:44.820 --> 01:08:46.620
was against patents.

678
01:08:46.620 --> 01:08:52.900
I didn't understand why because in fact something that is formed with your hands surely is a

679
01:08:52.900 --> 01:08:57.300
pattern as securely as something that comes out of your mouth there's no difference in

680
01:08:57.300 --> 01:09:00.340
the uniqueness and the person who went into creating it.

681
01:09:00.340 --> 01:09:02.340
The Theory of Money and Credit

682
01:09:30.340 --> 01:09:33.980
Iron relationship, which exists in nature, such as that between iron and carbon, and

683
01:09:33.980 --> 01:09:38.500
saying that no one can discover this relationship and use it in the same way I have, without

684
01:09:38.500 --> 01:09:39.500
my permission.

685
01:09:39.500 --> 01:09:51.180
Now, probability was brought in too, and it was used as a slide between entropy in terms

686
01:09:51.180 --> 01:09:57.340
of discovering carbon and iron being far less improbable than two people writing Hamlet,

687
01:09:57.340 --> 01:10:04.140
It was used as a standard, as long as, as well as creativity.

688
01:10:04.140 --> 01:10:07.540
It was not, I, I really don't have much to say about it because not too much was made

689
01:10:07.540 --> 01:10:12.420
of it and I'm really not sure whether Neil and I disagree that much about it.

690
01:10:12.420 --> 01:10:16.260
Now test of property, though legally it does come in later.

691
01:10:16.260 --> 01:10:23.340
Now tests of property, Neil presented some tests of property which frankly I find rather

692
01:10:23.340 --> 01:10:28.340
The Theory of Money and Credit

693
01:10:53.340 --> 01:10:59.340
and I refuse to have sullied, prosecute them, and it still would be mine, because I made it.

694
01:10:59.340 --> 01:11:05.340
As to boundary limits, and I agree that boundary limits are important, that's why I don't believe an intangible,

695
01:11:05.340 --> 01:11:12.340
such as the platonic ideal of the logos, can be found, that's specifically, in someone's control.

696
01:11:12.340 --> 01:11:18.340
Again, I wasn't clear enough about what Neil was saying to really respond coherently.

697
01:11:18.340 --> 01:11:20.840
Now, Neel seems to be saying two things.

698
01:11:20.840 --> 01:11:23.240
He has two standards that he lumps together as one,

699
01:11:23.240 --> 01:11:26.340
when you say you claim an idea or a logos.

700
01:11:26.340 --> 01:11:31.140
It is that the first owner is the right holder

701
01:11:31.140 --> 01:11:34.140
because he lowers the entropy.

702
01:11:34.140 --> 01:11:36.540
Now, there's two things that make a person an owner here.

703
01:11:36.540 --> 01:11:38.240
First of all, you are the first.

704
01:11:38.240 --> 01:11:39.940
The second is that you lower the entropy.

705
01:11:39.940 --> 01:11:41.940
There's two standards there.

706
01:11:41.940 --> 01:11:45.040
Now, as I said, I don't think lowering the entropy

707
01:11:45.040 --> 01:11:46.340
is the standard of ownership

708
01:11:46.340 --> 01:11:57.340
I pick up a diamond off the street. I pick up money that's scattered on the wind as I scatter money, or a treasure, I hope, when I throw my words out and you pick them up.

709
01:11:57.340 --> 01:12:06.340
So I disagree with that. I also disagree with the first-owner idea. It takes away the possibility of independent invention.

710
01:12:06.340 --> 01:12:10.340
It takes away the possibility of two students coming up with a stamped liquor.

711
01:12:10.340 --> 01:12:17.340
independently, one in Moscow, one in, well then the first owner standard is not a criterion, you shouldn't have put it there.

712
01:12:17.340 --> 01:12:20.340
I shouldn't have shaken my head, I'm sorry.

713
01:12:20.340 --> 01:12:27.340
The adjudication of intellectual property is important in terms of the probability thing.

714
01:12:27.340 --> 01:12:35.340
Because what's smuggled into here, basically Neil says that probability is such that it's a million to one chance, monkeys,

715
01:12:35.340 --> 01:12:43.340
Hamlet, all that you heard that whole thing, typing out, how many times could they do it without, you know, how could they possibly come up with Hamlet?

716
01:12:43.340 --> 01:12:50.340
The great thing here is that he considers duplication to be so extraordinarily improbable as to be impossible.

717
01:12:50.340 --> 01:13:03.340
What does this do to the whole system of the judiciary, which is based, one of the big things of common law theory and touted as a freedom of the western world, and I actually agree with it, is that you are innocent until proven guilty.

718
01:13:03.340 --> 01:13:09.060
I write something that is so similar to someone else that he takes me to court. I am no longer

719
01:13:09.060 --> 01:13:12.660
innocent until proven guilty, I am guilty until proven innocent. It reverses the whole

720
01:13:12.660 --> 01:13:18.860
judicial procedure for I must prove that it was independent. The improbability is so reversed

721
01:13:18.860 --> 01:13:25.860
against me that in fact, and this is necessary because if the prosecution went in with the

722
01:13:26.060 --> 01:13:30.980
necessity of saying that I must prove this person did not independently produce this,

723
01:13:30.980 --> 01:13:32.980
The Theory of Money and Credit

724
01:14:00.980 --> 01:14:03.980
If you own Atlas Shrugged, you own every word in it.

725
01:14:03.980 --> 01:14:07.980
Basically, all of us have committed millions of violations of rights then,

726
01:14:07.980 --> 01:14:10.980
if in fact Ayn Rand has the bundles of rights to Atlas Shrugged.

727
01:14:10.980 --> 01:14:13.980
Because what is a bundle of rights in terms of a novel?

728
01:14:13.980 --> 01:14:15.980
It is sentences and words.

729
01:14:15.980 --> 01:14:19.980
And yet how far, and if Neil says this is absurd, he didn't mean to take it this far,

730
01:14:19.980 --> 01:14:20.980
well, how far do you take it?

731
01:14:20.980 --> 01:14:24.980
May I quote a paragraph? May I quote a sentence? May I quote a word?

732
01:14:24.980 --> 01:14:29.980
Ayn Rand said I had no right to quote things like the word objectivist

733
01:14:29.980 --> 01:14:40.980
Neel is not willing to give as much property to Rand as Rand wished to give to herself.

734
01:14:40.980 --> 01:14:46.980
However, where is this cut-off point? And without the cut-off point, how are we going to have a legal standard of enforcement?

735
01:14:46.980 --> 01:14:52.980
Which involves a very pure-cut place of when has a right been violated.

736
01:14:52.980 --> 01:14:57.980
Now, oh, I have a whole more page of objections.

737
01:14:57.980 --> 01:15:06.980
The last thing, basically, is his idea of the copyright symbol, basically the idea of putting something on, part of it is publicly declaring that you own something.

738
01:15:06.980 --> 01:15:18.980
Where does this come from? Why should you publicly declare it? If in fact it is an implied contract that part of ownership is that you must have that symbol on there, a must have a public statement, that's an argument for copyright.

739
01:15:18.980 --> 01:15:25.980
It says that without that statement, without the implied contract, without the public knowledge, you don't own it, you have no natural right to it.

740
01:15:25.980 --> 01:15:34.980
I don't tell people that the wallet in my pocket or the wallet lying on my table is mine and I don't put a big symbol saying mine on it.

741
01:15:34.980 --> 01:15:40.980
If I must, it means that it is mine only through the goodwill and implied contract of people who see that sign and respect it.

742
01:15:40.980 --> 01:15:43.980
The wall is mine because it is my money, period.

743
01:15:43.980 --> 01:15:49.980
If the book is the same way, I do not need to put that contract, that copyright sign on it. Thank you.

744
01:15:55.980 --> 01:15:58.980
Okay, I've got a lot less time, so I'm going to go very quickly.

745
01:15:58.980 --> 01:16:00.980
I'm going to hit this last point first.

746
01:16:00.980 --> 01:16:05.980
The purpose of putting the copyright notice on something is the same thing as I said before,

747
01:16:05.980 --> 01:16:07.980
of putting a no trespassing sign on property.

748
01:16:07.980 --> 01:16:11.980
You might argue that you still have a right to the property without the no trespassing sign,

749
01:16:11.980 --> 01:16:16.980
but in common law decisions, case law has determined that there are liabilities

750
01:16:16.980 --> 01:16:19.980
if you do not have the no trespassing sign on there.

751
01:16:19.980 --> 01:16:22.980
And so I think that the same could be said of copyright.

752
01:16:22.980 --> 01:16:30.980
You might argue that you don't need to have the claim stated publicly in order to claim it, but nonetheless, it makes it clear.

753
01:16:30.980 --> 01:16:36.980
Let me just go through a whole bunch of things. Wendy talked about reimposing your pattern on somebody else.

754
01:16:36.980 --> 01:16:40.980
There are two reasons why this has nothing to do with what I'm talking about.

755
01:16:40.980 --> 01:16:43.980
First of all, there's a distinction between begatting and creating.

756
01:16:43.980 --> 01:16:48.980
Our genetic pattern is not something we created, it's something that is within us and reproduces.

757
01:16:48.980 --> 01:16:57.780
If anything, it would be an argument that if God exists and imposed a genetic pattern on us, he might have the logo right in this.

758
01:16:57.780 --> 01:17:04.880
But inasmuch as neither Wendy or I are arguing for the existence of God who imposed the genetic pattern, this is irrelevant here.

759
01:17:04.880 --> 01:17:10.080
The other thing is about a name. There are a number of things when he mentioned about a name in her talk.

760
01:17:10.080 --> 01:17:15.380
She mentioned the absurdity of painting your house with the same colors as another house.

761
01:17:15.380 --> 01:17:19.380
This all comes down to the same thing I was talking about before.

762
01:17:19.380 --> 01:17:25.380
If the pattern isn't complex enough, if the level of entropy is too low to be considered creation at all,

763
01:17:25.380 --> 01:17:32.380
there's a possibility that an act of creation has not taken place, therefore there's no property there at all.

764
01:17:32.380 --> 01:17:39.380
The entropy must be lowered enough that an act of creation has taken place.

765
01:17:39.380 --> 01:17:47.280
And the same thing happens with the possibility of two works of literature being reproduced identically.

766
01:17:47.280 --> 01:17:56.480
The person who takes somebody else to court, because somebody else has published something which is similar to theirs,

767
01:17:56.480 --> 01:18:04.580
or has a pattern or a logo which is similar to theirs, risks the possibility that if both were in fact independently created,

768
01:18:04.580 --> 01:18:10.580
That the level of entropy is too low to exist as a creation in either one, and both of them will lose their rights.

769
01:18:10.580 --> 01:18:14.580
This is the counter case to what Wendy was talking about before.

770
01:18:14.580 --> 01:18:18.580
In other words, you have to prove that there has actually been an act of independent creation,

771
01:18:18.580 --> 01:18:24.580
that the pattern is special enough, independent and discreet enough, that there has been an act of creation taking place.

772
01:18:24.580 --> 01:18:30.580
And in the case where Wendy talked about changing all the ands to these in Atlas Shrugged,

773
01:18:30.580 --> 01:18:36.640
It has to understand that there are a number of logos, to use the Greek for logi, a number

774
01:18:36.640 --> 01:18:40.340
of logi in Atlas Shrugged. There is the logos of the pattern of words themselves, there

775
01:18:40.340 --> 01:18:44.900
is the logos of plot, there is the logos of the various different character descriptions

776
01:18:44.900 --> 01:18:50.340
and each of these is an independent and separate logos and they are all multiplexed on top

777
01:18:50.340 --> 01:18:54.540
of one another and this is why you can separate out the rights. Now Wendy also talked about

778
01:18:54.540 --> 01:19:00.500
bundles of rights being absurd because you talk about title as a totality. The title,

779
01:19:00.500 --> 01:19:05.500
The rights can be divided up from the original bundle and each strand be a separate right.

780
01:19:05.500 --> 01:19:14.500
Wendy talks about there are all sorts of unowned logos around us, such as the patterns of automobiles, this, that, and the other.

781
01:19:14.500 --> 01:19:18.500
They are not protected now. I am arguing that under natural law they should be protected.

782
01:19:18.500 --> 01:19:24.500
The fact that they are not protected in our current society is an argument against the state and its restricted copyright laws.

783
01:19:24.500 --> 01:19:29.500
I believe that all logos should be protectable as property.

784
01:19:29.500 --> 01:19:41.500
The purpose of a claim, the purpose of value in the statement before, about value being necessary before something is property, has to do with, again, the claim.

785
01:19:41.500 --> 01:19:51.500
If something is not claimed, then it is open for claim. And the situation with homesteading before involves two things.

786
01:19:51.500 --> 01:19:55.500
First of all, there is a lowering of entropy when you find something and you claim it.

787
01:19:55.500 --> 01:20:25.500
When you homestead a piece of land, what you're doing is you're erecting boundaries, you're dedicating it to the purposes for which it's going to be used, whether it's building houses on it or grazing sheep on it, the grass has to be a certain sort of grass at a certain height, so homesteading does involve both the act of claim and the act of lowering entropy, and I would argue that all cases where a first claim must involve a lowering of entropy, otherwise there isn't in fact a proper property relationship

788
01:20:25.500 --> 01:20:34.500
being created and that in fact homesteading involves an act of creation, that's all I have to say.

789
01:20:34.500 --> 01:20:38.500
Let's build some questions now.

790
01:20:38.500 --> 01:20:42.500
Thanks. A quick question.

791
01:20:42.500 --> 01:20:48.500
Ever since the division of labor there's been this problem of how people can get away with their specialty

792
01:20:48.500 --> 01:20:53.500
and it seems to me that what we're dealing with in the copyright question, at least this is how I see it,

793
01:20:53.500 --> 01:21:06.500
The Preveyor of Wisdom lived, and the point that was raised that as a writer I know that sometimes I'll sell something to a magazine at a rate too little to say out loud, it's embarrassing.

794
01:21:06.500 --> 01:21:15.500
But then if I can resell it to an anthology I get a higher payment, and maybe 10 to 12 payment sales down the road is the movie deal or whatever,

795
01:21:15.500 --> 01:21:21.500
and I'm sure you have similar tales to tell on you that the money sometimes you don't make till many sales later.

796
01:21:21.500 --> 01:21:31.500
So, the thing is, as a minarchist, it's not difficult for me to defend copyright, because I'm, you know, a petite status to begin with, I mean, that's easy.

797
01:21:31.500 --> 01:21:38.500
But the question I have for both of you is a question regarding time frame.

798
01:21:38.500 --> 01:21:45.500
And I guess I should ask you first, Neil. It's, would you advocate copyright in eternity?

799
01:21:45.500 --> 01:21:54.500
In other words, if you could be made to live 3,000 years, would a copyright you had on something be good for the 3,000 years?

800
01:21:54.500 --> 01:22:04.500
And the really tough question, descendants of J. Neal Schoen, how long should descendants have that plan?

801
01:22:04.500 --> 01:22:06.500
The answer I'm going to give is twofold.

802
01:22:06.500 --> 01:22:09.500
First of all, what you were saying before about how shall an offer live is not what I'm going to deal with.

803
01:22:09.500 --> 01:22:16.500
It's a practical or a utilitarian argument in which property rights have to be justified by some sort of social utility.

804
01:22:16.500 --> 01:22:20.500
And I don't believe in that. I'm arguing a straight natural rights position.

805
01:22:20.500 --> 01:22:28.500
Out of that natural rights position, if logo rights are in fact property, then they are owned totally.

806
01:22:28.500 --> 01:22:33.500
In the same way that ownership of a house or a car or anything else is owned totally.

807
01:22:33.500 --> 01:22:37.500
And I do not believe that any restriction should be placed on that form of property as any other form of property.

808
01:22:37.500 --> 01:22:47.500
In fact, if a lineal dissent can be maintained of those property rights, and it doesn't fall out of claim, then yes, as far as I'm concerned, for eternity.

809
01:22:47.500 --> 01:22:58.500
Okay. As an author, basically, I'm more sympathetic to the idea of how can an author live. I think it's an interesting question.

810
01:22:58.500 --> 01:23:02.500
This is part of it. This is part of the theory.

811
01:23:02.500 --> 01:23:18.500
I haven't resolved in my own mind whether or not you can inherit something, whether inheritance is legitimate, but I think that basically if you have a contract, it will be to the end of your life for the specified term of the contract.

812
01:23:18.500 --> 01:23:28.500
And the fact that people are in there right now have to basically invest and get very small returns in order to get immense returns perhaps in the future is the fact that the market is flooded.

813
01:23:28.500 --> 01:23:38.500
But with people who want to write and the state is protecting and giving special privileges to certain people and were it not doing that I think the situation would be very different.

814
01:23:38.500 --> 01:24:00.500
I want to talk about utilitarianism but I'll save that for later. I have a question for you. First I want to correct your physics name. Because entropy cannot be, at least by currently accepted physics, entropy cannot only be lowered locally, and any lowering of entropy locally raises it somewhere else, which means that your definition of any active creation is a simultaneous action.

815
01:24:00.500 --> 01:24:07.500
I discussed this with Keith Carter, who's a physicist who got us to great USC, and he's the one who gave me this definition.

816
01:24:07.500 --> 01:24:10.500
So, are we going to fall back on a scientist?

817
01:24:10.500 --> 01:24:12.500
Argument for authority, but...

818
01:24:12.500 --> 01:24:14.500
God damn right!

819
01:24:14.500 --> 01:24:18.500
My question is, where do you draw the line?

820
01:24:18.500 --> 01:24:23.500
Now, you can go to the extreme of Xilog Corporation that had turned to the trademark of letter Z,

821
01:24:23.500 --> 01:24:28.500
or Ayn Rand, who was trying to hold rights to the word objectivist, or you can try the entire book.

822
01:24:28.500 --> 01:24:33.500
Neil, at what point is duplication duplication and at what point is simultaneous intervention?

823
01:24:33.500 --> 01:24:36.500
You use the argument from entropy, but Neil, we don't have an entropy gauge.

824
01:24:36.500 --> 01:24:40.500
I'm using the argument from complexity, which is another measure of entropy.

825
01:24:40.500 --> 01:24:43.500
Where do you have a complexity gauge, Eugen?

826
01:24:43.500 --> 01:24:55.500
The answer I'm going to give here is that in practical sense, the market will draw the line in the same way that the market will draw the line regarding the rights of a property owner of land

827
01:24:55.500 --> 01:25:01.000
with regard to who may have right of access or right of way or water rights of water flowing through.

828
01:25:01.000 --> 01:25:11.000
To a certain extent, some of the intangibles of these questions are going to be determined by actual precedents in case law.

829
01:25:11.000 --> 01:25:18.000
Now, in the case of no trespassing sign having to be put up on land in order to maintain it as a private preserve,

830
01:25:18.000 --> 01:25:23.500
you also require under common law that if you have a driveway which you're allowing the public to go through,

831
01:25:23.500 --> 01:25:30.500
You have to close it down for one day a year or something like that, to preserve it as a private drive, otherwise it falls into the state of being unclaimed.

832
01:25:30.500 --> 01:25:37.500
All these are various different customs which have arisen to determine what in fact the boundaries of property are.

833
01:25:37.500 --> 01:25:45.500
And what I'm saying here is that the test is, is it sufficiently complex and different from other logos?

834
01:25:45.500 --> 01:26:01.140
Pardon, Neil, do I understand, are you saying that the market determines where the natural

835
01:26:01.140 --> 01:26:02.140
right begins?

836
01:26:02.140 --> 01:26:07.580
The complexity issue has a long history in terms of the copyright and patent debate and

837
01:26:07.580 --> 01:26:14.180
in fact by saying what Neil has done he's abandoned his case because creation is not

838
01:26:14.180 --> 01:26:44.180
A lot of complex act, creation can be very simple, and when it was debated earlier in, well, in the 19th century, it was pointed out that what are you saying when you're patenting and prohibiting people from sharing ideas, if someone comes up with something that's very simple, you know, someone walking down the street has to go like this in order not to see it or else they duplicate it, it's in their brain. If it's simple, it's not creation. Let me answer, please. And what happens is that

839
01:26:44.180 --> 01:26:48.180
And the fellow giving this line was Victor Yaros, and Yaros backed off and said,

840
01:26:48.180 --> 01:26:53.180
okay, okay, well, let's make complexity the standard by which a natural right exists.

841
01:26:53.180 --> 01:26:56.180
It's property if it's complex. It doesn't matter if your labor produced it.

842
01:26:56.180 --> 01:27:00.180
It doesn't matter if all these other standards just throw by the side complexity.

843
01:27:00.180 --> 01:27:03.180
In which case Tucker came back, which I thought was a brilliant response, saying,

844
01:27:03.180 --> 01:27:06.180
well, what do you do when you take a person to court? Complexity.

845
01:27:06.180 --> 01:27:10.180
It's a steam engine as opposed to a toothpick that you have seen patented.

846
01:27:10.180 --> 01:27:20.180
The person's level of knowledge, the assessment of the judge's level of the complexity of the thing become the standard by whether or not it's been a violation of rights or not.

847
01:27:20.180 --> 01:27:30.180
You throw subjectivity into the court system to such a degree that there is absolutely no objective standard by which to say a violation of rights has occurred. What is complex?

848
01:27:30.180 --> 01:27:32.180
Can I take it again?

849
01:27:32.180 --> 01:27:48.180
I just wanted to make one other point. The full thrust of technology is to reduce the level of complexity, thereby simplifying things, and the same thing is true in theoretical law.

850
01:27:48.180 --> 01:27:57.180
It layers it, it doesn't reduce it. You build upon Goldberg and a simplified device which does the same thing.

851
01:27:57.180 --> 01:28:07.180
The primary thing I talked about here was not complexity, it was the lowering of entropy.

852
01:28:07.180 --> 01:28:13.180
Locally lowering of entropy, even if at the other end of the universe it's irreconcilable.

853
01:28:13.180 --> 01:28:17.180
What you're doing, too, Neil, if I have a bomber and I fly before them.

854
01:28:17.180 --> 01:28:20.180
I want the moderator to take some control here, please.

855
01:28:20.180 --> 01:28:22.180
Why don't we cut to the crossway?

856
01:28:22.180 --> 01:28:23.180
John?

857
01:28:23.180 --> 01:28:28.180
Yeah, a question for Neil regarding the distinction between intellectual property and logo,

858
01:28:28.180 --> 01:28:31.180
which I think is something that we'll be telling you.

859
01:28:31.180 --> 01:28:36.180
You started out saying one of the things you're not talking about is intellectual property.

860
01:28:36.180 --> 01:28:37.180
That's correct.

861
01:28:37.180 --> 01:28:44.180
You went on to describe your definition of logo, and I initially had this question logo, sorry.

862
01:28:44.180 --> 01:28:47.180
What is the difference between this and intellectual property?

863
01:28:47.180 --> 01:28:51.180
When you got down to unbundling...

864
01:28:51.180 --> 01:28:56.180
Making bugs complex, might we dare to say?

865
01:28:56.180 --> 01:29:02.180
The way you picked up on unbundling was unbundling down to words and paragraphs.

866
01:29:02.180 --> 01:29:06.180
I meant unbundling lights. I meant separating up the rights.

867
01:29:06.180 --> 01:29:20.180
What is the Difference Between Logos and an Electrical Property?

868
01:29:36.180 --> 01:29:38.180
And what do you mean by unbundling?

869
01:30:06.180 --> 01:30:36.180
and each one of those actions constitutes potentially a different right and what I'm saying here is that in terms of land the right to dig a coal mine may be separated off and sold as a different right from the right to build a house and live there in the same way the right to use a particular aspect of a logo such as a plot and take that plot and those characters make it into a movie is a separate right a separate action which can be taken from the right of printing the array of words itself

870
01:30:36.180 --> 01:31:01.180
How do you know that he wasn't saying that I resemble him?

871
01:31:01.180 --> 01:31:29.180
Okay, I came to the debate expecting to disagree vehemently with both of you, and if we push aside peripheral issues, like the nature of property and a lot of other things it's gotten into, and to talk about the essential issue which is copyright, I detect, and you can both correct me if you think I'm wrong, I detect a convergence, or I don't think the two parts are the same.

872
01:31:29.180 --> 01:31:35.900
Convergence, or I don't think the two positions are that very far apart.

873
01:31:35.900 --> 01:31:45.380
I believe that both Neil and Wendy are claiming that an approximation of copyright or a free

874
01:31:45.380 --> 01:31:53.780
market copyright, if you prefer, can arise on the market depending on the terms of exchange

875
01:31:53.780 --> 01:32:01.280
of a Manuscript. And the difference between them is, if I understand Neil's theory correctly,

876
01:32:01.280 --> 01:32:07.140
is that in an exchange of a manuscript, Neil is thinking about dividing the book or the

877
01:32:07.140 --> 01:32:13.580
manuscript into various rights, and the author retaining control over some of those rights,

878
01:32:13.580 --> 01:32:19.860
and then the people who are buying the book are using the manuscript, having the residual

879
01:32:19.860 --> 01:32:24.860
That's the way exchange creates copyright in Neal's view.

880
01:32:24.860 --> 01:32:30.860
The way, Wendy didn't go into it in its great length, but I surmised from her remarks

881
01:32:30.860 --> 01:32:36.860
that she believed that an exchange could create something that looked like a copyright

882
01:32:36.860 --> 01:32:41.860
if, in the process of selling my manuscript to someone, I have them sign a contract

883
01:32:41.860 --> 01:32:47.860
in which they agree not to do such and such and such and such with the manuscript.

884
01:32:47.860 --> 01:33:07.860
So, in both cases we have a copyright arising out of an exchange, and the difference seems to me to boil down to, Neil is arguing that you can have a copyright just by owning conditionally part of the book,

885
01:33:07.860 --> 01:33:32.860
And Wendy is arguing that no, that you have to have a contract which gives you, in addition, some conditional rights within the other person's labor, or over the other person, in other words, you can't only just retain partial ownership of the book, you have to have the person agree to choose certain acts.

886
01:33:32.860 --> 01:33:38.260
So, really the difference is between those cases where you're talking about conditional

887
01:33:38.260 --> 01:33:43.740
rights in a book as opposed to conditional rights in people, and the only area where

888
01:33:43.740 --> 01:33:48.420
I think that this would come up with significant differences in how it worked out is the impact

889
01:33:48.420 --> 01:33:55.740
on third parties, and so I just, the question is, is this a fair representation of the difference

890
01:33:55.740 --> 01:33:56.740
between the two of you?

891
01:33:56.740 --> 01:33:57.740
Before you ask me first.

892
01:33:57.740 --> 01:33:59.740
I haven't gone first yet for a moment.

893
01:33:59.740 --> 01:34:00.740
Go ahead.

894
01:34:00.740 --> 01:34:06.980
Well, first of all, in some sense, no, it's not, it's the third party, what we're talking

895
01:34:06.980 --> 01:34:11.580
about relationships here, the relationship, the creator to the product and the product

896
01:34:11.580 --> 01:34:15.980
to the third party, it affects the creator as much as it does the third party because

897
01:34:15.980 --> 01:34:21.180
under my system, basically, even if it were very strictly contractual, it would erode

898
01:34:21.180 --> 01:34:22.180
over time.

899
01:34:22.180 --> 01:34:25.220
There's no way, in fact, to enforce a contract.

900
01:34:25.220 --> 01:34:30.660
I will fully agree that over a period of time what will happen is that your contract will

901
01:34:30.660 --> 01:35:00.660
The Theory of Money and Credit

902
01:35:00.660 --> 01:35:07.660
The point is that there can be no enforcement of a property claim whatsoever, that there is no property claim, nothing can be enforced without contract.

903
01:35:07.660 --> 01:35:11.660
That's the difference between voluntary and involuntary action.

904
01:35:11.660 --> 01:35:19.660
To say that there is little difference between there is to say that there is no difference between forcing a person to do something and having their consent.

905
01:35:19.660 --> 01:35:25.660
I think that he cannot force me not to repeat his book, justly force me not to repeat his book.

906
01:35:25.660 --> 01:35:31.660
In fact, there is a contractual obligation on my part. Short of that, absolutely nothing.

907
01:35:31.660 --> 01:35:36.660
No moral, maybe a moral, but absolutely no legal obligation.

908
01:35:36.660 --> 01:35:42.660
So the difference is between whether or not he can take it law, which is a point of a gun,

909
01:35:42.660 --> 01:35:45.660
put it to my head and say, I may not do something.

910
01:35:45.660 --> 01:35:49.660
And I'm saying that, is there a contract? No, no, we can't do that.

911
01:35:49.660 --> 01:35:52.660
So in utilitarian grounds, however, you may be correct.

912
01:35:52.660 --> 01:36:10.660
If there is a contract, I'm asking you to explore how you would do an author who sells a manuscript and puts on it, when he sells it to you, says on the contract, you may not copy this, you may not sell it to anyone else who copies it, you may not show it to anyone else who copies it, that sort of thing.

913
01:36:10.660 --> 01:36:21.660
And in other words, what I'm asking is, couldn't a system of copyright that approximates what Neil is talking about arise from authors regularly using that kind of contract?

914
01:36:21.660 --> 01:36:29.660
Oh, I'm sorry, I misinterpreted a lot of your questions. There was a lot to me. Never mind.

915
01:36:29.660 --> 01:36:35.660
No, I think that in terms of if you walked into a bookstore under Neil's system and a bookstore under my system,

916
01:36:35.660 --> 01:36:42.660
all that would happen was that it would be far more clearly spelled out what you were doing and what you were agreeing to.

917
01:36:42.660 --> 01:36:49.660
But I would add on the fact that perhaps in answer to Brad as much as anything else, copyright would erode under my system,

918
01:36:49.660 --> 01:37:00.860
The acid test is precisely the question of erosion and the question of third parties.

919
01:37:00.860 --> 01:37:07.560
If you say that the logos is not a property right, if you say that the owner of that logos

920
01:37:07.560 --> 01:37:13.560
does not have the right to exclusive control over that property and licensing it and leasing

921
01:37:13.560 --> 01:37:18.440
it, and let's understand that there are uses of property which are not total title, which

922
01:37:18.440 --> 01:37:27.840
In effect, what is happening in a licensing arrangement, licensing a publisher to reproduce

923
01:37:27.840 --> 01:37:33.040
that logos is a leasing for a limited amount of time the rights to use that logos in the

924
01:37:33.040 --> 01:37:37.320
same way that if I build an apartment building, I lease the rights to use that.

925
01:37:37.320 --> 01:37:43.640
To say that I need to contract somebody not to use that thing is exactly the same as saying

926
01:37:43.640 --> 01:37:47.820
that I need to contract somebody not to come onto my land and start digging a coal mine.

927
01:37:47.820 --> 01:37:52.820
If I own the property rights, then they are mine to dispose of, as I will.

928
01:37:52.820 --> 01:38:00.820
As I understand it, if I switch on the radio and the car and hear a song, I think we would

929
01:38:00.820 --> 01:38:03.820
agree that a violation of property rights doesn't depend on whether I use it for economic

930
01:38:03.820 --> 01:38:04.820
advantage.

931
01:38:04.820 --> 01:38:09.820
I mean, I can destroy property for no real economic advantage at all, it would be a trespass.

932
01:38:09.820 --> 01:38:12.820
Under your system then, technically, even though it may not be economically feasible

933
01:38:12.820 --> 01:38:16.820
to prosecute, if I hum that song, I'm violating property rights.

934
01:38:16.820 --> 01:38:19.820
Why not? Because you're not reimposing on matter.

935
01:38:19.820 --> 01:38:23.820
Air wave is matter, the brain that is being posed on?

936
01:38:23.820 --> 01:38:32.820
No. When I say logos, logos requires, if you will, a fixed medium in which to impose it, otherwise the pattern is immediately lost.

937
01:38:32.820 --> 01:38:37.820
In the same way that there's a difference between an electronic wave going out into space

938
01:38:37.820 --> 01:38:41.820
and an electronic wave being recorded in a magnetic form on matter,

939
01:38:41.820 --> 01:38:53.820
If I were a professional musician, then I could get up in a concert and perform a song that I did not write without reimbursing the author of the song.

940
01:39:11.820 --> 01:39:19.820
What you're dealing with is a specific right, which is, again, a right to perform an action.

941
01:39:19.820 --> 01:39:22.820
Every time we're talking about a right, we're talking about a right to perform an action.

942
01:39:22.820 --> 01:39:27.820
Inherent in a play or a piece of music is the right to recreate it for non-recorded purposes.

943
01:39:27.820 --> 01:39:29.820
And this is a separate bundle of right.

944
01:39:29.820 --> 01:39:31.820
I want to answer that, too.

945
01:39:31.820 --> 01:39:33.820
Recreated for non?

946
01:39:33.820 --> 01:39:36.820
What inherent right? Is there a clause to property rights?

947
01:39:36.820 --> 01:39:40.820
A right it does not adhere in matter.

948
01:39:40.820 --> 01:39:59.820
A right to life is not a right to freedom of action. A right is a claim of moral jurisdiction over something, which in virtue of that claim gives you freedom of action regardless of whether it is connected with a thing or something.

949
01:40:10.820 --> 01:40:13.120
referring to what actions people may or may not take.

950
01:40:13.120 --> 01:40:17.920
In the case of performance, from a logos or something like that,

951
01:40:17.920 --> 01:40:21.620
the action of recreating it without recording it,

952
01:40:21.620 --> 01:40:25.620
without reimposing it in matter, is also one of those rights.

953
01:40:25.620 --> 01:40:26.720
Now, understand...

954
01:40:26.720 --> 01:40:28.120
But I don't play at a concert. Now, I don't understand.

955
01:40:28.120 --> 01:40:31.320
Am I violating the author's rights if I play at a concert,

956
01:40:31.320 --> 01:40:32.820
if it's not being recorded?

957
01:40:32.820 --> 01:40:34.720
Performance rights?

958
01:40:34.720 --> 01:40:39.220
Okay. In the case of humming by yourself, okay?

959
01:40:39.220 --> 01:41:01.220
It is an interesting test problem, let's put it this way. Potentially the performance before an audience for commercial gain may be a separate right for performance within your own sphere with nobody else around.

960
01:41:01.220 --> 01:41:15.220
I would be willing to argue that on a separate case, but the case where I think there is no question about is reimposing that pattern on something else, such as doing it in front of a recorded medium or refixing it in some form into matter.

961
01:41:15.220 --> 01:41:23.220
Okay, I want to comment on that because I left a few things. This idea of there being an idea without matter is absurd. There is nothing without matter.

962
01:41:23.220 --> 01:41:26.220
I'm not arguing ideas. I'm arguing logos. They're two different things.

963
01:41:26.220 --> 01:41:34.220
The thing is that when George in fact turns on that radio, it is being registered on matter, it's being registered on electronic impulses in his brain.

964
01:41:34.220 --> 01:41:41.220
When he talks about it to anyone else, it's being registered on airwaves, and if in fact he can go to a concert and play it,

965
01:41:41.220 --> 01:41:47.220
and whether or not he violates rights is dependent on whether someone in the audience switches on a tape recorder.

966
01:41:47.220 --> 01:41:52.220
It is absurd. You violate rights if in fact you infringe on the title of someone.

967
01:41:52.220 --> 01:42:04.220
And bundles of rights, I frankly, I think I'm as confused as most people. Yeah, turning on a TV basically would make all that, that's an implication I don't want to go into because there's so much fertile territory elsewhere.

968
01:42:04.220 --> 01:42:10.220
When I refer to a logo, I'm referring to something in matter. Go with my definition at least.

969
01:42:10.220 --> 01:42:16.220
Well, I disagree with your definition. What do you mean? All these hidden clauses are hidden that are in rights.

970
01:42:16.220 --> 01:42:19.220
It's nothing hidden.

971
01:42:19.220 --> 01:42:34.220
In fact, a righted property is not something that is necessarily produced by labor, it has to be concrete, it has to be complex, it has to be something that is in these bundles that are mysterious things that you can reproduce for some reason.

972
01:42:34.220 --> 01:42:37.220
Is it yours or is it not? It's very simple.

973
01:42:37.220 --> 01:42:46.220
Yes, it sounds like this debate could go on and on, but I would love to see this kind of debate at a norm convention.

974
01:42:46.220 --> 01:42:50.220
I would like you to see it at Norris.

975
01:42:50.220 --> 01:42:54.220
The thing that gives me, I'm against all form of copyright laws.

976
01:42:54.220 --> 01:43:00.220
To me, it sounds like if somebody wants to tape us something.

977
01:43:00.220 --> 01:43:05.220
Now, the record is not even available on tape, I'm going to tape it.

978
01:43:05.220 --> 01:43:16.220
The thing is, people have not made a tape of the record.

979
01:43:16.220 --> 01:43:19.220
If you don't have a car, are you going to take it simply because you don't have one?

980
01:43:19.220 --> 01:43:21.220
Is your need a claim on it?

981
01:43:21.220 --> 01:43:25.220
He's taping it already. Once he listens to it, it's being taped through electronic impulses.

982
01:43:25.220 --> 01:43:29.220
This idea of not electronically reproducing something, it's reproduced in his mind.

983
01:43:29.220 --> 01:43:41.220
There is a difference between imposing something in a fixed form on matter, in a record, in a disc, in a tape, or on the printed page, or going out uncontained. There is a physical difference between the two.

984
01:43:41.220 --> 01:43:55.220
I have a question on that, which is, Neil, then why is a radio broadcast station precluded from... do you think that a radio broadcaster owes royalty to the artist? After all, is that going on any fixed medium in that case?

985
01:43:55.220 --> 01:44:22.220
The only thing is, what I'm saying is, there's no tape medium on some of these records that some of the records that I get in, what am I going to do?

986
01:44:22.220 --> 01:44:35.700
This is a utilitarian argument, not a national rights question.

987
01:44:35.700 --> 01:44:40.620
The first question, which has to be answered, is, is it within your rights to do it before

988
01:44:40.620 --> 01:44:41.620
you do it?

989
01:44:41.620 --> 01:44:47.040
And if, in fact, the logos is somebody else's property, then you do not have the right to

990
01:44:47.040 --> 01:44:53.040
and your need and claim and unavailability of wanting it gives you no claim.

991
01:44:53.040 --> 01:44:57.040
I will pass on Coleman in order to recognize Victor Coleman.

992
01:44:57.040 --> 01:45:01.040
Yes, you had your hand up before.

993
01:45:01.040 --> 01:45:04.040
Your opinion just now.

994
01:45:04.040 --> 01:45:10.040
Can you state for me how a printed book,

995
01:45:10.040 --> 01:45:30.040
What to you are the differences that make a printed book and the ideas contained within it different from an acre of land with a house built on it, which seems to be the two images that Neela uses? What is the difference between the two?

996
01:45:30.040 --> 01:45:44.040
Well, there's lots of differences between the two. For one, the house is tangible. It's something that I can go in and claim, and if Veronica came in and claimed it, she would be usurping on my right. It is a scarce good.

997
01:45:44.040 --> 01:45:58.040
If, in fact, I went and said, shall I compare thee to a summer's day, and she repeated it back to me, we both have the same concrete thing, but neither one of us is conflicting with each other in terms of possession.

998
01:45:58.040 --> 01:46:01.880
So one thing is that the scarcity issue is totally different.

999
01:46:01.880 --> 01:46:04.800
What about time sharing on a computer?

1000
01:46:04.800 --> 01:46:08.880
Well, I'm answering the question as addressed.

1001
01:46:08.880 --> 01:46:12.280
One last question.

1002
01:46:12.280 --> 01:46:15.640
We haven't had a chance to answer all of them.

1003
01:46:15.640 --> 01:46:18.960
Next question.

1004
01:46:18.960 --> 01:46:20.520
I have a question, too.

1005
01:46:20.520 --> 01:46:24.440
Well, it's a two-part question.

1006
01:46:24.440 --> 01:46:42.440
If I create something by, say, taking a lump of radium and pulling it by one of my fingers, thereby inducing a mutation that turns out to create some useful insight that I can then use to extract my genetic engineering at least for other things, should that be something that I can copyright?

1007
01:46:42.440 --> 01:46:43.440
Yes.

1008
01:46:43.440 --> 01:46:46.440
Okay, now, if I have kids, do they have to pay me royalties?

1009
01:46:46.440 --> 01:46:47.440
No.

1010
01:46:47.440 --> 01:46:48.440
Do you want to know why?

1011
01:46:48.440 --> 01:46:49.440
Yeah.

1012
01:46:49.440 --> 01:46:56.140
There are first premises which go back to what Wendy was saying before about what can be property.

1013
01:46:56.140 --> 01:47:04.340
The first statement is that a person owns everything that is in that person's self.

1014
01:47:04.340 --> 01:47:06.240
That is the first right.

1015
01:47:06.240 --> 01:47:11.840
Property is a corollary, remember what Rand's statement was, property rights are a corollary of the right to life.

1016
01:47:11.840 --> 01:47:18.540
In this case, the right to life is a higher-order right than the right to any logos or pattern or something like that,

1017
01:47:18.540 --> 01:47:19.780
and therefore subsumes it.

1018
01:47:19.780 --> 01:47:26.780
The only case is when the logos is within a non-sentient,

1019
01:47:26.780 --> 01:47:30.060
outside the sphere of a non-sentient self-ownership.

1020
01:47:30.060 --> 01:47:33.980
At that point, the entire question of property rights begins.

1021
01:47:33.980 --> 01:47:39.260
So all I just understand is we have copyrights to the same piece of DNA?

1022
01:47:39.260 --> 01:47:43.940
The first question of ownership of that original pattern

1023
01:47:43.940 --> 01:47:46.140
may or may not go down to them.

1024
01:47:46.140 --> 01:47:52.660
They would certainly own the pattern, the logos, which is within them, as part of them.

1025
01:47:52.660 --> 01:47:56.060
The question of whether they would be able to re-impose it on matter outside of them,

1026
01:47:56.060 --> 01:47:59.660
I think is again a question of who has the logos to do that, which is a separate thing.

1027
01:47:59.660 --> 01:48:02.660
I wanted to add one further comment, which I'll harken to that.

1028
01:48:02.660 --> 01:48:07.460
There was a Nobel Prize winner named period previously in which he was working, not only

1029
01:48:07.460 --> 01:48:12.460
in the United Arab Emirates, and one of the results of his work was that he had a system

1030
01:48:12.460 --> 01:48:17.460
The theory is that the business is very far from firmly delivering and is processing great amounts of energy.

1031
01:48:17.460 --> 01:48:21.460
Actually, core systems of that form tend to be self-organizing.

1032
01:48:21.460 --> 01:48:23.460
Could you speak a little louder?

1033
01:48:23.460 --> 01:48:31.460
Yeah. So, systems of that form tend to be naturally self-organizing, so actually it's more probable that this is sort of counter to the creation margin from the classical author of economics.

1034
01:48:31.460 --> 01:48:37.460
Actually, life tends to be more probable in a given system where you have high order of input from the sun and things like that.

1035
01:48:37.460 --> 01:49:03.460
and Human Invention, given that sort of framework also has to be more likely than having random matter around, so you would expect the matter to be more or less on time, so I think your argument from thermodynamics, which involves entropy, is wrong, but there's another concept that I think you can replace that with, and get the same thing, and that is the locus of cognitive control, or the form of that, and still achieve the same result.

1036
01:49:07.460 --> 01:49:15.460
No, it's not. No, it's not. Because again, as Brad pointed out, we're talking about a localized case.

1037
01:49:15.460 --> 01:49:23.460
And we're also talking about the creation of, look, whether or not you want to use the term entropy or not, in the sense in which you're using it.

1038
01:49:23.460 --> 01:49:29.460
What I'm discussing here is the lowering of probable cases.

1039
01:49:29.460 --> 01:49:35.460
Whether or not you want to tie this in with the entire system of thermodynamics in a closed system.

1040
01:49:35.460 --> 01:49:38.460
I don't think many of us here are going to be able to intelligently evaluate this exchange.

1041
01:49:38.460 --> 01:49:42.460
I'm going to go back on my word and recognize one last question from the young lady in white over there.

1042
01:49:42.460 --> 01:49:45.460
Yes, Wendy, I'd like to ask you a quick, three-pronged question.

1043
01:49:45.460 --> 01:49:51.460
You're talking a lot about intangibilities here and kind of only tangible ideas.

1044
01:49:51.460 --> 01:49:55.460
Okay, number one. Example, George Lucas' Star Wars.

1045
01:49:55.460 --> 01:49:58.460
Is the script to Star Wars intangible property?

1046
01:49:58.460 --> 01:50:02.460
Number two, does it become tangible property when it's turned into a film?

1047
01:50:02.460 --> 01:50:13.460
3. After it is a film, does Mr. Lucas own the rights to the characters of, let's say, Luke Skywalker or R2?

1048
01:50:13.460 --> 01:50:31.460
Okay, first of all, at no point is it intangible in terms of what he can own. I think that if you're talking about he has gone, secrecy is a big thing in the industry and I think that's probably a large concession to the fact that how hard it is to own something like an idea, once it leaks out it goes everywhere.

1049
01:50:31.460 --> 01:50:37.960
If in fact you're talking about the films, the actual instances of the films that you can hold in your hand, yes, he owns all those.

1050
01:50:37.960 --> 01:50:48.460
If you're talking about the idea of Luke Skywalker, so that someone can go off that, whether or not it's in script form, whether it's in film form, before or after it's been released,

1051
01:50:48.460 --> 01:50:53.460
I don't think that he has any right to say that someone cannot take a character named Luke Skywalker

1052
01:50:53.460 --> 01:51:00.460
and use the characteristics ascribed to his Luke Skywalker to write a novel, or put out a glass, or put out a McDonald's burger.

1053
01:51:01.460 --> 01:51:08.460
I think that the secrecy is probably one of the large market mechanisms that would protect this.

1054
01:51:08.460 --> 01:51:15.460
The contractual arrangements he has with a lot of people are not legal in terms of...

1055
01:51:15.460 --> 01:51:17.460
they're legal in terms of legally enforceable.

1056
01:51:17.460 --> 01:51:20.460
But the fact that he contracts that way is very significant.

1057
01:51:20.460 --> 01:51:23.460
And the fact that, in fact, when you look at situations like that,

1058
01:51:23.460 --> 01:51:28.460
people are looking to the free market and applying free market standards and solutions all over the place

1059
01:51:28.460 --> 01:51:47.460
I think that he has no moral right to it. He may in fact have whatever legal right his ingenuity and the free market can provide him with, which is sizable because he's been very ingenious.

1060
01:51:47.460 --> 01:51:53.460
Wendy keeps on talking about the intangibles. I am not talking about something intangible here.

1061
01:51:53.460 --> 01:51:56.460
Logos is a tangible aspect of matter.

1062
01:51:56.460 --> 01:52:01.460
It is a material quality of the properties in which it is found.

1063
01:52:01.460 --> 01:52:05.460
The logos, the pattern in the script is tangible.

1064
01:52:05.460 --> 01:52:08.460
The logos of the images and sound on the film are tangible.

1065
01:52:08.460 --> 01:52:12.460
Each one of those is something tangible, found within matter.

1066
01:52:12.460 --> 01:52:15.460
It's an aspect, a quality, of the matter in which it is found.

1067
01:52:15.460 --> 01:52:21.460
And as such, it is part of that which, when George Lucas first did this,

1068
01:52:21.460 --> 01:52:26.460
I assume that he was the sole creator, which he's not, and he had to divide up various different things.

1069
01:52:26.460 --> 01:52:31.460
He would be the sole person who owns that property and would be able to divide up the various rights

1070
01:52:31.460 --> 01:52:34.460
regarding what action could be taken with each of those other things.

1071
01:52:34.460 --> 01:52:39.460
Regarding the question of whether or not somebody else could use Luke Skywalker or not

1072
01:52:39.460 --> 01:52:44.460
depends on whether that particular aspect is a logos in its own right.

1073
01:52:44.460 --> 01:52:53.820
is it a logos high order enough that it can be differentiated from the accidental creation

1074
01:52:53.820 --> 01:52:59.180
numerous times elsewhere. Now, I also want to point out that the reason that George Lucas

1075
01:52:59.180 --> 01:53:04.620
uses a lot of secrecy is in fact because his property rights and logos are not protected

1076
01:53:04.620 --> 01:53:07.740
all that well because of the state of society in which we live which doesn't protect any

1077
01:53:07.740 --> 01:53:12.560
property rights all that well and it is not because he requires contracts from other people

1078
01:53:12.560 --> 01:53:17.560
I'm going to follow this to a halt at that point.