Don't Steal THis Article!
If you want to know how Objectivists view Intellectual Property Rights, please see the articles below:
"Don’t Steal This Article!" http://www.philosophyinaction.com/blog/?...
"An Objectivist Recants on IP??"
http://www.philosophyinaction.com/blog/?...
"Ayn Rand on Intellectual Property"
http://hallingblog.com/ayn-rand-on-intel...
"Adam Mossoff Lecture: Ayn Rand on Intellectual Property"
http://hallingblog.com/adam-mossoff-lect...
It is getting tiresome to have to argue the same points over and over-points that other Objectivists have demonstrated philosophically, and in the most recent post in the Gulch, the very premise is quickly shown to be incorrect. It's feeling (whoa oh oh) like a propaganda campaign in here
"Don’t Steal This Article!" http://www.philosophyinaction.com/blog/?...
"An Objectivist Recants on IP??"
http://www.philosophyinaction.com/blog/?...
"Ayn Rand on Intellectual Property"
http://hallingblog.com/ayn-rand-on-intel...
"Adam Mossoff Lecture: Ayn Rand on Intellectual Property"
http://hallingblog.com/adam-mossoff-lect...
It is getting tiresome to have to argue the same points over and over-points that other Objectivists have demonstrated philosophically, and in the most recent post in the Gulch, the very premise is quickly shown to be incorrect. It's feeling (whoa oh oh) like a propaganda campaign in here
SOURCE URL: http://www.philosophyinaction.com/blog/?p=1579
I am satisfied with dbhalling's answer.
From the comments section in the third link:
"Parallel Independent Innovation?
I do not have Ayn Rand’s book with me right now, but she does discuss this issue in her book. Based on memory her point about simultaneous invention is that first true inventor has title to the invention. Thus, your hypothetical about the car breaking down to the patent office has no effect on who obtains the patent. Given this, I think she would not be in favor of a first-to-file system and I agree. As a patent attorney, I can tell you that parallel independent inventions rarely happen. In the US, we have a process for resolving cases where there is almost simultaneous invention and there are very few of these cases a year – 55 last year.
Photo Finish? As I stated, these cases almost never occur. However, the point of the legal system is to determine who has the property rights. If the parties do not agree to share the property rights then one will be determined to be the owner of the invention. While the result may not always be correct, at some point it is also important that clear title be established so that the property can be put to work."
Recognizing we do not live in a perfect world, and being a layman, I do not feel qualified to offer a superior option from an experienced, fully informed position. I will defer to his expertise.
Patent law is based on who is the inventor, not who is the first to get to the patent office. The first-to-file system is unconstitutional. The first person to the patent office is not the inventor, the first person to create the invention - in modern patent law the first person to reduce it to practice.
Thank you. I enjoyed the articles and always appreciate the knowledge shared. It is also fun to review/see references from Rand's books I haven't read in a while... helps to refresh the memory.
Regards,
O.A.
I was going to write that MM is too clever for all of you who have no sense of irony, but well, I don't understand it either. Do not provoke MM too much or he will write another comment with upper case in favor of ultimate Balkanization - each individual is a sovereign state.
Ah sudden insight- when you see a lot of capitalization, something is going on. But when it is done by MM, it is the opposite.
In the 1850s, about the same time that we did adopt copyrights across countries, we were negotiating treaties to do just that. But negotiations broke down. Note: the 1850s, an anti-patent kick started up in Europe and some countries dropped their patent systems for a decade or two. Note the wealth creation and invention rate of the US at that time.
Patent rights are inheritable.
And what is the objective number? 50 years? 73.2 years? How do you know? That is why I advocate for OBJECTIVE laws for intellectual property. I do not know what they all may be, but I do know what they obviously are not. Unless you have some better argument, I must maintain that intellectual property should be heritable - or else not. But completely and consistently, not this "life of the author plus x years."
There are also practical questions in law. One is who has the best title to property. An heir has more right to real property than anyone else (they may have undertaken many steps to make the property valuable) and has to take steps to continue the value. The same is not true in Intellectual Property. The great great grand child does nothing to continue the value of an incandescent light and could not have contributed anything to the original development.
When do my heirs OBJECTIVELY lose the right to intellectual property that I create?
(Riddle me that, Batgirl!)
It is the nature of ideas that better ones come along. khalling cited the first US patent, Samuel Hopkins's patent for the production of pot ash. If that were passed down to seven generations, would it matter? Ayn Rand claimed that a patent on the wheel would have made the automobile impossible. Perhaps not. Patents are assigned by nations. Penrose patented his tiles in the UK, US, and Japan. He did not patent them in Germany, Brazil, or a hundred other nations. So, it may be that ONE KIND OF WHEEL - one design only - might be patented in Babylon, and it would remain to bee seen if 6000 years later Babylon had no automobiles though Athens, Rome, and America all do.
Is that objective justice, that you can have intellectual property rights in one country, but not another? These defenders of the status quo merely do not think deeply about the roots of the these concepts.
The reason that land never seems to go out of ownership is that it is physically real. Inventions are different from land. ideas can be lost and forgotten. They deserve a different kind of law. And they have a different kind of law. I just point out that the present law is not objectively appropriate.
Let us grant that intellectual property should not be heritable. When should it expire? 17 years? Not 18 or 21.4? Why that number and not another?
If you agree with Ayn Rand, then you should be vigorously fighting the Millennium Digital Commerce Act which granted IP for the life of the creator plus 70 years - or more if passed to a corporation. I do not hear you complaining.
In fact, even before this
January 1, 1978
Effective date of principal provisions of the 1976 copyright law. The term of protection for works created on or after this date consists of the life of the author and 50 years after the author's death. Numerous other provisions modernized the law.
Under that law, Leonard Peikoff inherited the rights to Ayn Rand's works. She apparently approved when she was alive. Maybe she had other things on her mind...
Do you find this unjust? Do you not find that unjust?