AgoristView on Nostr: Taking credit for another person's ideas, & applying an idea are very different ...
Taking credit for another person's ideas, & applying an idea are very different things. Taking credit for a book someone else wrote would be fraud. Prining a book someone else wrote, with the proper attribution, would be using your property (paper & ink) as you see fit.
Knowledge is just pattern recognition. To own a pattern is to prevent others from arranging their property however they see fit. Ideas are in many ways scarce, but they are not rivalrous. The whole point of property rights is to reduce conflict over rivalrous goods. You do not own labor, labor is an action. You are responsible for your actions, & you own the fruit of your labor to whatever degree it can be owned. But if I build a pretty house in public view I cannot attack everyone who sees or takes a picture of it.
If I can take a picture of your car & print one just like it with a machine at my house, using my energy & materials, have I stolen your car? Have I stolen a car from the manufacturer? If I decide to sell & I make it clear that I made the car & not some big company, then I haven't stolen anything. Companies do not & cannot own future sales or potential customers. Ownership takes place in the present over scarce & rivalrous goods.
Ayn Rand was wrong about IP. Intellectual property can only exist at the expense of the more basic & fundamental physical property rights. IP opens the door to an incredible amount of grifting & monopoly privledge that absolutely decimates real progress & allows many corporations to become large litigious & parasitic organizations. Any real innovation now requires a team of lawyers to defend.
I suggest you spend some time digging through Stephan Kinsella content at Mises.org or on youtube.
Knowledge is just pattern recognition. To own a pattern is to prevent others from arranging their property however they see fit. Ideas are in many ways scarce, but they are not rivalrous. The whole point of property rights is to reduce conflict over rivalrous goods. You do not own labor, labor is an action. You are responsible for your actions, & you own the fruit of your labor to whatever degree it can be owned. But if I build a pretty house in public view I cannot attack everyone who sees or takes a picture of it.
If I can take a picture of your car & print one just like it with a machine at my house, using my energy & materials, have I stolen your car? Have I stolen a car from the manufacturer? If I decide to sell & I make it clear that I made the car & not some big company, then I haven't stolen anything. Companies do not & cannot own future sales or potential customers. Ownership takes place in the present over scarce & rivalrous goods.
Ayn Rand was wrong about IP. Intellectual property can only exist at the expense of the more basic & fundamental physical property rights. IP opens the door to an incredible amount of grifting & monopoly privledge that absolutely decimates real progress & allows many corporations to become large litigious & parasitic organizations. Any real innovation now requires a team of lawyers to defend.
I suggest you spend some time digging through Stephan Kinsella content at Mises.org or on youtube.