reply to post by Jean Paul Zodeaux
We? What's all this we stuff, do you have a mouse in your pocket? The licensing you are referring to is not at all the government granting a person
permission to do business or use a product, but is a license granted by the owner of the product. Your willingness to confuse the issue seems to be
more out of dis-ingenuousness than actual confusion. You claim that a person who owns a product and licenses that product for use is very far from a
free market ideal, but your own reasoning to support this claim is deeply flawed.
Your first problem in logic is attempting to link innovation with ownership. You claim that by patenting an invention that this either forces
competitors to reverse engineer in order to create a competitive product or be allowed to look at the patent for free, in order to compete. However,
how are you able to consider such an act competition with a straight face? Would you prefer that Micheal Jordon or Kobe Bryant make baskets for both
their team and the opposing team and call that competitive?
Why should competitors be granted free access to the mechanics of an invention in order to create their own product and how is it you think that this
would create a comparable product? While reverse engineering is one method of understanding the mechanics of some innovation, it is not the only
possible method of innovation. Indeed, when the Wright Brothers built their plane and first flew it at Kitty Hawk they were not alone in this
innovation and there were others who came before them, and peers who had been working on the same innovation without the need to have access to
Orville and Wilbur Wrights designs.
You use the I-Pod as your example, asking what's wrong with producing an IC-Pod and profiting from this by reducing costs. Your entire premise is
based on the belief that "competitors" should be able to access the designs of another in order to "innovate". However this is not innovation it
is plunder and plunder is not a free market concept it is plunder. Pirates and thieves are not considered to be innovators and for good reason, they
bring nothing to the marketplace in terms of innovation and can only offer the buyer a reduced cost of a product, many times for an inferior product,
because their investment was considerably less than the actual innovator who invested their own money, or other investors money in developing that
product.
You are also flawed in your reasoning that creating patents and copyrights creates "monopolies" in the market. Being a writer, I will focus on
writing instead of new technologies to illustrate my point. In literature there are only seven basic plots for a writer to work with. There are no
copyrights on these plots and a writer can use one or any variation of all seven in any particular story. The seven basic plots are:
1.) Man or Woman vs. Nature
2) Man or Woman vs. Man or Woman
3) Man or Woman vs. The Environment
4) Man or Woman vs. Innovation or Technology
5) Man or Woman vs. Supernatural
6) Man or Woman vs. Self
7) Man or Woman vs Religion or Law
Beyond these seven basic plots any given plot can be expanded to a list of 20 or 36 various plots that include; the quest, rescue, escape, revenge,
love, forbidden love, maturation, familial obligations, societal obligations, discovery, ascension and descension, to name just a few. What a writer
does with these very basic story ideas is what makes his work distinctly his or hers and not others.
An example of this is illustrated by a simple story of familial obligations and the ambitions of youth. Take a well known film story where a young
man has dreams and aspirations to boldly go out into the world and make his own mark without relying upon his family or being bound by their demands.
However, some event happens that forces that young man to make a decision to either follow his own ambitions or to let go of them and instead act in a
way the supports the needs and demands of the family.
Some might recognize this story structure as The Godfather, and they would be correct to identify that film as one such story that relies upon this
structure to tell its tale. However, It's a Wonderful Life also relies heavily upon this structure to tell its tale and it is an entirely different
story than the Godfather, not just in plot structure, but thematically, tone and genre as well. There is no comparison between the two other than
both have a central character who has ambitions to make his mark free from his family and then finds himself obligated to help his family instead.
Both stories have shown their universal appeal and both have made an indelible mark in film. Mario Puzo and Francis Ford Coppola did not have to pay
any fee to the holders of the copyright for It's a Wonderful Life in order to tell their tale. They were not shut out of the market because of
copyright laws, they were not sued by anyone for using a basic plot point to tell their tale and they told that tale well and with great craft.
As to the confusion you claim I have in regards to inheritance, it seems to me that you are confused. You seem to believe that I believe that
inheritance laws were codified by the Founders of the United States, however it is unclear to me why you think such a thing. I have made no such
claim, certainly not in this thread, and indeed, in other threads I have spoken directly to the Founders heavy reliance upon common law principles.
The difference between inheritance of property and the need to negotiate new contract to extend copyright or patent laws is one I have been willing to
discuss and am intrigued by, but it is folly on your part to presume that my willingness to discuss it and elaborate on it is some admission to a
failure of free market principles. Further, both patents and copyright laws predate the founding of the U.S. as well, so I am unclear on what your
point is with that.
The bottom line in regards to this thread is that all laws should exist to protect the rights of an individual which would include the right to
property. If licensing schemes are created in this regard, it is not some scheme where the government grants permission to act in a certain way, it
is a contract between the owner of property and those he or she would be leasing this property to. There is a clear difference in this, which is why
I tend to believe you are being disingenuous more than confused.
That said, I made it clear from the get go in this thread that the government certainly does have a right to regulate those actions which are not a
right. No one has the right to cause injury to another and there are many acts in business, such as the creation, use and transportation of toxins
that are so volatile in their nature, so potentially harmful to others that a government can and indeed should step in and regulate such actions. In
doing so, their licensing schemes are justified if not naive and too bureaucratic.
It is the government presuming jurisdiction to license rights that is the focus of this thread, as well as creating laws that intend prohibit or
regulate in some way the natural rights of people. It is also this threads focus to bring into question the proliferation of legislative bills, too
many that are written on thousands of pages, that create a confusion in law that only serves to undermine the law rather than uphold it.