Galombos and a World where Ideas can be Protected (fwd)

[Jim Choate]

Forwarded message:

> Date: Sat, 7 Feb 1998 10:33:41 -0800
> From: Tim May <tcmay at got.net>
> Subject: Galombos and a World where Ideas can be Protected

> >If there were no copyright, markets for information and entertainment
> >would definitely have evolved differently than they have in the US
> >and Europe, and would use much different mechanisms for getting money
> >to the producers of information, such as standard sale contracts.*
> ....
> 
> It's always hard to say how reality would look in a different universe, one
> with, say, no copyright laws.

Agreed, however the motivations that drive people to creative or
constructive acts wouldn't change.

> However, we have some indications, because there are some things which are
> very much like "intellectual property" which, in fact, have no protection
> in the courts.
> 
> Namely, _ideas_.
> 
> For better or for worse, ideas are not protected against copying, use, etc.

Agreed, but the ability to carry through on them *is* criticaly dependant
upon the social and technological infrastructure of the participants. 

> And yet society works fine. Those who keep coming up with ideas find ways
> to keep coming up with ideas, and often to prosper, as writers,
> consultants, etc., often because of their ability to generate ideas.

True, but what you are leaving out is their ability to impliment those
ideas, which most certainly depends upon the infrastructure that surrounds
them. Ideas abhor a vacuum. In such an environment it is reasonable to
assume that people would not loose their basic instincts, among them greed.
So it is clear that people would not stop having ideas, but the milieu of
those ideas would be restrictive and most probably very paranoid. If you
learned of a particular process or idea it would not be in your best
interest to pass it around. Further it would be very difficult to trust
others because there would be no consequence to them taking your idea and
using their resources (which the creator was depending on to actualize the
concepts) to create the end product themselves. Remember the prisoners
dilema here...

> Think about an alternate world where ideas are protectable before saying a
> world without copyrights would collapse inevitably.

This is a straw man. We are discussing the issue of what would be reasonable
to expect considering human nature in an environment where there was *no*
protection of ideas and no redress of grievances through a legal system.
Intellectual anarchy if you will.


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