Intellectual Property

[Pointedstick]

[...] if someone is currently holding an iPod with my song on it, illegally downloaded, if IP is morally valid, it is no different than him driving around in my car, or holding my wallet.

Oh, but it is.

If somebody steals your car, he has actually made you worse off than you were before; you no longer have your car!

If somebody steals a copy of the song you recorded, you are not any worse off than you were before; you are simply denied the opportunity to have been made better off.

Personally, I see a moral difference between the two. Somebody who maliciously reduces my stash is much higher on my shit list than somebody who (even maliciously) fails to add to my stash by getting something I produced that is infinitely replicable without paying for it.

I feel like you said it yourself: "Intellectual Property is the morally valid exclusive use of something non-physical"

That concept doesn't make a lick of sense to me. The physical realm is bound by scarcity, but non-physical ones are not. There's an infinite amount of love, of joy, of ideas, of music, of speech, of spiritual enlightenment… it goes on and on. To me it just seems selfish and greedy to attempt to enforce exclusive use of something that there's no actual barrier to sharing with all the world. It would be like building a sealed bubble around a town and then charging everybody under the bubble for air when dismantling the bubble would result in everybody being able to breathe as much as they liked for free.

[moda0306]

[...] if someone is currently holding an iPod with my song on it, illegally downloaded, if IP is morally valid, it is no different than him driving around in my car, or holding my wallet.

Oh, but it is.

If somebody steals your car, he has actually made you worse off than you were before; you no longer have your car!

If somebody steals a copy of the song you recorded, you are not any worse off than you were before; you are simply denied the opportunity to have been made better off.

Personally, I see a moral difference between the two. Somebody who maliciously reduces my stash is much higher on my shit list than somebody who (even maliciously) fails to add to my stash by getting something I produced that is infinitely replicable without paying for it.

I feel like you said it yourself: "Intellectual Property is the morally valid exclusive use of something non-physical"

That concept doesn't make a lick of sense to me. The physical realm is bound by scarcity, but non-physical ones are not. There's an infinite amount of love, of joy, of ideas, of music, of speech, of spiritual enlightenment… it goes on and on. To me it just seems selfish and greedy to attempt to enforce exclusive use of something that there's no actual barrier to sharing with all the world. It would be like building a sealed bubble around a town and then charging everybody under the bubble for air when dismantling the bubble would result in everybody being able to breathe as much as they liked for free.

A lack of legitimate profit and an illegitimate loss are economic equivalents.  If I DESERVE to be rewarded for my work, but was not, a theft has occurred.  It's a theft of my time.  If I give a massage, and the person walks out without paying, is that not effectively theft?  It doesn't matter that he didn't actually create a direct loss.  He stole my legitimately earned gain.  They're economically equivalent.

[Kshartle]

If EXERCISING my rights creates contradiction, it seems like you're saying that this means it wasn't a right. BINGO

If I "homestead" property by putting a fence around it and farming it, I am claiming exclusive use (exercising my "right"), which usurps everyone else's natural right to go where they please. No one has this right, contradiction Further, my farming screws with the ecology of the area, and very-well pollutes.  Pollution is damaging other people's property, is it not? This is a contradiction. Therefore, given your logic, most real private property doesn't really exist... because it creates that contradiction. Your ownership of property does not ensure/require polution, the contradiction you are claiming here doesn't actually exist. Your ownership of property and polution you create are separate issues Claiming exclusive use of, and polluting with, property that you did NOT create yourself CONTRADICTS ITSELF.

But in the end, EXERCISING and ENFORCING are two different things. let me get back to you on this I can EXERCISE my intellectual property rights by selling CD's with my song on it.  I can't ENFORCE them that way, though.  Enforcement might be a subset of exercising, but there are a lot of things under exercising that are NOT enforcement.  I drive my car... I exercise my right of ownership over it.  But I ENFORCE that right (or attempt to) by locking it, and if someone tried to steal it, I might defend it with force. Defense is an exercise of your right. You're confusing utility of an object with the exercise of your property rights.

I can also see that IP rights don't require government.  Guns aren't the only mechanisms for enforcement... social norms are another. No they're not You've used this example in the past.  Social norms take over a lot of enforcement mechanisms when government isn't present. Social norm is not an enforcement. If someone chooses to not rob you because they realize stealing is wrong you haven't actually defended your property. If they try to rob you and everyone else comes to defend you because the dominant morality is that stealing is wrong, then your rights are being enforced. But if we go back to the guns, if someone is currently holding an iPod with my song on it, illegally downloaded, if IP is morally valid, it is no different than him driving around in my car, or holding my wallet. Correct If I have a right to forcibly take-back stolen physical property, then if IP is morally valid, I have a right and ability to go to him, and tell him at gun point to delete my song off of his iPod, or pay me 99 cents . hahahaha, how on Earth are you going to do that?!?!?!?! How are you going to stop people driving around listening to your songs on their iPods!?!?!?!?!  Please give me the wildest idea you can think of to enforce your "IP" right. Please 


So your argument seems to me to be failing on a couple fronts, plus the fact that you're basically pointing out why morally valid REAL property is such a hoax.  So to sum up:

1) You don't need government to enforce IP.  Guns and social norms can do it like anything else. Nope

2) Exercise does not necessarily mean enforcement.  There are other things I can do to validly exercise my rights of use. I think we've gone from splitting hairs to splitting atoms. I'll toss this idea around tonight that the concepts are different, they might be.

3) If exercising rights requires a contradiction of the right makes it invalid, then most forms of "real property" are obviously invalid. Possible. Exclusive use of previously travel-able land and pollution are both contradictions, as they usurp others' rights. Nope. If it's mine it's mine. It's not everyone else's. It doesn't matter if at some point in history it wasan't owned. It's owned now.  Ownership of property doesn't depend upon the creation of polution. Polution is a separate issue. If you create polution you are responsible for the polution. Unfortunately we have an excess of polution because the government makes it nearly impossible for anyone except the wealthy to enforce this responsibility. It protects the wealthy pollutors from the less wealthy. 

[Pointedstick]

A lack of legitimate profit and an illegitimate loss are economic equivalents.  If I DESERVE to be rewarded for my work, but was not, a theft has occurred.  It's a theft of my time.  If I give a massage, and the person walks out without paying, is that not effectively theft?  It doesn't matter that he didn't actually create a direct loss.  He stole my legitimately earned gain.  They're economically equivalent.

You had a contract (written or oral); if he walks out without paying, he has violated the contract. No such contract is in place for music, movies, etc. It takes a blanket act of government to declare that there is a de facto contract in the form of intellectual property laws.


To put it more concisely:

I see property as a social tool to deal with scarcity.

No scarcity, no property. It doesn't make sense to prescribe social and legal rules to work out the details of how to handle monopolizing something that there is really no need to monopolize. Attempting to force the rules of property onto something fundamentally non-scarce is awkward and leads to more problems than it solves. It has nothing to do with who deserves what IMHO.

[Kshartle]

A lack of legitimate profit and an illegitimate loss are economic equivalents.  If I DESERVE to be rewarded for my work, but was not, a theft has occurred.  It's a theft of my time.  If I give a massage, and the person walks out without paying, is that not effectively theft?  It doesn't matter that he didn't actually create a direct loss.  He stole my legitimately earned gain.  They're economically equivalent.

You had a contract (written or oral); if he walks out without paying, he has violated the contract. No such contract is in place for music, movies, etc. It takes a blanket act of government to declare that there is a de facto contract in the form of intellectual property laws.


To put it more concisely:

I see property as a social tool to deal with scarcity.

No scarcity, no property. It doesn't make sense to prescribe social and legal rules to work out the details of how to handle monopolizing something that there is really no need to monopolize. Attempting to force the rules of property onto something fundamentally non-scarce is awkward and leads to more problems than it solves. It has nothing to do with who deserves what IMHO.

Yes and every single peice of real property is in fact, totally unique and thus absolutely scarce. It cannot exist in more than one place (yes i know about the cat). Contrast this with so-called "IP" which can exist in millions of places at once.

The fact that IP is infiniately replicable is why you need a violation of rights to enforce it. I can't have a right to violate your rights, that's impossible.

[Libertarian666]

IMHO, ownership is inherently tied to scarcity. If something is for all intents and purposes infinite or unlimited, it makes no sense for people to own chunks of it. What advantage would they gain from it? None!

This is why I can't get behind IP. IP consists of thoughts and ideas, which are, for all intents and purposes, infinite and unlimited. One person's having the idea does not in any way diminish anyone else's capacity to have or enjoy or make use of or improve upon the idea.

To me, using the laws of private property to govern IP akin to trying to charge people for breathing despite the fact that air is basically still infinite here on planet earth.

So if I spend 5 or 10 years finding a way to store electricity in a way that makes normal storage batteries totally obsolete (as a made-up example), then anyone who wants to copy that method gets it free? That doesn't seem to give me much incentive to invent something new.

Not that I'm enamored of the current patent system, which sucks big rocks. It really stinks that the most valuable kind of invention is one that others are likely to happen upon independently, so you can sue them. I think you should have to actually use the invention for something before you can claim exclusivity.

[Pointedstick]

Let me pose a hypothetical.

Let's say that a replicator machine is invented that can produce any object at zero cost (say it is powered by energy infinitely produced in a different plane of existence). Let's say that this technology enables the creation of devices that enable the costless construction of entire artificial planetoids and the instantaneous transportation of people from any point in the universe to any other point.

In this fantasy world, both objects and physical space are no longer limited by the laws of scarcity.

Would it make sense for this society to have the laws, rules, and customs of private property govern the distribution of objects and space?

[Pointedstick]

So if I spend 5 or 10 years finding a way to store electricity in a way that makes normal storage batteries totally obsolete (as a made-up example), then anyone who wants to copy that method gets it free? That doesn't seem to give me much incentive to invent something new.

Nobody would make you reveal your invention to the public. If you didn't want the rest of the world to know the details of it, you would have to hide it as a contract-enforced "trade secret"--a concept that I believe is actually accommodated by the existing IP system.

It's always been a great irony to me that in order to monopolize a product idea via patent, you have to submit it to the searchable public domain where anybody who wants to can find all of the details of its design and manufacture! The only thing really stopping them once they've read your patent is the government's enforcement wing. It would be ironic if patents actually therefore didn't actually stop copying but rather exacerbated it.

[Libertarian666]

So if I spend 5 or 10 years finding a way to store electricity in a way that makes normal storage batteries totally obsolete (as a made-up example), then anyone who wants to copy that method gets it free? That doesn't seem to give me much incentive to invent something new.

Nobody would make you reveal your invention to the public. If you didn't want the rest of the world to know the details of it, you would have to hide it as a contract-enforced "trade secret"--a concept that I believe is actually accommodated by the existing IP system.

It's always been a great irony to me that in order to monopolize a product idea via patent, you have to submit it to the searchable public domain where anybody who wants to can find all of the details of its design and manufacture! The only thing really stopping them once they've read your patent is the government's enforcement wing. It would be ironic if patents actually therefore didn't actually stop copying but rather exacerbated it.

Yes, certainly trade secrets are a way to go that wouldn't have the bad side effects of patents and copyrights. However, they also prevent anyone else from using the invention. The whole idea of patents was to make useful inventions widely available after a period of exclusivity. I think that is a reasonable idea, although again I'm not in favor of the current system.

[moda0306]

A lack of legitimate profit and an illegitimate loss are economic equivalents.  If I DESERVE to be rewarded for my work, but was not, a theft has occurred.  It's a theft of my time.  If I give a massage, and the person walks out without paying, is that not effectively theft?  It doesn't matter that he didn't actually create a direct loss.  He stole my legitimately earned gain.  They're economically equivalent.

You had a contract (written or oral); if he walks out without paying, he has violated the contract. No such contract is in place for music, movies, etc. It takes a blanket act of government to declare that there is a de facto contract in the form of intellectual property laws.


To put it more concisely:

I see property as a social tool to deal with scarcity.

No scarcity, no property. It doesn't make sense to prescribe social and legal rules to work out the details of how to handle monopolizing something that there is really no need to monopolize. Attempting to force the rules of property onto something fundamentally non-scarce is awkward and leads to more problems than it solves. It has nothing to do with who deserves what IMHO.

Matter is not scarce.  Therefore anything consisting of matter is not property.



Good ideas are scarce. Creativity is scarce. Good processes are scarce. Scientific proofs are scarce.

There are a lot of contracts that are implied.  Further, if I incur someone a loss, even though I didn't contract with them, it is my loss to reimburse.

But I do like your admitting that property is just a social engineering tool, and doesn't represent any fundamental reality.

[hljockey]

Matter is not scarce.  Therefore anything consisting of matter is not property.

You make a lot of intelligent posts but I have to say that is one of the stupidest assertions by an otherwise intelligent person that I think I have ever heard.

[Kshartle]

Matter is not scarce.  Therefore anything consisting of matter is not property.

You make a lot of intelligent posts but I have to say that is one of the stupidest assertions by an otherwise intelligent person that I think I have ever heard.

Evidently you are new here.

ahahahahahahahahahah I keeeed moda!

I have to say that was one of the most blunt posts I have ever read here.

[moda0306]

Hahaha. That was a joke fellas. Challenging PS's premise around why lack of scarcity of ideas is a valid reason to reject ideas as property.

But K you're going to love this...


I've just changed my mind. Intellectual property isn't really property.  I'll explain in a bit. I'm not being sarcastic. I think I was mis-analyzing things. I must now admit I was wrong. F'k.

I'll get back to this in a bit.

[Kshartle]

Hahaha. That was a joke fellas. Challenging PS's premise around why lack of scarcity of ideas is a valid reason to reject ideas as property.

But K you're going to love this...


I've just changed my mind. Intellectual property isn't really property.  I'll explain in a bit. I'm not being sarcastic. I think I was mis-analyzing things. I must now admit I was wrong. F'k.

I'll get back to this in a bit.

it's awesome to change your belief about something.

I know you were just using the literal meaning of his argument.

[Pointedstick]

Hahaha. That was a joke fellas. Challenging PS's premise around why lack of scarcity of ideas is a valid reason to reject ideas as property.

But K you're going to love this...


I've just changed my mind. Intellectual property isn't really property.  I'll explain in a bit. I'm not being sarcastic. I think I was mis-analyzing things. I must now admit I was wrong. F'k.

I'll get back to this in a bit.

   

Let me explain my last point a bit, though, if only for the benefit of others who are following along:

Good ideas are scarce. Creativity is scarce. Good processes are scarce. Scientific proofs are scarce.

I think we may have differing definitions of scarcity. Because I don't think any of those things are scarce.

Economically speaking, and for the purposes of this discussion, "scarce" doesn't mean "uncommon" or "rare." It means "limited in the amount of it that exists or can be made to exist." In this definition, a car, a house, or a cruise ship are all scarce because there is a limited amount of raw material that can be fashioned into them as long as we're stuck on planet earth. However, good ideas, creativity, good processes, or scientific proofs are not scarce. There is nothing limiting the amount of those things that can exist. Just because they may be challenging to create, does not make them economically scarce.

Your point about matter being non-scarce is actually true… but exposes a detail: matter may be non-scarce, but most of it is inaccessible. If, as in my hypothetical example, we had access to all the matter in the universe and could rearrange it at zero cost, then yes, matter-based things should not be property anymore. We always have access to all the ideas in the universe, though. There isn't a limit to the accessible number of ideas that we butt up against.

[moda0306]

A lot of eventual knowledge is unaccessable as well.  Just ask my friends.  My wisdom isn't easily accessible.

[Mountaineer]

If matter isn't scarce, then energy isn't scarce.  (E=mc^2)  Therefore, nothing is scarce if you draw the boundary big enough, i.e. the universe. 

This line of thinking is beginning to prove my point (I think it may have been in the morality or maybe the religion thread, but that is so long ago I forget) that we humans own absolutely nothing (i.e. we own zero property, physical or intellectual or our thoughts; we are just stewards), it is ALL on loan from God who created everything from nothing and is the ultimate owner.

As an aside, I was just beginning to buy in to Pointedsticks idea that scarcity is the fundamental.  Then this idea came along from moda about matter not being scarce and got me pondering. 

... Mountaineer

[moda0306]

I had to change my mind, fellas.

PS's post about controlling how you share information got me thinking... You CONTROL the way you share information, and can CONTRACT with anyone who hears it not to share it with anyone else.  So a musician can get a signed contract by CD-buyers to not replicate or share their music.  An engineering consultant can contract with his clients to NOT share his secrets or reverse-engineer his technology to compete with him.

You ALWAYS control the nature of how you release information, and while I think it is pretty unrealistic to contract with every customer in all circumstances where I'd like to see certain IP principles protected, nobody has a fundamental RIGHT to release information to the public and then limit how that information is shared.  You can, however, contract with every customer you have to protect your creativity.

I was wrong.  Even if we accept property is real, IP ain't it the way we think of it.  I think the principal of wanting to protect your creative capital is a valid one, but limiting people's free activity that you did NOT contract with is not ok.

Now, as a Social Engineer In Chief, I'm still glad we have it, same as I'm glad we have courts even though they violate the PRINCIPLE of property in the first place by stealing from people by force to pay for their costs.  I realize this contradicts itself.  There are competing principles in morality, IMO.  One of which is the fact that we are essentially forced to force each other due to the fact that we have limited resources with which to live/share, and have to allocate them accordingly.  So the fact that we do that via government is just one way to do it, and one that IMO leads to more freedom, not less.  And since utilitarianism is an important moral measuring stick to refer to at times, I support the violation of one principal in hopes of recognizing another.

[Kshartle]

1.  nobody has a fundamental RIGHT to release information to the public and then limit how that information is shared. 

2.  limiting people's free activity that you did NOT contract with is not ok.

Why and why?

These are assertions that I agree with completely. I'm just curious why you say that. The reason isn't explained in your post.

[moda0306]

K,

To your assertion that freedom to travel where one pleases is not a natural right, what if I found myself on my property COMPLETELY surrounded by another person's property, who builds a fence around mine.  Is this a valid exercise of his property rights?

What if I've been using a valley to travel safely from point A to point B for decades, and someone decides to "homestead it" by planting crops, and denies access to any "trespassers."  Did I have a right to travel before he homesteaded it?  If so, how did I lose that right?

Further, even though pollution is not necessary as a side-effect of SOME uses of property, a TON of what we consider valid property positions today consist of considerable pollution.  Are these positions invalid due to the contradiction they create?  If not, why not?

I still don't think you've drawn a reliable line upon which we can realize when morally valid private property has been established.  I'm going to propose some scenarios.  Could you please inform me when property has been established, based on the concept that effects of your actions are "your property?"

Also.. another concept you've introduced is an ability to "exercise" your property rights.  Could you please elaborate on this?  What does it mean to "exercise" your property rights?


A man breathes oxygen and emits CO2.  Is the CO2 his "property?"

A man travels through a valley.  Is the valley his "property?"

A man picks an apple in the valley. Is the apple now his property?  Is the tree? Is the valley property yet?

A man cuts down the apple tree in the valley.  Is the wood now his property?  All the apples?  Is the valley his property yet?

A man cuts down an entire grove of apple trees in the valley.  Is all the wood and apples his property?  Is the valley his property yet?

A man builds a small hut with apple wood, and only returns every summer.  Winters he travels south. Is the hut his property?  Can anyone else use it?  Is the valley his property yet?

A man loves the natural setting of the valley.  He builds a fence around it claiming it as his.  There are "No Tresspassing" signs all over the place warning visitors.  He even leaves for several months at a time.  Is the valley his property yet?

A man strip mines the entire valley to mine coal, and horribly pollutes the river that runs through it in the process.  Is the valley now his property?  Is the river now his property, even downstream?  If nobody has the natural right to use the river, does the man have a natural obligation not to pollute it?


We probably would have gotten to this in page 296,522 of the Proving Morality thread, when we've moved on from your proof of self-ownership to the proof of ownership of resources as property, but I just couldn't wait that long.

[moda0306]

1.  nobody has a fundamental RIGHT to release information to the public and then limit how that information is shared. 

2.  limiting people's free activity that you did NOT contract with is not ok.

Why and why?

These are assertions that I agree with completely. I'm just curious why you say that. The reason isn't explained in your post.

Because I do believe in individual sovereignty as a general moral principal.  I also believe these rights and conscious control of ourselves imply certain obligations about how you interact with others (not committing fraud... forming contracts and abiding by them).

Combined with this moral philosophy, I have a few other considerations...

1) I think that there are very few positive moral obligations that we have.  For instance, if I see a girl drowning in a shallow pool, my instinct is to say that I have the obligation to save her, or at LEAST to yell for help. 

2) Our general moral obligation to NOT initiate force against one another combined with having to share land and resources that we did not ourselves create (and the fact that we need these to survive) puts us in a moral dilemma.  We MUST force our wills upon each other to all survive.  This means it's a matter of degree and nature of the force, not whether it will exist.  I believe we need to apply utilitarian tools that DO violate the initial principle of individual sovereignty to allow ourselves to survive, since we are also intrinsically valuable.  The principle of individual sovereignty is designed to recognize our consciousness.  The principle of utility-maximization is there to recognize the intrinsic value present when more people are alive and more people are happy.

The difference in the degree and/or nature of force is an important distinction.  If all force violates a principle, this leads us to the conclusion that all force is equally bad.  This can't be true.  We're operating on a false premise.  Genocide is worse than punching someone in the face.  So as we realize that certain forms of force are considerably worse than others, a utilitarian method of understanding force is gong to be FAR more useful than a principle method when we are all trapped in a moral dilemma, anyway.


You could say that a principle that doesn't ALWAYS hold is not a principle at all... This is a fair assessment.  And would lead me not to "NAP" as being a guideline for personal behavior, but the HB definition of morality, which is whatever will produce me the most happiness.  This is my "backup." 

Notice, I didn't claim that any of this is self-evident or provable.  It's just codes of behavior that recognize certain realities about conscious beings.  I can't back it up with much logic.  Logic only helps me organize my thoughts about it and recognize its contradictions, and helps me try to deal with those contradictions.

[Mountaineer]

K,

To your assertion that freedom to travel where one pleases is not a natural right, what if I found myself on my property COMPLETELY surrounded by another person's property, who builds a fence around mine.  Is this a valid exercise of his property rights?

What if I've been using a valley to travel safely from point A to point B for decades, and someone decides to "homestead it" by planting crops, and denies access to any "trespassers."  Did I have a right to travel before he homesteaded it?  If so, how did I lose that right?

Further, even though pollution is not necessary as a side-effect of SOME uses of property, a TON of what we consider valid property positions today consist of considerable pollution.  Are these positions invalid due to the contradiction they create?  If not, why not?

I still don't think you've drawn a reliable line upon which we can realize when morally valid private property has been established.  I'm going to propose some scenarios.  Could you please inform me when property has been established, based on the concept that effects of your actions are "your property?"

Also.. another concept you've introduced is an ability to "exercise" your property rights.  Could you please elaborate on this?  What does it mean to "exercise" your property rights?


A man breathes oxygen and emits CO2.  Is the CO2 his "property?"

A man travels through a valley.  Is the valley his "property?"

A man picks an apple in the valley. Is the apple now his property?  Is the tree? Is the valley property yet?

A man cuts down the apple tree in the valley.  Is the wood now his property?  All the apples?  Is the valley his property yet?

A man cuts down an entire grove of apple trees in the valley.  Is all the wood and apples his property?  Is the valley his property yet?

A man builds a small hut with apple wood, and only returns every summer.  Winters he travels south. Is the hut his property?  Can anyone else use it?  Is the valley his property yet?

A man loves the natural setting of the valley.  He builds a fence around it claiming it as his.  There are "No Tresspassing" signs all over the place warning visitors.  He even leaves for several months at a time.  Is the valley his property yet?

A man strip mines the entire valley to mine coal, and horribly pollutes the river that runs through it in the process.  Is the valley now his property?  Is the river now his property, even downstream?  If nobody has the natural right to use the river, does the man have a natural obligation not to pollute it?


We probably would have gotten to this in page 296,522 of the Proving Morality thread, when we've moved on from your proof of self-ownership to the proof of ownership of resources as property, but I just couldn't wait that long.

moda,

I'm not sure where you shook out in the Evolution thread, but I'm assuming you are a supporter of that hypothesis vs. creationism. 

If that be the case, the answer to all your questions above might be "he who has the biggest stick wins the property" ... a no brainer assuming you are a "survival of the fittest" supporter.  On the other hand, if you are a supporter of an external moral system, e.g. based on God's Word, you might shake out somewhat differently.

... Mountaineer

... Mountaineer

[Tyler]

From a product design perspective, IP is very real and should be enforced for the benefit of both innovation and the consumer.  New products often require many years and millions of dollars to develop, and forward-thinking companies who make such investments should be able to profit from their work without fear of others immediately stealing their well-earned profits with no effort spent.  IP categories like trademarks and trade dress also exist to protect customers from deceptive marketing practices, where someone may make a cheap knockoff and intentionally try to pass it off through its design or packaging as a well-known brand. 

That said, as with any area of law there is opportunity for abuse.  I have no sympathy for patent trolls who seek to profit off of the legal system rather than their own work. 

[moda0306]

Mountaineer,

Evolution is a scientific theory.  Creationism is an unprovable collection of assertions with little empirical backing.  Kind of like "I have a unicorn in my house" or "there's a giant snake at the center of pluto."  Well not quite that bad...



Stating that "survival of the fittest" is the way that life has progressed does not imply a MORAL concept any more than stating that humans have committed murder implies that murder isn't wrong.  A statement of fact about nature is NOT a statement about what a human OUGHT to do as a matter of morality.

Trying to conflate these conversations is a logical error.

Further, the existence of a creator doesn't imply morality.  If morality is a code of behavior we have an imperative to follow, you need a driver for that imperative.  "He created me" doesn't give us that logical imperative.  Any logical imperative is not self-evident, but simply another arbitrary imperative.

I provide this argument:

1) God created us.
2) God wants us to engage in behavior X.

Therefore, we OUGHT to engage in behavior X.



It's an invalid argument.  There is NO reasonable connection between creation and giving conscious beings a moral imperative to act a certain way, unless we establish other unprovable imperatives (We OUGHT to do things a creator asks us to do).

If you can provide me a valid argument that assumes God's existence, and validly concludes a moral imperative, I'd love to see it.