Ownership

I posted an 'essay' a month or two ago where I expressed some copyleft ideas and proposed a thesis against the notion of copyright. I made sure to mention that, although I liked the idea, I saw some obvious difficulties that would need some more explaination. I'm going to try to modify and further develope my ideas by exploring the notion of ownership in general.

Before I continue, here is the previous article: Music.

I am, in general, a follower of Lockean ideas. As such, I am a firm beleiver in the labor theory of ownership (not the labor theory of value.)I will explain: At the start, no human is entiteled to anything except himself. No rock, tree, or animal is his. The material world is not owned by human beings but be God. (Or, by nobody if you're an Atheist; functionally they are the same.) Labor, in my opinion, is a part of own's self. By infusing something with my labor, I infuse it with a part of me. The labor came from me so it is mine and an extension of myself. So I come to own by working.

So, take a rock. This rock is unowned. Now suppose I owere to break that rock until it had a sharp edge. I have now put labor into that rock; I have infused it with a piece of myself. The labor in the rock now belongs to me and, insomuch as the rock is inseperable from that labor, it belongs to me as well. My labor is owned by me because it comes from me; it is an extension of myself. What does not come from me is not owned by me. The rock, per se, is not owned by me, the labor in is owned by me and for some to do something with the rock imply a vandalism or trespassing on my labor, essencially an attack on myself. This, I believe, is the nature of ownership.

Let's apply this to intellectual property. Let us suppose someone creates a song. For now it is in that persons head. This song is the property of that person. It is the property of that person because of the labor that went into it. More particularly, the labor that the person has put into the song is his. Now suppose this person sings this song and I hear it. Now suppose I repeat the song. Have I trespassed against this persons property? No, because I have not touched his labor. The song still exists in his head exactly so I have neither vandalized nor trespassed against that labor. His singing of the song is also the same, I didn't affect his singing. So my storing the song in my head and singing it outloud does not constitute stealing.

Here's the reason. Our friend's labor went into a two instances of that song, the one in his head, and the one he sang. Those two instances are his; I'm not permitted to affect them. But, I couldn't if I wanted to anyway. His labor didn't go into the instance in my head or the instance I sang. MY labor went into those. I listened and formed the song in my head and I sang, so those instances are MINE. Our friend has no claim to them. Now, the common presupisition, is that our friend owns the form of the song or the idea of the song, hence the phrase, "intellectual property," but this is ridiculous. Our friend's labor did not go into this form because the form pre-existed his labor. Any student of Plato knows that the forms are eternal and trancend there material counterparts. Our friend did not create the form for that song. He created the song using it's form. So did I. The potential already existed. Our friend merely discovered the potential for the song and actualized it. I did the same thing in another instance.

Now one may bring up the objection of dependence. Our friend 'discovered' the song, all by himself, but I only listened to him and sang what I heard, thus I profited from his labor. By this logic, I would 'owe' our friend something because I benefited from him; because I recieved something from him, the help from his singing, He deserves something from me, say money. This is wrong however. He cannot demand payment for something he did without my consent. Neither can a man on the street and wash my window without my permission and expect a payment, nor can this man sing and expect me to pay him, even if I go so far as to repeat his song. Just because one person benefits from anothers labor doesn't mean that the first owes the latter anything. I could clean up my front lawn it might make the neighborhood nicer than if I did not, but I would not then be able to demand from the neighbors payment for the rise in property value.

So, our friend is in no position to complain if I copy him and sing 'his' song, or if you copy me and sing the 'same' song, or, if one person at a time, the song is spread all over the world. He is not, by right, owed royalties.

One cannot own a form. On cannot own a form because it is intangable. As I said before, one only owns that which comes from his own person but one cannot inject his labor into an intagible form. One can merely affect the things that possess said form and change them. For this reason, the notion, of 'intellectual property' is an oxymoron.