I note your scare quotes. They're a bit of a silly thing to put in
because the United States and other jurisdictions *have* defined
intellectual property.
They have defined copyright, trademarks, patents, and some places a
variant kind of design protection. "Intellectual property" is a
mismash made over these very different granted limited monopolies.
We can disagree with the implementations as
they stand, and I think that most modern computer scientists disagree
with the current implementations. HOWEVER, I think that "theft" is
still an appropriate word as relates to illicit e-books. You are
depriving an author of a sale to which they would otherwise be
entitled and are therefore denying them income to which they are
entitled.
HOWEVER; I still think "theft" is an appropriate word as relates to
nonsense postings. You are depriving a reader of his time and mental
resources which they would otherwise e entitled and are therefore
denying them the opportunity to make income which they would otherwise
have.
No, didn't think we felt that shoe fit, either.
The point is that the copying does NOT deprive the author of anything.
In fact, copying MAY lead to higher direct income.
There are six cases here:
(1) Do not download and do not buy
(2) Do not download and do buy
(3) Download and buy, would buy without download
(4) Download and buy, would not buy without download
(5) Download and do not buy, would buy without downloaded
(6) Download and do not buy, would not buy without download
Classifying all cases from (3) to (6) as "theft" tend to result in
muddled thinking, including the assumption that there's always lost
revenue. This is not true. Loss of revenue hinges on (5) being
greater than (4). The rest of the cases is a red herring; they make
no difference to revenue, and just create more value in society by
making the work available to more people (or available in a new form.)
Both the statistical and the anecdotal evidence I have seen indicate
that (4) is in fact larger than (5) for aggregate copying/purchasing,
with the statistics covering music, and the anecdotal evidence
covering music, movies, and self development books.
Like it or not, we *must* have some legal regime for protecting the
intellectual work and output of people whose skills are best suited
that direction.
Like it or not, we *must* have guilds to protect against unlicensed
production of beads.
Like it or not, we *must* have protection for the buggy whip manufacturers.
Like it or not, we *must* have slaves working the cotton fields.
There's no must in either of that. It is a choice of laws, a choice
where society pays with a set of restrictions covering the activities
for some (or many people) to further other activities, and where
change in technology change the payoffs for various groups. We may
choose to keep protection, or we may choose not to, and this will give
different payoffs for different groups in society, leading to
different activity. We are heavily invested in the present form, so
changes will be expensive. It is difficult to say whether a different
set of restrictions would be better for society as a whole or not.
However, there is no "*must*" about it. We managed to live well
without these restrictions, and I have not seen anybody that have
shown in any convincing way that we wouldn't be doing reasonably well
without them today. If you've got simulation results or research
results that show otherwise, I'd be very interested in seeing them.
'cause I don't know of any proper research (simulations or similar)
that says much at all here, just a bunch of people taking it for
granted that we "have to have".
Eivind.