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Comment by dragonwriter | Hacker News Reader

> How can intangible things be owned?

The same way anything else can be; “ownership” is the legal right to exclude others from some set of actions with regard to something. Whether the something is tangible or not is basically immaterial, except as tongue set of possible actions that might be governed by ownership.

> Intangible things aren't scarce.

So? Property is about structuring incentives to create value, it is not intrinsically tied to scarcity (except that property—the legal exclusive privilege—is inherently scarce even if it's subject is not.)

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Just because property can be used to artificially create scarcity, due to laws that were piled on by centuries of history and common use, does not change the nature of property.

You are not contradicting his idea of property, what you say only has an impact on how to use the current system. It's not relevant to the conversation.

The idea is to define property, to get the first principles before deciding how the Law should be to protect those principles.

To put it another way: that the current laws can be used to create a perversion of property that allows artificial scarcity, does not say anything about the nature of property itself.

> property—the legal exclusive privilege

There is a concept of property that predates and transcends your legal system, so this definition is insufficient.

> Property is about structuring incentives to create value

I think we just have a fundamental disagreement. That's not how I see property. I see property as a vehicle for peaceful conflict resolution. And I do see it as intrinsically tied to scarcity.

> I see property as a vehicle for peaceful conflict resolution.

Even if we accept that that is the sole purpose of property, I think it's indisputable that the desire to control due to sweat equity in a creation vs. the desire to free ride on it because it is “not scarce” is a source of conflict in the types of things covered by IP that is in need of resolution.

Probably. I just don't support the use of a coercive government to be responsible for resolving those things.

Aren't all agreements enforced via coercion? either via the law/government or personally (which can be much worse)

No, not all. Or at least, no, I don't see it that way. But this is getting deep into the weeds of semantics. The key is that coercion is typically defined to mean the initiation of some kind of physical aggression (or threat of it). I'd recommend Stephan Kinsella's "Against Intellectual Property" if you want a more philosophical take on it. But beware, he is a student of an unorthodox branch of economics, so depending on your flexibility, you may or may not dismiss it immediately as nutty mumbo jumbo.

I think the important bit here is that my outlook does not require such an obvious inconsistency.

Considering possession of land is one of the leading causes of war, I would hardly see property as a vehicle for peaceful conflict resolution.

Money in exchange for property as a lubricant for exchange of property (or the ownership and control over that property) is a vehicle for peaceful conflict resolution.

> Considering possession of land is one of the leading causes of war, I would hardly see property as a vehicle for peaceful conflict resolution.

Peaceful conflict resolution only works when all parties to the conflict desire peace. In the presence of a conflict among peace-desiring parties, property is the notion that one party has the right to determine disposition of the tangible item in question. If they didn’t have a concept of property that they all assented to, then they would be more likely to fight about it.

> Money in exchange for property as a lubricant for exchange of property (or the ownership and control over that property) is a vehicle for peaceful conflict resolution.

The right to exchange for consideration presupposes property rights. You’re agreeing with the OP

Strongly disagree. War and conflict is always possible, no matter what you do. But if we had no system for saying "this is mine and that is yours," then even the smallest disputes could lead to violence.

Lots of people have written romance plays, but there's only one Romeo and Juliet.

There is scarcity in the relative value of intangible things.

When I make a copy of Romeo and Juliet, I don’t deprive anyone of their copy. This is what is meant by intangibles not being scarce.

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