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All this sort of intellectual property market does is move the decision to "hire" someone, that is to use their work in exchange for money, to after the work has been executed rather than before.

The person has produced the work and they offer the opportunity to enter into an agreement for payment after the fact.

You say you're fine with entering into an agreement before the work is produced, but you don't believe it should be possible to enter into such an agreement after the fact. This doesn't seem very consistent to me.

Of course it's not consistent. The only way it makes sense is if it's not consistent. Why should I have to pay for the creation of something that already exists?

Like a car, or a house?

Sure. Why would I pay you to build a car or a house that already exists?

So you have commissioned everything you own or use before it was created?

No. Why would you say that? Most of the things I own already existed before I acquired them.

Look at the big picture of the system, not at single transactions. With payment after the fact, artists can optionally use their gut feeling about demand and produce something that they think may sell without having any reputation beforehand. I think that this is essential to entrepreneurship and would hate to see it lost.

Many arguments about piracy don't make sense until you look at the big picture. To someone actively selling software, even the "stolen car" analogy makes sense. If everybody steals cars, you go out of business. If everybody steals software, you go out of business. That in the latter case you "lose $0" doesn't help you pay your bills.

Wow. If everyone could copy whatever car they wanted for free, that would be a good thing. Since everyone would already have a car, car salesmen would go out of business. That's exactly what should happen.

Again, you are not looking at the big picture.

If you physically stole cars but left the complete per-unit cost in cash there, then you wouldn't have done anything wrong, right? Alternatively, you have a machine that makes perfect copies. Both work the same for this purpose.

Because you only focus on the per-unit cost. But even cars have fixed, one-time R&D costs that are distributed on each sold car totally arbitrarily just as the fixed costs for producing digital goods area distributed totally arbitrarily on each download/CD/whatever. The only difference is that digital goods have virtually no per unit-costs to go along with it. Still, in both cases, you need frameworks to reward creative/R&D work if you want it to happen (especially in a competitive way).

If you copy all music and all cars, then everybody has a car and music, but what is the incentive to produce better cars and new music later? That is the big picture.

Yes. Cars do have fixed one-time R&D costs. If you can freely copy all cars, the incentive to design/produce a better car would then have to be something other than money. As an example, Greenpeace might want to cut vehicle emissions in half, so they'd research and develop a way to do it.

Did you really just discount the entire digital realm as worthless because of the inherent fungibility of bits? Thank God not everyone thinks like you, otherwise our technological progress would basically grind to a halt, as people would be back to trading 6 pigs for 10 loaves of bread.

No. I did not. Just because something can't be bought or sold does not mean it lacks worth. Please explain why you think "technological progress would basically grind to a halt" in a world where people are allowed to collaborate freely.

Because while I'm not sure what kind of world you live in, in mine I need money to put a roof over my head and food on the table - things that according to your world-view definitely do have monetary value.

If creating anything digital makes it basically a free-for-all on who can grab it for free faster, then I'm not going to bother as it's not paying my bills. And, in case you haven't noticed, most of our world is pretty much reliant on the digital now.

I'm all for free-software and public-domain work, but there's a difference between supporting it and forcing everyone else to follow along. Like it or not, not everyone can or wants to make money out of giving their work away for free.

I live in a world where, due to the continuous advancement of technological efficiency and the resulting elimintation of jobs, it's becoming increasingly ridiculous to expect people to work for a living. Society no longer needs contributions from everyone.

When you get to the point where what you do on a day-to-day basis is no longer directly tied to your livelihood, what will you do? As the number of ways in which an individual can make money rapidly dwindles, what will humanity do?

I tend to agree, though this kind of reasoning followed through leads to very nasty conclusions. A fully automated world could eliminate most people, eventually, seeing them as parasites and freeloaders, but who would want to live in that?

People can still contribute in lots of ways which are severely under-appreciated by the capitalist system but appreciated by other people. There will hopefully be a point at which cutthroat "efficiency" and "productivity" is not the only goal anymore. After all, redundant and decentralized systems are more fail-safe, stable, and common in nature.

And the people are there, they may just as well do something... preferably something that makes them feel useful and belonging. Like open source software for programmers, art for creative people, caring for the old and wounded for empathic people, and so on...

Then again I might be a hopeless idealist. In that case, good luck holding on to a piece of the ever-smaller pie. The next round of musical chairs might be my, or your obsolence.

I don't think you're a hopeless idealist. In fact, I'm with you. I fully believe that we're headed toward a world in which most people are sitting around all day doing the equivalent of playing World of Warcraft. But that's not a bad thing. Where others might see freeloaders and parasites, I see potential. Give everyone the opportunity to do something meaningful and some of them will. And some of those meaningful contributions might not be anything any of us ever dreamed of paying for.

The point of automation is to take care of the easy stuff, which allows us to focus on the cool stuff. I know for a fact that there are individuals out there who, even if their livelihood is taken care of, will still want to push the human race forward.

No nasty conclusions. =)

So let's say say we have essential work for 50% of all available manhours. Why, then, is it not a great thing that the other 50% can be paid even when they are just producing digital, intangible goods? I think rising productivity is actually a great argument in favor of copyright laws.

I should probably point out that 50% was just a random, badly chosen constant. It's not a zero-sum game anyway.

But fact is that thanks to copyright laws, one can save some money from copyright-unrelated work, take a break to invest in a game, album or movie; and if people like it, one can make money with it, for which others agree to do a little more copyright-unrelated work on their part.

The alternative is that everyone does copyright-unrelated work and creates goods in their free time, outside of all market mechanics. But I'd rather let the (democratically) good artists have more free time to do their work, and I don't see anything wrong with it.

You bring up an interesting point. I think it is indeed a great thing that people can be paid even when they are just producing digital, intangible goods. What I don't think is great is when they are paid for having produced intangible goods. The difference is between "when" and "for." People should be paid simply for being human, and then on top of that, they should be paid for anything they sell that has value, whether it be their time or a physical object. As you say, it's not a zero-sum game. The net weath of humanity is increasing. The pie isn't actually getting smaller. It's getting bigger. The problem is, it's becoming increasingly difficult to divide up that pie using capitalism alone.

Markets will rise and markets will fall. It's natural. It's supply and demand. It's capitalism. There are laws that artificially protect certain specific markets at the expense of the more general free market. The copyright laws fall into this category. But why do we need to protect markets from natural economic forces? I don't think we do. These protections are causing some nasty side effects.

The alternative is that the government takes a big chunk of the pie and divides it up evenly among its citizens. This will allow us to unchain the economy from unneccessary regulation. Minimum wages? No longer any need. Copyright exclusivity? No longer any need.

I'd rather let anyone -- good artists, bad artists, scientists, atheletes -- have more time to do whatever they want. I'd rather automate away as many jobs as possible. We're approaching the point when the unemployment rate will positively correlate with prosperity.

But as long as the economic system as a whole does not work as you describe it, isn't it unproductive to strip artists of their rights in the current system before we implement a new one?

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And there are many people with free time already (me included). The whole free market argument goes both ways. Right now we allow both copyrighted and "free" content on the market. Why can't copyleft content just win out in the market of consumption if the existence copyright doesn't have a conceptual advantage?

That's a very good question, but my answer is no for a few reasons.

1. Change is gradual. Copyright exclusivity can slowly be ramped down at the same time the government gradually provides more and more services for its citizens. One doesn't have to come before the other. Meanwhile, there certainly shouldn't be any new enforcement of copyright (or patent) exclusivity where none existed before.

2. Copyrights aren't rights. They're tradable monopolies upheld by the government. You'd actually be giving artists more rights by removing exclusivity. No longer would be able to take away their right to do whatever they want with their own work. The artists who are in it for the money are doing it for the wrong reasons.

3. The economy will never work as I describe it as long as copyright exclusivity enforced. I don't believe in copyleft. It still involves keeping track of licenses on everything, which can get very out of hand. Big corporations should be able to use free software too.

Copyright exclusivity is the only reason an intellectual property market exists today. The law can affect the economy and vice versa. We can bootstrap ourselves out of this mess.

So you want a world wiyh no more pro quality books, films, music or TV series?

No. I want a world where people write books because they have something to say and they want as many people as possible to read what they have to say.

"Pro quality" TV series? You mean like "CSI: Miami"? Or "Gilligan's Island"? Or do you mean movies like "The Smurfs" or the US version of "The Vanishing" or "Leave it To Beaver"?

Yes, I'd gladly do without all that TV and all the movies, and most or all of the books. Oh, and the popular music. Especially the music by Selena Gomez and Demi Lovato and Ashlee Simpson.

I mean literally any movie that wasn't made by amateurs supported by another job, or philanthropic donations, or advertising funded.

Its low to pick only the worst bits as a counterargument; it also implies no pro quality TV you like. And that you are willing to screw over people who genuinely do like Selena Gomez and Gilligan's Island and the like, just because you don't.

There's a difference between pro and pro quality. Even then, pro quality is hard to define. I would like a world where higher quality TV shows are more common.

I didn't just pick out the worst bits: there's far worse, that I couldn't even remember. How many "brand new shows" from last Tee Vee season do you watch? I know how many I do: none.

Similar, popular music.

I probably wouldn't even miss Pixar movies at this point: we're getting to the point that "amateurs" can do them.

you are willing to screw over people who genuinely do like ... Gilligan's Island ... because you don't.

Your response irritated me beyond its level of highhandedness. And I finally figured out why: I actually do like Gilligan's Island. I even bought "The Professor's" tell-all book, "Here On Gilligan's Isle". It doesn't matter if I like "Gilligan's Ilsand" or not, it's of low quality. The acting was low, the writing was low, and the production was laughable. That hasn't kept me from liking it, or regarding it as High Bulldada.

Sherwood Schwartz and CBS should be ashamed of putting out such schlock, whether I like it or not, and you should be ashamed of deciding you know what my aesthetics are.

But I'm also curious: why does a movie made by people supported by another job, or philanthropic donations, or one funded by advertising not meet the standard of "pro quality"?

Oh get over trying to shame me for "deciding I know what your ethics are" (I did no such thing and wouldn't know where to start). I've never even seen Gilligan's Island, I didn't know it was ropey quality, only that the parent had dismissed it and the entire industry because he thought it lowbrow.

Funded by advertising is a bit different it can still be run like a traditional business, but where is the amateur TV as good as BBC Frozen Planet, or Sherlock, Wallander or QI? And they're just people talking in scenic locations - or in a big room, nothing requiring months of filming and hundreds of people.

Where are the part time charity funded films like Lord of the Rings or The Shawshank Redemption? The Shining? 2001? Kill Bill?

Amateur work can be good, but mostly it's worse than professional work that's the informal definition of the difference between amateur and professional. The formal one being "profession: paid work".

I want that world! Or more precisely, I want to take that chance, due to a mixture of:

* I think it likely that we'll still get quality works produced;

* I think we have plenty of quality books, films, music and TV series already (more than one can consume in a lifetime), so the opportunity cost of not getting more isn't so high, and

* it's much more important to me not to impede the free dissemination of information.