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Comment by Zigurd | Hacker News Reader

Intellectual property is an Americanism that metastasized. It's a global idea not because of it's own merits, but because it was propelled by American treaties and diplomacy during an era when America was dominant.

One irony in that is the fact that the Framers were skeptical of intellectual property. In fact, they didn't call it intellectual property. Even less did they call it "intellectual property rights." It was a temporarily granted monopoly. It was not considered to be a right.

How is that? All your actual rights are assumed to exist. The Bill of Rights explicitly says it isn't the List of Rights. That's because your rights predate any laws and constitutions. You simply have them, and governments are more or less just in observing that you have rights and in not trampling them.

This is key to making the US constitution future-proof. It carves out a set of legitimate powers. It doesn't enumerate your rights: to travel by car or jet-pack, or space-warp, to use unbreakable codes, to marry the person you love, etc.

Patents and copyright monopolies, on the other hand, are explicitly granted, and, unlike your rights, they expire. The congress could at a whim change patent and copyright terms to a week, a day, a nanosecond, and there would be no constitutional case against that law. Because these grants of monopoly are NOT rights.

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> Intellectual property is an Americanism that metastasized.

Patents were invented in Venice and Copyrights in England before the Colonies even existed. Trademarks date from the 13th century.

> One irony in that is the fact that the Framers were skeptical of intellectual property. In fact, they didn't call it intellectual property.

One should hope so, given that the term was invented in Europe the 19th century, and was (and still is largely) a European concept.

> How is that? All your actual rights are assumed to exist.

These aren't inalienable rights in the sense you're using (and abusing). They're rights in the sense of "copyRIGHT". It's an old alternative use of the term.

Patents and trademarks are not "intellectual property". They are temporary monopoly privledges. Before the americans came along, these ideas were blatant and well understood. Somewhere around the time of thr french revolution, rewarding special interests with monopoly privledges became scary, because it seemed an awful lot like the fake rights given to the aristocracy. So the monopolists and the special interest lobby re-packaged the same crap in the lingo of the french revolution and the enlightenment. The "enlightened" marketing PR spin for government granted monopoly became "rights" as a result. The "intellectual" was adopted under the umpbrella of meritocracy and rule by the learned (ie, as opposed to "birth" rights). Every time someone repeats this phrase its just old-skool marketing and brainwashing at work.

I hate to break it to you, but all property is a government granted monopoly. This place I call "my yard" isn't "mine" in any real sense. I didn't make it. It has existed long before I was born and will exist long after I'm gone. I can't defend it, I don't have any guns or ammo. But I have exclusive use of it ("a monopoly") because the government granted it to me.

It is worth drawing a distinction between that which requires a coercive third party like government to enforce (e.g., intellectual property) and that which does not require such a thing (defending property).

The distinction is a direct consequence of the fact that intellectual property isn't actually property. (Because it is not scarce.)

>It is worth drawing a distinction between that which requires a coercive third party like government to enforce (e.g., intellectual property) and that which does not require such a thing (defending property).

I don't believe this distinction applies here. Not all IP requires the government to enforce it (e.g. trade secrets). Conversely, if someone were to move into my yard, or steal something from me, I would call Police (an agent of the government) to enforce my property rights.

Note: I'm not trying to defend or ague for property rights, merely pointing out that this particular distinction is in valid, as the poster above pointed out -- all property is, to an extent, government enforced.

Perhaps I should have been more clear. I consider the fundamental concept of intellectual property to be the application of a body of law to the ownership of ideas. This body of law must be enforced by some coercive third party. (I defer to Stephan Kinsella's "Against Intellectual Property" - http://mises.org/journals/jls/15_2/15_2_1.pdf - for an explanation of why that is.)

Property rights over tangible things (whose use is physically exclusionary) do not require the defense of a coercive third party. That this is how the world works in the US today does not imply it is the only way. For example, I could defend my property with my own weapons. Or more likely, I could pay someone else to defend it for me.

>Property rights over tangible things (whose use is physically exclusionary) do not require the defense of a coercive third party.

I would still claim that the distinction you're drawing is arbitrary. Yes physical objects and ideas are different and the ways one goes about defending them will, of course also be different. The defense of intellectual property does not, in principle, require enforcement by a coercive third party. I could defend it by keeping it a secrete, or announce to the word that I am in fact the inventor (ownership of an idea does not necessarily have to imply exclusive use of it).

You're claiming that the attribute of physical exclusivity is essential to the notion of "property"; I can argue that it is incidental. The import thing is that thorough appropriating your property, I am depriving you of some tangible benefit. In case of physical property, the benefit is the (necessarily) exclusive use of that property. In case of intellectual property, the benefit maybe competitive advantage (if I choose to keep my knowledge secret), or a revenue stream (if I choose to allow others to benefit from my knowledge in return for compensation), or reputation and status (in being acknowledged as the inventor).

That paper makes the same erroneous assumption:

"Only tangible, scarce resources are the possible object of interpersonal conflict, so it is only for them that property rules are applicable."

This obviously wrong. Reputation, influence (political religious, etc), honor, status, competitiveness -- all quality sources of "interpersonal conflict".

In fact, the paper conveniently avoids tackling some forms of intellectual property--trade secretes and trademarks-- by dismissing them as "less problematic" (thus tacitly acknowledging the validity of the concept of "intellectual property") and instead chooses to focus on copyrights and patents (both of which are indeed severely flawed -- today even more so then when the paper was originally published). It is thus drawing an arbitrary distinction between different forms of intellectual property -- something it goes on to condemn later. Note that the classification of physical property is also essentially arbitrary (e.g. the notion of "private property", as applied to physical objects, was far weaker in the Soviet Union, and still is elsewhere in the world, than it is in the US).

EDIT: grammar + clarity.

> I could defend it by keeping it a secrete, or announce to the word that I am in fact the inventor (ownership of an idea does not necessarily have to imply exclusive use of it).

Defense of property is defense from an aggressor trying to take that property from you. The things you've noted may be defense in some general way, but they certainly aren't the sort of "self defense" that is implied when speaking of defending one's property.

In particular, defense ought to be expanded to "the legitimate use of physical force or threat of force in proportionate response to the initial use of physical force or threat of force against your person or property."

In this sense, IP absolutely requires a coercive third party.

> You're claiming that the attribute of physical exclusivity is essential to the notion of "property"; I can argue that it is incidental. The import thing is that thorough appropriating your property, I am depriving you of some tangible benefit.

You have it backwards. The only reason why you're depriving me of some tangible benefit is because it's scarce. If you take some resource from me that isn't scarce, then no benefit is lost because I can immediately conjure up another resource of identical value. Therefore, there is no conflict.

> In case of intellectual property, the benefit maybe competitive advantage (if I choose to keep my knowledge secret), or a revenue stream (if I choose to allow others to benefit from my knowledge in return for compensation), or reputation and status (in being acknowledged as the inventor).

Defining property in terms of tangible benefits is simply untenable because there is no bound to it. For example, I could claim that the person who lives next to me lowers the value of my house because they never cut their lawn. I could therefore claim that they are creating conflict because they are removing some tangible benefit that I have.

We can't define property in terms of "tangible benefits" because "tangible benefits" could be just about anything. It makes the concept of property untenable as a means to resolve conflict and this is why it is rejected.

> This obviously wrong. Reputation, influence (political religious, etc), honor, status, competitiveness -- all quality sources of "interpersonal conflict".

You're misinterpreting the piece you quoted by assuming that "interpersonal conflict" can mean any kind of grievance someone might have. Frankly, that's ridiculous and defeats the whole purpose of having a system of ethics in the first place.

Kinsella makes it quite clear that interpersonal conflict is conflict in which one person deprives another person the use of a resource. This can only happen when the resource is scarce, otherwise it cannot be deprived from anyone.

> In fact, the paper conveniently avoids tackling some forms of intellectual property--trade secretes and trademarks-- by dismissing them as "less problematic" (thus tacitly acknowledging the validity of the concept of "intellectual property")

The paper does address them, you just didn't read those parts. Trademarks are discussed starting on page 43 and it's quite clear that no validity is given to the concept of intellectual property rights. Instead, some aspects of trademark law can be enforced with respect to the consumer (via charges of fraud).

> It is thus drawing an arbitrary distinction between different forms of intellectual property

It's not. Everything is explained. You're taking the "less problematic" portion out of context. Kinsella proceeds by arguing that any law which depends on the notion that ideas can be owned is illegitimate. He then goes on to show how most laws under the umbrella of "intellectual property" depend upon the notion that ideas can be owned (and are therefore illegitimate). Notably, there are some laws that don't depend on idea ownership and therefore could be legitimate.

This isn't arbitrary at all because it's consistently applying the illegitimacy of owning ideas.

> Note that the classification of physical property is also essentially arbitrary

It's not surprising one would think this. Property isn't exactly a universal law of physical reality. It's a useful heuristic that can be used among a collection of individuals who seek to resolve conflict peacefully in lieu of violence.

>In particular, defense ought to be expanded to "the legitimate use of physical force or threat of force in proportionate response to the initial use of physical force or threat of force against your person or property."

Why? You're arbitrarily narrowing down the definition of "defense" to suit your argument. Are you saying that anything short of physical violence or threat of physical violence is not a real threat that can be legitimately defended against (either through physical means or otherwise)? An if we're going down this route, an attacker may well choose physical violence to get me to divulge my knowledge just as they might use it to deprive me of a physical possession.

>The only reason why you're depriving me of some tangible benefit is because it's scarce. If you take some resource from me that isn't scarce, then no benefit is lost because I can immediately conjure up another resource of identical value. Therefore, there is no conflict.

True, but again, you're thinking of scarcity in purely physical terms. Say I run a food stand, and due to my grandma's secret sauce recipe, I have no shortage of customers. You, my competitor, acquire that recipe from me (you may have stolen a written copy, blackmailed me, or even simply beaten it out of me in a dark alley). You now start adding the same sauce to your product and take away some of my customers. Your knowledge of the recipe, has not diminished my knowledge of it, however it has diminished my competitive advantage (the scarce "resource" in this case) and so that knowledge no longer has the same value.

>Defining property in terms of tangible benefits is simply untenable because there is no bound to it. For example, I could claim that the person who lives next to me lowers the value of my house because they never cut their lawn. I could therefore claim that they are creating conflict because they are removing some tangible benefit that I have.

Yes, true, and certain councils and home owners associations do exactly that. It is a gradient. But that's the point -- the place where you choose to draw the "property" line on this gradient is necessarily arbitrary. You're claiming that your arbitrary point (physical exclusivity) is actually the right point, and any other point is "untenable". My argument is that this is not the case, and today, in a world of increasing automation of physical labor and freer, near-instantaneous communication, where an increasing portion of the population (in the West, at least) are engaging in what could be classified as "intellectual pursuits", physical boundaries are becoming increasingly inadequate.

>The paper does address them, you just didn't read those parts.

You're right, I've lost interest words the end of the paper, and didn't read it all the way through. My apologies. I have now.

>Trademarks are discussed starting on page 43 and it's quite clear that no validity is given to the concept of intellectual property rights.

Not in the case of trademarks. For trade secrets, the author, after wrangling with the legal notion of contract, does begrudgingly admit that trade secrets are a valid form of intellectual property (or at least, that they may form a valid grounds for legal recourse...).

The author's argument against trademarks is absurd. After establishing the concept of a trademark in the first paragraph, they dismiss it out of hand and with no justification or argument to back it up at the beginning of the second. The author then proceeds to construct and knock down the strawman of consumer rights (which is not what trademarks are about). Finally, they use their (entirely unsupported) conclusion about the notion of trademark ownership to dismiss the idea of trademark dilution.

>This isn't arbitrary at all because it's consistently applying the illegitimacy of owning ideas.

Except the author never justifies it. Instead, they assume illegitimacy of owning ideas, and then proceed to use that assumption to demonstrate how the (a priori) illegitimate laws are, in fact, illegitimate. The whole thing is an exercise in circular reasoning:

you can't own ideas --> laws that depend on owning ideas are illegitimate; there are no legitimate laws that support owning ideas --> idea ownership is illegitimate

All property requires a coercive third party. You couldn't actually defend your yard, for example, you almost certainly would lose possession to someone bigger and stronger with more weapons. That's true of almost everyone. The way we think of property, something even weak people can "own," is an artificial state of affairs created by the coercive third party of government. The difference between "property" as it exists in a civilized world and mere objects of possession, as they exist in the state of nature, is precisely the fact that "property" is a possessory interest backed by a coercive third party.

Re: scarcity, nothing about property requires it to be scarce. Anglo law has been treating intangible things like contractual rights as property for hundreds of years. Moreover, you're playing a definitional game you're going to lose. Are you suggesting, for example, that if land weren't scarce, it shouldn't be the subject of property rights? Moreover, while copies of say a movie may be infinite, movies themselves are not. There are finite movies in existence, and each one takes effort and investment to produce. The property right attaches to the scarce resource of movies, not the unlimited resource of copies thereof.

Even if we had infinite space, land would still be scarce: like an IP address, we can't all use the same lawn. On the other hand, the property of land would be well accepted, and easy to enforce: people would just take what they need, plus a suitable margin. The same is (or can be) applied to IPv6 now.

As for the scarcity of movies. Well, that's a tough one. First, there is no way I can actually steal a movie —short of abducting the director, stealing the props… I mean, all I can do is download a copy at almost zero charge. Even if I shoplift a DVD, that's not stealing the movie, that's stealing a plastic disc.

The problem is, the value of the film is completely decorrelated from its scarcity. As you say, it takes resources to make a film: time, cameras, actors, props… most of which are scarce —some are not, like stock footage. Once the film is done however, the film itself is not scarce at all: it can be copied over and over at near zero cost.

The easy way out is to go back to scarcity: you know how to monetize it: just sell the artificially scarce copies. But this is obviously not ideal. Our world is sufficiently flawed as it is, adding artificial scarcity on top of it doesn't sound like a great idea.

Hence the question: how do you distribute something abundant when the production of the first copy consumes scarce resources? I don't know. But people are working on it, and have produced some ideas that are worth trying: global licence, basic income… Or maybe just lower the length of the granted monopolies, like 10 years after publication or so. Even if we can't abolish artificial scarcity altogether, we might be able to reduce it.

> All property requires a coercive third party. You couldn't actually defend your yard, for example, you almost certainly would lose possession to someone bigger and stronger with more weapons. That's true of almost everyone.

You're taking things too literally. Defending my property doesn't necessarily require me to do it. I can pay others to do it. This does not require a coercive third party.

> Re: scarcity, nothing about property requires it to be scarce.

Of course it does. Property itself is a construct invented by us in an attempt to resolve conflict. If something isn't scarce, then there can be no conflict, since my use of something does not conflict with your use of the same thing.

> Are you suggesting, for example, that if land weren't scarce, it shouldn't be the subject of property rights?

It's beyond my capacity of thought to even imagine what "land isn't scarce" would even look like. I guess it would require some sort of reality where N people could occupy the same space without impeding on the use of said space by the other N-1 people. In that case, certainly, it wouldn't be property.

> There are finite movies in existence

Finiteness has nothing to do with this. There are also a finite number of copies of movies, and yet, I claim such things are not scarce.

Patents and trademarks are absolutely intellectual property.

Does anyone have a source that defines "intellectual property" to exclude patents and trademarks? Here are a few definitions that do include patents and trademarks:

http://www.wto.org/english/tratop_e/trips_e/intel1_e.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intellectual_property

http://www.investopedia.com/terms/i/intellectualproperty.asp

http://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/intellectual_property

http://www.wipo.int/about-ip/en/

Any inherent or intuitive meaning has long been subsumed by its appropriation as a work of art.

http://cardozolawreview.com/Joomla1.5/content/33-4/Hughes.33...

Details its origins of an 'ex post facto' legal concept.

If those are property, then the same is true for an alcohol license and government contracts.

So you end up defining that anything exclusive granted by government is an property with inalienable rights and "owners", making both the word "property" and "rights" meaningless.

I'm not making a normative claim about the "true meaning" of the word "property." I don't think that "true meanings" exist. Words and phrases are just communication tools, so using common terms in non-standard ways is not a good way to communicate your ideas, and certainly not a good thing to base an argument on. I'm just demonstrating what overwhelmingly standard usage is for the term "intellectual property."

http://lesswrong.com/lw/ng/words_as_hidden_inferences/

See, the word "property" is full of connotations. Ownership has deep roots in our culture. Heck, even babies rapidly develop a sense of property (just try and take something from their hands).

On the other hand, few babies would complain if someone were to imitate them. On the contrary, that's a fundamental developmental need: the baby makes a sound, then her Mom barges in, imitates her, and we have the beginning of a communication.

Even on a purely technical basis, the world of ideas is nothing like the physical world: if I eat your banana, you can't eat it any more. If you eat it, I can't steal it from you any more. But if you have an idea, and you tell me about it, well I can't steal it from you. I can use the idea, I can claim it was my idea to begin with, but I can't erase the idea from your mind —which is a required component of stealing. The only actual "idea thief" I know of is Gilderoy Lockhart from Harry potter.

The word "property", as most people understand it, doesn't apply to ideas. "Intellectual property" is a type error. But since we're incredibly lenient compilers, we make sense of whatever doesn't. So we can accept the term "intellectual property" somehow. But in doing so, we develop an intuitive understanding of the world that just isn't accurate.

I'd rather believe true things.

That's just another appeal to "true meanings." It's a bogus argument, because it's a semantic argument masquerading as a genuine argument for a particular value judgement. If you don't like the things referred to as "intellectual property" by the overwhelming majority of people who use the term, like patents, trademarks, copyrights, etc., your argument shouldn't be "but that's not the true meaning of 'property,' therefore 'intellectual property' is bad." Simply claiming that your definition of a term is different from someone else's definition of the same term does absolutely nothing to support your or his side of the argument.

> So we can accept the term "intellectual property" somehow.

The "somehow" is that it is a well-accepted and well-understood term with a very standard meaning, used by the vast majority of English speakers who discuss such matters. The spelling of the term doesn't matter. It could be called "intellectual schmoperty" for all I care, and if that was the term that was well-accepted, we could all use that and be understood.

Are you one of those fools who believe we can define words any way we want? Meditate on this: http://lesswrong.com/lw/od/37_ways_that_words_can_be_wrong/

What I'm saying is, the term "intellectual property" messes with our heads in a way that is difficult to compensate for.

Words do have true meanings, you know: it's whatever comes to our minds when we read or hear them. And I mean everything that comes to mind, not just what is supposed to come to mind. Take "shit", for instance. It's not just what comes out of our butts. It stinks, it sticks, it's disgusting. These secondary associations and feelings are what we refer to when we say "shitty code" or something. Nobody in their right mind would try to apply the term to a masterfully crafted gem. It would never fly.

Let's try a though experiment. Replace "intellectual property" by "intellectual monopoly". Do you feel the difference?

No?

I don't believe you.

---

I agree the term "intellectual property" is well accepted. But it is not well understood. Most people wrongly believe intellectual property and physical property are analogous. Many people (especially those in power) wrongly believe stealing a film is like stealing an apple.

But I assume you understand the term well, and therefore don't fall prey to these gross fallacies. You're quite an exception, not being sensitive to this "intellectual property" piece of Novlang.

I'm saying that we can choose to define a word any way we want, but we shouldn't use non-standard definitions if our goal is to be understood. And, more importantly, arguing over "true meanings" of words when pretending to debate value judgements is one of the most common and ridiculous pitfalls that people fall into.

That article on lesswrong seems to agree with my point. "Intellectual property" is a specific term that has a specific and well-accepted definition, both as a legal definition and in common everyday usage.

> Words do have true meanings, you know: it's whatever comes to our minds when we read or hear them.

I completely disagree. Words are meant for communication. I say a word, and you hear it. My goal is for the idea in my head to map to the same idea in your head. That's why I should be aware of my audience, and shouldn't use words in non-standard ways. If you go around using the term "intellectual property" and you don't mean patents, trademarks, copyrights, etc., then you should expect to be misunderstood. And if you base your argument against IP protection laws on what you claim to be the "true definition" of "property," you're not actually arguing the relevant value judgement. You're just making a semantic argument.

> Replace "intellectual property" by "intellectual monopoly". Do you feel the difference?

Of course I feel the difference. One is an extremely common term that is fairly well-defined in legal and other circles, while the other is an ad hoc description of a similar or identical concept. And both would include patents, trademarks, copyrights, etc. What's your point?

> I agree the term "intellectual property" is well accepted. But it is not well understood.

The definition of the term is well understood. Perhaps the economic consequences of the idea itself are not well understood or widely agreed upon, but the definition is. That's why I advocate for debating the value judgement of the concept, rather than the definition of the term.

And, to be clear, though it's not particularly relevant to whether semantic arguments are worthwhile, I do oppose all forms of government-enforced intellectual property protection.

Now we're talking.

I think you forgot about the guts. Instincts. Whatever happens at a subconscious level, yet influences our explicit thoughts. If you want to communicate effectively, mapping an idea to my head is not enough. You also have to keep my guts in check. For instance, if you're aggressive, it will be more difficult for me to hear you (my own aggressiveness here sure didn't help me get heard).

Regarding "intellectual property", there are two things: the standard definition, that most people know in their head. And I agree this one is accurate. But we also have the connotations, the various feeling "intellectual property" triggers in their guts. Those are not accurate. People understand the term well at an abstract level. But at a gut level, they don't.

That leaves them open for bogus arguments such as "we should protect property, including intellectual property". An effective con tool.

Try on the other hand to say "we should protect property, including intellectual monopoly". The type error is obvious, an the argument doesn't fly.

Two very different outcomes, yet the concept behind "intellectual property" and "intellectual monopoly" was the same all along. That's because of the guts. The two terms may in an abstract sense refer to the same concept, but they don't feel the same, and different feelings lead to different outcomes.

---

Now if you're in the middle of an actual debate, there will be no avoiding the term "intellectual property", for even if you're wise enough not to utter it, the other party will. At that point, your only recourse is to point out that intellectual property is not a form of property, but a form of monopoly (and maybe take a minute or two talking about state enforced exclusivity). At that point, I would stop using the term "intellectual property" altogether. If the other party continues with "intellectual property blah blah", I will paraphrase the argument with "you said that intellectual monopoly blah blah" before making my next point. If we come to that, I believe most intellectual monopoly advocates will start to insist that "intellectual property" actually is a form of property.

And we're back to arguing over definitions. The only reasonable middle ground I see is that we both stop using the terms "intellectual <whatever>", and start talking about copyright, patents, and trademarks directly (and possibly separately, for my current stance isn't the same on all three).

But that's for longer debates. If you only have the time for an elevator pitch, you may have to use the more heavily loaded terms to make your point quickly.

Not to nitpick, but the phrase "intellectual property" was nowhere in use before the 1940s. Modern use of the term is highly tendentious.

The term is derived from German. http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geistiges_Eigentum

It dates back at least 150 years.

Before the 1940s that phrase in German would have translated to something other than "intellectual property." "Geistiges" doesn't translate that way in any other context.

The OED has citations of "intellectual property" in English back to 1769.

There's an 1855 book by Lysander Spooner[1] called The Law of Intellectual Property.[2]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lysander_Spooner

[2] http://books.google.com/books?id=lS82AQAAMAAJ&pg=PR1

Its silly to call it American on the copyright side, most of the increases in term lengths have come from Europe. Indeed, while its viewed as a temporary monopoly in the US, in Europe it's based on the idea of moral rights of the author.

> during an era when America was dominant

Was?

Maybe I'm living in some kind of alternate reality...

Mind expanding on which country or group thereof comes even close to having the same levels of economic activity, military might and diplomatic influence as the US?

The EU and China are the other big players right now. Both approach America in both economic, military and diplomatic influence.

The EU is fragmented right now. We still don't have a unified European government (state are still somewhat sovereign). We still don't have a unified international representation. And we still don't have a unified army.

EU? Economic, yes: it's indeed as large (in fact, larger) than the US. Military, not really: US outspends all of its close allies combined. Diplomatic: they're so fragmented they can't get anything done.

China? Economic, hardly: it's getting there, but it's entirely dependent on the US consuming its output. Military: they're outgunned 6:1 by the US alone in terms of spending. Diplomatic: not the slightest bit, except on its immediate neighbors (and in Africa, to an extent, if you count showering local strong men with cash as influence).

The United States did not invent the idea of intellectual property.

"Intellectual property" is a neologism. It isn't property at all. It isn't a right. And what does "intellectual" mean in this context? That phrase was not in use in jurisdictions from which the Framers got the idea to allow patent and copyright monopolies.

Can you see an argument for how both physical property rights and intellectual property rights are both government granted rights?

No. At least that's not how rights were seen by the authors of the US constitution.

No. There government mandated monopolies just like your local electric company. At it's core IP is a set of short term privileges gained in exchange for making your ideas public. Most obviously you don't gain IP for ideas that stay in your head.

Medieval guilds are in many ways the precursor to IP except the ability to manufacture something was what's being protected not the knowledge of how to manufacture it. The interesting part of this is that privilege could easily be revoked. However, this promoted a lot of secrecy and good ideas where often lost, so patents protect only those shared secrets.

Yes, but... there's a difference in what happens when you try to do away with them. Society without physical property rights requires everyone to abide by fair evaluation of what they need and what others need; otherwise, anti-communal individuals take things in order to enrich themselves. The people they take from are either non-violent and end up not being able to feed or clothe themselves—limited only by the conscience of the person taking unfairly—or else there's extra-legal armed conflict. Even if everyone agrees to the principle of equitable sharing, a communal ideal, there are still mismatches in different people's evaluation functions of need and ability.

I think the drug market can be viewed as a microcosm of that. There are no state-enforced property rights in drugs, at least none that anyone outside the drug trade takes seriously. It doesn't turn out very well for anyone involved in the market. Even those who get rich from it are at greatly increased risk of turning up dead.

Abolishing IP would affect income streams, but so does outsourcing, automation , and change in particular job markets or industries... the onward march of progress. I don't see that as a reason why it shouldn't be done.

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