| | Armaos: no, I won't sue you. BUt I think you are pettifogging. The issue is whether IP is justified. Whehter or not I'm a hypocrite is irrelevant to this issue. these are deflections.
Dwyer: I asked Stephan, "Suppose I tried to prevent you from stealing my invention. In other words, suppose I tried to stop you from marketing it without my permission." He replied, Let's be clear: your hypos is this: suppose you tried to trespass against me and my property, to stop me from using it as I see fit, because you think you have a partial ownership claim over my property, due to your thinking of a useful way to use your property. What I had in mind is this: I offer you the right to my invention for your own personal use at a mutually agreed-upon price, but under the terms of our agreement, deny you the right to market it for your own profit. But you break the agreement and proceed to sell my invention at a profit. Well, in this case, it's not "stealing," it's breach of contract. And in this case, sure, you could sue me for damages. Sure. Because of a contract, not b/c there is any such thing as "intellectual property." So, I get my defense agency to arrest you for marketing my invention without my permission. Well, I doubt such contract breach would be regarded as a crime subject to arrest and punishment; it would probably be a civil action, a suit for damages, like any breach of contract. But since you don't agree that I have any right to demand that you not profit off my invention, But I do agree that you ahve this right, since we had a contract.
I think you are just trying to find a hole in anarchy, not in the opposition to IP. Look, I've addressed the issue of trying to base IP on contract, in detail, see pp. 33-41 of Against Intellectual Property. (Edited by Stephan Kinsella on 4/09, 5:33pm)
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One note: previously I hypothesized that Rand justified first-to-file b/c she mistakenly believed this was the US approach, and thus liked it or assumed it was right, or tried to justify it. I just realized that in another, older thread here, I noted another time she did something similar: "I have it on good authority that Murray Rothbard's correspondence indicates that around 1954, Herb Cornuelle convinced Ayn Rand to oppose eminent domain; she had peviously favored eminent domain because the Constitution (apparently) implicitly authorized it."
Interesting. (Edited by Stephan Kinsella on 4/09, 5:35pm)
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