[LINK] Is it unethical to infringe a patent?

[Deus Ex Machina]

Craig Sanders [cas at taz.net.au] wrote:
> On Fri, Aug 18, 2006 at 06:52:10PM +1000, Deus Ex Machina wrote:
> > Howard Lowndes [lannet at lannet.com.au] wrote:
> > > Deus Ex Machina wrote:
> > > >nothing is owned by everyone. even if it is owned by everyone then
> > > >the theft still cant happen since they are already an owner.
> > >
> > > Fallacy 1.  If you own something in common with other parties, it
> > > is possible to steal from those other parties if your actions are
> > > intended to permanently deprive all or any of those other parties of
> > > their share of the ownership.
> >
> > its hard to consider that stealing, since you have an interest in it,
> > you cant steal something you own, or something nobody owns, which is
> > the effect of saying everyone owns it.
> 
> of course it's stealing. it's one owner depriving all the other owners
> of their share of the property.
> 
> or do you think it's impossible for joint owners to steal from each
> other?
> 
> it's a very common occurrence - people steal from their partners (in any
> sense of the word - business, domestic, whatever) all the time. houses,
> cars, business profits...they can all get stolen by one partner from the
> other(s).

you have specifically reduced the set of owners to a specific group,
where there is precedent for such action to be classed as stealing.

take for example the greenie assertion that the air belongs to everyone.
if you put some air in a tank are you stealing? no way. there is no
legal or social precendent for depriving everyone else of that
perticular bit of air being classed as stealing. yet you 
deprived everyone else from having it.

likewise when we have the absurb asssertion that ideas belong to
everyone or that no one can "own" an idea, if you think of a novel idea
and dont share it with anyone else, have you stolen this idea from
anyone? no way. it originated with you and stays with you.

ideas "belong" to people who have them, in the sense they are internal.

giving people economic rights to novel ideas make good sense. at the
very least it allows people to create wealth without putting undue strain on
the environment. its a great pity some greenies are so socialist as to not notice
this vital contribution.


> > regardless there are no titles that grant everyone ownership of
> > anything I am aware of, are you?
> 
> most property doesn't have any title or other document proving
> ownership. land is one of the few things that does. even cars don't (car
> registration is NOT a title, it's just registration of the responsible
> driver).

wrong. all property has title, just not registered with the government. many
invoices say title to goods remains with seller until invoice paid in
full. yet there is no physical title or bit of paper, just a notional title.

regardless there exists no title, no legal precendent, no sociatel
precedent in our society that I am aware of that grants everyone title
or ownership to anything.

if you find a log on a beach and carve it into a statue, then that
statue is yours. no one is going to contest that and say that log was on
a public beach and belonged to everyone therefore your use of it was
unauthorised and I am being deprived of use of that log and I am taking
it back.  thats sheer nonsense.

the government or the crown in our case may lay claim to a vast array of
things that have not been titled to someone, but everything else without
notional or physical title belongs to no one. 

Vic