[LINK] Is it unethical to infringe a patent?

Craig Sanders cas at taz.net.au
Sat Aug 19 14:34:44 AEST 2006


On Sat, Aug 19, 2006 at 10:45:01AM +1000, Deus Ex Machina wrote:
> 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.

common ownership is common ownership whether it's two people or a million or
billions.

> 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.

taking a tiny portion of a shared asset is NOT the same thing as claiming the
entirety of that asset for yourself.


> 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.

and if someone else comes up with the same or similar idea, i have no right
to prevent them from using it in any way they like.

> 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.

Vic, you're an idiot and your examples/analogies are cretinous...but
that's par for the course for a Libertarian (i mean, really, have you
ever forced yourself to read any libertarian "fiction" - actually
pre-first-year philosophical wanking with minimal plot and extremely
wooden characters in a lame attempt to disguise it)


craig

-- 
craig sanders <cas at taz.net.au>           (part time cyborg)



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