Much obliged for your replies Michael and Aaron. The links you provided and subsequent references in those threads and articles provided a lot of insight.

Regarding the nature of copyright duration, it seems to me that copyright should, when seen as an extension of the right to own property, extend at least the duration of the life of the author/creator. But then copyright is often transferred, by sale, to another individual or company. It all gets quite murky then. A recent study apparently found that, 'mathematically', the optimum copyright period is 14 years

Regarding patents, well, I'm going to have to do a lot more reading. It really appears to me that the patent system, as currently implemented, is incompatible with Objectivism. If I have an idea and the means to implement it, only to discover that someone else has registered that idea as a patent, I then don't have the right to produce and market the implementation of my idea? Bugger that! The commercial competition should be in the market place, not the race to the patent office.

"Ignorant flamers"? Hmmmm. Read the thread and see my explanation of copyright law, considering I am an IP law student. Then check out Aaron's reasoning based on "probablities"--a combination of the fallacy of the stolen concept and question begging. He also seems to think copyright duration is "arbitrary" ("why 100 years over life + 70", he asks?), indicating he has nary a clue about the arguments for duration. Yup, he knows what he is talking about.

I recommend a recent thread on The Forum for a good insight into the defense of IP.

Notice in Dr. Long's analysis, the "right" to a job is a false analogy. There is no such right, whether one is the first person to interview or the thousandth, its entirely up to the owner of the business. In contrast, there is a right to the product of your mind and your effort. Imagine what would happen if a pharmaceutical company--after countless years of research and hundreds of millions in investment--another company came along bought the drug and copied the formula. After all, some "patterns" exist that don't make it their property, so why not allow outright theft? Some incentive that would be to invest in creating new, life-saving drugs.

Secondly, Dr. Long's that it is no less a use of natural laws to create a battery--well, of course!! What else could one use!! Its a failure to distinguish between the discovery of natural laws and the practical implementation thereof in the form of a useful invention. A battery does not simply exist in nature, it has to be created by the mind and effort of the inventor--i.e. it is the metaphysical vs. the man-made.

Consider the newest "battery" of the future (i.e. fuel cells) whereby companies are investing billions. Ask youself, why would they do this if it could simply be ripped off once it enters the market? Alleged defenders of capitalism sanctioning the wholesale theft of IP during the Mind Economy--gotta love that.

Regards,
Michael

Case in point concerning ignorant flamers. Anyway Lance, if you have any questions about what I actually said or want to discuss the ideas involved around IP in general I'd be happy to.

Yes, I do recommend the ROR thread that Aaron cited. You can see the lame attacks given on IP by anarcho's and their fellow travelers. Consider that Aaron regarded this as one of Rand's "truly ignorant moments", while denying IP protection based on some mush about "patterns"; and at the same time trying to defend copyright based on "probabilities". Get a good read of that stuff--its a hoot.

'Intellectual property' differs from tangible or even relatively easily addressed intangible property (e.g. airwaves) in being reproducible patterns that lack the exclusivity of other property. I think the correct way to address this is from the ground up - a definition of property that can encompass what if anything related to copyrights and patents are property, and apply concepts of property rights from there. Unfortunately, I haven't seen Objectivists or other libertarians, Rand included, use this approach. Instead there is often a pragmatic defense of the status-quo or something near it. Rand's own 'Patents and Copyrights' essay I see as one of her weakest works.

I see the value in somehow treating reproducible patterns as property, but there are many details to be resolved. The best works I've seen toward this are an article on NoodleFood by Greg Perkins, addressing that critique, and some ideas in a RebirthOfReason thread several months ago. The RoR thread I entered as devil's advocate on non-IP side, but wished to explore the ideas and get some good responses. Though I picked up some ignorant flamers, there were some very relevant and good points by Steve Wolfer and MSK. I don't consider these all thorough and starting by defining property to encompass IP, but I think them a good start, especially concerning copyrights.

I think in the end copyrights could be well-justified even in a form rather similar to now - though then if they are property there would have to be something more than an arbitrary utilitarian compromise to why they would expire, unlike other property rights. Since patents are much closer to discovery than creation, and as you pointed out possess a serious concern for independent creation that copyrights do not (and which Rand disappointingly dismissed), I think that any ground-up derivation of them would be different and much more limited than the status quo. In any case, I don't think abandoning entirely the concept of IP is warranted - but there are many questions and details to be worked through to have a solid Objectivist approach to it.

"Laws of nature come in varying degrees of generality and specificity; if it is a law of nature that copper conducts electricity, it is no less a law of nature that this much copper, arranged in this configuration, with these other materials arranged so, makes a workable battery."

Why then, morally, should an inventor be granted the right to monopolise on that implementation? If an inventor has put together a collection of materials, in such a way that, in accordance with the laws of physics, they behave in a certain manner and achieve a specific task, why is it wrong for a person who has seen that implementation and acquired the information to then implement and market it themselves?

Don't get me wrong, I'm all for the innovators and producers getting their due. But once that information is out there, and accessible by other people, surely that's when commercial competition takes over. The reward for the inventor is that he is the first on the market. From there on out it's who is making the better product or marketing it the best. Yes, the inventor created the idea, but is the idea the fruit of his labour(and thereby his property) or is the end product the fruit of his labour and the implementation of his ideas(and thereby his property)?

Edit: I've just re-read my last sentence and even I am finding it unintelligible.
What I am trying to say is: Surely it is his end product that is his property, not the idea. By all means he should be commended and congratulated and held in high regard if it was a particularly brilliant idea. But can an idea, if an idea is just an implementation of the laws of physics, be regarded as property?

great topic to debate/discuss, Lance.

I am all in favour of Patents and Intellectual Property Rights.

The idea of two people inventing the same thing at the same time and it being a matter of who gets to the Patent Office first, whilst valid, is very uncommon.
(Life is simply not that cut and dried)

A reason for being in favour of such rights is that an inventor may have spent years, and a great deal of money, inventing [whatever] and it is only right and proper he should gain financial benefit from his idea once he cracks it.

To the victor the spoils, is my attitude.