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I had always accepted the view that copyrights were the legitimate extension of property rights into the realm of 'ideal objects.' However, some arguments by Tom G. Palmer and Benjamin Tucker (among others), have convinced me otherwise.
Consider an example:
Alice and the Analogs wish to be paid for their original musical efforts. They decide to go on tour, and sell tickets with the stipulation that no one is allowed to bring recording devices into the venue. To the extent that they are successful in screening ticket purchasers at the door
they discourage copying and free-ridership. They do not record their songs nor seek airplay. Thus they discourage others from stealing their intellectual property.
Another group, Danny and the Digitals decide that playing enough venues to make a living is boring. They decide to market themselves differently. They go into the studio and record their original songs. Then they send CDs to as many radio stations as they can while playing a few select gigs to generate interest. Only a small percentage of people who hear their music are motivated to go out and buy their CD, but because so many more people are exposed to their music, they find they can make a living off of their musical ability.
Now suppose Pete the Pirate is sitting at home, turns on the radio, and hears Danny's group. He likes it. He pops in a blank tape and records it. He later sells the tape to someone else who hears it and likes it. The libertarian definition of a crime is the initiation of force or fraud.
Pete has made no contract with Danny not to copy or sell their performance/songs. I would argue that Pete has not committed a crime.
Danny argues otherwise. Since stopping home taping would be impractical, he lobbies congress and gets them to pass a law which adds a surcharge to every sale of blank tape.
Danny also gets congress to cripple recording technology to prevent high fidelity dubbing. It becomes a crime to sell or own pre-ban technology.
Almost any service or good has, as a component of its' cost of production, not only the costs of labor, marketing, capital, etc., but also the cost of exclusion. For the owner of a movie theater, these exclusion costs include paying for walls, ticket windows, ushers. These serve to exclude or fence out 'freeriders'. Now they could set up projectors and show the movies on screens in parks and then attempt to prevent casual passerbys from watching. The method of marketing their product is their choice. In the case where their marketing decision results in the publicness of a
good, it seems to me to be grossly unjust to ask the government to force all who might potentially see the show without paying to kick in some bucks, whether they DO in fact see the show or not. Or to force passerbys to don glasses that prevent them from viewing the movie. Yet the proponents of property rights in ideas choose such a method when they attempt to get every person purchasing a blank tape to pay a royalty to a third party. Alternatively, as with DAT tape recorders, they proposed to ban or cripple entire technologies. This method, done in the name of preventing technologies which are capable of recording
publicized (broadcast) music without loss of fidelity, would
make mere ownership of tangible property (DAT recorder) a crime.
I view proposals for such an implementation of property rights in ideas, which wipe out other areas of property rights altogether, as inconsistent.
In a libertarian society, those that want x pay for x. Artists are welcome to imbed their effort in tangible objects (like CDs) and then try to get everyone who buys one to sign or acknowledge a contract not to copy it. But that will be expensive to police. I don't think the market would support it.
Pat Fallon
pfallon@bigfoot.com
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