Intellectual Property
Where We Are
We have been using questions about the nature and role of property rights in order to explore the conflict between procedural and distributive considerations of justice, which is the theme of Unit 5 of the course. Whereas Nozick argued that property rights are moral rights that it is the job of the state to protect, we interpreted Piketty as arguing that a reasonable notion of property rights needs to be constrained by an appreciation of the inevitability of wealth accumulation across generations and the many problematic consequences that that engenders and has engendered throughout history.
Rights to Ideas
Our topic for today's class is intellectual property rights. Intellectual property rights are protected by copyright, patent, and trademark law. They include rights of use, control, and transmission for a wide variety of kinds of ideas. In the 18th century and before, most wealth consisted in private property in land. In the 19th century, new wealth arose that consisted in property in equipment and material goods - factories, railroads, ships, and the like. But in the twenty-first century, a large proportion of wealth consists in property in ideas - patents, trademarks, and to a much lesser extent, copyrights. For example, by his own account, a quarter or more of President Trump's net worth consists merely in the value of his name - not even counting the value of the many concrete contracts he has by which people pay him to be able to put his name on their buildings. Similarly, much of the value of Apple consists in the value of their brand, and young people entering a wide variety of fields are encouraged to work on cultivating their 'personal brand'. The most financially successful entertainers in both acting and sports make much of their money not by acting or playing but by leveraging their acting or playing into an ownership interest in their own images. And the most valuable corporations are valued in part for their portfolios of patents. So if we want to understand the nature of wealth accumulation in the twenty-first century, we need to understand the nature and source of intellectual property.
What's Different About Ideas?
In general, property rights include rights to use, rights to control use, and rights of wholesale transfer - which means the right to transfer the whole package of rights to another person. But one of the most obvious features of intellectual property, in contrast to physical property such as land or machinery, is that more people can use the same idea without crowding out the value that others get by using it as well. So whereas it is hard to have a useful right to use a piece of land without also having the right to prevent other people from using that land as well, it is not hard to have a useful right to play a musical recording without also having the right to prevent other people from playing that musical recording as well - they just have to make their own copy.
Many of the interesting questions about whether intellectual property rights have the same status as rights to physical property derive from this important and obvious difference between intellectual property and physical property.
Today's Reading
Today's reading is Daniel Attas's article, Lockean Justifications of Intellectual Property. Attas is considering whether a Lockean theory like Robert Nozick's can justify the idea that there are moral rights to intellectual property that pre-exist the state and which it could be part of the job of the state to protect. Pay attention to whether Attas believes that a Lockean justification can be successful or not, and to what the feature of intellectual property rights is that is responsible for his conclusion. You will see that Attas is particularly interested in whether intellectual property rights should expire or not; for some background on whether some kinds of legal rights to intellectual property legally expire, you can see a summary from the US copyright office here.
Lockean theories are not the only way to try to justify intellectual property rights; you can read a little bit more about other theories of the nature of intellectual property rights here, if you are interested.
A pirated cartoon about digital piracy
A Lighter Take
For a lighter take on some issues related to intellectual property rights, but also to the philosophy of music, we have one last (optional, but fun) final episode of Hi-Phi Nation for the semester.