Neighborhood Book Kiosks

The first one in my neighborhood appeared in February and I thought that it was unique. I saw another one a bit farther from home. It finally occurred to me that this is a phenomenon. I like it as an example of spontaneous order, an axiom in Austrian economics. Reading on Wikipedia revealed that other people think the same way that I do. And not everyone else is happy with us.  

This is the one in my neighborhood.
It has four sides with two panels of books and it rotates.
(I don't know who owns the easement.)

From The Atlantic

U.S. -- The Danger of Being Neighborly Without a Permit

All over America, people have put small "give one, take one" book exchanges in front of their homes. Then they were told to tear them down.

Conor Friedersdorf

February 20, 2015

Since 2009, when a Wisconsin man built a little, free library to honor his late mother, who loved books, copycats inspired by his example have put thousands of Little Free Libraries all over the U.S. and beyond. ... 

I wish that I was writing merely to extol this trend. Alas, a subset of Americans are determined to regulate every last aspect of community life. Due to selection bias, they are overrepresented among local politicians and bureaucrats. And so they have power, despite their small-mindedness, inflexibility, and lack of common sense so extreme that they've taken to cracking down on Little Free Libraries, of all things.

https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2015/02/little-free-library-crackdown/385531/

 

[Texans are a little more open to letting people do the right thing without permission from the government. Wells Branch is a neighborhood on the north side of Austin. Dell, HP, and others have campuses there.]

 

WBNA | Wells Branch Neighborhood Association

Little Free Library Boxes

Welcome to the Little Free Libraries Summer Scavenger Hunt!

 

Did you know there are currently 14 Little Free Libraries throughout Wells Branch?  LFLs are free book exchanges where anyone can “take a book, return a book.”  Join us in June for a LFL Scavenger Hunt.  You’ll have the opportunity to visit our neighborhood LFLs, find some great (free!) summer reads, and earn a chance to win a Barnes & Noble gift card.

http://wbna.us/community/library-boxes/

 

Posted to Nextdoor dot com serving our wider subdivision

[ I found out that the Little Free Library boxes were not the first of their kind. “Book Crossings” appeared about the turn of the millennium.] 

 

Leaving reading materials in public places when no longer needed has long been a silent means of communication and sociability amongst bibliophiles. Ron Hornbaker conceived the idea for what is now known as BookCrossing in March 2001[2] and enlisted business partners and co-founders Bruce and Heather Pedersen[3] to launch BookCrossing.com on April 21, 2001.[4]

 

After two years the website had over 113,000 members and by 2004 it was prominent enough to be referenced in an episode of the Australian soap opera Neighbours.[5] The same year it appeared as a new word in the Concise Oxford Dictionary,[6] although as of 2017 only Collins of the major online dictionaries retained it as a word.[7][8][9][10]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BookCrossing

 

On a busy backroad I take to the freeway.
It serves walkers well.
(Again, it seems to be on the property owner's
public easement.)

[From Wikipedia] Closely allied with the BookCrossing concept, the original public bookcases were conceived as artistic acts.[1] Very early examples are the creations of performance artist duo Clegg & Guttmann in 1991. Collections of bookcases were conceived as "free open-air libraries" in Darmstadt and Hannover in Germany in the late 1990s.[2]

 

Controversy and criticism[edit]

In 2003, BookCrossing was criticized by the astrologer and novelist Jessica Adams, who claimed that books were being "devalued" by the website as BookCrossing could lead to lower sales of books and, therefore, the reduction in royalties being paid to authors.[20] Most BookCrossers dispute this argument, however. They claim that the website introduces readers to authors and genres that they have not read before, that the website encourages more people to take up or reclaim reading as a hobby, and that some members, having read a book that they have enjoyed, will buy extra copies to distribute through BookCrossing.[21]

 

Another busy side road. 
You have to step up onto the property for this.

In March 2005, Caroline Martin, managing director of the publisher Harper Press, said in a speech that "book publishing as a whole has its very own potential Napster crisis in the growing practice of bookcrossing".[22] BookCrossers rebutted the link to Napster, saying that while music filesharing involves duplicating audio files countless times, BookCrossing doesn't involve duplicating books (and also does not involve violating copyright, as books can be sold or given away freely without permission of the publisher being needed). When BookCrossing was first launched, the founder of BookCrossing, Ron Hornbaker, originally wondered if people would make this comparison.[23]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_bookcase

 

[A related link on Wikipedia]

Give-away shops, freeshops, free stores or swap shops are stores where all goods are free. They are similar to charity shops, with mostly second-hand items—only everything is available at no cost. Whether it is a book, a piece of furniture, a garment or a household item, it is all freely given away, although some operate a one-in, one-out–type policy (swap shops). The free store is a form of constructive direct action that provides a shopping alternative to a monetary framework, allowing people to exchange goods and services outside of a money-based economy.

 

A neighbor told me about a different one.
I found this instead.
(Clearly on the front lawn.) 

[More from following the links in Wikipedia write-ups]

The anarchist 1960s countercultural group the Diggers[1] opened free stores which simply gave away their stock, provided free food, distributed free drugs, gave away money, organized free music concerts, and performed works of political art.[2] The Diggers took their name from the original English Diggers led by Gerrard Winstanley[3] and sought to create a mini-society free of money and capitalism.[4] Although free stores have not been uncommon in the United States since the 1960s, the freegan movement has inspired the establishment of more free stores.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Give-away_shop

 

Also on Necessary Facts

Money as Press and Speech 

Charles Lamb 

Frankenstein, Rayguns, and Bicycles 

Five Books About Books 

Austin’s Homeless: Laissez Faire in a Mixed Economy

Here in Austin, Texas, the reductio ad absurdum of the city government’s policies toward the homeless is that you (and all your friends) can take over any public space for your own use. The city council and mayor have declared de facto privatization. I want a school. They are not being used now and I can make good use of one. Once in, I will be hard to extricate because schools are defensible fortresses. (See, for example, The Girl Who Owned a City.) Perhaps you would like a park or a sports arena. Just find one that is not being used and make yourself a home. 

 

Menchaca and Ben White Jan 2020 and June 2020 

Austin Statesman

City Council rescinds measures that critics say criminalize homelessness

By Elizabeth Findell 

Posted Jun 21, 2019 at 3:36 AM

Updated Jun 21, 2019 at 6:14 PM

 

The Austin City Council early Friday rescinded city prohibitions on sitting or sleeping in public and panhandling — measures social advocates said wrongly criminalized homelessness — after hours of emotional testimony from passionate residents on both sides of the issue.

 

The decisions, made after 2 a.m. during a meeting that started at 10 a.m., capped a long day of intense discussion surrounding several homelessness-related votes at City Hall.

 

https://www.statesman.com/news/20190621/city-council-rescinds-measures-that-critics-say-criminalize-homelessness

 

Ben White opposite Target Then 

Summary of Changes to the Ordinances

On October 17, 2019, the City Council made several revisions to the city ordinance that prohibits camping in public areas.  Other ordinances, including those prohibiting obstruction on sidewalks in the downtown area and aggressive confrontation, remain unchanged.  The ordinance changes went into effect on October 28, 2019.

https://www.austintexas.gov/department/council-direction-and-policy

 

The Texas Tribune

Greg Abbott says TxDOT could remove homeless camps from Austin's highway underpasses

BY DAVIS RICH OCT. 18, 2019

 

The governor has vowed to use state resources to clear Austin's homeless residents from public spaces since city officials began changing local ordinances dictating where people can and can't camp.

 

Gov. Greg Abbott's office said Friday the Texas Department of Transportation could force homeless Austin residents out from under bridges and overpasses where some of them live or camp if recent changes to city ordinances don't result in less feces and fewer needles by Nov. 1.

 

https://www.texastribune.org/2019/10/18/greg-abbott-says-txdot-will-remove-austin-homeless-under-highways/

Ben White opposite Target Now 

 

KVUE-TV (ABC)

After more downtown stabbings, Abbott says Austin's 'reckless' policies on homelessness 'must end now'

Author: Drew Knight, Luis de Leon

Published: 5:16 PM CST January 24, 2020

Updated: 8:16 AM CST January 25, 2020

AUSTIN, Texas — After a series of Downtown Austin stabbings overnight left three people injured, Gov. Greg Abbott released a pointed statement for the Austin City Council on Friday.

"City of Austin leaders have allowed lawlessness throughout the capital city that is resulting in violence against Austin residents, including those who are homeless," Gov. Abbott said in a statement released to KVUE. "Last night’s tragedy, leaving three injured, is just the most recent instance of this violence. This rise in violence has corresponded with the revocation of the camping ban that the Austin City Council passed in June. Public endangerment and murder can no longer be tolerated because of the actions – and inactions – by City officials. Mayor Adler and the city council should re-instate the camping ban and restore the rule of law in Austin. The City’s gamble on these reckless policies has been a loser and must end now."

https://www.kvue.com/article/news/local/gov-abbott-calls-austin-homeless-policy-reckless-after-stabbings/269-fe1bd9ab-d65b-4cff-a013-3edb295c4c1f

 

Fox-7 TV

Gov. Abbott working to override Austin homeless camping ordinance

By Steven Sarabia 

Published February 7 [2020]

Homeless Crisis FOX 7 Austin

While talking about Austin's homeless issues Wednesday, Abbott said on Twitter, "Next step should be to reinstate the ban on camping and work with non-profit organizations to assist with shelters. That's exactly what I will ask the Texas Legislature to do."

https://www.fox7austin.com/news/gov-abbott-working-to-override-austin-homeless-camping-ordinance

Wikipedia provided this definition from the Communist Party of Texas

LUMPENPROLETARIAT - German for "rag proletariat." Generally unemployable people who make no positive contribution to an economy. Sometimes described as the bottom layer of a capitalist society. May include criminal and mentally unstable people. Some activists consider them "most radical" because they are "most exploited," but they are un-organizable and more likely to act as paid agents than to have any progressive role in class struggle.  See https://www.cp-texas.org/glossary

 

Previously on NecessaryFacts

 

Workers’ Paradise Promised an End to Money 

Timothy Snyder’s On Tyranny 

Karl Marx and the Dustbin of History 

Furloughs for Freedom: Downsizing Government 

Toxic Leadership 

 

Bleeding Data: SXSW Interactive Proposal

With new data breaches appearing in the news every day, how can anyone protect their information? With a few simple tools - which we will demonstrate - you can dramatically improve the privacy of your personal information. 

Among the tools that we will provide and explain are Secunia PSI; KeePass Password Manager; and OpenDNS.

We chose those and other tools because they have high reputational value in the computer security community. They are easy to use. They specifically protect the most vulnerable aspects of your information flow. 

We will guide the workshop attendees through the installation and use of the tools. Tutors from the Austin computer security community will be on hand to provide individual instruction.

Selection of SXSW Interactive workshops and panels is, in part, by open voting. To vote and view the proposal video click here: http://panelpicker.sxsw.com/vote/50060

You can view the video directly on YouTube here:

You can read more about how to protect your personal information on Laurel's blog, IntentionalPrivacy.

Also on NecessaryFacts:

Open Secrets

The Code Book

A Successful Imitation of Alan Turing

Basic: Turing's Truth

The Status of ORIGINAL Property

Original property is newly invented or newly discovered.  It had no previous owner.  In fact, it did not exist – or its existence was not perceived – until the original inventor created it or the original discoverer found it.  How do we recognize such property?  What rights does the inventor or discoverer hold?  Are some or all of those those objective, absolute, or conditional? 

A sailor finds an uninhabited island.  Can she claim the whole thing for herself?  An astronaut lands on an asteroid, a moon, or a planet.  Can she claim the whole thing for herself?  A physicist discovers a new form of energy. Can she claim it all for herself?  A radio hacker finds that 1100 KHz AM is owned by a broadcast company. Can she use a chopper to parcel out nanoscopic slices of the wavelength for herself, given that her presence will never be detected and her presence will never interfere with their existing use of the wavelength?

The Ether did not exist for George Washington.
You could have had it all to yourself for all he knew.
Library of Congress.

It could be argued that the 1100 KHz frequency already belongs to someone.  However, the property is actually the amplitude modulated (AM) use of that frequency.  In theory, frequency modulated (FM) and phase modulated broadcasts are both possible on 1100 KHz without interference.  They are just not technologically useful today.  This is not new.  

(Actually, the property status is limited in space, as well.  That, too, is a different problem, caused by a misperception of the potentials in technology. One of the nice features of 550 to 176 meter wavelengths is the way the waves bounce off the ionosphere.  That was discovered as a by-product, entertaining teenagers who listened to far-away stations.  It could have been commercially exploited.)  

Thomas Edison was a telegraph hacker.  He discovered how to multiplex and quadriplex messages on the same wire.  Granted that the wire was someone’s property, it could, nonetheless have been leased out to different people using different blocks of time-passage on the same wire.  Also, in theory, it could have evolved that the telegraph wires would have been the broadcast source for what we call radio.

When a direct current circuit is closed and opened, a magnetic field is created and collapsed.  That is an alternating field.  That field could have been used to transmit information, as in fact, the “ether” was used by actual radio (initially called “wireless”).  So, you could have paid the telegraph company its tariff for sending messages, but have no concern for the literal transmission but been sending “open” and “close” signals to create a carrier wave for transmissions of your own.  Who would have owned that ether?

 

The Personal Computer Revolution
 saw the use of voice grade telephone lines
for data transmission.
(Wikipedia)

Lasers can carry messages.  It could have come that a network of  lasers made of ruby crystals doped with chromium and pumped by xenon flash would have been a continental system, point to point, with relays and amplifiers every 20 miles or so. Then, someone with a YAG (yttrium aluminum garnet) laser could have a network whose beams crossed those in space but without interference because the beams are of different frequencies.  Thus, no violation of property rights would have occurred. 

Original property brings a special challenge to the law because no previous legislation anticipated it.  Ayn Rand attempted to delineate the proper role of government in her essay "Property Status of the Airwaves."  Twenty years later, the Electronic Frontier Foundation was created to bring law and order to cyberspace.  Rand did not stray far from the mainstream.  Her essay never questioned the Federal Communications Commission - though she excoriated it in other writings - or the law that created it with power to rule by decree.  The EFF has been fighting a war of attrition while bunkered within the First Amendment.  The next new invention will leave them to defend an old technology without new ideas.

I believe that rather than looking to legislation or administration, these problems are best settled in courts.  The English system of justice works because of what American conservative complain about as "judicial activism."  The other way is the Continental theory of "civil law" in which the legislature spells out the law in detail and the courts only enforce it.  In other words, in the English system, the court fits the law to the case, making case law, whereas in the Continental system, the court fits the case to the law.  (In American today, the courts do both.  The court of original jurisdiction applies the law.  Appellate courts test the law.) The English system is better at protecting individual rights because those are the implicit foundation for judging the law and for making new rulings that create precedents.

ALSO ON NECESSARY FACTS

Science versus Common Sense

Base 7

Art as Ordered Narrative

The Rational Optimist

Happy Pi Day 2013

U.S. PATENT LAW DOES NOT ADD UP

Being derived from medieval concepts about land, U.S. patent law lacks an objective basis for awarding ownership rights in intellectual property. 

Land is excludable: you can keep someone from it with a fence. Land is rivalrous: no two people can stand in the same place at the same time.  According to the economic theory of public goods, knowledge is non-rivalous and non-excludable: sharing knowledge does not diminish its quantity; and you cannot prevent someone from knowing what they know. Thus, it is generally true that you cannot get a patent on a mathematical theorem.

See 35 U.S.C. §101: Subject Matter Eligibility• The four statutory categories of invention:– Process, Machine, Manufacture, or Composition of Matter and Improvements Thereof• The courts have interpreted the categories to exclude:– “Laws of nature, natural phenomena, and abstract ideas”• These three terms are typically used by the courts to cover the basic tools of scientific and technological work, such as scientific principles, naturally occurring phenomena, mental processes, and mathematical algorithms.Evaluating Subject Matter Eligibility Under 35 USC § 101: August 2012 Update  Office of Patent Legal Administration United States Patent and Trademark Office here.

However, patents have been awarded for mathematical ideas. Of course a plethora of patents exists for computer software, even though a program is only an algorithm, a method of calculation.

US Patent 4133152 A was awarded to Roger Penrose for “Set of tiles for covering a surface.”  (Patent here.)

http://mathworld.wolfram.com/PenroseTiles.html

“A set of tiles for covering a surface is composed of two types of tile. Each type is basically quadrilateral in shape and the respective shapes are such that if a multiplicity of tiles are juxtaposed in a matching configuration, which may be prescribed by matching markings or shapings, the pattern which they form is necessarily non-repetitive, giving a considerable esthetic appeal to the eye. The tiles of the invention may be used to form an instructive game or as a visually attractive floor or wall covering or the like.” – US Patent 4133152A

A Penrose tile is a “non-periodic tiling generated by an aperiodic set of prototiles. – Wikipedia.

The Penrose tiles are a pair of shapes that tile the plane only aperiodically (when the markings are constrained to match at borders). These two tiles, illustrated above, are called the "kite" and "dart," respectively. In strict Penrose tiling, the tiles must be placed in such a way that the colored markings agree; in particular, the two tiles may not be combined into a rhombus (Hurd). – from Wolfram here. 

Penrose Tiles and Trapdoor Ciphers … and the Return of Dr. Matrix 

by Martin Gardner. 

Washington DC: Mathematical Association of America, 1989. 

"Because the tiles lend themselves to commercial puzzles, [Roger] Penrose was reluctant to disclose them until he had applied for patents in the United Kingdom, United States, and Japan.  The patents are now in force." Penrose Tiles and Trapdoor Ciphers … and the Return of Dr. Matrix by Martin Gardner. Washington DC: Mathematical Association of America, 1989, Page 6.

So, mathematical ideas can be patented if you claim that the theorem is a puzzle (or has some other physical instantiation).  

Mathematician David A. Edwards asserts that no economic distinction can be made between a discovery and an invention. 

From an economic point of view, there is no rationale for distinguishing between discovery and invention, and we would advocate dropping entirely any subject matter restrictions whatsoever on what can be patented. One should be able to patent anything not previously known to man. In fact, a good economic case can be made2 for allowing the patenting of many things that are well known but are not being commercially produced.
 “If we're going to have a general patent system, then algorithms should be as patentable as lasers. For example, general relativity is used in GPS…  My colleague Carl Pomerance developed fast primality testing algorithms in the late 1970s but couldn't patent them. My colleague Victor Wickerhauser developed the fast wavelet transform in the early 1990s and was able to patent it as a software patent.  … If we want these things to be patentable, then Congress needs to change the law.”  (“Platonism Is the Law of the Land,” David A. Edwards
April 2013 Notices of the AMS Volume 60, Number 4 pp475- 478 here. 

Intersecting the discursive plane from another angle, mathematician Robert Palais points to the low esteem in which the USPTO holds mathematics. 

 …  an applicant to practice before USPTO must demonstrate, in accordance with the USPTO’s requirements, that he or she possesses scientific and technical proficiency sufficient to address issues that arise in patent law. Notably, however, mathematics is explicitly excluded as a subject for this purpose. …   I downloaded the “General Requirements Bulletin for Admission to the Examination for Registration to Practice in Patent Cases Before the United States Patent and Trademark Office” to see for myself. It lists 32 subjects in which bachelor’s degrees exhibit adequate proof of the necessary scientific and technical training, as well as 2 1/2 pages of acceptable alternates. Then it states the “Typical Non-Acceptable Course Work: The following typify courses that are not accepted as demonstrating the necessary scientific and technical training:” and in the middle of this paragraph, there appears: “…machine operation (wiring, soldering, etc.), courses taken on a pass/fail basis, correspondence courses, …home or personal independent study courses, high school level courses, mathematics courses, one day conferences, …” 
 … Ironically, USPTO requires mathematics coursework for prospective examiners in the computer arts (employees) that it doesn’t recognize as qualifying for practitioners.
 This is not a debate regarding the appropriateness of patenting mathematics. There have been many such conversations elsewhere. But in these times that mathematics is becoming increasingly visible in valuable patents (e.g., Google’s Page Rank, a linear algebra algorithm, was licensed by Stanford for US$336 million) it seems that the USPTO should be encouraging, not discouraging, the mathematical fluency of the lawyers whose work it recognizes. 
—Bob Palais, Math Dept., Pathology Dept. University of Utah, Notices of the AMS, January 2010, page 9,  here. 

Euclid's Proof of the Pythagorean Theorem
Proposition 47 Book 1.
(Not Socrates's Demonstration,
which Plato and the USPTO say that you were born with.
Too bad you were not born with this one.)

Plato believed that mathematics exists within you to be discovered by introspection.  In the Dialog of Meno, Socrates draws out from a slave an application of the Pythagorean theorem to show the doubling of an isosceles right triangle.   The so-called “Socratic method” favored by many teachers assumes that this knowledge is inherent within you.  That is the epistemology of the US Patent and Trademark Office.  Mathematics need not be invented – or even discovered by external exploration – because we all have it in our heads.   That theory just does not add up.

ALSO ON NECESSARY FACTS

Copy Rights and Wrongs

Objective Intellectual Property Law

Patent Nonsense

The Map that Changed the World

Objective Intellectual Property Law

Our ideas about intellectual property are rooted in medieval law about real estate.  Patents are given to the “first” inventor (which is defined differently by different laws) and deny the reality of independent invention. Rational law would recognize that all independent inventors have the rights to the products of their own minds.  Also, rather than expiring, intellectual property would continue forever, like any other kind of property.

Johanna Blakely of the Norman Lear Center at the University of Southern California has a TED Talk about the importance of copying to the multi-trillion dollar fashion markets.  Copying is how trends develop. The buyers of originals are not the buyers of knock-offs (and vice versa). In fashions no patents or copyrights exist. Only trademarks are protected.

We still think of property as if it were land. You cannot copy land. Therefore, you must not copy an automobile transmission. No two farmers can plow the same land at the same time, so no two engineers can be allowed to develop the same process at the same time.

Great Artists Steal - it still took
three point one tries to get it right.

On a deeper psychological level, our laws on intellectual property are founded on a false doctrine of jealousy in love, which is based on a lack of self-esteem, and the desire to own and control another human being. “This is mine and no one can have it.” That is fine, for things that really are yours. Other people and the content of their minds are not yours.

We have examples of the value of the opposite mindset.  In 1661 Robert Boyle's "Sceptical Chymist" explained why the secretive methods of alchemy had to be replaced by open publication of reproducible results. It was a radical idea.  The proud (arrogant, in fact) creative people in the Homebrew Computer Club came together to show off their work. They shared ideas by implicit trade. Those who had something cool were highly regarded. It made the computer revolution possible.  However, it was not to last.

Look at your computer display. Open a window. Make it smaller by dragging the corner up. That is a logical XOR, either the bit is on or the bit is off. From that, one window overlays another, wholly or partially. That became a patent. Someone claimed it, years after it was standard operating procedure.

    “Ever since Autodesk had to pay $25,000 to “license” a patent which claimed the invention of XOR-draw for screen cursors (the patent was filed years after everybody in computer graphics was already using that trick), at the risk of delaying or cancelling our Initial Public Offering in 1985, I've been convinced that software patents are not only a terrible idea, but one of the principal threats to the software industry. As I write this introduction in 1993, the multimedia industry is shuddering at the prospect of paying royalties on every product they make, because a small company in California has obtained an absurdly broad patent on concepts that were widely discussed and implemented experimentally more than 20 years earlier.”  Read here “Patent Nonsense” by John Walker. 

 Patents are defined as broadly as possible in order to secure their rights against any and all similar but different competitors. Take xerography, for example. Many different chemical combinations and many different processes can be engaged to create copies of images. Xerox wants (wanted) not just a patent on the one they actually developed, but they use the one they actually developed as evidence of their claim to all other possible variations. Then when someone else does the same thing a different way, suits at law are supposed to sort that out, as if courts (judges, juries) are competent to evaluate any and every new technology. 3-D printing is now being developed by independent technologists in many different ways. Will someone then be able to claim the rights to all of them?

I see Henry Ford in his motorcar. I can build one, too. Of course mine will be materially different for many basic reasons - basic, metaphysical reasons from the nature of human intelligence.

A generation ago, computer programming instructors figured out that in any average introductory class, no two students will ever (likely) produce similar programs, even for the most basic of assignments. Therefore, any two programs that are arbitrarily "too similar" may easily be evidence of copying (cheating).  So, too, with other inventions. It would take an intellectual effort - having first stolen the plans - to slavishly copy without making any changes. 

Even when you have the Blueprints ...
(Memory Alpha)

Even when you have the blueprints, you may well lack the special insight of the original inventor. A process could be documented completely but its failure modes might be known only to the inventor. 

Enter “early automobile patents” (and similar phrases) into your search engine. The internal combustion engine itself was patented, of course, even though it is only a recombination of James Watts' steam engine. I mean the valves and chambers. The only new idea was putting the flame inside the engine, a tough nut to crack, indeed, but many ways to achieve it. Sparkplugs are the common solution, but Rudolph Diesel's engines achieved combustion by pressure alone, though modern engines do have "glow plugs." And on and on it goes.

Some libertarians attempt to justify property rights on the assertion (from John Locke) that you "mix your labor" with it to earn the right to it.  Undeveloped frontier land is offered as an example.  But what if you choose a buy-and-hold strategy, keeping the land as wilderness to watch its value increase as other property is developed?  

Anonymous and created for Loompanics Unlimited, 1991, for my article, "Did Thomas Jefferson Wear Mirrorshades? - or - Why is the Secret Service Busting Publishers?"  I was inspired by the cyberpunk story, "Mozart in Mirrorshades" by Bruce Sterling and Lewis Shiner (Omni, September 1985). I found this image shrunken to an avatar by a patriot named "Fegeldolfy" on the Ron Paul Forums Liberty Forest. 

Also, applied to commercial and financial markets, this "mix your labor" theory would nullify any buy-and-hold investment strategy. Applied consistently in a libertarian utopia, you might lose your ownership in a joint-stock company if you fail to vote your shares, or otherwise display an active interest in the company's operations.  

Finally, when you steal someone's invention - unquestionable theft, let us grant: you steal the blueprints from the bedroom vault - if you have only stolen the ideas, then in order to profit from them, you must also "mix your labor" even if only to sell the plans to someone else.  Clearly this "mix your labor" theory cannot support even the right to land. It surely cannot be used to define and protect intellectual property.  

Read about the case of Charles M. Gentile and the Rock n Roll Hall of Fame. It is an example of the false philosophy behind such laws. 

NYSE Facade:
a copy of a copy of a copy
(Wikimedia Commons)

Gentile was sued for his images of this public building. Architect I. M. Pei claimed all rights to the image. The museum was built with public money. It sits wide open to be seen from anywhere. After being sued, Gentile was ordered to destroy all copies of his work. Eventually an appeals court reversed the ruling at a cost of about $2 million to the artist. Interestingly, about 100 such buildings are protected by similar copyrights, including the New York Stock Exchange and the Chrysler Building.

Alternately, if an invention is property then, it never ceased to be property.  The government would act like a land office, registering the ownership deed. But land is finite and limited in occupation by the laws of physics. Ideas have no such limitation. So, independent invention and discovery must be allowed. But granted that, the property exists forever.  Instead we have a mystical fiction that 17 years or some other magic number is the correct length of time for a patent.  Right now under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, a work is protected for the life of the artist plus 75 years, or plus 90 if the work is sold to a corporation.   That is not rational, but just arbitrary.

PREVIOUSLY ON NECESSARY FACTS

Engines of Creation

Copy Rights and Wrongs

The Genius of Design

Innovation and Discovery

Open Secrets