Quote from: bitcoin2cash on April 30, 2011, 06:42:01 PM

The point was only that some things can harm some people while helping others. That should be fairly uncontroversial. If you don't like the lemonade stand analogy then I'm sure you can tweak it a little so that it fits, instead of giving it away, selling it at a lower price or even the same price. I'm still hurting your business by not giving you the entire market to yourself. I'm sure you could come up with your own example if you gave it enough thought.

This leaves us with the real question regarding IP laws: are they a net benefit or a net harm to society? If you don't know one way or the other and can't provide evidence to backup your assertion then you have no business advocating the existence of such laws. One assumes that the state of nature is the default and that we don't keep laws on the books without good reason. I personally think that IP laws are a net harm because it stifles innovation, i.e. nobody can use the likeness of existing fictional characters to reinterpret them into new contexts and stories.

I liked your analogy very much actually. My conclusion from it is that without certain protections, people in my position are subject to the free rider problem. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_rider_problem) Your analogy creates a net loss for society, not only for us individually. Neither of us can sustain the creation of lemonade so society loses since they can't get lemonade.

Speaking in terms of economic theory: my view is that IP laws attempt to take intellectual creations that would otherwise be public goods, and turns them into private goods.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_good

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Private_good

Without IP laws, intellectual creations would remain public goods and are then subject to the free rider problem. This means that the creators of those goods would not have an incentive to continue creating them, and society would lose since it would have fewer inventions, etc.

Without IP laws, how do you suggest addressing the free rider problem?