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Board Beginners & Help
Re: Hardcore libertarians: explain your anti-IP-rights position to me.
by
JoelKatz
on 01/07/2011, 03:22:14 UTC
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Your right to drive your car in your driveway is not absolute.
That's because there is no such right. The right is strictly a negative right, the right not to have anyone interfere with my car or my driveway.

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Suppose I'm standing in your driveway, with your permission, when suddenly you decide it's time to drive your car down the driveway. You run me over and I sue you. You'll quickly find that my right not to be run over takes precedence over your right to drive.
That's only because you've mis-stated the right as a positive right. The right is not to have anyone interfere with my property without my permission. Since you have permission, you aren't in any way affecting my rights. Rights are not yokes that tie us down and prevent us from doing things. They are spheres of moral authority over which none may intrude.

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My right to have my fragile glass structure remain intact is not absolute either.
Only because there is no such right at all. Imagine you have two glass structures, substantially identical. There are two people and one of them hits each of your glass structures with a hammer, intending to damage it. Assuming neither structure breaks, have they violated your property rights?

The property right is a zone of authority. It's your property, so you say what happens to it. If someone violates this right, and you suffer damage as a result, that damage is recoverable in court. The damage could be physical damage to the property, it could be loss of use of the property, or it could be anything else so long as it's a real damage and it's fairly attributable to the action that violated that right.