Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!usc!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!aero!aerospace.aero.org!abbott
From: abbott@aerospace.aero.org (Russell J. Abbott)
Newsgroups: trial.misc.legal.software
Subject: Re: Intellectual Property
Message-ID: <80817@aerospace.AERO.ORG>
Date: 13 Aug 90 14:58:15 GMT
References: <80565@aerospace.AERO.ORG> <1990Aug10.043721.2081@looking.on.ca> <80636@aerospace.AERO.ORG> <1990Aug11.040632.21692@looking.on.ca>
Sender: news@aerospace.aero.org
Reply-To: abbott@antares.UUCP (Russell J. Abbott)
Organization: The Aerospace Corporation, El Segundo, CA
Lines: 56

In article <1990Aug11.040632.21692@looking.on.ca> brad@looking.on.ca (Brad Templeton) writes:
>...  I have suggested that the basis for property should be, in the simplest
>terms, "I created/built/made it, it is mine."  ...
>
>I believe this is largely the way our legal system works.  By and large
>creation *is* the source of property in our society.

I disagree on two counts.  

(1) Very little of what is considered owned was created by the owner.
On the contrary, most of what is consiered owned was not created by the
owner.  For the most part most of what is owned was purchased, and much
(if not most) of the money (or other media of exchange) for buying
things was received as a result of selling one's labor, i.e., performing
a service.  Of course there is also inheritence, winning the lottery,
legalized stealing, selling things that one owns, etc., none of which
involves creation.  Of course one can create something and sell it or
provide stewardship in the creation of something (as in farming).  But
for the most part, creation plays little part in the ownership of most
things in society.

If you consider manufactured goods, a prospectively good example for the
creation-means-ownership position, the component parts were generally
purchased, and the manufacturer performed the service of putting them
together.  (E.g., consider a manufacturer of clothing or breakfast
cereal.)  Would you argue that an assembly line is a creative agent?  I
doubt that I would.  Yet most things that are owned as a result of
production are a result of such a mechanical process.  It seems to me
that the manufacturer owned the component parts before they were
assembled and he owns the assembled element afterwards, but creativity
was not involved.  If the assembled element is more valuable that the
component parts, it is the assembly process that has provided some
value-added.  But creativity needn't (and usually doesn't) play a part
in that value added.  

In addition, a manfuctured product is not owned because the manufacturer
built it, it is owned because the pieces were owned ahead of time.  If
you built something out of stolen components, you would not own the
result.  In fact, you would not even be entitled to ownership of whatver
value added your work provided; the original owner would.

(2) Very little of what is created is considered owned by the creator.
As I've pointed out before, hardly anyone thinks people own their ideas.
(You may be an exception.)  Did you ever hear of a scientist, political
analyst, etc. say about an idea, that it was his and that no one else
could use it?  Of course not because no one would take him seriously.

>... I am open to hearing what other people feel is the simple
>basis of property.

I would be interested in that also.  I wonder whether the notion of
ownership is a primitive or if there is something more primitive on
which it can be based.  I don't know what the philosophical status of
the notion of ownership is.

-- Russ Abbott