Murder isn't as bad as file-sharing? Who are the people running (if that) this government.

The article by Stephan Kinsella is just one big "Begging the Question" logical fallacy.  It assumes that IP doesn't exist in order to prove IP doesn't exist.

We've got four wars (Irak, Afghanistan, Pakistan & Yemen)

Major crop failures on ALL continents (famine in 2010 for sure)

Central bankers printing & throwing money like confetti

Destruction of the Health Insurance 'reform' program (did someone forget theidea was to 'insure' 49 million Americans that didn't have it due to being broke?)

Ex-White House & Downing Street war criminals running around free

Global Warming being laffed at due to corporate propaganda moguls declaring it to be a farce

Unemployment skyrocketing

Inflation skyrocketing (the numbers the gov't gives are pure fiction)

Social Security & Medicare have been looted

Peoples 401Ks, IRAs & pension funds looted

and on top of that we have stupid kids coming out of our school systems as evidenced by your absurd post about 'downloading music (Dude it's knarly tunes time) when the fargin world is truely on fire.

Maybe you could go help Lush Limbaugh and his HATE RADIO 24 x 7 channel instead of the one candidate that has his head at least part way out of his posterior?

Awful articel! "1. Child abduction: the fine is only like $25000." The word "like" clearly displays that you don't know what the hell you're talking about. Where are you getting these numbers? Where are they applicable? This is just stupid. Why sould I take this seriously if you can't even get concrete numbers? Ugh, this is just terrible.

I have to agree that the Kinsella article is one big logical fallacy.

Also, I think that more libertarians don't like IP because it's logistically difficult to enforce non-physical property rights without a government entity. Seriously though, if you recognize the problems inherent in real property as well as IP, then you can easily make a case for the U.S. Government being the sole property owner of all area bought in the Louisiana Purchase, and all land grants and sales to individuals were under a verbal contract to pay taxes and swear fealty to the government in exchange for the rights to use the land. Homesteading vs. utilitarianism is so subjective that anyone can have their own opinions and be no more or less right than the next guy.

I don't know why anyone who believes in property rights would denigrate intellectual property laws in general. "The laborer is worthy of his wages." Consider this: you have a great idea, and you spend five years, 60 hours per week, in your shop developing it into a working, ready-for-market Super Widget. Without patent protection or a similar IP law, you would get little or nothing for all of your labor; it would all go to the first big company with a factory to produce far more units in a month than you could in another five years of hard work. Why would you invest so much when you will gain nothing?

On the other hand, indefinite exclusive rights are easily abused so that exorbitant pricing or licensing terms serve to deny the benefits of an invention to society.

The Constitution specifically addresses this; it gives Congress power "To promote the progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries".

The problem is that in recent years patent and copyright law has been corrupted. Copyright laws have not only lost any realistic time limits, but the penalty for violations thereof have, as noted in this forum, become disproportionate to any realistic valuation of damages. The source of this corruption is easily traced to the Hollywood limousine liberals; who shower Congressional socialists with campaign money and glitzy endorsements, then demand one-sided treatment in copyright law in return.

Patent law has similarly been corrupted, although not to the same extent. The notion of renewing a patent is likely contrary to the Constitutional stricture of "limited time," but it is available in certain cases. Far worse is the absurd stretch of applications, for example, patenting genes so no one else can even study them for medical applications without paying license fees. The last time I looked, God had prior art on ALL natural genetic material, and He put it in the public domain. (cf. John 1:2, Genesis 1:28). It is similarly absurd to patent a heirarchical method for filing office papers or something equally immaterial as well as mundane and obvious. Yet such patents have been granted.

On the other hand, the sheer expense of seeking legal redress in this present era has made it impractical for low-budget inventors to defend their intellectual property
 from companies which value their legal departments more than their integrity. This is not an indication that intellectual property laws should be discarded, but rather of a need to reform the administration of justice.

The root problem is a general breakdown of the moral standards of American culture. John Adams asserted,"This form of government is wholly unsuited for any other than a religious people." When people live to serve themselves rather than God and their neighbors; when they choose self-gratification at the expense of others, then we see the law itself degenerate into anarchy (patents) or tyranny (copyrights).

Copyright law was once reasonably proportionate. If an artist produces a work that generates a market demand for a million copies in the first two weeks, does he not deserve a hundred times the reward of someone who produces something of similar scope that only attracts buyers for 10,000 copies? On the other hand, once an artist has had a reasonable time to reap the fruit of his labor, should it not be available at a more common price so those who are more frugal by necessity or choice may also have the opportunity to appreciate it? Once upon a time this was so, but today we have copyrights in force for materials written by people who have been dead for half a century.

A major problem is in the practical application of the copyright law. When one's labor can be produced, stored, reproduced and transmitted as a collection of data bits, it is difficult to identify copies made without remittance of a fair royaly to the author. Therefore, as mentioned previously, the wealthier and less scrupulous producers have resorted to purchasing laws providing draconian penalties for the few unlucky or foolish enough to get caught, on the questionable premise that they have distributed many illicit copies to others. They hope that attaching an absurdly large fine to a low probability of apprehension will deter petty theft. In sum, we have a market with thieves on both sides of the counter.

Unfortunately, as is quite apparent from the attitudes expressed by this forum's participants, this only breeds contempt for the entire body of copyright law. If this leads to the discouragement of a competent artist because he cannot afford to protect his right to negotiate and obtain a fair price for his products, everyone loses.

Contempt for an unreasonable law easily leads to contempt for all law, which is detrimental to a free society, for "anarchy breeds tyranny". But when reasonable laws are not observed, legislators often attempt unreasonable regulations. So, look in the mirror, people. If you want to contribute to the solution, you must be sure you are not aggravating the problem.

This comes as no surprise to me.  It's plain and simple - it's all about the "bottom line": "The Green God"; "Greed is Good".  Don't get me wrong.  I think Capitalism is pretty good, but like everything else, it can be taken to the absurd, as in this case.

Good idea but bad execution with this artical. Poor references and bad writting. Better luck next time

One must be careful to make a distinction between the two types of court proceeding, criminal and civil. Persecution of copyright law is a civil matter, and the plantif can set the ammount for which they want to sue, so long as they justify it (in the recording industry's case, they claim that every time it is downloaded they should be reimbursed for the full price of the song). Those other offences are criminal offences, most of them felonies, which are persecuted by the justice system, and carry serrious jail time and a criminal record. While 2 million dollars sounds bad, they can only sue for that much if they successfully prove to a judge that your actions lost them 2 million dollars worth of profit.

If you upload the file, even once, and afterward it spreads like wildfire, (doubling, trippling, etc.) exponential returns on the transfer may be staggering. You could easily exceed to the ammount of two million in damages. Proving it, may be somewhat tricky, but you only need to convince a jury of randomly selected peers, not God.

Also, information is not property. That line of thought leads towards very frighting realities. Legally it may be, philosophically, you may argue it, but in all practicality, it is impossible and therefore completely futile to own information. You cannot own it, or control it distribution, no matter what your philosophical idealogies happen to be. Any attempt to do so, ends badly, for everyone involved.

How is the maximum penalty for murder 15 years in prison? When the court system has been handing down life sentences and the death penalty for years. Where the fuck do you get your information?

I'm agree with "The Constitution specifically addresses this; it gives Congress power "To promote the progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries".The problem is that in recent years patent and copyright law has been corrupted. 

Volkswagen Golf

Where are you getting these numbers? Where are they applicable?