Intellectuals and their property

[Ol' Dirty]

I was wondering, if you look at intellectual property laws, and think of intellectuals as people who own that intellectual property, doesn't that make intellectuals members of the bourgeoisie? That is, owners of intellectual property? The means of thought?

[Demogorgon]

I think you have misunderstood what intellectual property means. It basically refers to rights concerning the reproduction of things like books, music etc.

[lulks]

an intellectual does not necessarily own intellectual property

[A.R.Amistad]

I don't have much to say on this subject as of yet, so I'll post some authorities on the subject that should do the talking for me.

Karl Marx

The bourgeoisie has stripped of its halo every occupation hitherto honoured and looked up to with reverent awe. It has converted the physician, the lawyer, the priest, the poet, the man of science, into its paid wage labourers.

It can now be said that capitalism has turned most intellectuals into wage workers, ie, proletarians.


Marxists Internet Archive on Intellectual Property

The institutions of law stipulating that the expression of a set of ideas (copyright) and the creation of inventions (patents) and trademarks is a protected form of property which can be leased, sold, or restricted in entirety from the general public. Simply, intellectual property is the conversion of intellectual, creative, and all other non-material labour into a commodity.
When intellectual property is bought and sold then the images and ideas concerned are commodities like any other, and consequently, ownership of intellectual property rights is a form of wealth and constitutes capital in just the same way as ownership of land or bars of gold. Private Property rights in the socialised forces of production stand in contradiction to the continued existence of humanity and the transformation of knowledge into a form of capital represents an intensification of that contradiction.
These institutions of property are generally created by the capitalist government with the intent of creating a temporary monopoly as a reward for innovation. These laws do not, as they purport, "protect the inventor", but instead protect the bourgeios. Barriers created by large industry prevent all but an exceptional few of individual workers from striking out on thier own. This forces the vast majority of innovators to work for a company who agrees to give the worker a wage in return for all rights over any innovation or creation. In this way, the capitalist intensifies the commodification of the worker through the assimilation of both the body and the mind. This mental commodification demands that the very forms of expression the worker produces for the employer can never be used again by thier creator without permission from the employer!
The incentive of copyright thus exist largely for the benefit of the employer, not the worker. Some of these laws are necessary for economic feasibility, some of them result in exuberant profits. It is critical to understand that while some workers make big money off brilliant inventions, the vast majority of creators and innovators are hindered or completely prevented from doing their work at all because of copyrights, or don't have the buisness sense to leverage their creation properly (think of all the innovators Microsoft has made 'deals' with).
The extent of the failures of copyrights and patents are double-edged. Tabloids are dirt cheap while school books are insanely expensive. Drugs necessary for the survival of hundreds of millions of people (AIDs drugs are but one of many examples) are exuberantly priced far above and beyond cost of production. It is critical to undestand however that to some extent these things are necessary to recover the very high and long term costs of drug development, book composing, or whatever else -- no capitalist would put money into a project that could not at least return such money. Incentives of some kind are necessary for an effecient use of resources versus failures, and at least that money used to create a project, which is over and above immediate production costs, needs to be recovered.
This is the crux of the incentive debate in the realm of patents for socialist economics -- it is less about rewarding innovators than it is a question of how best to ensure effecient use of resources. Surely Socialism seeks to do away with property, but the question remains how to manage such a system without the oppression of property?
A balance is necessary for capitalism between the public and private interest first because there is the historical impetus that all knowledge is public domain (see the history below); a position under constant attack by ever expanding copyright legislation. Second, it is recognised by capitalist governments that monopoly creates conditions that harm capitalist society in general, and other individual capitalist proprietors in particular, thus necessitating a public domain clause of some kind.
Historical Development: Intellectual property had its origins in the royal patents (monopoly right) of the late feudal era. The first known patent for an invention was granted in 1421 to the Florentine architect and engineer Filippo Brunelleschi who was given a three-year monopoly on the manufacture of a barge and hoist used to transport marble. Copyright had its origins when royal patents were extended to printers several decades after the first patent. The use of royal patents and copyright slowly spread throughout Europe over the next 200 years. In 1623, the British Parliament set a limit of 14 years to the period for which royal monopolies could be granted.
The purpose of intellectual property in the late Fuedal era of Europe was on the one hand to serve as a system of taxation: monopoly rights in exchange for a share in the profits. On the other hand, when government had the continuing right to declare the existance and extents of private property for any new invention and idea, it created a powerful mechanism of governmental control. A monarch would grant publishing guilds a monopoly on the production of certain books in exchange for not printing anything critical of the government.
Copyrights and patents were not justified as being the impetus for innovation until Capitalism, as before this it would have been an absurd notion. The whole of human progress before Capitalism existed without the formulation of such laws: the European Renassance was possible without copyrights. The golden age of Islam occured without these laws nor institutions. China's dynasty's spanning millenum of innovations never considered implementing such laws. Imagine a patent on prymaid building, or the Chinese going after the Romans for using the arch in construction!
It was not utopian ideals that prevented such laws -- it made sense for the times. The means of production were not nearly as centralised nor organised, and when they were, they were controlled by the government. Thus, any large scale innovation was a de facto government monopoly. For any small scale innovation, it simply could not be disseminated for the public good without allowing any small time producer to make it. Futhermore, small producers could not have survived otherwise -- imagine the blacksmith having to pay royalties for every hammer and wrench made! If a neighboring nation went about constructing a similar innovation, the only price paid would be pride -- that the glory of such a creation came from the 'advanced society' of the neighbor. A government may indeed have tried to keep secret many innovations from one's enemies, but to go after an emeny on the basis of their having used such knowledge would have been absurd.
Capitalism changed this, because it needed to in order to function. The Statute of Anne in 1710 recognised that the author should be the chief beneficiary of copyright and determined that after a period, later set at 28 years, the text should become part of the public domain. By the end of the nineteenth century most countries had laws which protected the copyright of their own citizens. The Paris Convention for the Protection of Industrial Property of 1883 established protection for trade marks among 100 participating countries. The Berne Convention of 1886 established a treaty between 14 nations to extend copyrights to each others’ citizens and this treaty has gradually evolved to include every production in the literary, scientific, and artistic domain, regardless of the mode of expression (Rome, 1928) and the Brussels 1948 convention extended the principles to cinema and photography and the period of protection to the author’s life plus 50 years, and restricted the right to translate, though this was later somewhat relaxed at Stockholm in 1967.
Beginning in the latter part of the 20th century, intellectual property has risen to become even more important than property in goods or land. There was a time when capitalists were able to use the discoveries of science for free, but in the 21st century the wealthiest capitalists are the owners of huge amounts of intellectual property, and the most powerful imperialist countries are the principal exporters of intellectual property. Movie and CD exports are worth many billions of dollars, education of foreign students may earn more export dollars than primary produce or manufactured goods, while millions of people die every year of hunger while crops able to feed the populations of whole countries can only be grown with seeds whose genome is the intellectual property of private institutions.
Further Reading: For one view of this process, Antonio Negri and Michael Hardt’s Postmodernisation, or The Informatisation of Production. On the issue of trademarks specifically, see "No Logo", by Naomi Klien. See also Hegel's Philosophy of the Right: Property.

[CartCollector]

You have to remember, if you're an artist working for a label, an engineer working for an engineering firm, a filmmaker working for a production company, or a programmer working for a software development company, chances are your creative work is not your own, but rather belongs to the company you work for. Hmm, selling the result of your labor to a capitalist so they can profit off of it while you receive a paltry wage back... what does that sound like again? That's right, creative workers are proletarians! Don't believe me? Check this out:

By allowing its users to access millions of songs for free, the music streaming Spotify has revolutionized the music industry by handing them a potential competitor to illegal downloading...

[I]f we take a look at the numbers relating to Lady Gaga that we reported a few days ago, Spotify is barely generating more revenue than most artists make from illicit file-sharing. With an income of only $167 for more than a million plays, he/she is not going to be able to pay the rent...

In fact, TorrentFreak has heard from various sources that independent distributors can get deals of at least $0.03 per play with Spotify. This adds up to a pay day of $30,000 instead of $167 for a million plays, which suddenly sounds like an altogether better deal.

Source: http://torrentfreak.com/spotify-isnt...ls-are-091123/

So take a look at that. Lady Gaga- Lady Gaga- is paid less than 0.6% of the income that her songs create through Spotify. Most factory workers are paid a higher portion of the surplus they create than Lady Gaga is through Spotify. Now mind you, I'm sure that her other revenue streams aren't as exploitative, but still. Just goes to show you who benefits the most when you respect IP law and who hurts when you don't.

[¿Que?]

You are making an idealist assumption about what determines consciousness or in this case, thought. While I am no economic determinist, that is, I believe thought can influence thought, I believe the prevailing condition which shapes what people of a certain era think is material. Those with material property are ultimately who define the thought of the era. This is because ultimately, they have the power to control what gets out there. Viewed in this way, the means of thought, as you put it, is nothing more than the means of production.

[AK]

You have to remember, if you're an artist working for a label, an engineer working for an engineering firm, a filmmaker working for a production company, or a programmer working for a software development company, chances are your creative work is not your own, but rather belongs to the company you work for. Hmm, selling the result of your labor to a capitalist so they can profit off of it while you receive a paltry wage back... what does that sound like again? That's right, creative workers are proletarians! Don't believe me? Check this out:
Source: http://torrentfreak.com/spotify-isnt...ls-are-091123/

So take a look at that. Lady Gaga- Lady Gaga- is paid less than 0.6% of the income that her songs create through Spotify. Most factory workers are paid a higher portion of the surplus they create than Lady Gaga is through Spotify. Now mind you, I'm sure that her other revenue streams aren't as exploitative, but still. Just goes to show you who benefits the most when you respect IP law and who hurts when you don't.

This may also be of interest to you: http://www.spotify.com/int/why-not-available/
You can only listen to Spotify if you live Finland, France, Norway, Spain, Sweden or the UK. Whilst you would still expect her to receive substantially more for her music, this may explain why the income she receives from Spotify is so little.

[Ol' Dirty]

@ Amistad:

Thank you for the article, it's very helpful and informative. I'll have to see the article on marxists.whatever b/c revleft format is hellish on my eyes.

[eyedrop]

@ Amistad:

Thank you for the article, it's very helpful and informative. I'll have to see the article on marxists.whatever b/c revleft format is hellish on my eyes.

If you write revleft.org instead of revleft.com you get some differing colours. See if that helps

[AK]

If you write revleft.org instead of revleft.com you get some differing colours. See if that helps

I thought you could just change the style in options... like I have...?