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Originally Posted by JSWolf
Just because the ideas are not tangible doesn't mean they don't exist. They exist as much as you or I. And yes they can be stolen. Take plagurizing for example.. That is the stealing of ideas for another's gain.
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I thought it was unauthorized usage of a text. Can really a limited set of ideas be pagurized?
I found that the Wikipedia article about intellectual property
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intellectual_property
discuses in a good way some of the points that have been made in this thread. Maybe everybody should read it so we can agree that there is different opinions so to pretend or assume that one view is the obbvious one is a strange thing to do.
For example:
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Furthermore, due to the non-rivalrous nature of intellectual property, comparing the unauthorized use of intellectual property to the crime of theft presents its own unique problems. In common law, theft requires deprivation of the rightful owner of his or her rights to possess, use, or destroy property. Example: When Joe steals Jane's bicycle, Jane cannot use or have access to it. Since intellectual property (for example, ideas and various transcriptions into written words, audible sounds, or electronic media) are so easily reproduced, no such deprivation to the owner occurs. Example: When Joe makes a copy of the music Jane recorded, Jane is not denied access to her original copy. In this sense, many forms of intellectual property meet the non-rival test for public goods: the use of the good by one individual does not reduce the use of that good by others.
A contrary view is that the deprivation of possession occurs at the outset - when an inventor, author, composer, etc. has a new idea, he or she has the choice of keeping that idea private and using it solely for personal benefit, or sharing that idea with the public in the form of a new invention, book, song, etc. In this context, the grant of limited rights is a "bargain" that the public uses to induce the creator to give up possession at the time the rights are granted, and in this sense, there is a voluntary and irretrievable surrender of possession of the property of the creator. The unauthorized use of intellectual property is then seen as a violation of the fundamental bargain (in the foregoing example, Joe buys Jane's bicycle but pays with a bad check), making the original deprivation of possession wrongful and requiring the public to act to make the good on the bargain by enforcing the rights it originally granted.
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