The fundamental fallacy of intellectual property

• The Eternal Contradiction

When it comes to intellectual property, it is linked to a headache, piracy. Piracy can be said to be intertwined with intellectual property rights, from the first day of the definition of intellectual property rights, piracy will be the same, lingering. Now, like poison, it erodes all the areas defined by intellectual property, repeatedly and repeatedly, and seems to be a permanent subject of justice defending intellectual property rights.
Because today, the definition of intellectual property has been widely accepted, almost become a social consensus, a simple logical explanation, because of the legitimacy of the existence of intellectual property, piracy will be the right proposition. However, legitimacy is the result of the legalization of man-made concepts, which contain many definitions and assumptions, and if the definition and assumptions of intellectual property are problematic, or if the legality of the law is excluded, the rationality of intellectual property has internal contradictions, so it may not only be the problem of piracy, but many problems may be easily explained.

• What is knowledge
  

Intellectual property rights is the combination of knowledge and property rights two concepts. First, the concept and nature of knowledge are analyzed. From a descriptive perspective, knowledge is a specific sequence or combination of information. For example, "1+1=2" and "1+1=3" describe different information, and only a specific sequence of "1+1=2" can be called knowledge. (Mathematics knowledge is excluded from the scope of the definition of intellectual property, this is another problem), and as far as knowledge itself is concerned, its attributes contain information attributes, immaterial, space-independent, time-independent, three essential attributes present the unique knowledge.
Immaterial means that knowledge itself does not depend on the media, and the media only helps to describe, record and disseminate the knowledge, and to present its information in different forms. Brain, paper, disc can be knowledge (information) of the recording media, but the same content of the record form certainly different, so the process of knowledge dissemination is different forms of information replication process. The cost of copying information is different, and rote learning requires a lot of effort, obviously more laborious than newspaper printing, and the lack of a CP command in the computer's world of operating systems or even CPUs can turn the machine into scrap metal. Theoretically, the cost of information replication is zero, and the number of copies is unlimited, and network and digitalization make reality more and more close to the theory. In other words, information replication is the basis for the dissemination and use of knowledge, and the amount of transmission does not depend on human regulations, but only on the number of media.
Spatial independence is easy to understand, still with "1+1=2" as an example, for example, two intelligent primitive people live in two remote villages, they can not contact, but also found that the same is equal to 2, in their minds at the same time to obtain a copy of this information, and are independently obtained, independent of the site.
Time-independent and space-independent similar, only in the above example, the time of two people to open, it can be explained that knowledge is the eternal time.

• Misunderstanding property rights
  

The concept of property right arises from the protection of material property, which is also the content stipulated by the earliest human code, and is used to maintain the primitive order of society. This is far more distant than the legal definition of knowledge and has solidified in people's minds. Based on the understanding of real rights, the concept of property rights is also applied to knowledge. Although knowledge is immaterial, it is similar in terms of labor and cost, so the property right of knowledge is based on this simple similarity logic. The example is simple, or happens to a clever primitive, he may use a day to push out the results of 1+1=2, he can use this day to make a bamboo basket. The cost is the same, the use of knowledge is difficult to measure, then according to the private rules, bamboo basket and formulas are the work of the wise man, should be owned and used by others, that is, the right to monopoly. However, the bamboo basket is material, the material thing has the space and the time uniqueness, is unable to replicate, the legal system maintains the unique ownership is inevitable and must. The key meaning of real right is to guarantee the owner's right to monopoly and appropriation of material property. But because resource consumption is the same or similar, the measurement of the value of knowledge is simplified, and the right to knowledge is also simplified as an understanding of real rights. and the nature of knowledge is ignored or blocked.

• Contradictions and bridges
  

Of course, the intellectual property system cannot avoid the contradiction between the copy attribute and the proprietary, so a creative design is the "validity period". The exclusive right is protected by law within the validity period, and the essential attribute of the knowledge outside the validity period is released. This design brings two benefits, not only to ensure that knowledge can be freely obtained, but also the economic benefits brought by the exclusive rights become the temptation and impetus of innovation. This has also led to the creation of a strong momentum of intellectual property in the early days, advancing innovation and exploration.
But this does not mean that the structure of the intellectual property system is stable, as if the two opposing concepts of knowledge and property are connected by the validity period, property rights become more greedy, the binding of knowledge becomes negative energy, and the positive kinetic energy of intellectual property is offset. Although the validity period is differentiated in different industries and fields of science, it is impossible to reconcile the essential contradictions between the two opposing concepts in any way, while the excuses for extending the validity of the economic benefits are applied as an example to maintain monopoly and restrict the dissemination of knowledge.
In terms of the nature of knowledge, the term "validity" itself is absurd and should not exist. If knowledge can really exist as a property, property rights should be vested in all who use it. Because the existence of knowledge depends on certain labor, but there is no real invention, so-called inventor is actually a discoverer, is a certain natural law or a particular information sequence of the discoverer.

There is still another problem, people's innovation and exploration behavior is driven by economic interests, no proprietary protection of the validity period, the power of innovation is lost, and back to the state of intellectual property rights before the creation.

• Enforcement of fairness
  

Although intellectual property has a core contradiction, it relies on the fairness of law to maintain its positive part. With the deepening of digitalization and informatization, the quantitative change causes qualitative change, and the negative energy is accumulating in unprecedented and rapid. Protracted patent lawsuits have gone beyond the scope of enterprises to defend their own interests, more as a tool to combat opponents and create monopolies. The cost of evading and combating piracy has also become a heavy economic burden for enterprises, judicial, administrative and even social. This, in turn, does not include the market value and social value of the so-called piracy, ironically, those who resolutely uphold the rights of exclusivity sometimes use piracy to expand the market.

• The meaning of tax cuts
  

To get a conclusion, there is a problem with the design of intellectual property, but there is no better and more effective system to replace it, because it needs to ensure that the release of knowledge is widely used, but also to encourage the efforts of continuous innovation. The open source system is a useful attempt, but enlightenment and morality have no way to solve the survival problems of enterprises and individuals.

In fact, the simplest answer still exists in the properties of knowledge itself. Knowledge into products, profits, profits is economic benefits, if knowledge can not be proprietary, then the economic benefits should also come from the common part. Fortunately, there is a common part of modern economic activities, the tax section, adhere to the affirmation and encouragement of innovators, will maintain the monopoly profits to become innovative personal and corporate tax cuts, is the most effective and direct approach.
This means that the IP system needs to be changed and innovated as well, and innovators must give up the exclusive right to knowledge in order to obtain tax breaks for product profits, and price advantage to market, which can measure the value of innovation more effectively. The validity period applies to tax breaks, the concept can continue to exist, but the nature is completely changed. The most tempting and positive is actually the benign side effect of the tax system, where knowledge has no exclusive rights, and all discussions related to piracy, resources are also released. A system that is not greedy may be more conducive to upholding the justice of the law.

• Far-flung practice
  

Of course, such analyses and programs are based on simple case studies, and the practical issues are much more complex, and there will be no simple way to do so on many issues such as composite intellectual property rights, copyrights, film and television works, industry features, and innovative tax returns. But the core of the problem is the same, if we need to solve the existing irreconcilable contradictions of intellectual property rights, we must separate the property rights from the knowledge and make institutional re-combination. While the current intellectual property system is continuing, its negative energies have weakened the positive, making the balance increasingly fragile until a balanced day is broken.

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The fundamental fallacy of intellectual property