主题：美国政府起诉中国军方人员 -- Magnocaudax

小可在纽约时报那篇主题文章的评论版上关于intellectual property发的comments，只发表出来两个，现在都贴在这里。很多观点是从陈经和其他大侠那里剽窃来的，当然啦，对我们copy-left来说，偷观点那真的不算是偷啊。

第一贴

The whole idea behind intellectual property and theft is just flawed. If you invent the wheel and so gain a comparative advantage over other people, others will only pay you to use the wheel as long as you can guard your secret. It's not like physical object which is numerically single so your obtaining MY apple necessarily means I can't have THAT apple. Other people's having the IDEA of wheel-making is not going to make the inventor of that idea lose his own idea. It only ends the inventor's monopoly over that idea. Therefore to call it a theft is a bit of a stretch of terms. The proper way to call this kind of behavior, I think, should be "monopoly-breaking". We have to be grateful to all the past monopoly-breakers for not having to pay for all the mundane techniques such as zippers, bottoms, and shoe-laces we enjoy today.

路人甲回帖：

W.A. Spitzer Faywood, New Mexico 6 hours ago

If I spend money to do the research, and you take that research without fairly compensating me, then you are taking from me, something that I spent money to buy. Seems like a pretty accurate definition of theft to me.

小可回帖：

Your "spending money to do the research" is just a METAPHOR. To break it down, in order to do the research, you spend money to buy food, drink, research equipments, etc., all of which no one has taken away from you. Properly speaking, you didn't buy the result of your research as much as Archimedes didn't buy his principle. In order to buy something you need some one to buy from. Archimedes didn't buy his principle: he DISCOVERED something which has been out there since the Big Bang. Now you can make money out of the result of your research of course, but only so long as you CAN keep it beyond the reach of others. There is no moral right whatsoever extendible beyond that point. Those who argue for such right mistake power for right. Copy "right" is enforced by power, be it political or corporate, which has much to gain from imposing such "right". Therefore it is a misconception to expect "rightful" profit from conducting research: the profit people gain from the research is contingent on 1. the POWER to protect the secret, and 2. when that power is overcome, the POWER to enforce copy "right" law.

路人乙回帖：

PK South Carolina 2 hours ago

You sound like a Chinese 50 cent poster. It's nothing like seeing a wheel and then making your own. It's an intentional theft of technology and software for the explicit purpose of avoiding paying the inventor/innovator for the hard work and expenses incurred. Similar for drug development, techniques for surgery, artificial limbs, joints, AI algorithms, etc. The problem for China is that their communist system does not allow for individual thinking outside their designated box and thus they have no innovation so they feel stealing it is better than paying for it. Stealing someone else's property has always been unethical and immoral.

小可回帖：

Sounding like a 50 cent poster is better, I think, than sounding like an IQ 50 poster. I'm challenging the very idea that the so called "intellectual property" is a property and you tell me that stealing someone else's property is unethical. Oh well! What you should be arguing, in order to refute me, is why IDEAS can be properties. Think outside the box, please.

Your "China communist therefore no innovation", again, is just an "inside of the box" argument. The a-deomcratic hierarchical imperial Germany was the leading innovator in the late 19 to the early 20th century. What was our "democratic" America doing then? Copying others, and--surprise surprise--without paying for the ideas at that. So your argument is empirically WRONG and you only believe in it because it makes you feel better. The real reason why America is the leading innovator now is because it is the leading nation with the most advanced industrial capabilities and the biggest economy. You should really work hard now to keep that status rather than simply assuming it if you don't what to see China surpass you in innovation in your life-time while still being a-democratic.

路人丙回帖：

Andrew San Francisco, CA 58 minutes ago

That's ridiculous.

If Chinese companies want to compete with foreign companies who invent, design and create superior products, then they should at least have the honor and industriousness to attempt to reverse engineer the superior foreign products, then - gasp - possibly prove upon them through Chinese smarts and creativity.

Being caught red-handed stealing ideas, technology and other forms of intellectual property from other nations' companies to try to help your inferior businesses to catch up and compete is profoundly humiliating!

It's a self-inflicted insult to China's talent, culture, and civilization. Even a nation NOT concerned with face would be embarrassed.

How shameful!

小可回帖：

Hello leading commentator! I fail to see the shame or the ridicule here. Could you please enlighten me with an argument rather than a rant?

As much as I don't think there is such a thing as stealing IDEAS, I do think there is such a thing as stealing or grabbing PHYSICAL assets of others, and that people should be ashamed if they commit such a crime--a crime in which the imperial powers specialize. What makes hoarding "intellectual property" morally questionable is precisely that it helps powers, to which intellectual properties always concentrate because they are by definition powerful, to PHYSICALLY grab the properties of others. We have to be immensely grateful that the Chinese "intellectual thieves" "stole" the idea of A-bomb from the US in the 50s-60s which checked the US from threatening physically. Make no mistake, US did make such a threat in 1951 when they were pushed back in the Korean peninsula and they only abandoned the idea because soon afterwards they withstood the Chinese spring offensive and the war finally ended in a draw.

待续。