The basic moral principle which I discuss here is:

It is a good thing if people who create and publish information which benefits other people receive some payment for their efforts.

(Note: I use the word "publish" here, not so much to refer to publishers instead of authors, but to highlight the fact that if information is not published, then it cannot be of benefit to anyone. Or, in the case of trade secret, which can be used without publication, the creator of the information derives the benefit directly, and does not need to be separately rewarded for its creation.)

Clarification: "A Good Thing"

There are several reasons why we can consider it a "good thing" to reward people who create and publish beneficial information:

Two Refinements

We can refine the proposition by being more specific about where payment might come from, and how much payment an information creator should receive:

Specific Examples of "Beneficial Information"

Given that this article is about copyright and patents, it is useful to consider the specific types of beneficial information relevant to these two types of intellectual property:

The Defensibility Of The Basic Proposition

I claim that this proposition is highly defensible, and that few people would dispute it, whatever their views on intellectual property.

The proposition can be considered to be a direct consequence of the more general observation that people who do things which benefit others, which may or may not require some effort and cost on their part to produce that benefit, deserve to be rewarded, in some way, for their efforts.

What The Proposition Does Not Say

Intellectual Property

In some ways, this proposition is the strongest claim that can be made in favour of intellectual property, and it is typically invoked, either implicitly or explicitly, in most situations where someone is defending the existence of intellectual property, or of measures taken to enforce intellectual property.

However, intellectual property is one possible method by which creators can be rewarded for their efforts. We can think of intellectual property as being a legal system which is one possible implementation of this moral proposition.

The basic idea of intellectual property is that a particular item of information can be asserted to be similar to a physical object, in the sense that the person who creates an object owns that object, and as its owner, that person gets to decide what can be done with that object.

There is really only one difficulty with this concept, which is that information is not like a physical object.

In particular, given the existence of modern digital technology, and the ability to encode most forms of "beneficial information" digitally, the cost of making copies of information is practically zero. Which is not true for any type of physical object.

Yet, for intellectual property to work, we have to deem that all copies and all derived works are also "owned" by the original creator of the information.

Why Intellectual Property May Not Be A Satisfactory Implementation Of The Moral Proposition

Intellectual property seems to successfully satisfy the moral proposition that it is a good thing to reward creators and publishers of beneficial information:

However, there are two major costs associated with intellectual property, both of which are related to the fact that information is not like physical objects. Firstly, there is monopoly inefficiency:

Secondly, there is the cost of enforcement:

Why All This Matters

There is a "war" going on between intellectual property and "digital freedoms", that is, the freedoms to use general purpose computers, and the freedom to use the internet.

Because the moral defense of intellectual property depends so much on the idea that creators of information "deserve" to be rewarded for their efforts, those who defend digital freedoms have a tendency to dismiss the importance of this moral proposition.

This gives those who defend the concepts of intellectual property, and who advocate measures to "protect" intellectual property, the opportunity to claim that those people against intellectual property are defending an essentially immoral proposition.

Thus, to defend digital freedoms, we have to confront this moral proposition. We cannot just avoid it or dismiss it.

I will go further, and say that we have to acknowledge it, and concede its validity.

Then we have to point out that even though it is a good thing if creators are rewarded, it may still not be a good thing to have intellectual property, because the costs of intellectual property may be unacceptably high.

If it turns out that, indeed, the costs of intellectual property are too high, and cancel out any expected benefit from having intellectual property, we then have two choices:

Conclusion

In conclusion:

And ...

I would go as far as to say that it would be immoral not to consider the possibility of such an alternative.