On 8/7/98, Albert Henderson <noblestation[_at_]compuserve.com> wrote:
>
> On 05 Aug 1998 Dan L. Burk <burkdanl[_at_]shu.edu> wrote:
> >
> > Your examples are interesting, but inapposite. Location is of
> > course congestible -- you can't have an infinite number of real
> > estate parcels in the same location (or even two).
>
> Location doesn't mean a thing unless you can define it, fence it,
> and defend your property rights.
It is unclear to me how this is responsive to my statement above, unless you are indicating that we have reached agreement. The fact that "location," which is tied to real property, can as you observe be fenced, indicates that it is a private good, and is congestible as I mentioned.
> Landlord do these things and charge rents when they can far in
> excess of their costs. They may also lose money on their
> investment.
I am once again skeptical of your broad generalization about what "landlords do." But to the extent that they may be able to charge rents in excess of their costs, it is because land is unique, as I have repeatedly stated, and creative works are not.
> How is this so different from copyright? Are you trying to argue
> that the possibility of making copies, like an unfenced lawn,
> implies some sort of permission? Should the possibility of entry
> and use dilute the value of your real property?
You seem to have a difficult time with the concept that intellectual goods are infinitely reproducable at zero cost, but land is not. Perhaps I am not explaining it well. Richard Epstein does a nice job in a recent essay:
"The person who has internalized the labor should, as a first approximation, be allowed to internalize the gain. That statement becomes an exaggeration with intellectual property, but as an instinct it works most powerfully with land, where only one person will ever be in that position to internalize the gain in question: no matter how hard one labors, you cannot "copy" the crops."
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