I don’t think I see the motivation behind including your (C) in a definition of waste. It seems an important normative consideration about property regimes, but not part of the concept of waste. You could talk of a “wasteful regime” such that (C), suitably modified, would be part of that concept. This would not be a distinction providing 2 different types of waste–it would be a distinction providing 2 different types (or a continuum) of regimes. That strikes me as a better way to go given your interest in intellectual property. Its pretty common now to recognize that property is determined by legal-political systems (regimes) and then to argue for a particular form of property based on other consequences of having the sort of regime that brings about that sort of property.
-Andrew

Thanks for the comments. I think I need to be making a clear distinction between two kinds of waste: (a) by individuals, and (b) as institutionally encouraged by a property regime. My discussion is really more about (b) than (a). A couple of further thoughts, somewhat inchoate perhaps at the moment:

1. I think there’s no problem making this distinction on Lockean grounds. I think the right point to get out of Locke is that he thinks a property regime is a good way to productively develop resources, such that we ought to give people who create things/mix their labor into them prima facie property rights over them. To be sure, these are natural law claims, but they are claims of law, which are meant to impose duties on others (and the provisos grant others rights: if i let the apples rot, I lose my property claim on them, and you regain your right to claim them). The presence of the provisos strongly suggests that Locke has such institutional considerations in mind.

2. The individual/regime distinction cuts across the distinction made in McCaffery between dissipatory and nonurgent waste. It’s also not one I’ve encountered in the literature so far, so it probably needs more working out.

Finally, I just finished a pretty interesting piece by Lior Jacob Strahilevitz (Law, Chicago) defending a qualified right to destroy/waste, based on an individual’s expressive interests. It’s intended partly as a response to McCaffery (and is not a piece of Locke exegesis, except for a paragraph that says it’s hard to figure out exactly what Locke’s proviso entails). The cite is:

Strahilevitz, Lior Jacob. “The Right to Destroy,” Yale Law Journal 114 (2005), 781-854

And it can be found at: http://yalelawjournal.org/114/4/781_lior_jacob_strahilevitz.html

Gordon

On your account, you only have waste if “(a) there is irrevocably unmet demand” and “(c) property claims prevent satisfaction of … demands.” (I’m ignoring your (b) here because I have no problem with it.) Both seem like a rather large and artificial restrictions. I am more inclined to think that the product of the great musician is wasted even if there is no demand for the work because existing persons are too unsophisticated to appreciate it or because it is simply unknown–buried somewhere in a musty library, waiting for discovery. In neither case would there be an irrevocably unmet demand and neither case would it be property claims interfering.

This actually causes you problems later–at the end of section 5, you recognize as much.