I am not “confusing” anything. I am purposefully making an analogy between the tangible (physical) universe and the informational universe. They are both vast and unclaimed. You invest capital and labor to homestead a physical piece of a new planet the same way David Cameron invests capital and labor to “homestead” a piece of the vast informational universe (defined by all possible 10 gigabyte binary patterns). You haven’t shown how/where this analogy fails.
A single cubic (physical) meter out of 10^80 available, or a single physical atom out of 5x10^80 available are MUCH LESS SCARCE than a single 10 gigabyte instance out of 2^(8x10^9) possible/available. Go prospect your own area of that universe and leave David Cameron alone on his own homesteaded property around his particular 10 gigabyte sequence. Why butt in?
No it isn’t. It only claims property over particular INFORMATION – a particular 10 gigabyte pattern and its sufficiently similar transformations (i.e. “vicinity”).
This is a double strawman. (1) Only the creator/producer of a pattern can claim ownership of it, so naturally created patterns are no-one’s property regardless of who found them first. The “prospecting” occurs in the informational universe and not in the physical one, and it’s done by actually CREATING unique 10 gigabyte patterns. (2) Even when a previously created (or “homesteaded”) 10 gigabyte pattern is copied onto some physical media owned by someone else, the information property owner has no ownership claim on the physical media. He merely claims ownership of the pattern itself. Remember, information property “lives” in the informational universe, and not the physical one.
Again, I’m not confusing anything. I’m establishing a full analogy between the physical (tangible) universe (property) and the informational universe (property), including rules of appropriation and demarcation of such property in both universes.
The analogy is a failure however, since the former physical universe is composed of scarce means with quantitative relations between cause and effect whereas the same properties cannot be ascribed to the latter when one realises that the notion of scarcity can only be applied to describe the means with which to acquire information and not information itself.
Hence, the law of returns for one example does not apply to information. Mises uses the example of knowing the formula for coffee in Human Action as one such case.
You may of course argue that this example doesn not point against information as property since knowing how to make coffee is an idea. The difference between the two is the same distinction information theorists make between what they refer to as information (a definition far less malleable than what seems to be used by IP advocates on this forum lately) and knowledge.
The written text above could be viewed both as a sequence of symbols, and interpreted according to its information comment using a sum of p ln(p) terms, compared to that before the words were revealed but the number of symbols known. Otherwise, the meaning of the text could be perceived from which the ideas and knowledge conceived by it were interpreted. Both notions coexist and apply to the same line of text.
The use and reuse of the “information” in either case however does not deter or even affect the production of those objects that can be derived from a “knowing” the information. This is contrary to what is common with economic goods, and therefore property.
Hence, an analogy and not equality between the two concepts/universes. I am, of course, aware that the informational universe is different from the physical one. For one, I can touch things in the latter. Apart from listing differences between the two universes, what objections do you have to the presented analogous concepts of appropriation and demarcation of property in the informational universe? Why do you find the same concepts acceptable in one universe and not acceptable in the other?
As for scarcity, in the informational universe there is ONLY ONE 10 gigabyte pattern called “the movie Avatar”. Regardless of how many times you copy a DVD with the same pattern (thus making such patterned DVDs non-scarce in the physical universe), there still only remains ONE such pattern in the informational universe (out of 2^(8x10^9) available), owned by its ONE proper owner (creator, producer, homesteader) making it very scarce there, indeed.
Perhaps another analogy would be helpful… The owner of a roller-coaster ride is fully entitled to sell his rides to as many people would buy tickets for it. Your copying of Cameron’s “Avatar” and selling it to the public is “butting into” his piece of informational universe (from which he is extracting a rent from the public enjoying his “ride”) just like in the physical universe you would “butt into” the roller-coaster property and start selling rides every other hour (thus sharing the rent with the owner). Now if you wouldn’t interfere in the latter case, why would you interfere in the former? What entitles you to ANY rents from informational property (piece of the informational universe) for which you have no claim whatsoever?
Wow. How do you not understand this? If someone puts a well in a certain place, no one else can put a well in that exact place. If one person takes some oil, another person can’t take that oil. There is rivalry because the actual oil is scarce - which is obvious considering you say that the well can be used up.
Whereas with information - such as the music on a cd - it can be copied an infinite amount of times without affecting the original. It can be used in many places at the same time. Hence, there is non-rivalry.
Stranger’s point is that what is certainly property is the well hole and the oil pumped out of the well hole because you can’t have two individuals who drill a hole in exactly the same place without a conflict arising and you can’t have two individuals barreling the very same oil without a conflict arising - these are rival resources. z1235 or whoever started this thread seems to think that the free market will come crashing to the ground if more than one well can be drilled into the same oil reservoir. However, It is conceivable that property law could permit an indefinite number of drills to access the same oil reservoir… there is nothing inherently communistic or anti-free market about this. In fact, it might be more efficient since oil wells can be pumped more rapidly (=cheaply) if many drillers are drilling the same well. However, it could also conceivable that property law could find natural boundaries in reservoirs on the basis of how and where they are drilled. I’m no expert in the law of oil drilling and I assume there is already a sizable body of law on this very subject. But it is neither here nor there how many wells can be drilled into an oil reservoir in a manner consistent with property law. The idea of property stands above and outside oil wells or bit-patterns. Only scarce, physical resources can be property, and nothing else. Any legal system which treats things that are not scarce physical resources as though they were property creates artificial scarcity and multiplies property titles beyond the real property which is backing them, that is, such a legal system permits and protects fraud in a systemic way. Our legal system is filled with fraud… fractional reserve banking and intellectual property are but two notable examples.
An analogy which breaks down when you consider that physical resources are conserved (cannot be created or destroyed) and information is not*.
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Your valiant efforts in homesteading a piece of property are not why you own it. The homesteading argument, or rule of first use, is a “tiebreaker” in property disputes. If you make a claim on some physical resource and I make a claim on that same physical resource (claims, like information, are not conserved and can be multiplied without limit… cf European colonization), a property conflict will arise. If we bring our dispute to a court, instead of just fighting it out, the court will want to know who was first using that physical resource, as evidenced by at least demarcating it, if not actively laboring on it. If neither of us was using the physical resource, then neither of us has a higher claim to it. Otherwise, one of us was using it first. Whoever was using it first is the owner.
Because by copying Avatar, I do not have to invade James Cameron’s property or otherwise come into a property conflict with James Cameron. The proper solution to the copying issue is for the movie producer to only show his movie on his own property and require, as a condition for entering, that all customers leave their cameras outside. He can expand his reach by signing NDAs with a theater chain, so that the movie can be shown in many venues on the same terms.
Oh my. I don’t see much point in continuing the discussion if this passes for a reasoned argument.
Yes it is! Nyah nyah nyah nyah!
Property has nothing to do with claims. It’s like the story of the turtle who declared he was king of all he could survey… he forced his “subject” turtles to keep stacking underneath him so he could be king of more and more of the jungle. Eventually, the bottom-most turtle burps and the whole stack comes crashing to the ground. What a vain exercise in self-aggrandizement. Sticking flags on islands or pins in a map or writing bits to a hard drive does not constitute property. You must understand that property is a way of dividing up the physical world. It is a human convention, like language, but its domain is the physical world. The reason for this is that property evolved to prevent conflicts and restricting property to the narrowest definition in real, material objects, limits the range of possible conflicts. Allowing things that are not scarce to be considered property creates the possibility for needless conflicts. It’s like claiming that a certain region of air is your property. How silly! Air is an abundant (not scarce) resource (like information)… issuing property claims in the air is just to create needless conflicts, just as issuing property claims in information creates needless conflicts. And note that a much better case could be made for property claims in air than property claims in information because at least air is physical and finite.
"Gobbledy-gook and “nonsense” are just ways of noting that your statements are absurd (rationally contradictory) or unsubstantiated … with some character. I mean it good-naturedly… I’m more interested in discovering the truth than winning debates. If you can show me where I’m wrong, I’m more than happy to change my mind. I’ve changed my mind about 10,000 times in the last two years since taking up Austrian economics… I’ve had a real mental revolution.
Clayton -
*Physicist Leo Szilard created the Szilard engine cycle - similar to the Carnot cycle - to show that information is, in fact, physical. While it is true that information is physical, information is also easily replicated, making it - at scales greater than the quantum scale - non-rival. You can’t copy a qubit without disturbing it, so you may have a case that qubits can be owned as property per se… but a classical bit is easily copied without disturbing the original “master” copy, meaning, classical Shannon information is not scarce and is non-rival.
Your last statement is a circular argument. Re-read it and see. Property is important because it helps us avoid conflicts with one another, in a world where there is only so much food to go around, only so much water, so much clothing and so much shelter… there’s lots of reasons for humans to come into conflict with one another. But conflicts are destructive of human life and property. So, avoiding conflicts is a paramount issue for survival. Property helps us avoid conflicts. There is nothing about James Cameron’s writing N bits of Avatar frames to his hard drive that makes me come into conflict with him by making a copy of it… after he has publicly released those bits. Before he releases those bits to the public domain, I would have to invade his property or otherwise violate his property rights in order to copy those bits. Hence, the correct solution for keeping information private is for the individual who wishes to keep it private to not publish it. This should be obvious.
How can you “destroy” a 10 gigabyte pattern that occupies its own location in the informational universe (of all possible 10GB patterns)? You can “destroy” it as much as you can “destroy” a cubic meter of the physical universe.
The same would be valid in the informational universe. The same logic would be used to decide who owns a particular 10GB pattern (and its informational vicinity) in the informational universe. If I created it, then I have “homesteaded” it (rule of first use) thus my claim to its ownership is superior to yours unless you can prove that you’ve “been there” (i.e. created the pattern) before I did. What’s the problem?
Exactly. If Cameron and you enter into a dispute over who owns the 10GB pattern “Avatar” (i.e. that particular area of the 10x10^9 dimensional informational universe) then the court would award ownership of that area to Cameron and not you. He “homesteaded” it by creating it, and you didn’t, regardless of how easy it is for you to make a physical copy of his DVD. The law of property in the informational universe would only be concerned about appropriation and demarcation of areas in THAT universe. No matter what you do in the physical universe, Cameron owns that ONE area of the informational universe that’s demarcated by his 10GB Avatar sequence and its vicinity. Simple really.
You are entering into a conflict in the informational universe. You have no business “tresspassing” his informational universe area. You have no claim to that area whatsoever. Cameron homesteaded it, demarcated it, and it’s rightfully his. Keep off, and homestead a different (non-rival, non-overlapping) area of the informational universe by creating a different 10GB pattern to call your own. Simple really.
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I don’t see how your solution is more proper than mine. You’re merely stating that Cameron’s property in the informational universe cannot be property (i.e. his) unless he builds an electric fence and a repelling force-field around it. I know of many property areas in the physical universe that a perfectly properly owned without any fences or force fields around them. Why have this requirement for the informational universe? Can’t you just keep off areas in the informational universe that are not yours?
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It has everything to do with claims, especially when we both claim ownership to the same thing.
I don’t think I must, and you shouldn’t limit your mind like that either. As humans increasingly trade and do commerce in the informational universe – producing and trading property in it – it is important to establish the concept of information as property, and my analogy is a budding attempt at formalizing it.
Same thing with information, except its domain is the informational universe comprised of particular 10GB patterns as its building blocks – just like particular cubic millimeters or atoms are building blocks of the physical universe. The analogy is complete.
Just like in the physical universe, the conflicts in the informational universe are hardly “needless” to the property owner. They are only “needless” to the ones wanting to steal or tresspass over what’s not theirs. Cameron, “sitting at the porch” of his homesteaded property in the informational universe would beg to differ with your opinion, I would say.
Same here. Thanks for this. I knew it about you from your previous posts which made it all the more surprising to see you use such language. Bygones.
I couldn’t see how it was circular. Do you mind explaining the circularity better?
You’re coming into conflict with him in the informational universe. There you’re tresspassing over his area (property).
Again, levels of protection (or actions of others in the physical universe) does not affect the fact that he is the owner of his own area of the informational universe. The ease of perpetrating crime, theft, or tresspass does not weaken the claim of the proper owner to his own property.
Again, it matters not that there is ONLY ONE 10 gigabyte pattern called “Avatar”, anymore than if there is ONLY ONE way to make coffee. The “use” of either cannot be considered strictly as a means or economic good since they do not display quantitative limits with regard to their use in action, and for that reason cannot be considered scarce.
Since they are not even scarce, and hence cannot be considered economic goods, they fail to meet the requirements necessary and prior to even being considered property.
My Matlab software (a 4GB pattern on a DVD) is both a means and an economic good without which I would find it very hard to be productive in the physical world. Hence, I acknowledge the claim of the creator of that pattern (Mathworks) to own the area of the informational universe in the vicinity of their particular 4GB pattern. Mathworks owns it, and we don’t, regardless of how many copies of the same pattern have criminally been made and sold by others in the physical universe.
No it is not, though the reason you disagree with me I think is because we are working with 2 different definitions of means and economic good. I’m using Mises’ definition.
From pg 93 of the Scholar’s edition of Human Action:
"Means are necessarily always limited, i.e., scarce with regard to the services for which man wants to use them. If this were not the case, there would not be any action with regard to them. Where man is not restrained by the insufficient quantity of things available, there is no need for any action.
It is customary to call the end the ultimate good and the means goods. In applying this terminology economists mainly used to think as technologists and not as praxeologists. They differentiated between free goods and economic goods. They called free goods things available in superfluous abundance which man does not need to economize. Such goods are, however, not the object of any action. They are general conditions of human welfare; they are parts of the natural environment in which man lives and acts. Only the economic goods are the substratum of action. They alone are dealt with in economics."
Now arguably, we could drop Mises somewhat rigid definition with regard to knowledge and information (two different sides of the same coin in many ways), and say that it constitutes a means, though it is definitely not scarce, since it is not something which on its own is required to be economised, and this I mention to distinguish from our capacity to store it which is scarce.
Hence, for all intents and purposes information is a “non-scarce means”, which would be equivalent to a free good, but not an economic good, since there is no limit to its use in the universe necessary for it to be economisable.
Refererences to current legal practices and definitions does not achieve your task of proving they are legitimate.
I don’t see how this is at all relevant for the paradigm of information (a 10GB pattern) as a building block (atom, cubic millimeter) of a 10x10^9 dimensional informational universe. The same way you can claim a cubic meter of the physical universe as yours, Cameron and Mathworks can claim the respective areas of the informational universe (demarcated as the informational vicinity surrounding their respective 10GB information patterns) as theirs. We all know that “prospecting” those patterns (from the depths of the vast informational universe) does not come free, and requires capital and labor, just like is required for prospecting the physical universe. Why would anyone invest capital and labor for the purpose of prospecting a “territory” that you claim to be “abundant” thus “non-scarce”? I claim that their respective homesteaded areas in the informational universe ARE scarce and rival, as they are both not easy to “prospect” for AND no two entities can occupy (homstead, own) the same area without causing a conflict. The analogy with the physical universe is air-tight (so far), I’m afraid.
That still does not tell me how someone comes to own an oil deposit, or an ocean fishery, and this just confirms my earlier suspicions: the intellectual communists have no theory of property whatsoever.
Under traditional Rothbardian theory of property, it is simple. Whoever is first to produce an oil deposit owns it, whoever is first to fish in a fishery owns it, and whoever is first to exploit information owns it. It is clear, simple, contractual, economical and ethical. In order to create the impression that these things cannot be property, the intellectual communists resort to an onslaught of fallacies whose purpose is to obfuscate the nature of property itself, and the end result of their circle of fallacies is that they can no longer determine the ownership of any scarce resource.
You’re both arguing what the word idea means and completely sidestepping the point. Semantic arguments are pedantic.The point is, WHATEVER word you want to call it. Avatar is an unscarce resource infinitely reproducible without destroying the quality of the original. Your idea for validating copyright law doesn’t address THAT argument from the IP freely crowd (such as myself) because it doesn’t matter whether you homestead a 10gb binary sequence, or a napkin from a bar, it’s the same thing.
How does your logic account for the fact that, using avatar as an example, i can encode it in h264, divx 6 xvid, 3gpp etc and EACH file at any specific, or VBR will be it’s own UNIQUE sequence of bits. he cannot homestead ALL Possible combinations that could be played back and appear as Avatar, because the digital representation of the information is not the information itself. In fact, a VHS is not digital at all how do you homestead that?
How does one homestead anything that’s not digital but infinitely reproducible such as how to build a DVD player in the first place? How could copyright have existed 100 years ago when there was no digital media.