For the record, and regardless of whether I agree or disagree with it, I’ve said or implied no such thing. This is a strawman, and a fictitious one at that.
Z.
I liked that book.
Whatever you call it – for the sake of my analogy introduced in this thread – if you can represent it as a 10GB binary sequence, then it is a part of the informational universe. If you created that sequence, then you homesteaded that area of the informational universe, hence you own it.
In the physical universe, yes. In the informational universe it is as scarce and reproducible as a square meter or an atom is in the physical universe. Do you know how analogies work?
Hmm… Well you guys from the “IP freely crowd” would still have to show how my analogy fails. Failing to do that would make you a “property freely” communist in both the physical and informational universe, or at least a hypocrite that applies different criteria to analogous situations for no apparent reason.
Very good question deserving an even better answer. In the same way that signal processing and information theory have provided you with the tools to transform one binary sequence into another, they have provided us with the tools to establish and quantify similarity (or vicinity) of such patterns in the informational universe. For instance you can reverse (flip from 0 to 1 and vice versa) all bits from the Avatar 10GB binary sequence, making it “totally different” from the original but signal processing and information theory can easily sniff that out and would place the resulting “negative” of the original in very close proximity to the original in the informational universe. The area of the informational universe owned by Cameron (surrounding its 10GB Avatar pattern) comprises of all such sequences that are sufficiently similar (or close in the informational universe) to the original.
You’re starting to make my case here. Perhaps the advancement of technology and the free markets which increasingly create, trade and treat information as property (and as something of value to the free market) demand an introduction of new paradigms such as the analogy I’m trying to introduce here.
Z.
This statement is circular… look at the order of the highlighted words, you say the bit pattern is owned, which makes it scarce. Scarcity, in Hoppean philosophy of property, is a pre-condition to property. Air is not owned by anybody because it is abundant. Bit patterns are also abundant and, more importantly, the physical objects they describe are limitless.
Clayton -
I think there is a hidden philosophical disagreement between you and I… I suspect that you are, at one level or another, a Platonist (e.g. forms, such as numbers and bit patterns, are just as real as the physical world). I am not. Numbers - bit patterns are just binary numbers - are a strictly human abstraction which we use for describing and manipulating the physical world.
Information is destroyed through the simple act of erasure. If the master copy of Avatar were to be destroyed before the movie was released, that would be it. No more Avatar. [:)]
The problem is that the practical result of your “property claim” is an invasion of my property. If I rip a CD (which I own) into MP3 form on my computer (which I own), your property claim to the “intellectual property” on that CD - which prohibits me from making MP3 copies onto my computer - is actually an attempt to aggress against my property (my CD and my computer) by prohibiting me from using it in a way that does not result in a property conflict with anyone else.
You keep trying to press this analogy between the physical and informational universe to the detriment of your ability to analyze the issues, IMO. The actual consequences of “property” in patterns is the prohibition of copying. That’s it. It is “copy right”. But as the cost of copying has gone down due to technological advancements, it has become more and more clear how absurd it is to prohibit the producer willing to copy at the lowest cost from doing so. It’s childish, like when an older sibling smashes his younger sibling’s Legos saying, “stop copying me, make your own!”. Against Intellectual Monopoly makes an overwhelming case against the supposed benefits of copy right and patent.
Property conflicts, as I am using the term, refer to conflicts between human bodies and their extensions - via property - in the physical world. I recommend reading this piece by Stephen Kinsella for an overview of the difference between real property and patterns.
_
Yes, part of the definition of real property is that you must somehow demarcate or emborder it in a publicly visible way (I’m borrowing from Kinsella, here). This is, of course, impossible in the informational universe apart from some artifice, such as a “pattern registry” or some such silliness.
Information evolved to avoid conflicts? Please explain how.
Clayton -
Perhaps my writing wasn’t clear. The “owned” part is not what’s “making” the 10GB pattern scarce. It’s as scarce in its (10x10^9-dimensional) informational universe as any cubic meter (m^3) or an atom is scarce in the (3-dimensional) physical universe, thus ownership of that pattern (and its vicinity) in the informational universe would be equivalent to ownership of any cubic meter (and its surroundings) in the physical universe. I’m establishing an analogy here – and NOT a binary indexing system for every cubic meter or atom of the physical universe, as you seem to have understood.
Z.
But bit patterns are not scarce! You are talking about an analogy of scarcity but it is not scarcity itself. This can be shown via reduction to absurdity. You chose a very large limit to the size of what you consider to be the information universe but your choice of that limit is arbitrary. It could have been 5GB. Or 1GB. Or 1MB. Or 1KB. Or, it could have been 1 byte. For that matter, it could have been 1 bit. So, who homesteaded the first bit? That person owns, by extension, all information whatsoever because all discrete information can be reduced to bits.
In addition, I think it is obfuscatory to constantly refer to this 10GB limit, as if it establishes some sort of finitude to the information space. By adding just one bit - 10GB + 1bit - the size of the information universe is doubled. The size of the physical universe would not be doubled if one additional atom could be created in violation of the law of conservation of mass. This indicates that there is something fundamentally different about bits and atoms and that an analogy of this sort is no analogy at all. And, even supposing we limit ourselves to only patterns of 10GB in length, such a universe is effectively infinite. It is incomprehensibly large. 2^(10*2^33) is an incomprehensibly large number of patterns and is, for all intents and purposes, infinite. There can be no scarcity in a universe whose resource (patterns) is in infinite supply.
Let’s consider the homesteading of random bits. It is easy, with the aid of a hardware random generator, to generate billions of random bits. Can I fill hard drives with random bits, then begin searching the works of others (say Cameron’s Avatar) for copies of portions of my random bits, which I homesteaded on my hard drives?? This is absurd. But, on your conception of property, it is valid.
Then there’s the whole issue of encryption and proof… if I keep my “pirated” copy of Avatar encrypted at all times except during playback, how will you ever be able to prove that it is, in fact, Avatar? One scheme is to split illegal or politically controlled information into two random bit streams that, when XOR’d, yield the original bit stream (basically, one-time pad encryption), then store the two bit streams on physically separate drives, say, remotely. Whose property rights are these bit streams violating?? The morass of absurdity into which this can go should be a red flag that something is amiss in your theory of property.
Clayton -
That’s a very good point. The “real” (3-dimensional space + 1-dimensional time) world as we perceive it is as much a model, concept, approximation of the REAL world as is my model of a 10x10^9-dimensional informational universe.
They are obviously much more than that, as the free market increasingly creates, trades, and values information as property. I’m merely introducing an informational universe in which this property resides – and this human “abstraction” of mine is no different from the 3-dimensional abstraction that we humans are using to model and describe the reality around us and the physical objects residing in it. The concept of physical property is just another human abstraction designed to conveniently fit the 3-dimensional human abstraction of the universe. As our perception of the universe changes, so will our definition of property. Can you exclude the possibility that 300 years from now humans may all end up being a bunch of interconnected brains in jars creating and trading increasingly elaborate informational patterns in an informational universe? What value (if any) would the concept of physical property have in such a world?
That’s ok. An explorer can homestead a faraway island, or a planet and lose the map or instructions on how to get back there. In both cases (Cameron in the informational universe and the explorer in the physical universe) have merely lost the proofs for their ownership claims, and without the proof so goes their claim as there’s no court in the world that would assign them ownership of a property by only taking their words for homesteading it. That doesn’t mean that the 10GB Avatar pattern is “destroyed” from the informational universe. It’s as “destroyed” from the informational universe as the explorer’s lost island or planet is “destroyed” from the physical universe when he lost his map/instructions.
Well, then I guess we’ll have to resolve the conflicting claims, won’t we? If my analogy works (and it has worked splendidly, so far) my property claim collides with your property claim. I propose that, as society allocates increasingly more capital, labor, and productive resources into creating and trading information as property from the informational universe, my property claim will be increasingly judged by the free markets (hence, by the courts) as stronger than your property claim.
I understand. As reasonable free market agents, we could possibly come to an agreement that you may make copies of my pattern for your own use. We could also possibly come to an agreement that by me selling you a CD with my pattern on it I have in no way relinquished my homesteaded ownership of my pattern in the informational universe. I know it’s mine. You know it’s mine. The courts know it’s mine. So if you’re caught making copies and distributing them out on the free market then you’re trespassing over my property in the informational universe and I’m taking you to court for it. You OK with that?
It may or may not be just prohibition of copying. It could be more or less than that depending on how the free market perceives the validity of both of our property ownership claims – mine for property from the informational universe, yours from the physical universe. They are both valid claims, IMO, and whenever humans have had conflicting property claims, laws usually emerge to reasonably resolve them – “copyright” being just one manifestation of such laws.
You’re calling the pirate copier of the DVD Avatar a “producer” merely providing a “low cost” solution to the free market? You’re calling Cameron’s claim to ownership of the 10GB Avatar pattern and the area of the informational universe around it childish and absurd? Wow. You don’t see ANY validity to the analogy I’m introducing and to the property claims that arise from it?
I’ll take a look at it, though I’ve been involved in a few anti-IP debates here already, so I’m pretty familiar with the main anti-IP arguments. Not impressed.
Any objections to expanding the concept to informational property in the informational universe? I’m still waiting for a good objection to the analogy, as all of them so far have been mere lists of differences between the physical universe and the informational one without refuting the analogy itself.
I’ll check out that one too. Thx.
Nothing childish about registries, really. The free market has used real property registries for centuries now. What’s wrong with everyone knowing who owns what, both in the physical and the informational universe? And any informational property in the informational universe could be easily demarcated or embordered by defining an informational vicinity (similarity) boundary around each original 10GB pattern.
Information as property evolved (and is evolving right before our eyes) to avoid conflicts in the informational universe (colliding claims of ownership in areas of the informational universe) just like physical property evolved to avoid colliding claims in the physical universe.
Z.
Pro )Dogs should be treated like cats. since i can draw an analogy between dogs and cats. a cat is like a little dog that doesn’t like to play fetch.
Anti)I object that dogs should be treated as one would treat cats, here are some differences, they express different genes, they manifest different behaviours, they have different instincts, they have different physiologies, i feel differently about them.
Pro)so far all you have done is make a mere list of differences between cats and dogs without refuting the analogy.
rewriting history? how do you respond when I say that patents and copyrights are inventions of judges engaged in legal positivism under the aegis of states?
LOL - is there a way to give rep points or something on these forums? I laughed out loud reading this… thanks!
Clayton -
Of course that is all that patents and copyrights are. z1235 seems to think he/she invented the idea of “homesteading information space” but that’s exactly what copyright/patent has always been about, this concept that by thinking something and writing it down, it somehow becomes “yours”, in analogy to the way that by fencing a piece of unowned land it thereby becomes yours. Property exists with or without the state. Copyright and patents exist only by virtue of the state. Do the math.
And here is a beautiful example of why claim does not constitute a sufficient basis for property. If a claim were a sufficient condition for rights in real property, every cubic micron of the planet (and the moon and anything else visible from Earth) would long ago have been claimed.
Clayton -
Land and mining claims are also the inventions of states and legal positivism. I have yet to hear a single theory to explain how these can come to be owned from the communists.
I remember reading Rothbard’s description of US mining associations and how they managed mineral rights before the US gov’t had authority out West. Very fascinating. The State has entangled itself and imposed its centrally-planned bastardizations of law on every aspect of human life. That does not mean that all law is state law.
Clayton -
not so, the common law had provision for land ownership. mining is just a right that a landowner of ‘mine-able’ land has automatically.
Perhaps your perceived absurdity comes from your lack of understanding of the proposed concept. The length of the sequence I picked (10GB) merely defines the dimensionality of the informational universe – 10x10^9 in this case – and it was picked to be able to accommodate the largest binary sequence created so far, e.g. the movie Avatar. Every information residing in this universe would have to be 10GB long. The ones that are actually shorter (songs, software, etc) would simply have 0s appended to them in order to make them all 10GB long, i.e. “residents” of a 10x10^9 dimensional universe. As I also said in my OP, but you probably missed as you initially had a wrong understanding of what I was trying to accomplish, just like there are plenty not-owned, not-claimed, not-yet-homesteaded cubic meters (out of the 2^266 available) in the known physical universe, there are plenty of not-owned, not-claimed, not-yet-homesteaded 10GB-long binary sequences (out of the 2^(10x10^9) available) in the known informational universe. So to answer your question, a person can claim to own a 10GB pattern of zeros followed by a 1 only if he can prove to the courts that he was the one that first created it (homesteaded it) in the informational universe. Even if this ownership was being granted to him it would be of no use to anyone as you can’t really do anything with it and it would be “light years” (in informational universe sense) away from valuable properties such as the 10GB Avatar pattern (and its vicinity). So go ahead and try to claim it, and see if anyone cares.
The dimensionality (thus size) of the informational universe can always be expanded as needed by commerce and technology. Still I don’t see a problem with the analogy. By the bolded part you seem to still misunderstand it, though. The analogy is not between bits and atoms. It is between 10GB patterns in a 10x10^9-dimensional informational universe and atoms (or cubic meters) in a 3-dimensional physical universe. Ultimately, if 5 new dimensions were discovered in physics (or in space), would you still stick to your Lockean concept of property confined to 3-dimensional space and 3-dimensional objects in it?
You just said that the universe comprised of all possible 10GB patterns is “incomprehensibly large” (there’s actually 2^(10x10^9) of them). Go ahead and fire up all your super-computers, and create ALL possible random 10GB binary sequences, and save them on hard drives – then see how much that costs you and what you get in return. I estimate that it would take you all the time left in the universe (before it collapses back into itself, if it does) and all the humanity’s capital and labor to “cover” (explore, homestead) but a smidgen of the 10x10^9-dimensional informational universe, and it will most likely be useless to anyone just like a smidgen of 10^6 (one million) cubic meters of physical space 3 light years away from the Sun is useless to anyone now. So be my guest and homestead any portion of the informational universe by running a random generator. On the other hand, you could follow Cameron and by dedicating much less capital and resources create a 10GB pattern (homestead a targeted, better area of the informational universe) that’s actually worth something on the free market.
Go ahead and encrypt and encode the Avatar all you like. If eventually you start selling it in public (with the decoder included, of course, or else how are people going to see it?) then I’ll find you and take you to court where I will prove that you have trespassed over my property in the informational universe. The existence of sophisticated thieves of physical property does not affect your concept of physical property. Why should sophisticated schemes of covering up your tracks (so as to fraudulently claim that you have not trespassed over my property in the informational universe) affect my concept of informational property in the informational universe?
As I’ve shown above, no such absurdity exists.
Z.
Are you implying that ANY analogy between X and Y can be refuted (devalued, dismissed) by the mere statement that X does not equal Y? Some powerful stuff you’ve got there.
Z.
how is this argument any different then writing on a napkin at the bar? You refuse to address the argument and instead argue in circles about an information universe.
the mythical parallel universe of information, this is like the god argument, it exists because the bible says it does.
No i wouldn’t that’s a red herring, I can show how your argument doesn’t address the problems with copyright and patent laws. You could come up with an analogy on how red herrings convert fish food into feces and I still wouldn’t have to explain how your analogy fails because it’s a red herring.
homesteading a digital byte sequence in the “information universe” is no different then writing a book using the 26 possible letters of the english alphabet and saying you’ve homesteaded the information contained in the book in an “information universe.” All you’re claiming is that copyright is now possible because we have digital technology.
No, That’s not how codecs works, and further it doesn’t address analog sources. You do understand the difference between analog and digital right?
Your new paradigm and analogy is simply a semantic argument for the existing paradigm. Information is infinitely reproducible and you want to make an analogy that’s little more then a semantic argument to justify copyright law. You’re saying information is not infinately reproducable in the “information universe” which is a construct of your imagination. You’re talking about copyrighting a binary sequence as if the sequence is the information itself. It’s not, and never will be. You’re argument is like saying stephen king couldn’t copyright The Stand until he had the ability to scan it into a PDF and homestead the byte sequence in the information universe. That’s why your argument and analogy falls apart. You can’t seperate the information from the medium it’s stored on because doing so destroys your case.
nope.
Very nice non-explanations guys. You still don’t have any theory of how one comes to own a mineral deposit.
Since you don’t have any theory of property, there is just no point in arguing against your fallacies. You’re not presenting an alternative.