Yes, they’re both (1)“pages” on the same (2)“web site” called (3)“wiki”: one describing a (4)“mathematical universe” and the other a (5)“physical universe”. (1,2,…,5) are all equally (6)“real” as human constructs, including (6).
Z.
It’s being exploited, just like the oil in an oil deposit is exploited by extracting it.
calling them communists is an ad hominen, and your argument here still fails to justify why they should provide an alternative. You can’t justify it, it’s a fallacy. They’re attacking YOUR argument they don’t need to provide an alternative theory of property.
You’ve effectively copyrighted an image of a napkin.
The universe is real, gold and matter are real. Information is abstract and committing it to 1s and 0s doesn’t create a new universe of information. You’re trying to take an unscarce good and make it a scarce good by basicallying writing it down and telling other people they can’t write it down. You’ve brought nothing new to the copyright debate with your argument, you’ve just changed the argument semantically but it’s still the same copyright argument.
Pedantic. All you’re doing is changing the rules from binary to alphanumeric, and not addressing the substance of what’s wrong with your argument. The information is not what it’s stored on. It’s the same whether in alphanumeric, binary, morse code, french, spanish piglatin or etc. It’s infinately reproducible in virtually any language.
you’re arguing nothing here.
another pedantic argument. It doesn’t bring anything. Information is infinitely reproducible and you’re trying to argue that it’s not with pedantic meaningless arguments about a claim that an information universe exists in binary. Binary is computer language, Converting a book from english to binary doesn’t mean anything because the medium is not the information. You’re homesteading a binary sequence, Which is meaningless because if we changed the standard by which binary is translated, say from ASCII we would have to use an entirely DIFFERENT binary sequence to transcribe the book too. If we used 64 bit instead of 32 bit, an applications BINARY becomes a different sequence.
neither it’s a statement of fact.
EITHER way, you ignore the substance of the argument to make a pedantic argument about ascii instead of PDF. in 1850, no one could have done EITHER.
no it’s not. You think it is, but it’s not. You’re just making pedantic arguments and circular arguments to avoid that the information is not the medium. Converting it to binary changes nothing because the idea is abstract and can be represented in binary, numbers and letters, vhs dvd laserdisc or anything we haven’t invented yet. Your argument in a nutshell is that we can justify copyright by writing it in notepad and copyrighting the binary sequence. It’s circular and pedantic, but nothing new. The information is not the binary sequence you converted it to. And the binary sequence is meaningless without the code to translate it back.
fine…but info can be copied…
so, if I copied your info on my CD, would you consider my CD your property?
If you built a house on my farm with your own lumber, I would consider your house my property.
There is no connection between these two issues. If I could shoot a “duplication ray gun” at your house and recreate it on my property, would that “replicate” house be yours?? That is what limitgov is saying - information can be duplicated, scarce physical resources cannot.
Clayton -
what does that have to do with my example?
in your example, you would be losing out on a piece of your land…
in my example you aren’t missing anything…
Argument from miracle.
Fallacy 4, inflation.
don’t make me read all that…just tell me…in plain english…
I gave you the specific number to the specific paragraph.
Huh?? It’s a perfectly valid argument - if we could replicate physical resources in the same way that information can be replicated, why wouldn’t it be freely permitted? It would be a happy circumstance if physical resources could be replicated as easily as information can be. Rather than restricting such replication, we should encourage it to be done as widely as possible. Since information can be copied virtually for free, we should encourage it to be copied to the nth degree - we should hope that movies, music, books, inventions and sound business practices are replicated far and wide, throughout the globe. We will all be much wealthier for it.
Those who believe they can profit from the information they have created, by selling it, have a duty to physically emborder it - hide it - so that it is clear that this is private information which cannot be copied without invasion of property rights.
Clayton -
He tries to draw an analogy between fractional-reserve banking and rejection of intellectual property - namely, making unlimited copies of patterns is like printing unlimited amounts of money. I don’t see how a person could argue in a tighter circle… but there you have it.
Clayton -
come on…just explain it to me in your own words…
if I have my CD, you have lost nothing…
In a world where the impossible is possible, all property law has to be rewritten based on the new ways to act that people choose.
This is not this world, hence there is nothing to argue over.
Once again, this is fallacy 10, the rejection of the division of labor in security, and you haven’t given it more sense.
since when can you copy and paste property?
I’ve never mentioned “copyright” while you keep butting it in. Any specific reason? “Copyright” as practiced in the status-quo, may or may not be a part of the gamut of solutions for how conflicting property claims get resolved in the free market. If I try to claim the 10GB pattern created by the napkin image as my property in the informational universe, I’ll have to gauge the costs of fighting the claims in court vs the benefits of enforcing it. My guess is that most (or all) ridiculous property claims would be thrown out of court as such. Any court would know the difference between a 10GB pattern representing an image of a napkin and a 10GB pattern representing the movie “Avatar”.
Information theory provides methods of quantifying (measuring, establishing) “distance” between multiple points in the 10GB-dimensional information universe. The informational “distance” between the 10GB original and any processed (coded, transformed) version of it is proportional to the amount of processing (transformation) performed. But still, the 10GB-dimensional information universe is so vast that ALL versions of an original (including ALL translations of a single book) can still be considered as a “cluster” or an “area” in the informational universe.
Finally, appropriation and demarcation of physical property is not always crystal clear (as conflicts inevitably have and will arise). Does that make you question physical property as a concept, too?
You suggested that I didn’t know how codecs work and questioned whether I knew the difference between analog and digital. I merely explained why the analog/digital is a false dichotomy and not relevant to the discussion at hand.
Ignorance often sees rigor as pedantry. Binary is a mode of representing digital information (with an alphabet set of size 2, i.e. 0 and 1), and NOT a computer language. Information (any 10GB binary sequence in the 10GB-dimensional information universe) is as “reproducible” in the information universe as a cubic meter of space is reproducible in the physical universe. Btw, I’ve explained this probably half a dozen times already. Can we assume this settled?
Except they’re not as different as you may think. ALL of the examples listed above would be VERY CLOSE to one another in the informational universe. Any other humanly created 10GB binary sequence would be “light years” away from that cluster of points in the informational universe. I think you simply are not aware of how far information theory has been developed. The very same theory that allows you to manipulate (process) a sequence also provides the tools to measure and quantify the “movement” of that sequence in the information universe.
Then I beg to differ.
What’s the “substance” of your argument? In 1850 they had no need for a 10GB-dimensional information universe, as the information content (books mostly) was not as large. Even if they couldn’t quantify it in a rigorous information theory context, they most definitely were able to distinguish one book from another and were able to recognize two copies of the same book. So the concept of informational “distance” existed even then, albeit in a very rudimentary form.
Information is information – most (if not all) instances of it reside at unique locations in a 10GB-dimensional information universe – and not the media that carries it. What circular arguments are you referring to?
Information theory methods can show that one 10GB binary sequence is a simple manipulation of another 10GB binary sequence thus establishing their “proximity” in the information universe. You can steal my car, paint it a different color, and call it yours. Hence, let’s reject the concept of car ownership as absurd, pedantic, circular, childish, and ridiculous.
Z.
We (except for a few disgruntled car dealers) would also be much wealthier if we all just walked onto car dealer lots and drove off with brand new cars without paying. Wouldn’t that be nice? “Everyone according to their abilities (Cameron, just make the damn Avatar, and shut up!), to everyone according to their needs (Wow, that Avatar movies was great! I wish it was free!)”
Z.
Just use the numbers, brother. Saves you grief.
Fallacy 3.
The analogy between “real space” and “information space”, for purposes of property discussion, is a terrible one.
Yes, you can homestead land. You can find a piece of land, start working it, and have yourself a nice little farm that belongs to you. An analogy was attempted between this and the application of labor to an idea to produce information. The analogy is tempting at first because of the whole “cubic meter” language that was used, but that is where the resemblances to homesteading end.
Once a useful piece of land is discovered, the question of who gets to exploit it leads to conflict, precisely because it’s a limited resource that cannot be exploited in every way at once. Homsteading is a means to resolve such conflict.
There is no such conflict arising when a piece of information is “discovered”. This is regardless of how laborious the process of discovery was.
(As a side note, I find it ironic that while they call anti-IP people communists, their arguments often have a distincly “labor theory of value” flavor to them.)
From a Misesian standpoint, information falls under Mises’ writings about the “creative genius”. Mises’ contention, if I recall correctly, was that, from society’s standpoint, the product of the genius is a free gift. And I tend to agree, because this does appear to be the natural order. Tales of great works that went unnoticed during the originator’s lifetime are cliche.
To be blunt, it’s pretty obvious from this thread that this guy invested his ego into his idea to such an extent that he is simply unwilling to recognize that it has been thoroughly demolished. I can’t believe people here are still keeping up the debate. The anti’s have won this thread intellectually, but the OP will never surrender. Why are you guys still wasting your time?