L.Brillouin, Science and Information theory (Academic
Press Inc, New York, 1956).
The above is an excellent book on the subject, needless to say I must caution that I think Stranger is talking hogwash at this point.
Strictly, in information theory: Information is equivalent to data, and hence may be quantified e.g. if I receive a word with some letters missing, given that I know the probabillity distribution of the occurence of letters in the english language, I may be able in some way to “quantify” the total information I have received.
This is distinguished from knowledge which may take information and produces something far more broad and meaningful, after being interpreted through human reasoning. This is and has always been recognised by information theorists to be outside the bounds of information theory, at least as currently conceived in the form developed from Shannon’s work. Yet this is precisely the object of our interests in an IP debate.
Hence bringing up information theory is a red herring. See Claude Shannon’s original paper too, it’s surprisingly readable if you know a little basic maths.
it doesn’t begin to distinguish information from knowledge…
ok, so it would be enough just to stick with the two broad categories of information on the one hand and knowledge on the other?(since ideas and facts are included under knowledge)
no, they must be something beyond, otherwise the rights to the scarce property would be enough, just as when the scarce property is a car, tomato or human body…
if you transferred property title concerning a tomato over to another party in exchange for a dollar and on the condition that the purchasing party would not clap his hands in the next 2 hours. if the receiving party should clap his hands after a mere five minutes, the original title holder to the tomato would be in a position to reclaim his tomato on the basis that the original title transfer had been conditional, and the condition had not been met. the original title holder could not claim more than this. and must relinquish his claim to the dollar (as the original title transfer had not been concluded) if he wishes to reclaim the tomato.
Perhaps copyrights are simply mislabeled. In fact what they explicitly declare is a “copyright reserved”, thus implying that all other rights have been sold except for this particular right. Since it would be impractical to conclude a contract that enumerates all rights being purchased other than the right to copy, copyrights fulfill this purpose quite practically.
This depends on whether the property being exchanged is perishable. If I sell a concert ticket with the obligation to arrive one hour before the concert, and the purchaser is late and finds the doors closed, then he has forfeited his right to enter and his money. He certainly does not have an unlimited right to enter the venue at any time for all time.
You have dodged the issue, dodged the content of AJ’s post. Yeah, a source may be unique, but information about it can be encoded in media and transferred from one place to another, the knowledge of the images content can be known by multiple parties (not just one individual for all time). a picture of a man who died decades ago can be reproduced…the question is why should someone be allowed to restrict me (by recourse to law) from observing the image and reproducing it. of course they can recourse to keeping secrets, to physical evasion so that the light does not reach my eyes or my photography reproducing equipment. but the copyright goes beyond that to recourse to law, and I haven’t yet read you make the case that my camera should not be allowed to record particular wave patterns…
Well good then, I can freely copy CDs of all dead singers because the original master tape recordings are “unique events.” You’ve painted yourself into a corner.
Sadly I am no closer to reading a scholarly work that address the formal lexicon adopted by information theorists as no pertinent source has been recommended despite recent attempts…
Actually my entire point is that there cannot be knowledge of the image if it is information. Knowledge is not scarce, information is.
If you simply know about a picture of a man, you are still unable to reproduce it! You must have the physical information in order to do this, and this information is property, and you are explicitly forbidden from using this information in combination with reproduction devices.
when I see an image, and I recognise it, it is there in front of me, patterns and shade. is the information always beyond my mind? are you saying that when i see i do not see? when a person looks at a photo, and paints a version are they not accessing the information in their minds? are people literately ignorant of information that is on the media that they look to to gain knowledge from ?
Are you saying images can never be known since they are always information? that a poem cannot be known since it is information?
care to explain your objection? I wanted to analyse copyright by appeal to Rothbardian title transfer theory. I recognise with you that the perishability of physical goods has bearing on how failures to conclude title-transfers must be resolved. I should think the only reason for you not to grant the assumption and to continue to discuss is that you think that it is either impossible for books and cd’s to be imperishable over the relevant time-spans …or that your theory does not concern such imperishable books and cd’s but only whatever books and cd’s do perish within the relevant time-spans…
so the information can’t be permanently housed in all its glory… can it not even be passing through on the train to being forgotten?
you chose to post a response to only half of what i had posted in that entry. here is the other half again so we dont forget it
Stranger:
Actually my entire point is that there cannot be knowledge of the image if it is information.
Are you saying images can never be known since they are always information? that a poem cannot be known since it is information?
perhaps this is where you concede that for you photographers have copyright whereas authors of short (or long works that can be memorised and recited at length) do not have copyright…
Even very short stories will be corrupted and some information lost when recited from memory. For an identical copy to be made requires the original media.
Only if you can prove that you did so without using the media, for then it is a derivative work and the original information producer owns all the rights.
Stranger: