It's too draconian to assume that these artists will be better off if we do an "RIAA" on them and take away their right to sell their own music.
Again, nobody takes away their right to sell CD's. I've bought several discs from mp3.com even though the songs are downloadable. I've bought CD's from artists many times at their live performances. The vast majority of artists never see a royalty from a label, but instead are stuck paying off the "loan" the label gave them to produce the music. The future for artists could not be more draconian that the past and present. For most artists, there will be no appreciable drop in revenues since live shows support the vast majority. And the potential for the net to popularise an artists can translate into better attendence for the shows.
You seem to be afraid that "information producers" would not be able to make a living in a world with no IP. I do not believe this at all. As I said, a better name for "information producer" is "problem solver", and the problems to be solved will never end. You do not need to control information that has left your mind in the past in order to get paid to generate new information to solve someone's problem in the future.
QWhy don't the clients of Ars Digita simply take their freely available infrastructure, which is made available for download on their website, and just use it to solve their own problems?
ABecause it is worth paying an Ars guy to avoid the time and money it would take to try to do it themselves, even though >90% of the code for the problem is there for the taking and only a few custom bits need to be added to solve their problem. This is an example of how programmers will make their living in the future. The model where you hope to retain control of a specific solution you generated in the past and just live off of that is becoming increasingly untenable. Software is becoming a service industry rather than an IP industry. The writing is all over the wall. And it does not mean no more food on the table for programmers. The Ars guys seem to be doing quite well and you can too - all without the need for the existence of IP.
You are now arguing that high fidelity sharing is OK if it is a "personal" kind of sharing vs. publishing (sharing with "the world"). This is an interesting, and potentially viable, argument. But it is one with an extremely slippery slope with "fair use" suffering at the bottom of the hill. I can have friends over to show them my copyrighted stuff. But can I loan my CD, software, or book to a friend? Our rights to do that are already being seriously threatened. If corporations had their way, we would all need retinal scanners to access any copyrighted work! And they would definitely put and end to public libraries if they could.
Now of course I don't believe that the ducks and grizzlies are going to enforce our natural rights! Don't be silly! Or go ahead and be silly, but realize we are talking about the same thing - rights that people agree upon after carefully considering the ramifications.
It takes time and effort to produce information
Well, it takes time and effort to breath and expel CO2. I don't expect to control that CO2 once it leaves my mouth. It takes time and effort to raise a child into a healthy adult, but I don't expect to control that person. It takes time and effort to produce public domain software. Many things require time and effort, but that doesn't imply rights to IP. You are not forced to spend your time and effort doing anything you don't think will be profitable or that you don't want to do. You simply have to decide what to do with your time and effort, given the situation. In the situation where there is no IP, it is obviously silly to spend your time and effort to make money using antiquated business models that depend on IP. I could put a lot of time and effort into a bad business model such as refurbishing toillet paper, but I have no right to complain when I don't make any money at it because I failed to see that it was a bad business model.
If and when IP no longer exists, our way of life will not be destroyed as you seem to believe. Our business models will simply shift. And as I pointed out above, nobody with half a brain will have trouble figuring out how to play under the new rules and still be compensated for their time and effort. And we will retain more of our individual rights. A world with IP is nowhere near as bleak as you seem to think.
That is because it is inevitable that, while not everyone may wish to share my information freely, some will--and in your world view, there is not a damned thing I can do about it.
That is accurate.
I never said there was a problem with hoarding your information or trying to keep personal secrets. What I said was that you are not justified in making money on the basis of preventing other people from acting on information, which is what IP currently allows.
But lies are information, and it is clear that you do see limits on what sort of information may be propagated, and how they may be propogated.
Of course you should have recourse in the event of slander or character assasination. And of course it is unwise to shout fire in a theatre. And if your wife asks you if that dress makes her look fat, it is wise not to say something that sounds equivocal. Basic social etiquette. But these things have no bearing on the issue of whether ideas and patterns can be owned and whether the current IP laws really benefit "we the people".
That's because as an information producer, if I am unable to control in any way when (not "if") information I produce will be shared, then I am unable to control any sort of income which may be generated by controlling how that information gets spread.
This is not inconsistent at all. If I have access to the information and can act on it intellegently to solve my problem, then I don't need to pay you to help me - I am self sufficient. You propose that I stunt my self determination and self sufficiency by trying to tell me what I can and cannot do with information. What you fail to realize is that information alone is rarely enough anyway - your services will still be in demand, not for some information that escaped your control in the past, but for your problem solving skills. You will get paid to generate new specific information tailored to somebody's specific problem. Of course, once you solved their problem you no longer have control over that particular information, but you will be needed again when another problem crops up that requires analytical skills. It's a bit naive to think you should just stop by your client's place and drop off some generic information and be done!
Besides, why should attempting to make some money off the art you produce be a bad thing, or even degrade the quality of the art produced?
Michelangelo was a skilled artist for reasons that have nothing to do with money. Of course he should be paid to paint the Sistene Chapel - a task that the custodians were neither able nor willing to do for themselves through any other means at their disposal. Popular music is now an sophisticated industry. Music is produced and promoted with the primary goal of selling CD's, not producing great art. Of course there are exceptions, and you may not believe this at all. I personally would not miss any of the crappy music that would disappear if the labels all went out of business.
On the other hand, it's pretty clear that this notion of "high fidelity" meme sharing, while in and of itself not inherently bad, does not justify posting Metallica songs on Napster. That's because you're not sharing your experiences that you may had when listening to Metallica (be it revulsion or just annoyance)--you're just publishing Metallica songs without authorization.
Well, I've never published anything on Napster, and I don't care for Metallica, but I still don't agree with your assertion. You are sharing your experience. Do you not show pictures or slides of your skiing trip to share the experience. Videotapes of your wedding that your sick mother missed? Recordings of sounds you hear are no different. They are clearly a way to share an experience. That is self evident.
These (and other) apriori assumptions are the garbage in--it appears you do not prove these assertions, only make them.
What you apparently fail to understand is that you cannot prove any statements you or anyone else makes about your natural rights. I happen to believe that the notion of IP is garbage. Please prove to me that you have a natural right to own patterns or ideas. You say you can't? Well I guess everything you've said is just GIGO then!
My beliefs are more accurately stated:
Individuals have a natural right to record, relive, and share their experiences with arbitrary fidelity.
If this right is to be curbed, then there must be overwhelming proof that this loss of freedom produces more good in their lives than harm
Now of course I cannot prove these assumptions. They are simply part of my moral belief that people should be controlled and restricted as little as possible. You can't just call them unproven garbage when your moral beliefs have no more proof than mine.
I have never been convinced that it makes sense to give away this right. I do not believe that good music, art, software, food, other luxeries of life, or the ability to make a living depend on curbing that right. You apparently believe that they do.
I am not familiar enough with the GPL to give a proper answer to your question. My understanding is that it requires modifications of GPL code to be released under the GPL, thus promoting growth in the body of freely available code. I think this is a desireable goal, but it does limit what you can do with the code if I understand it correctly. I believe the BSD license allows more personal freedom with the code, but does less to prevent plagiarism. And I hate plagiarism almost as much as I hate restrictions on sharing. Almost. So I guess I would lean towards a BSD license. There would be no OSX (mouth waters, though still an avid Linux fan) without the BSD license.
The question of whether I or RMS should put things into the public domain is not my concern. The issue is can we put things into the public domain. There are many details about my life that I hope to never put into the public domain. Trying to keep a personal or trade secret is fine by me. Telling me what I can and cannot share with friends is not OK. I do not think that this is an inconsistent viewpoint.
I have written some software to do neurophysiological simulations, complete with a little parser and language made possible by C++/YACC. I will release that into the public domain. Before that I made a pre-web era non-networked hyperlinking program that stored text and pictures. I doubt anyone would want it, but I'll look for it and put it up. I have been working on some mod perl stuff for database backed object persistence and editing. I'll put that up too when I get it working. I haven't decided which license to use yet. All I care about is that it is not plagiarised.
And I will put my songs up on mp3.com when they are done.
I would much rather have my software and songs spread around as a testiment that I once lived than to hoard them away and allow only 216 paid copies (or likely less) to exist and then eventually become lost.
Your black hole comments are very nice! I didn't have this in mind, but I'm probably not as smart as you.
In my opinion, the Second Law not only states that "Information wants to be Free" from a locally constrained system, the Second Law wants the information to be mangled and forgotten.
You are right. There are statistics relating to the temporal-spatial distribution of information (information wanting to be free) and separate statistics relating to the degradation of the fidelity of particular physical renderings of the information (information becoming mangled). I made an analogy of a radioactive gas elsewhere. It still spreads out in the room. And it still undergoes radioactive decay. But the two processes are fairly independent.
The problem with your interpretation of my argument is that I cannot read or control your mind, and I cannot access or distribute your experiences. I can only know and control my own experiences. I have a right to share my life experiences. It does not follow that I no longer have this right simply because someone else had this experience before I did, or because someone set into effect a sequence of events that caused my to have the experience. Once I have an experience, it is my experience too - no matter what lead to the experience or how many other people have similar experiences.
The very large integer that makes up a representation of the sounds of a song in an AIFF or MP3 format triggers experiences in the brains of those who interpret that number with a suitable device (cd player or mp3 decoder). If I come across and enjoy this number, then it joins the fold of my experiences and I might want to share this interesting number with a friend.
If someone invents a memory/sensory scanner, then you have right to reproduce a perfect copy of your experience/memory of your exposure to the event (including any attendant tinninitus, frequency limitation in your hearing, memory problems, etc which you have).
This is similar to what an mp3 file does. It throws away most of the info and keeps only those sounds that have solid mental triggers. The scanner you refer to will be possible in our lifetime, IHMO.
What is the fundamental difference between recording my experiences with my brain only and using brain augmenting devices such as tape recorders, web browsers, video cameras, etc.? I don't think there is a moral difference.
Simply, you don't have ANY rights to my Intellectual (experiencial and expressional) Property which I do not grant to you.
Simply put, I do not believe that you can own a pattern or idea. I think such claims of ownership are are invalid prima facie.
...He does not have the right to distribute direct copies of Elvis's recorded version. That is theft of experience. That is wrong. That is immoral.
I'm sorry, but I cannot make any sense of "theft of experience" since I fail to see how you could remove someone's experiences from them. If you just mean to say "theft of intellectual property", then we're back to square 1. You believe ideas and patterns can be owned and I do not.
Your rights stop where mine start.
Your rights stop where my body begins. Once a pattern leaves you, through whatever means of transmission you care to name, it is no longer part of your corpus. You have no right to tell me what I can and cannot do with my experiences. My right to self determination of thought and communication outweighs any right you believe you have to strictly control all the ripples of information spreading from your direction or elsewhere.
The second law of thermodynamics is entirely consistent with and applicable to spontaneous organization. Of course, you can't expect it to work if you are not looking at a closed system but rather a subsystem which increases in order while creating heat and disorder in some other area.
In regard to information, consider the closed system of human minds which contain memes. Human minds have evolved with a natural propensity to distribute memes. Until now, the cost of sharing (or energy of activation of the "sharing reaction") was significant. The cost of sharing is now very low.
So, given the mind's natural behavior, it's clear that it is going to be increasingly difficult (require lots of work) to restrict information to a highly selected group of heads. It's probabilistic characteristics are quite similar to those of statistical mechanics, so think the second law is a useful analogy. But you may think of it differently. The question is really: which viewpoint will spread more widely among minds?
Do you agree or disagree with the notion that people should also be free to interact with others as they so choose?...etc..nondisclosure contracts...etc...
If A and B wish to keep a mutual secret then that is fine with me. I never said people should be compelled to tell me everything they know. But if information enters my mind in the absence of my explicit acceptance of a contract, then I am not bound.
I'm glad you put in the phrase "to me, at least", as it is not self-evident to me that all information must be shared without restriction.
Again you are confusing "must be shared" with "can be shared". Different things entirely.
Otherwise, I may just post that video of you, naked, humping a mule with a naked midget girl on it's back to your church group. Nevermind the fact it's a fake.
And again, the fact that lies are immoral has no bearing on this topic. Whether or not IP is allowed to exist, lies will still be immoral.
if you take away my right to make money on that information, then I may not be as motivated to produce that information.
And again, you're assuming that you have a right to make money on that information. Sorry, but in my book you don't have a right to make money by hoarding information. You have a right to make money by providing a good or service that I cannot or do not have time to provide for myself. If you aren't motivated to provide a good or service that is in demand, then you lose. Somebody else will provide it and get the $$$. And if you are producing art, then I don't want to see your benjamin-motivated art anyway. I want to see art created by people doing it because they are compelled to by something in their soul.
There is a big difference between saying to a friend "wow, I really heard this really kick ass song from Metallica--you've really got to get their latest CD!" and posting a Metallica song on Napster.
The difference is in the degree of fidelity. I could hum the tune. Or I could play and sing it with my guitar. Or I could record a rendition of it. Or, if my friend reads minds, I could replay it with high fidelity in my mind. Or in the year 2030, we'll just hook up our brains with our USB 16.0 ports and share. Or I could play a tape I made off the radio. Or an mp3 from napster. Or a tape I made at a concert. All are just different ways of representing the information with varying degrees of fidelity. They are all just ways of sharing an experience.
I'm sorry for you if you've bought into the corporate notion that sharing experiences in high fidelity is immoral.
Yes, lies and plagiarism are still immoral IMHO, even though copying is not. And yes, if you are a novelist, it is probably a good idea to keep your work to yourself until you publish it so that you will clearly be the first to come out with it.
It is interesting that people are so concerned about compensating the artist for lost royalties that are not their royalties anyway! Most artists don't get any significant sum from roayalties! And most popular artists clean up with live shows. It's not really an artist issue, it's a label issue. But I do agree that direct compensation of artists is desireable. I think an internet tipping jar is a good idea and I for one would use it if I knew the money was going to the artist. But that royalties have never been the way the vast majority of musicians have made a living.
You cannot have an "information must be free" based society until you have unlimited and freely available tangibles such as houses, cars, loaves of bread, etc.
Another stimulating thought. But I don't think that the conclusion logically follows from the fact that information can be traded for money or food. If the cost of information drops to neglible levels, people will still trade things for other things. Goods & services for goods and services. And they will still sell information in the form of expertise.
There will always be payment waiting for the person who can take the freely available information and apply it intelligently to the solution of somebody's specific problem. Look at the ars digita company set up by Phil Greenspun. They give away their code, yet they are rolling in dough because they have the brains to solve specific problems. So Phil and friends are having no problems paying their gas or grocery bills.
You asked about musicians. The vast majority of career musicians make all (or nearly all) their money from live performances. This has not changed since the times when it wasn't even possible to record and distribute music. Significant royalities are rarely seem by the musician who doesn't break platinum, and even then they are often not seen. So there will be little, if any, negative impact on the musician's bottom line. And I believe that the upside for musicians is significantly greater than any downside.
...you would have no problem with stepping into a machine and allowing someone to make a copy of you. How does that fit with your morality?
That's an interesting question. I would have no problem with that as long as I'm in control of my personal body. If I'm forced into the machine against my will, then it's immoral. If an existing copy of myself is copied with the machine then I could care less.
You raise a very interesting point. I say you can reproduce any money or novel you like. Copying stuff aint immoral.
Now, if you try to lie about the origin of the money in your hand - that is, if you try to convince me that it came from the Federal Reserve - or if you try to tell me that you wrote the novel (plagiarism) - then that's immoral.
Even in a utopian world where information is really free, your programming skills will still earn you a living because you will create solutions to specific problems that people/companies are willing to pay for.
And yes, you are right, we don't live in Utopia. We have and will continue to further strip people of their rights. Given the opportunity to seize power like this, it is the natural thing for corporations to do! I don't blame them. However, we don't have to give corporations and business entities everything they want! If nobody objects, we will just keep losing more and more rights ad infinitum until we, and every scrap of our cultures, are property of some corporation!
There is nothing intrinsicly immoral with copying anything, but if you do it and the owner doesn't want you to, then you're infringing on the owner's rights
This is assuming that information even has an owner. That idea seems to be a heretofore unquestioned assumption that is suspect. By telling me what I can and cannot do with information in my brain, your owner is infringing upon my rights!
Now the real crux is this: Which "right" should be respected? The right of each individual to be able to record, replay and share their life experiences - or the right of people generating information to control exactly how, when and under what circumstances you do things with the information in your brain. The first "right" seems more fundamental to me. The second "right" seems like an Orwellian nightmare of state and corporate control in our lives. But maybe not to you. This may be an irreconcilible difference.
Anyway, it can be immoral to copy things if the owner of the original doesn't want you to.
You have not made a good case for this being immoral. You've simply reminded me that it can be illegal under our current draconian laws. There is a difference between immoral and illegal!
You're talking about something completely different - a technique of soft logicians known as a straw man argument. But it doesn't even hold as an unrelated argument. There is an a priori moral reason against destroying any pattern on a whim if you believe murder is immoral. Destroying and copying are completely different issues. Now if you don't think murder is immoral and you wish to destroy this particular instance of my pattern, then that pattern will go down with barrels blazing. In short, you're confused on this point.
I never said anyone should be compelled to release any information. You fail to see the distinction between compelling someone to release their secrets and allowing freedom of thought using information once it has reached your senses.
....the result will be a race to the bottom where everyone seeks to produce as little as possible and consume as much as possible, since that is obviously the most profitable course of action.
OK, so musicians who love their art will be compelled to produce as little as possible? Only the people creating art whose primary reason is money will lose their motivation. And good riddance to industrialized art. People selling material products will always be able to make money since people will always want to consume them. Demand isn't going to go away. So the supply will be there. And you're confused again if you think I'm talking about communism. I'm all in favor of paying someone good money to provide a good or service that I have neither the time or ability to create for myself. And I think those who offer the best implementations of a good or service for the best price should be rewarded with more business. This only stimulates higher productivity. Patents diminsh productivity because they create monopoloy power and allow a producer to be lazy since nobody can compete with them fairly. I'm arguing for capitalism pure and simple. Except IP shouldn't be capital because IP isn't necessary and it negatively impacts our individual quality of life and takes away our natural rights.
You don't have a concept of natural rights, as the fact that you insisted "you had better have a damned good reason that benefits everyone more than it harms everyone". That's a utilitarian argument, and utilitarianism is directly opposed to natural rights.
Perhaps I'm not being clear then. The main thrust of my argument is that I believe it is a natural right to record, remember and share our life experiences. Does this seem like an unreasonable claim? I stated that it would take some very compelling utilitarian arguments to make me relinquish that right - and I haven't seen any convincing arguments that can justify stripping me of my natural right to record, remember and share my life experiences. Now you seem to be wanting to make an argument that you have a natural right to control what I do with information in my brain. What you are claiming as a natural right seems very unnatural to me.
I will resist getting into an argument about whether or not the teachings of Jesus value individuals. IMHO, I don't think you really understand Christianity at all. I could cite "do unto others as you would have them do unto you" and many others. My interpretation of Christianity is that its very essence is all about a profound respect and love for your fellow individuals. But there are no winners in a biblical debate, so it's better to avoid one. You have your interpretation and I have mine. Kant tried to make a logically self-consistent argument. He tried to simultaneously value the individual and the whole. Utilitarianism is not what I'm arguing for at all. I'm actually arguing against the utilitarian arguments that were set up to justify the existence of IP. Arguemnts that claim "we are all better off" by allowing its existence even though it takes away some of our natural rights. I don't think these arguments hold water, even if you subscribe to utilitarianism. I'm also a big advocate of natural rights. I just don't believe that IP is a natural right, whereas the freedom to record, remember and share life experiences is. Hope I made my self clearer here. Sorry if I gave the wrong impression.
OK then. Do radioactive gases want to spread out in a room or not. And does this spreading out have much at all to do with the radioactive decay process at all?
The entropic constraints relating to the distribution of information are much different than the entropic constraints that relate to the degradation of the particular representation of a particular copy of the information. Comprende? And if you had ever used Napster, you would find a bunch of crappy degraded files among the good copies. So your degradation process of is also represented.
You think this was a muddled metaphor - I do not. Your transmutation point does not affect my distrubution point. Both distribution and representation are subject to entropic processes, but with quite different properties. Think about it a little more carefully and see if it doesn't make sense now.
I'm afraid you've got it backwards. DNA is no more or less "free" and any other molecule that is subject to the laws of physics. The same entropic processes apply.
And DNA is in no way guarded. The natural mechanisms that are associated with DNA have evolve to promote as wide of a dissemination of genes as possible. This is precisely why DNA containing organisms are so widespread, and why they all share a great deal of common code. Viruses copy and spread genes among prokaryotes and eukaryotes. Plasmids are exchanged among bacteria. Under certain conditions, the DNA can simply go naked and spread from one organism to another. You could say it "wants" to be free, if you don't mind the anthropomorphism. If you object to that phrase, you would have to at least agree that DNA tends copy and spread among organisms through a variety of mechanisms. This is one reason why the genetically engineered crops are so frought with potential problems for both the manufacturers and the public at large.
And you've got it backwards with music too. Do you think that the mass produced music out there these days - Backstreet Boys, Britney Spears, etc. is quality music written by artists who are passionate about their art? Or do you think it is "engineered" by the labels to meet certain specs that they know will lead to sales. Most of the crap on the airwaves these days is devoid of artistic merit, IMHO. Of course art is subjective, so I can't back that up. I believe that if money were removed from the music, we would lose all the crappy corporate music and would be left only with music made by true artists who are making music for the right reasons. And they will still be compensated well with live shows as it has always been. If you would like some links to some fine quality music created for free let me know and I'll post some links.
Hmmm...I guess you have a valid point that the physical rendering of information will be subject to entropic process and will "degrade" like everything else in the universe. If there is but one or few copies, then the chances of it degrading and disappearing are great. If there are many copies, then the information is more likely to remain in existence and useful. So I would counter that "containment" of information is more likely to lead to loss of the information than freedom of information.
About the money. Sure money can be printed by the Federal Reserve, but it is still not a good analogue of information in my mind. It is not a pattern or idea that dwells in the mind. It is legal tender. Those who wish to keep information in captivity may wish to give information certain legal properties that resemble money, but I don't believe that's what information is about. At a fundamental level, money is a purely social-legal construct whereas information is not. Information is fundamentally just a pattern that can be represented by any number of schemes.
The Nitrogen isn't "spreading" it's achieving pressure equilibrium with Oxygen.
Sorry, but the presence or absence of oxygen has nothing to do with nitrogen's entropic tendencies. The "spread out" condition is highly entropic, and therefore has a much higher probability of existing than the "all in the corner" condition. That's how it goes in statistical mechanics. It's not an oversimplification. The laws of thermodynamics are actually quite simple.
Information is not a particle of matter. Information is not really energy, either. Information has no tangible existence at all. To say that "information wants to be free" gives this "information" thingie more credit than it is due.
If you like that angle, then you could also say that matter and energy have no tangible existence either. They are merely abstractions in our mind based on the information we glean through our senses from experiments or experience.
Yes, information is created with no loss of matter or energy, it is therefore a completely different animal.
This is not true.
It doesn't exist in the first place, so the words have no meaning.
Well, if it doesn't exist, then I'm definitely not going to pay for it!
Laws of Physics do not apply to something which does not exist as a physical body.
But the laws of phyics apply to everything in the universe, including information. Information cannot exist independent of some representation in matter and energy.
If I am a free man, then I have no obligation to share with you the fruits of my labor (whether fruits of the intellect, or otherwise).
You are absolutely right. If you don't want to share it, then don't share it. If you do share it with someone else, then they, as free men, might wish to share it with others without requiring any additional effort whatsoever from you.
If you discover or synthesize a pattern, then do you own this pattern? Do you believe that some patterns can be owned and others not owned. Could Newton own his laws of physics and dictate the terms of how others use them? His laws, which are his interpretation of the universe, are patterns which he synthesized or discovered (depending on your viewpoint) though hard work. Shouldn't he then be allowed to own and control them and be compensated for every use of them? If you say no, then you then have to justify to me how other patterns can be owned. What, then, is the moral test to determine which patterns can be owned and which cannot? And if a pattern can be owned, then how can we ever objectively prove whose pattern it really is? First to the patent office? I don't buy that.
How we protect that information is really the issue, then, and not whether it ought to be protected at all.
I don't think we've necessarily established that information ought to be "protected", if by "protected" you mean that a person should be able to control how others use the information in their lives. I don't see how society benefits any longer from thie kind of protection.
Imagine, if you will, that information isn't protected. Would our way of life change for the worse? I honestly don't think it would. Programmers would still have plenty of work. Musicians would still create music as they always have and make their money the way they always have - live shows (only the rare musician makes significant income from royalties). Competition among producers will become healthier and consumers will reap the rewards. Instead of somebody sitting on their monopoloy power that a patent provides, they will have to get off their ass and keep up with the competitors who are working on superior and cheaper implementations.
I need someone to try to give me a good solid argument that the abstraction we call "intellectual property" that so severely limits our freedoms ought to be allowed to continue as law.
I'm sorry, but you will have to explain to me why I have no concept of natural rights when my entire post was about our natural rights to record, remember, and share our life experiences. Your chain of reasoning does not connect.
And which mystic man were you referring to? Kant, Mill, or Jesus? And which moral theories, other than the ones I listed, have more influence on our society?
In terms of physics and thermodynamics, information by it's existence violates the 2nd law.
Really!?!?! Then submit that to the Annals or Physics. Information does exist and it does not violate any physical laws.
It's easy for me to relate entropy and the spread of information. I don't see how entropy or any laws of physics impact the "usefulness" of the information though unless you are talking about degradation though lossy transmission. How do you quantify or measure "usefulness"?
The association of information=money cannot be valid. Money cannot be copied.
Information is simply a pattern that is subject to interpretation. Nothing more, nothing less.
Since I create information, I ought to have the freedom (yes, it is a freedom) to control that information as I see fit.
Why should this be true? Why should you be entitled to control the information once it reaches someone else's mind. You aren't entitled to mind control.
Information does exist in nature. It certainly can't exist independent of nature. And we are not independent from nature.
Slashdot Mirror
Again, nobody takes away their right to sell CD's. I've bought several discs from mp3.com even though the songs are downloadable. I've bought CD's from artists many times at their live performances. The vast majority of artists never see a royalty from a label, but instead are stuck paying off the "loan" the label gave them to produce the music. The future for artists could not be more draconian that the past and present. For most artists, there will be no appreciable drop in revenues since live shows support the vast majority. And the potential for the net to popularise an artists can translate into better attendence for the shows.
You seem to be afraid that "information producers" would not be able to make a living in a world with no IP. I do not believe this at all. As I said, a better name for "information producer" is "problem solver", and the problems to be solved will never end. You do not need to control information that has left your mind in the past in order to get paid to generate new information to solve someone's problem in the future.
QWhy don't the clients of Ars Digita simply take their freely available infrastructure, which is made available for download on their website, and just use it to solve their own problems?
ABecause it is worth paying an Ars guy to avoid the time and money it would take to try to do it themselves, even though >90% of the code for the problem is there for the taking and only a few custom bits need to be added to solve their problem. This is an example of how programmers will make their living in the future. The model where you hope to retain control of a specific solution you generated in the past and just live off of that is becoming increasingly untenable. Software is becoming a service industry rather than an IP industry. The writing is all over the wall. And it does not mean no more food on the table for programmers. The Ars guys seem to be doing quite well and you can too - all without the need for the existence of IP.
You are now arguing that high fidelity sharing is OK if it is a "personal" kind of sharing vs. publishing (sharing with "the world"). This is an interesting, and potentially viable, argument. But it is one with an extremely slippery slope with "fair use" suffering at the bottom of the hill. I can have friends over to show them my copyrighted stuff. But can I loan my CD, software, or book to a friend? Our rights to do that are already being seriously threatened. If corporations had their way, we would all need retinal scanners to access any copyrighted work! And they would definitely put and end to public libraries if they could.
Now of course I don't believe that the ducks and grizzlies are going to enforce our natural rights! Don't be silly! Or go ahead and be silly, but realize we are talking about the same thing - rights that people agree upon after carefully considering the ramifications.
It takes time and effort to produce information
Well, it takes time and effort to breath and expel CO2. I don't expect to control that CO2 once it leaves my mouth. It takes time and effort to raise a child into a healthy adult, but I don't expect to control that person. It takes time and effort to produce public domain software. Many things require time and effort, but that doesn't imply rights to IP. You are not forced to spend your time and effort doing anything you don't think will be profitable or that you don't want to do. You simply have to decide what to do with your time and effort, given the situation. In the situation where there is no IP, it is obviously silly to spend your time and effort to make money using antiquated business models that depend on IP. I could put a lot of time and effort into a bad business model such as refurbishing toillet paper, but I have no right to complain when I don't make any money at it because I failed to see that it was a bad business model.
If and when IP no longer exists, our way of life will not be destroyed as you seem to believe. Our business models will simply shift. And as I pointed out above, nobody with half a brain will have trouble figuring out how to play under the new rules and still be compensated for their time and effort. And we will retain more of our individual rights. A world with IP is nowhere near as bleak as you seem to think.
That is accurate.
I never said there was a problem with hoarding your information or trying to keep personal secrets. What I said was that you are not justified in making money on the basis of preventing other people from acting on information, which is what IP currently allows.
But lies are information, and it is clear that you do see limits on what sort of information may be propagated, and how they may be propogated.
Of course you should have recourse in the event of slander or character assasination. And of course it is unwise to shout fire in a theatre. And if your wife asks you if that dress makes her look fat, it is wise not to say something that sounds equivocal. Basic social etiquette. But these things have no bearing on the issue of whether ideas and patterns can be owned and whether the current IP laws really benefit "we the people".
That's because as an information producer, if I am unable to control in any way when (not "if") information I produce will be shared, then I am unable to control any sort of income which may be generated by controlling how that information gets spread.
This is not inconsistent at all. If I have access to the information and can act on it intellegently to solve my problem, then I don't need to pay you to help me - I am self sufficient. You propose that I stunt my self determination and self sufficiency by trying to tell me what I can and cannot do with information. What you fail to realize is that information alone is rarely enough anyway - your services will still be in demand, not for some information that escaped your control in the past, but for your problem solving skills. You will get paid to generate new specific information tailored to somebody's specific problem. Of course, once you solved their problem you no longer have control over that particular information, but you will be needed again when another problem crops up that requires analytical skills. It's a bit naive to think you should just stop by your client's place and drop off some generic information and be done!
Besides, why should attempting to make some money off the art you produce be a bad thing, or even degrade the quality of the art produced?
Michelangelo was a skilled artist for reasons that have nothing to do with money. Of course he should be paid to paint the Sistene Chapel - a task that the custodians were neither able nor willing to do for themselves through any other means at their disposal. Popular music is now an sophisticated industry. Music is produced and promoted with the primary goal of selling CD's, not producing great art. Of course there are exceptions, and you may not believe this at all. I personally would not miss any of the crappy music that would disappear if the labels all went out of business.
On the other hand, it's pretty clear that this notion of "high fidelity" meme sharing, while in and of itself not inherently bad, does not justify posting Metallica songs on Napster. That's because you're not sharing your experiences that you may had when listening to Metallica (be it revulsion or just annoyance)--you're just publishing Metallica songs without authorization.
Well, I've never published anything on Napster, and I don't care for Metallica, but I still don't agree with your assertion. You are sharing your experience. Do you not show pictures or slides of your skiing trip to share the experience. Videotapes of your wedding that your sick mother missed? Recordings of sounds you hear are no different. They are clearly a way to share an experience. That is self evident.
These (and other) apriori assumptions are the garbage in--it appears you do not prove these assertions, only make them.
What you apparently fail to understand is that you cannot prove any statements you or anyone else makes about your natural rights. I happen to believe that the notion of IP is garbage. Please prove to me that you have a natural right to own patterns or ideas. You say you can't? Well I guess everything you've said is just GIGO then!
My beliefs are more accurately stated:
Now of course I cannot prove these assumptions. They are simply part of my moral belief that people should be controlled and restricted as little as possible. You can't just call them unproven garbage when your moral beliefs have no more proof than mine.
I have never been convinced that it makes sense to give away this right. I do not believe that good music, art, software, food, other luxeries of life, or the ability to make a living depend on curbing that right. You apparently believe that they do.
The question of whether I or RMS should put things into the public domain is not my concern. The issue is can we put things into the public domain. There are many details about my life that I hope to never put into the public domain. Trying to keep a personal or trade secret is fine by me. Telling me what I can and cannot share with friends is not OK. I do not think that this is an inconsistent viewpoint.
I have written some software to do neurophysiological simulations, complete with a little parser and language made possible by C++/YACC. I will release that into the public domain. Before that I made a pre-web era non-networked hyperlinking program that stored text and pictures. I doubt anyone would want it, but I'll look for it and put it up. I have been working on some mod perl stuff for database backed object persistence and editing. I'll put that up too when I get it working. I haven't decided which license to use yet. All I care about is that it is not plagiarised.
And I will put my songs up on mp3.com when they are done.
I would much rather have my software and songs spread around as a testiment that I once lived than to hoard them away and allow only 216 paid copies (or likely less) to exist and then eventually become lost.
In my opinion, the Second Law not only states that "Information wants to be Free" from a locally constrained system, the Second Law wants the information to be mangled and forgotten.
You are right. There are statistics relating to the temporal-spatial distribution of information (information wanting to be free) and separate statistics relating to the degradation of the fidelity of particular physical renderings of the information (information becoming mangled). I made an analogy of a radioactive gas elsewhere. It still spreads out in the room. And it still undergoes radioactive decay. But the two processes are fairly independent.
The very large integer that makes up a representation of the sounds of a song in an AIFF or MP3 format triggers experiences in the brains of those who interpret that number with a suitable device (cd player or mp3 decoder). If I come across and enjoy this number, then it joins the fold of my experiences and I might want to share this interesting number with a friend.
If someone invents a memory/sensory scanner, then you have right to reproduce a perfect copy of your experience/memory of your exposure to the event (including any attendant tinninitus, frequency limitation in your hearing, memory problems, etc which you have).
This is similar to what an mp3 file does. It throws away most of the info and keeps only those sounds that have solid mental triggers. The scanner you refer to will be possible in our lifetime, IHMO.
What is the fundamental difference between recording my experiences with my brain only and using brain augmenting devices such as tape recorders, web browsers, video cameras, etc.? I don't think there is a moral difference.
Simply, you don't have ANY rights to my Intellectual (experiencial and expressional) Property which I do not grant to you.
Simply put, I do not believe that you can own a pattern or idea. I think such claims of ownership are are invalid prima facie.
I'm sorry, but I cannot make any sense of "theft of experience" since I fail to see how you could remove someone's experiences from them. If you just mean to say "theft of intellectual property", then we're back to square 1. You believe ideas and patterns can be owned and I do not.
Your rights stop where mine start.
Your rights stop where my body begins. Once a pattern leaves you, through whatever means of transmission you care to name, it is no longer part of your corpus. You have no right to tell me what I can and cannot do with my experiences. My right to self determination of thought and communication outweighs any right you believe you have to strictly control all the ripples of information spreading from your direction or elsewhere.
In regard to information, consider the closed system of human minds which contain memes. Human minds have evolved with a natural propensity to distribute memes. Until now, the cost of sharing (or energy of activation of the "sharing reaction") was significant. The cost of sharing is now very low.
So, given the mind's natural behavior, it's clear that it is going to be increasingly difficult (require lots of work) to restrict information to a highly selected group of heads. It's probabilistic characteristics are quite similar to those of statistical mechanics, so think the second law is a useful analogy. But you may think of it differently. The question is really: which viewpoint will spread more widely among minds?
But you do have some interesting thoughts.
Do you agree or disagree with the notion that people should also be free to interact with others as they so choose?...etc..nondisclosure contracts...etc...
If A and B wish to keep a mutual secret then that is fine with me. I never said people should be compelled to tell me everything they know. But if information enters my mind in the absence of my explicit acceptance of a contract, then I am not bound.
I'm glad you put in the phrase "to me, at least", as it is not self-evident to me that all information must be shared without restriction.
Again you are confusing "must be shared" with "can be shared". Different things entirely.
Otherwise, I may just post that video of you, naked, humping a mule with a naked midget girl on it's back to your church group. Nevermind the fact it's a fake.
And again, the fact that lies are immoral has no bearing on this topic. Whether or not IP is allowed to exist, lies will still be immoral.
if you take away my right to make money on that information, then I may not be as motivated to produce that information.
And again, you're assuming that you have a right to make money on that information. Sorry, but in my book you don't have a right to make money by hoarding information. You have a right to make money by providing a good or service that I cannot or do not have time to provide for myself. If you aren't motivated to provide a good or service that is in demand, then you lose. Somebody else will provide it and get the $$$. And if you are producing art, then I don't want to see your benjamin-motivated art anyway. I want to see art created by people doing it because they are compelled to by something in their soul.
There is a big difference between saying to a friend "wow, I really heard this really kick ass song from Metallica--you've really got to get their latest CD!" and posting a Metallica song on Napster.
The difference is in the degree of fidelity. I could hum the tune. Or I could play and sing it with my guitar. Or I could record a rendition of it. Or, if my friend reads minds, I could replay it with high fidelity in my mind. Or in the year 2030, we'll just hook up our brains with our USB 16.0 ports and share. Or I could play a tape I made off the radio. Or an mp3 from napster. Or a tape I made at a concert. All are just different ways of representing the information with varying degrees of fidelity. They are all just ways of sharing an experience.
I'm sorry for you if you've bought into the corporate notion that sharing experiences in high fidelity is immoral.
It is interesting that people are so concerned about compensating the artist for lost royalties that are not their royalties anyway! Most artists don't get any significant sum from roayalties! And most popular artists clean up with live shows. It's not really an artist issue, it's a label issue. But I do agree that direct compensation of artists is desireable. I think an internet tipping jar is a good idea and I for one would use it if I knew the money was going to the artist. But that royalties have never been the way the vast majority of musicians have made a living.
Another stimulating thought. But I don't think that the conclusion logically follows from the fact that information can be traded for money or food. If the cost of information drops to neglible levels, people will still trade things for other things. Goods & services for goods and services. And they will still sell information in the form of expertise.
There will always be payment waiting for the person who can take the freely available information and apply it intelligently to the solution of somebody's specific problem. Look at the ars digita company set up by Phil Greenspun. They give away their code, yet they are rolling in dough because they have the brains to solve specific problems. So Phil and friends are having no problems paying their gas or grocery bills.
You asked about musicians. The vast majority of career musicians make all (or nearly all) their money from live performances. This has not changed since the times when it wasn't even possible to record and distribute music. Significant royalities are rarely seem by the musician who doesn't break platinum, and even then they are often not seen. So there will be little, if any, negative impact on the musician's bottom line. And I believe that the upside for musicians is significantly greater than any downside.
That's an interesting question. I would have no problem with that as long as I'm in control of my personal body. If I'm forced into the machine against my will, then it's immoral. If an existing copy of myself is copied with the machine then I could care less.
Now, if you try to lie about the origin of the money in your hand - that is, if you try to convince me that it came from the Federal Reserve - or if you try to tell me that you wrote the novel (plagiarism) - then that's immoral.
And yes, you are right, we don't live in Utopia. We have and will continue to further strip people of their rights. Given the opportunity to seize power like this, it is the natural thing for corporations to do! I don't blame them. However, we don't have to give corporations and business entities everything they want! If nobody objects, we will just keep losing more and more rights ad infinitum until we, and every scrap of our cultures, are property of some corporation!
This is assuming that information even has an owner. That idea seems to be a heretofore unquestioned assumption that is suspect. By telling me what I can and cannot do with information in my brain, your owner is infringing upon my rights!
Now the real crux is this: Which "right" should be respected? The right of each individual to be able to record, replay and share their life experiences - or the right of people generating information to control exactly how, when and under what circumstances you do things with the information in your brain. The first "right" seems more fundamental to me. The second "right" seems like an Orwellian nightmare of state and corporate control in our lives. But maybe not to you. This may be an irreconcilible difference.
Anyway, it can be immoral to copy things if the owner of the original doesn't want you to.
You have not made a good case for this being immoral. You've simply reminded me that it can be illegal under our current draconian laws. There is a difference between immoral and illegal!
I never said anyone should be compelled to release any information. You fail to see the distinction between compelling someone to release their secrets and allowing freedom of thought using information once it has reached your senses.
OK, so musicians who love their art will be compelled to produce as little as possible? Only the people creating art whose primary reason is money will lose their motivation. And good riddance to industrialized art. People selling material products will always be able to make money since people will always want to consume them. Demand isn't going to go away. So the supply will be there. And you're confused again if you think I'm talking about communism. I'm all in favor of paying someone good money to provide a good or service that I have neither the time or ability to create for myself. And I think those who offer the best implementations of a good or service for the best price should be rewarded with more business. This only stimulates higher productivity. Patents diminsh productivity because they create monopoloy power and allow a producer to be lazy since nobody can compete with them fairly. I'm arguing for capitalism pure and simple. Except IP shouldn't be capital because IP isn't necessary and it negatively impacts our individual quality of life and takes away our natural rights.
Go ahead and copy the number. No skin off my back. American Express might want to talk to you about it, but I could care less.
Perhaps I'm not being clear then. The main thrust of my argument is that I believe it is a natural right to record, remember and share our life experiences. Does this seem like an unreasonable claim? I stated that it would take some very compelling utilitarian arguments to make me relinquish that right - and I haven't seen any convincing arguments that can justify stripping me of my natural right to record, remember and share my life experiences. Now you seem to be wanting to make an argument that you have a natural right to control what I do with information in my brain. What you are claiming as a natural right seems very unnatural to me.
I will resist getting into an argument about whether or not the teachings of Jesus value individuals. IMHO, I don't think you really understand Christianity at all. I could cite "do unto others as you would have them do unto you" and many others. My interpretation of Christianity is that its very essence is all about a profound respect and love for your fellow individuals. But there are no winners in a biblical debate, so it's better to avoid one. You have your interpretation and I have mine. Kant tried to make a logically self-consistent argument. He tried to simultaneously value the individual and the whole. Utilitarianism is not what I'm arguing for at all. I'm actually arguing against the utilitarian arguments that were set up to justify the existence of IP. Arguemnts that claim "we are all better off" by allowing its existence even though it takes away some of our natural rights. I don't think these arguments hold water, even if you subscribe to utilitarianism. I'm also a big advocate of natural rights. I just don't believe that IP is a natural right, whereas the freedom to record, remember and share life experiences is. Hope I made my self clearer here. Sorry if I gave the wrong impression.
The entropic constraints relating to the distribution of information are much different than the entropic constraints that relate to the degradation of the particular representation of a particular copy of the information. Comprende? And if you had ever used Napster, you would find a bunch of crappy degraded files among the good copies. So your degradation process of is also represented.
You think this was a muddled metaphor - I do not. Your transmutation point does not affect my distrubution point. Both distribution and representation are subject to entropic processes, but with quite different properties. Think about it a little more carefully and see if it doesn't make sense now.
And DNA is in no way guarded. The natural mechanisms that are associated with DNA have evolve to promote as wide of a dissemination of genes as possible. This is precisely why DNA containing organisms are so widespread, and why they all share a great deal of common code. Viruses copy and spread genes among prokaryotes and eukaryotes. Plasmids are exchanged among bacteria. Under certain conditions, the DNA can simply go naked and spread from one organism to another. You could say it "wants" to be free, if you don't mind the anthropomorphism. If you object to that phrase, you would have to at least agree that DNA tends copy and spread among organisms through a variety of mechanisms. This is one reason why the genetically engineered crops are so frought with potential problems for both the manufacturers and the public at large.
And you've got it backwards with music too. Do you think that the mass produced music out there these days - Backstreet Boys, Britney Spears, etc. is quality music written by artists who are passionate about their art? Or do you think it is "engineered" by the labels to meet certain specs that they know will lead to sales. Most of the crap on the airwaves these days is devoid of artistic merit, IMHO. Of course art is subjective, so I can't back that up. I believe that if money were removed from the music, we would lose all the crappy corporate music and would be left only with music made by true artists who are making music for the right reasons. And they will still be compensated well with live shows as it has always been. If you would like some links to some fine quality music created for free let me know and I'll post some links.
About the money. Sure money can be printed by the Federal Reserve, but it is still not a good analogue of information in my mind. It is not a pattern or idea that dwells in the mind. It is legal tender. Those who wish to keep information in captivity may wish to give information certain legal properties that resemble money, but I don't believe that's what information is about. At a fundamental level, money is a purely social-legal construct whereas information is not. Information is fundamentally just a pattern that can be represented by any number of schemes.
Sorry, but the presence or absence of oxygen has nothing to do with nitrogen's entropic tendencies. The "spread out" condition is highly entropic, and therefore has a much higher probability of existing than the "all in the corner" condition. That's how it goes in statistical mechanics. It's not an oversimplification. The laws of thermodynamics are actually quite simple.
Information is not a particle of matter. Information is not really energy, either. Information has no tangible existence at all. To say that "information wants to be free" gives this "information" thingie more credit than it is due.
If you like that angle, then you could also say that matter and energy have no tangible existence either. They are merely abstractions in our mind based on the information we glean through our senses from experiments or experience.
Yes, information is created with no loss of matter or energy, it is therefore a completely different animal.
This is not true.
It doesn't exist in the first place, so the words have no meaning.
Well, if it doesn't exist, then I'm definitely not going to pay for it!
Laws of Physics do not apply to something which does not exist as a physical body.
But the laws of phyics apply to everything in the universe, including information. Information cannot exist independent of some representation in matter and energy.
You are absolutely right. If you don't want to share it, then don't share it. If you do share it with someone else, then they, as free men, might wish to share it with others without requiring any additional effort whatsoever from you.
If you discover or synthesize a pattern, then do you own this pattern? Do you believe that some patterns can be owned and others not owned. Could Newton own his laws of physics and dictate the terms of how others use them? His laws, which are his interpretation of the universe, are patterns which he synthesized or discovered (depending on your viewpoint) though hard work. Shouldn't he then be allowed to own and control them and be compensated for every use of them? If you say no, then you then have to justify to me how other patterns can be owned. What, then, is the moral test to determine which patterns can be owned and which cannot? And if a pattern can be owned, then how can we ever objectively prove whose pattern it really is? First to the patent office? I don't buy that.
I don't think we've necessarily established that information ought to be "protected", if by "protected" you mean that a person should be able to control how others use the information in their lives. I don't see how society benefits any longer from thie kind of protection.
Imagine, if you will, that information isn't protected. Would our way of life change for the worse? I honestly don't think it would. Programmers would still have plenty of work. Musicians would still create music as they always have and make their money the way they always have - live shows (only the rare musician makes significant income from royalties). Competition among producers will become healthier and consumers will reap the rewards. Instead of somebody sitting on their monopoloy power that a patent provides, they will have to get off their ass and keep up with the competitors who are working on superior and cheaper implementations.
I need someone to try to give me a good solid argument that the abstraction we call "intellectual property" that so severely limits our freedoms ought to be allowed to continue as law.
And which mystic man were you referring to? Kant, Mill, or Jesus? And which moral theories, other than the ones I listed, have more influence on our society?
Really!?!?! Then submit that to the Annals or Physics. Information does exist and it does not violate any physical laws.
It's easy for me to relate entropy and the spread of information. I don't see how entropy or any laws of physics impact the "usefulness" of the information though unless you are talking about degradation though lossy transmission. How do you quantify or measure "usefulness"?
The association of information=money cannot be valid. Money cannot be copied.
Information is simply a pattern that is subject to interpretation. Nothing more, nothing less.
Why should this be true? Why should you be entitled to control the information once it reaches someone else's mind. You aren't entitled to mind control.
Information does exist in nature. It certainly can't exist independent of nature. And we are not independent from nature.