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> can't help but conflate numerous unrelated arguments from different people. This is exactly how I would describe your comment, far more than the one you repl

by hsod 10y ago

> can't help but conflate numerous unrelated arguments from different people. This is exactly how I would describe your comment, far more than the one you replied to. The comment you replied to attacks a single argument-- that relieving people of IP rights is not the same as relieving them of physical property.

throwanem 10y ago
Precisely this. I'd expand a bit to note that jsprogrammer's comment isn't internally consistent; the case for compensation in expropriation of real property is made in terms of access, while that for same of intellectual property in terms of use. These are not the same. If we take access as the standard, then the use of eminent domain to construct an interstate highway doesn't seem to qualify for recompense, because the interstate highway system is open to the free use of anyone, including any and all former owners of the real property on which it was built. If we take the standard to be use, then expropriation of intellectual property does qualify for recompense, because if access to the property in question has been made freely available to anyone, then selling such access is a use to which that property can no longer be put. And of course there are plenty of other examples. To regard such arguments as tendentious is both uncharitable and, given sufficient exposure, somewhat difficult to avoid. What I'd really appreciate is a clear and internally consistent statement on the subject, from someone who's willing to discuss, debate, and attempt to persuade, rather than indulging in reheated anti-McCarthyism.
- jsprogrammer 10y ago
  I should have been more precise. Access and use are synonymous with respect to the topic. The more appropriate word to have used is perhaps taken. Your land may be taken from you in the sense that there is now a concrete block where your house used to be, but it is difficult to say what is taken when someone else prints a copy of something they saw.
  - throwanem 10y ago
    I should've been more precise, too. What's taken in your second example is the effective ability to sell that person a copy of whatever they saw and printed; why would he buy it, when he already has it for free? To the best of my admittedly unlettered knowledge, one of the rights that inheres in property ownership, in our modern system of law and in the traditions from which it's derived, is the ability to resell access and usage of that property in a variety of forms, such as receiving payment in exchange for the privilege of temporary possession of, and domicile in, a given piece of real property - commonly known as "rent". The argument most commonly put forth by advocates of a fundamental distinction between real and intellectual property seems to hinge on scarcity. That is, it's reasonable for real property rights to include resale of access because a given unit of real property is unique and effectively irreplicable, and therefore scarce; conversely, it's unreasonable for intellectual property rights to include the same, because intellectual property can be losslessly copied and recopied without limit, and therefore cannot accurately be described as scarce. Where I differ with that argument is in its definition of scarcity. I'd argue instead that uniqueness, and thus scarcity, inhere in the specific arrangement of information that constitutes a given unit of intellectual property, and relegate replicability to an essentially accidental characteristic - interesting and valuable, to be sure, but of no significance to the question at hand.
    - nitrogen 10y ago
      Rather than analogizing copyright to physical property, I find it more useful to consider a strictly consequentialist approach. If we accept the purpose of US copyright is "to promote the progress of science and the useful arts," and we accept that citizens have a right to know the laws they are expected to obey (as part of due process), then we can conclude that any application of copyright that serves to hinder due process ought to be invalid, and that it is the obligation of governments passing laws to obtain and distribute the text of those laws to their citizens freely.
      - throwanem 10y ago
        I don't disagree in the slightest. But that addresses only the specific case in which the text of a copyrighted and privately held document is incorporated by reference into that of a law as passed. Copyright in general is a much broader subject.

by hsod 10y ago

throwanem 10y ago

Precisely this. I'd expand a bit to note that jsprogrammer's comment isn't internally consistent; the case for compensation in expropriation of real property is made in terms of access, while that for same of intellectual property in terms of use. These are not the same. If we take access as the standard, then the use of eminent domain to construct an interstate highway doesn't seem to qualify for recompense, because the interstate highway system is open to the free use of anyone, including any and all former owners of the real property on which it was built. If we take the standard to be use, then expropriation of intellectual property does qualify for recompense, because if access to the property in question has been made freely available to anyone, then selling such access is a use to which that property can no longer be put. And of course there are plenty of other examples. To regard such arguments as tendentious is both uncharitable and, given sufficient exposure, somewhat difficult to avoid. What I'd really appreciate is a clear and internally consistent statement on the subject, from someone who's willing to discuss, debate, and attempt to persuade, rather than indulging in reheated anti-McCarthyism.

jsprogrammer 10y ago
I should have been more precise. Access and use are synonymous with respect to the topic. The more appropriate word to have used is perhaps taken. Your land may be taken from you in the sense that there is now a concrete block where your house used to be, but it is difficult to say what is taken when someone else prints a copy of something they saw.
- throwanem 10y ago
  I should've been more precise, too. What's taken in your second example is the effective ability to sell that person a copy of whatever they saw and printed; why would he buy it, when he already has it for free? To the best of my admittedly unlettered knowledge, one of the rights that inheres in property ownership, in our modern system of law and in the traditions from which it's derived, is the ability to resell access and usage of that property in a variety of forms, such as receiving payment in exchange for the privilege of temporary possession of, and domicile in, a given piece of real property - commonly known as "rent". The argument most commonly put forth by advocates of a fundamental distinction between real and intellectual property seems to hinge on scarcity. That is, it's reasonable for real property rights to include resale of access because a given unit of real property is unique and effectively irreplicable, and therefore scarce; conversely, it's unreasonable for intellectual property rights to include the same, because intellectual property can be losslessly copied and recopied without limit, and therefore cannot accurately be described as scarce. Where I differ with that argument is in its definition of scarcity. I'd argue instead that uniqueness, and thus scarcity, inhere in the specific arrangement of information that constitutes a given unit of intellectual property, and relegate replicability to an essentially accidental characteristic - interesting and valuable, to be sure, but of no significance to the question at hand.
  - nitrogen 10y ago
    Rather than analogizing copyright to physical property, I find it more useful to consider a strictly consequentialist approach. If we accept the purpose of US copyright is "to promote the progress of science and the useful arts," and we accept that citizens have a right to know the laws they are expected to obey (as part of due process), then we can conclude that any application of copyright that serves to hinder due process ought to be invalid, and that it is the obligation of governments passing laws to obtain and distribute the text of those laws to their citizens freely.
    - throwanem 10y ago
      I don't disagree in the slightest. But that addresses only the specific case in which the text of a copyrighted and privately held document is incorporated by reference into that of a law as passed. Copyright in general is a much broader subject.