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I'd like to preface this by saying that I don't believe Cody has done anything wrong, and I agree with him about his rights. That said, I'm a bit disappointed

by Cushman 16y ago

I'd like to preface this by saying that I don't believe Cody has done anything wrong, and I agree with him about his rights. That said, I'm a bit disappointed that a self-described hacker is taking such a narrow view of the idea of property. He starts out saying "It all comes down to one simple question: once you've purchased something, do you own it?" And that is the question— but it's not a simple one, not anymore. Intellectual property has changed the game fundamentally, and accepted ideas now need to be challenged. This "manifesto" assumes inviolable rights contingent to ownership without discussion. Where is the intellectual curiosity? Where do you believe the rights of ownership derive from? What makes them valuable? Why should the nature of ownership be the way you want it to, as more and more of what makes a physical thing valuable is not contained in the value of its materials and the labor to construct it? Define and defend your philosophy— and then you'll be in a much better place to argue it as it applies to hacking. And when you go to do that, don't stop after saying "I can and I want to." There are people who disagree with you— convince them. What will be the outcome? Why is hacking actually good for the world? What are the risks? Why are they worth it? Otherwise it's just an angry rant with "manifesto" written on top.

pacemkr 16y ago
"A manifesto is a public declaration of principles and intentions" - Wikipedia That's exactly what he did with that post. He doesn't have to convince anyone. He simply stated his principles.
- daeken 16y ago
  At the same time, I would've liked to frame it in a better way. This incarnation is largely preaching to the choir.
- Cushman 16y ago
  Intentions he's got, but I don't agree he stated his principles. Or rather, I don't think that "hacking is fun" and "you should be able to do whatever you want with something you own" are particularly compelling or rigorously declared principles.
  - loup-vaillant 16y ago
    Here's a more precise, and realistic principle: "You should be allowed to do whatever you want to something you own".
loup-vaillant 16y ago
> Intellectual property has changed the game fundamentally You know there's no such thing as "intellectual property". Property, or ownership, is a thing about physical stuff. Scarce stuff. Stuff you lose when others take it. Knowledge is so different that any analogy from the physical realm is bound to lead to critical misconceptions. (Just like anthropomorphism spur critical misconceptions about computers.) What people actually refer to when they talk about "intellectual property" is intellectual exclusivity, or intellectual monopoly. Copyright and patent laws are about just that: the exclusive right to copy some data, or the monopoly over the usage of some idea. Now we know that intellectual property doesn't exists, we also know that it couldn't have change the game at all. Actually, what did changed the game is the Ultimate Copying Machine, namely the internet. And as Copying Machines became more efficient, exclusivities and monopolies are harder to maintain. So naturally, those who have a stake in them stroked back. Hence the term "intellectual property", one of the most effective propaganda oxymoron I have ever seen. See, "property" is a heavily loaded term, which has an extremely good connotation. The right to property is perceived to be fundamental (I think it is, by the way). And that does it. few see that this term glosses over the fact that knowledge can't be owned at all. But the emotional impact of the starving inventor and "stealing intellectual property" are such that it become very hard to see the flaws of this analogy.
- Cushman 16y ago
  I agree with you, partially. Ideas are real-- as real as anything. Intellectual property is a fiction applied to ideas, just like physical property is a fiction applied to physical objects. But of course physical objects don't follow the same rules as ideas do, so IP needs to have different rules from property. (We're still figuring out what the best rules are.) But the hard question we're talking about here is what do we do when most of the value of a physical object is in the idea that it represents, rather than it's physical nature? Should that fall under the fiction of physical property, or intellectual property? Or some third abstraction that hasn't caught on yet? I think that's a hard question, and stopping after saying "I own it, it's mine" isn't doing justice to it or to the spirit of intellectual curiosity.
  - 16y ago
CamperBob 16y ago
Where do you believe the rights of ownership derive from? Don't think of it terms of "rights." Think of it in terms of fairness. I don't get to control what you do with the money I paid for your product, so why should you get to control what I do with the product?
- Cushman 16y ago
  See that's just it— you're thinking of a cash transaction as traditional barter. I bring something, you bring something, we exchange them. Each of us loses what we owned before, each of us owns something new. That's obviously not how information works, though. An iPhone costs $600. Possessing an iPhone gives you, in theory, the capability to make new iPhones. However, the right to make your own iPhone would cost a lot more (if anyone would sell it at all). The difference falls under the umbrella of "intellectual property", and it's a lot of things; trademarks, copyrights, patents, probably lots of little trade secrets that aren't patentable, but nobody else has figured out yet. To be explicit, of course, the ideas themselves don't have value. The value is the exclusive right to execution of the ideas, which is provided by the government. That's no different from physical possessions, though; my car would not be worth very much to me if I didn't have the right to exclusive control of my car guaranteed me by the government. The point being this: You want to buy my gizmo. However, you've previously told me that when you get your hands on it, you're going to immediately take it apart, figure out how it works, and tell other people so they can make their own without coming to me. Obviously in this case, I don't gain from selling you the gizmo at any price— in fact it's probably worth a lot to me to keep you from getting one. So either we both stick to our guns — you don't get a gizmo, I don't get any money, both of us are unhappy — or we compromise. I say, you can have it if you promise not to open it. You say you can't make that promise. I say, okay, I guess I don't mind if you open it as long as you don't tell anyone else what's inside. Since you're willing to make that sacrifice, I'm willing to let you have a gizmo for $50. That's one way the conversation could go. There are a lot of other ways, as illustrated by the thousands of different ways there are to license IP— say I agree to let you make copies of the gizmo, but only for yourself, not to sell. Or I agree to let you tell people how it works, but only if you tell them that I made it originally. All of those things have value to me, and if their value isn't properly represented by your barter, I won't make the trade. This is a hairy question— I sure don't have the answer to it. My only real point is that when we're talking about something so fascinatingly complex and delicate, you're doing yourself a real disservice going with your gut based on "fairness".

by Cushman 16y ago

pacemkr 16y ago

"A manifesto is a public declaration of principles and intentions" - Wikipedia That's exactly what he did with that post. He doesn't have to convince anyone. He simply stated his principles.

daeken 16y ago
At the same time, I would've liked to frame it in a better way. This incarnation is largely preaching to the choir.
Cushman 16y ago
Intentions he's got, but I don't agree he stated his principles. Or rather, I don't think that "hacking is fun" and "you should be able to do whatever you want with something you own" are particularly compelling or rigorously declared principles.
- loup-vaillant 16y ago
  Here's a more precise, and realistic principle: "You should be allowed to do whatever you want to something you own".

loup-vaillant 16y ago

> Intellectual property has changed the game fundamentally You know there's no such thing as "intellectual property". Property, or ownership, is a thing about physical stuff. Scarce stuff. Stuff you lose when others take it. Knowledge is so different that any analogy from the physical realm is bound to lead to critical misconceptions. (Just like anthropomorphism spur critical misconceptions about computers.) What people actually refer to when they talk about "intellectual property" is intellectual exclusivity, or intellectual monopoly. Copyright and patent laws are about just that: the exclusive right to copy some data, or the monopoly over the usage of some idea. Now we know that intellectual property doesn't exists, we also know that it couldn't have change the game at all. Actually, what did changed the game is the Ultimate Copying Machine, namely the internet. And as Copying Machines became more efficient, exclusivities and monopolies are harder to maintain. So naturally, those who have a stake in them stroked back. Hence the term "intellectual property", one of the most effective propaganda oxymoron I have ever seen. See, "property" is a heavily loaded term, which has an extremely good connotation. The right to property is perceived to be fundamental (I think it is, by the way). And that does it. few see that this term glosses over the fact that knowledge can't be owned at all. But the emotional impact of the starving inventor and "stealing intellectual property" are such that it become very hard to see the flaws of this analogy.

Cushman 16y ago
I agree with you, partially. Ideas are real-- as real as anything. Intellectual property is a fiction applied to ideas, just like physical property is a fiction applied to physical objects. But of course physical objects don't follow the same rules as ideas do, so IP needs to have different rules from property. (We're still figuring out what the best rules are.) But the hard question we're talking about here is what do we do when most of the value of a physical object is in the idea that it represents, rather than it's physical nature? Should that fall under the fiction of physical property, or intellectual property? Or some third abstraction that hasn't caught on yet? I think that's a hard question, and stopping after saying "I own it, it's mine" isn't doing justice to it or to the spirit of intellectual curiosity.
- 16y ago

CamperBob 16y ago

Where do you believe the rights of ownership derive from? Don't think of it terms of "rights." Think of it in terms of fairness. I don't get to control what you do with the money I paid for your product, so why should you get to control what I do with the product?

Cushman 16y ago
See that's just it— you're thinking of a cash transaction as traditional barter. I bring something, you bring something, we exchange them. Each of us loses what we owned before, each of us owns something new. That's obviously not how information works, though. An iPhone costs $600. Possessing an iPhone gives you, in theory, the capability to make new iPhones. However, the right to make your own iPhone would cost a lot more (if anyone would sell it at all). The difference falls under the umbrella of "intellectual property", and it's a lot of things; trademarks, copyrights, patents, probably lots of little trade secrets that aren't patentable, but nobody else has figured out yet. To be explicit, of course, the ideas themselves don't have value. The value is the exclusive right to execution of the ideas, which is provided by the government. That's no different from physical possessions, though; my car would not be worth very much to me if I didn't have the right to exclusive control of my car guaranteed me by the government. The point being this: You want to buy my gizmo. However, you've previously told me that when you get your hands on it, you're going to immediately take it apart, figure out how it works, and tell other people so they can make their own without coming to me. Obviously in this case, I don't gain from selling you the gizmo at any price— in fact it's probably worth a lot to me to keep you from getting one. So either we both stick to our guns — you don't get a gizmo, I don't get any money, both of us are unhappy — or we compromise. I say, you can have it if you promise not to open it. You say you can't make that promise. I say, okay, I guess I don't mind if you open it as long as you don't tell anyone else what's inside. Since you're willing to make that sacrifice, I'm willing to let you have a gizmo for $50. That's one way the conversation could go. There are a lot of other ways, as illustrated by the thousands of different ways there are to license IP— say I agree to let you make copies of the gizmo, but only for yourself, not to sell. Or I agree to let you tell people how it works, but only if you tell them that I made it originally. All of those things have value to me, and if their value isn't properly represented by your barter, I won't make the trade. This is a hairy question— I sure don't have the answer to it. My only real point is that when we're talking about something so fascinatingly complex and delicate, you're doing yourself a real disservice going with your gut based on "fairness".