4 ms·

//Independently discovering all music and movie under //a Tera-byte of data for(int i=0; i < 2^(1099511627776x8); i++){ Node *binary = convert_to_binary(i);

by chegra 16y ago

//Independently discovering all music and movie under //a Tera-byte of data for(int i=0; i < 2^(1099511627776x8); i++){ Node *binary = convert_to_binary(i); write_raw(binary); send_email_to_friends("I own number: %d".i); } Implicitly, they are claiming they own a number.

erydo 16y ago
Sam Hughes had an interesting perspective on this: http://qntm.org/number http://qntm.org/number Basically, meaningful numbers are so sparse that to claim there's nothing special about them is ridiculous.
- chegra 16y ago
  A being in the 7th dimension wouldn't think nothing of it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ySBaYMESb8o&NR=1&feature=fvwp http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ySBaYMESb8o&NR=1&feat... Are you discriminating against me cause I'm a 3 dimensional being?[Being facetious, I actually was trying to come up with a good argument to defend against a argument like the one given before posting.]
tedunangst 16y ago
You know that it takes a lot less than "2^(1099511627776x8)" bytes of storage to record that number? And while the entire sequence takes about that much space, it's only one such sequence, hardly "all music and movies".
jbermudes 16y ago
IANAL, but it seems that mens rea (intending to commit a crime) would play a big role in this area. While you are correct in saying that Abbey Road might under some form of digital encoding turn out to be the number "34", this wouldn't make distributing files with the number 34 illegal unless you can demonstrate that the people sharing the number knew what it was for and how it was encoded. Otherwise, it would seem that you could infringe copyrights all day and as long as the traffic was encrypted then you could argue that you're not sending MP3 files, just numbers that after some massaging with keys turns out to be data useful for feeding to an MP3 Player. (Heck, you could probably slippery slope the analogy to simply taking the twos compliment of the digital representation) So unless I'm mistaken, they are not claiming to own a number, but rather, are claiming to own "imaginary" property in that anything digital that resembles and is being _used_ to replicate the artist's performance is infringement and thus illegal. But I agree that the whole thing is still crazy and full of logical loop-holes. EDIT: For a similar concept that's brewing, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illegal_prime http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illegal_prime
- A1kmm 16y ago
  IANAL, but from what I've read, the original legislative intent, in most jurisdictions, is that the process by which an artefact is created (including a stream of bits sent over a network or data sent on a block device) rather than the data itself which makes something a protected work - and it is the process of copying that is restricted. If you invent the exact same sequence completely independently, you own it. However, the problem of looking at data and saying that copying happened is one of inference; if I posted exactly the same comment you just wrote, I could have independently come up with your copyrighted comment, and hence own the copyright, but the much more likely explanation is that I copied your comment, and so judges and juries infer copying from similarity that they believe is statistically unlikely. So if person A generates a random string from the uniform distribution, and communicates it securely to a trusted person, B, who XORs the string with your comment, and A shares the random string with the public, while B shares the XORed string, technically only B commits direct copyright infringement, because B created a derivative work by XORing, and broadcast that work (copying). If done properly, no one could prove which person was A and which was B however. In practice, however, it is likely that if both people acted with intent to distribute the work, they would both be at least secondarily liable.
tzs 16y ago
No, that is incorrect. The number produced above is not a copy of any copyrighted work. You would in fact be free to distribute it with no risk at all of liability for copyright infringement. Let's call your number S. Yes, somewhere in S is a bit string that happens to match the bit string of almost any particular encoding of almost any particular movie or musical performance. If you just distribute S to someone, they have no way practically, or even reasonably theoretically, to actually find those strings. Now, if you gave a copy of S to someone AND told them "start at offset X and take Y bits and save these as a file with the extension .mp3", and the result of that matched a particular copyrighted piece of music then guess what--copyright infringement (depending on how you found X and Y). Specifically, if the procedure was to start with the copyrighted piece of music and somehow search the string for it to determine X, then distributing (X,Y,S) would be copyright infringement. No one is claiming, even implicitly, to own S.
- burgerbrain 16y ago
  You have only begun your journey of understanding why "owning" information is ludicrous. Give it time.
  - tzs 16y ago
    I'm curious. Do you think giving someone a large block of marble is equivalent to giving them Michelangelo's David?
    - vacri 16y ago
      Clearly we have to outlaw chisels! (edit: to be clear: j/k - I think most of the arguments about 'information is meant/wants to be free' are pretty funny. I'm yet to have one proponent share their bank details and password with me :)
    - burgerbrain 16y ago
      If you reproduced David with a block of marble and a milling machine, would Michelangelo have a right to be upset?
- 16y ago
deadcyclo 16y ago
All of the technical discussions about this aside this really makes no sense. To me it sounds a lot like claiming that you cannot own letters hence you cannot own an essay you wrote.

by chegra 16y ago

erydo 16y ago

Sam Hughes had an interesting perspective on this: http://qntm.org/number http://qntm.org/number Basically, meaningful numbers are so sparse that to claim there's nothing special about them is ridiculous.

chegra 16y ago
A being in the 7th dimension wouldn't think nothing of it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ySBaYMESb8o&NR=1&feature=fvwp http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ySBaYMESb8o&NR=1&feat... Are you discriminating against me cause I'm a 3 dimensional being?[Being facetious, I actually was trying to come up with a good argument to defend against a argument like the one given before posting.]

tedunangst 16y ago

You know that it takes a lot less than "2^(1099511627776x8)" bytes of storage to record that number? And while the entire sequence takes about that much space, it's only one such sequence, hardly "all music and movies".

jbermudes 16y ago

IANAL, but it seems that mens rea (intending to commit a crime) would play a big role in this area. While you are correct in saying that Abbey Road might under some form of digital encoding turn out to be the number "34", this wouldn't make distributing files with the number 34 illegal unless you can demonstrate that the people sharing the number knew what it was for and how it was encoded. Otherwise, it would seem that you could infringe copyrights all day and as long as the traffic was encrypted then you could argue that you're not sending MP3 files, just numbers that after some massaging with keys turns out to be data useful for feeding to an MP3 Player. (Heck, you could probably slippery slope the analogy to simply taking the twos compliment of the digital representation) So unless I'm mistaken, they are not claiming to own a number, but rather, are claiming to own "imaginary" property in that anything digital that resembles and is being _used_ to replicate the artist's performance is infringement and thus illegal. But I agree that the whole thing is still crazy and full of logical loop-holes. EDIT: For a similar concept that's brewing, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illegal_prime http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illegal_prime

A1kmm 16y ago
IANAL, but from what I've read, the original legislative intent, in most jurisdictions, is that the process by which an artefact is created (including a stream of bits sent over a network or data sent on a block device) rather than the data itself which makes something a protected work - and it is the process of copying that is restricted. If you invent the exact same sequence completely independently, you own it. However, the problem of looking at data and saying that copying happened is one of inference; if I posted exactly the same comment you just wrote, I could have independently come up with your copyrighted comment, and hence own the copyright, but the much more likely explanation is that I copied your comment, and so judges and juries infer copying from similarity that they believe is statistically unlikely. So if person A generates a random string from the uniform distribution, and communicates it securely to a trusted person, B, who XORs the string with your comment, and A shares the random string with the public, while B shares the XORed string, technically only B commits direct copyright infringement, because B created a derivative work by XORing, and broadcast that work (copying). If done properly, no one could prove which person was A and which was B however. In practice, however, it is likely that if both people acted with intent to distribute the work, they would both be at least secondarily liable.

tzs 16y ago

No, that is incorrect. The number produced above is not a copy of any copyrighted work. You would in fact be free to distribute it with no risk at all of liability for copyright infringement. Let's call your number S. Yes, somewhere in S is a bit string that happens to match the bit string of almost any particular encoding of almost any particular movie or musical performance. If you just distribute S to someone, they have no way practically, or even reasonably theoretically, to actually find those strings. Now, if you gave a copy of S to someone AND told them "start at offset X and take Y bits and save these as a file with the extension .mp3", and the result of that matched a particular copyrighted piece of music then guess what--copyright infringement (depending on how you found X and Y). Specifically, if the procedure was to start with the copyrighted piece of music and somehow search the string for it to determine X, then distributing (X,Y,S) would be copyright infringement. No one is claiming, even implicitly, to own S.

burgerbrain 16y ago
You have only begun your journey of understanding why "owning" information is ludicrous. Give it time.
- tzs 16y ago
  I'm curious. Do you think giving someone a large block of marble is equivalent to giving them Michelangelo's David?
  - vacri 16y ago
    Clearly we have to outlaw chisels! (edit: to be clear: j/k - I think most of the arguments about 'information is meant/wants to be free' are pretty funny. I'm yet to have one proponent share their bank details and password with me :)
  - burgerbrain 16y ago
    If you reproduced David with a block of marble and a milling machine, would Michelangelo have a right to be upset?
16y ago

deadcyclo 16y ago

All of the technical discussions about this aside this really makes no sense. To me it sounds a lot like claiming that you cannot own letters hence you cannot own an essay you wrote.