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"to limit people from certain bit arrangements" I don't understand how things can apparently have no restrictions just because it comes down to "digital bits".

• michaelmrose 5y ago
  You are just deliberately misunderstanding. You can argue for IP if you please but please don't pretend that IP and property share anything but an analogy. Just because information can be used to describe anything doesn't imply that physical things and ownership tags on patterns of bits that decode to tagged patterns are even remotely the same they are actually in opposition. Physical things are scarce thus we are face with the inherent choice of deciding whom has the privilege of eating a sandwich or living in a particular house. The method of distributing goods is often capricious, unfair, subject to every existing bias but at least it represents a choice we must make. We can't both eat the whole sandwich. A pattern of bits isn't a physical thing in the same class at all it is a restriction on which bits 2 parties unrelated in every fashion to the creator may transmit between each other. It's not a sandwich it is a recipe. It is granting a singular owner the privilege over say the concept of ham and cheese on white bread and demanding that people not make each other sandwiches that are identical in construction to the "owner" of that recipe under the theory that this will encourage people to develop more new and exciting sandwich types. We aren't throwing ownership out the window. In fact traditional ownership never came in the window in the first place its a mile up in orbit. What you are arguing for is an entirely different class of thing in need of its own thought process and justification. If you are going to justify it then it must necessarily be on its own terms with its own implications not by leaning overmuch on traditional property. Pretending its the same leads to many logically nonsensical things like Sony Bonos widow suggesting that copyright ought to be forever like owning a house so that the numerous and useless great great grandchildren of the creative who have nothing to offer us can tax all of creation to pay for the drugs they will probably end their pointless lives with. All of art is derivative thus endless copyright would cede all of the creative universe to the heirs of the current creative class who weren't burdened by paying tax to their predecessors. Alternatively logically nonsense like eventually all common reasonable arrangements of notes belonging to somebody. The truth is copyright was invented as a tax on society to gift to the rich and useless and only then adapted as a method to ensure publishers paid writers in an era when printing was expensive. Even now most of the money sticks to business people not creators. We would be well rid of it.
  • andrewzah 5y ago
    "It is granting a singular owner the privilege over say the concept of ham and cheese on white bread and demanding that people not make each other sandwiches that are identical in construction to the "owner" of that recipe" Nothing is being constructed by the end user. A music album is a finished product, encoded into bits from an original creation by the author. This is a side-effect of how computers innately function, and doesn't change the fact that authors are -not- selling recipes to build products, they are selling finished products. There is no difference ideologically between selling an LP or a CD or a zipped download; the encoding and distribution mechanisms are different, but the customer still purchased the same thing: a complete product that can be played by equipment that understands how to decode and play it. If someone singularly came up with a song, then of course they are the singular owner. Making art and music is a complex process, and specifically with music production one ends up with things that have never been constructed in that particular musical and instrumental arrangement, that key, with those musical ideas, those rhythms and note placements, etc. To say that ownership is just impossible ignores essentially -all- of the work that goes into making things like music. It's not like someone just pushes a button and calls it a day... "Pretending its the same leads to many logically nonsensical things" No, companies will always make absolutely ridiculous claims for copyright. Whether it's digital or not. This is separate to the idea of ownership of something whether digital or not. "All of art is derivative thus endless copyright would cede all of the creative universe" No one is arguing that people can claim copyright ownership on any and all works that may have been inspired from it. This is a strawman argument and also has nothing to do with digital vs physical copyright. It also completely ignores that songs, etc, are much more than mere constructions of notes. The current implementations of copyright protection are pretty bad.. But that doesn't mean the idea in general is bad. Artists, just like anyone else, need to get paid for their work. You and I do not automatically deserve things just because they are distributed electronically now. Artists still deserve to have ownership of the things they create, even if they distribute them electronically. No one is forcing anyone to go out and buy music or other art, it is an elective choice because one specifically desires that exact sound, which can be distributed as bits now. However, people aren't going out and "buying bits", they are buying specific products. The fact that things can be represented as bits is entirely irrelevant to both parties aside from not needing to lug around physical items.