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"Feds seize song 'Stairway To Heaven' from Florida Man, surprised to find him listening to it anyway". Point being, lawyers can pretend that information is pro

by bo1024 4y ago

"Feds seize song 'Stairway To Heaven' from Florida Man, surprised to find him listening to it anyway". Point being, lawyers can pretend that information is property, but some things obey physical laws and other things don't. (edit) Maybe I'm being unclear, but your link defines seizure as "removes property from an individual's possession" and none of these terms apply here.

JumpCrisscross 4y ago
> lawyers can pretend that information is property, but some things obey physical laws and other things don't Free information is difficult to control. We have to add things to it, like DRM, to make it compatible with the legal concepts of possession and ownership. Crypto, however, is different. One can control it. Had the FBI been able to move the coins to their own wallet, they would have controlled them. Crypto is information re-structured in the image of our legal senses around property. It's the antithesis of free information. (That’s why two people can look at it and simultaneously see profoundly-pure meaning and infinitely-valid meaninglessness. Legal versus tangible. Possession without substance. Money.) All that aside, ownership and control have a long history of separating. The traditional method of reconciliation was violence. The FBI "owned" those coins on "seizing" them and thus legally "possessed" them [1], even if they didn't "control" them. [1] https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/possession https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/possession
- bo1024 4y ago
  I don’t follow. If you record my https traffic to my banking website, do you now “own” my bank account? Did you “seize” it? Do you “possess” it? No, no, no. you have a copy of a pile of bits that are meaningless to you without my encryption keys. You don’t have anything new and you didn’t deprive me of anything either.
  - JumpCrisscross 4y ago
    > you record my https traffic to my banking website, do you now “own” my bank account? Did you “seize” it? Do you “possess” it? No, no, no. Recording and seizing are different. If a court rules the you own a bank account, that doesn't technically prohibit the bank from charging it. Possession involves ownership or control [1]. [1] https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/possession https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/possession

by bo1024 4y ago

JumpCrisscross 4y ago

> lawyers can pretend that information is property, but some things obey physical laws and other things don't Free information is difficult to control. We have to add things to it, like DRM, to make it compatible with the legal concepts of possession and ownership. Crypto, however, is different. One can control it. Had the FBI been able to move the coins to their own wallet, they would have controlled them. Crypto is information re-structured in the image of our legal senses around property. It's the antithesis of free information. (That’s why two people can look at it and simultaneously see profoundly-pure meaning and infinitely-valid meaninglessness. Legal versus tangible. Possession without substance. Money.) All that aside, ownership and control have a long history of separating. The traditional method of reconciliation was violence. The FBI "owned" those coins on "seizing" them and thus legally "possessed" them [1], even if they didn't "control" them. [1] https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/possession https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/possession

bo1024 4y ago
I don’t follow. If you record my https traffic to my banking website, do you now “own” my bank account? Did you “seize” it? Do you “possess” it? No, no, no. you have a copy of a pile of bits that are meaningless to you without my encryption keys. You don’t have anything new and you didn’t deprive me of anything either.
- JumpCrisscross 4y ago
  > you record my https traffic to my banking website, do you now “own” my bank account? Did you “seize” it? Do you “possess” it? No, no, no. Recording and seizing are different. If a court rules the you own a bank account, that doesn't technically prohibit the bank from charging it. Possession involves ownership or control [1]. [1] https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/possession https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/possession