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The question of how private property, intellectual property and posession/ownership should work is indeed something humanity hasn't properly figured out yet. B
by _def 1y ago
The question of how private property, intellectual property and posession/ownership should work is indeed something humanity hasn't properly figured out yet.
But if anything, regular people should have more of the cake.
- somenameforme 1y agoWe have! The only problem is a very limited amount of legal decisions accidentally paved the way for a massive dystopia. In particular, the first sale doctrine [1] solves everything immediately. The courts assumed good faith with a licensing exception, and maybe it was. But that opened the door to essentially completely dismantle the first-sale doctrine. Get rid of that loophole and all this stupidity ends, immediately. Well that and the DMCA. Once you buy something, it's yours to do whatever you want to do with it short of replicating it for commercial benefit. [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First-sale_doctrine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First-sale_doctrine
- john01dav 1y agoWe also need regulation to prevent unbreakable hardware locks. Integrating the locks deep into VLSI makes removing them unrealistic. As a more specific way to do this, I'd like to see any software that hardware companies make for their own hardware designated (at the choice of the company) as either part of the hardware or a separate product. In the former case, it must be made available under GPLv3 with full anti-tivoization provisions. In the latter case, it must use only public and documented interfaces and must be completely realistic for another company to make a competing product on a level playing field. Ideally the separate products would also need to be highly cross platform if technically feasible where the burden of showing that it isn't is on the developer.
- _heimdall 1y agoI'm not sure if we need regulations preventing it as much as we need regulations that manufacturers have to make it clear before buying the product. Informed consent goes a long way.
- john01dav 1y agoMost users don't understand the higher order effects of lack of ownership, if they care at all when it doesn't impact convenience in an obvious way. This information already exists before purchase, but it doesn't move sales among the masses where the money is made. The result is zero viable ownership respecting products for those of us who care: all modern CPUs have IME or equivalent, all modern cars are infested with proprietary spyware, all phones at reasonable prices¹ don't fully embrace user ownership in various ways. This also has higher order effects that affect everyone, such as car insurance having an involuntary data mine on anyone who drives a modern car. 1: the exception that I'm thinking of here is fair phone, and it isn't much of an exception.
- _heimdall 1y agoI just don't see a problem with customers ignoring or not caring about the details as long as its clear. If a car manufacturer makes clear, for example, that you aren't allowed to work on the car you are buying yourself and the person still buys it that's their choice.
- somenameforme 1y agoA practical one is that many industries have extreme barriers to entry and are dominated by a small number of players, with minimal chance of an upstart competitor showing up. And if it so happens that engaging in some sort of anti-customer behavior is profitable, then it's entirely viable that all major players adopt it, even if they don't necessarily overtly collude.
- john01dav 1y agoThe problem is that if 95% of people don't care and do this then the 5% who do care are completely fucked and can't work on their cars. This is because no manufacturer will make more money selling to the 5% who care.
- _heimdall 1y ago
- ilovecollies 1y agoThrowing your hat in the political ring?
- hliyan 1y agoYou might be right. We're seeing a paradox of more and more exclusive ownership of property for commercial interests (land, water, airwaves, orbits) and fewer and fewer exclusive ownership for individuals (rented homes, licensed software, subscriptions etc). I too think we're still in a transition stage and humanity has yet to figure this thing out.
- js8 1y agoIt's actually what Marx was warning about - private property ending in the hands of the few as an endgame of capitalism.
- _heimdall 1y agoWas Marx really warning us? I always read that as him describing his strategy to take down capitalism. I.e. a warning would be if he didn't want it to happen, but my understanding is that he very much did.
- js8 1y agoWell, I think it was both. He saw the problem (of capital accumulation in capitalism), and predicted a failure of it (due to people wisening up and taking action to fix the problem). Of course he wanted corrective action to happen - he didn't want people to suffer. And the people did rise up and successfully tried to fix the problem - there was a big socialdemocratic movement that culminated between the world wars. What he underestimated was the ingenuity with which the capitalism reinvents itself (and creates new forms of private property to gobble up - free computing in RMS's sense just one example). He also overestimated ability of most people to understand the problem (it's lot more lack of emotional rather than intellectual capacity). I would say alienation is central to Marx, unfortunately alienated people can be so indoctrinated to fail to consider the alternatives. Most people seem to prefer to suffer through hardship rather than demand an alternative solution.
- _heimdall 1y ago
- verisimi 1y agoNo - private property is clear. The question that hasn't fully been worked is how to allow people to think/feel they own something, while having no actual legal rights to it. But, as we see, this is being worked on.
- jacquesm 1y agoRecord companies figured that one out a long time ago.
- raxxorraxor 1y agoThe solution certainly won't be through legislative or judicative powers as they have failed predictably and repeatedly. Sometimes reality must be molded a bit of fait accompli.
- _heimdall 1y agoWhat are you proposing if not legislative or judicial means? Those are the only checks of power on the executive built into our system. Are you expecting we would have to throw out our political system all together, get rid of the top by force, and start over?
- markus_zhang 1y agoIt's not we haven't figured it out. It is that gov and corp prefer to be shepherds and we are OK to be sheep. We figured it out a long time ago.