3 ms·

The ability to distribute a OS to everyone on this planet at less cost than the annual salary of one dev is certainly innovation. Piracy is not violation of a p

by yk 14y ago

The ability to distribute a OS to everyone on this planet at less cost than the annual salary of one dev is certainly innovation. Piracy is not violation of a property right, since the creator would not have any stake in what I do with my copy anymore than VW has a say in who borrows my car and technology can certainly change which laws are reasonable or not.

rayiner 14y ago
The creator of a creative work does have a right to control how you reproduce his work, because the law gives him that right. Is this a wholly artificial construct? Yes. But so is any property right. In the state of nature there is no concept of "my." Animals in the state of nature don't "own" things. They merely possess subject to a bigger, stronger animal coming along and relieving them of possession. The idea that you can "own" a physical object and the state will defend that "ownership" with violence on your behalf is a wholly artificial construct as well. As for technology changing which laws are reasonable, that is definitely true. But I don't see why technology has made it less reasonable to grant ownership rights in creative works. It has simply made it easier to violate those rights. Should the ease with which a right can be violated be a criterion for deciding which rights should be granted?
- yk 14y ago
  >> The idea that you can "own" a physical object and the state will defend that "ownership" with violence on your behalf is a wholly artificial construct as well. Yes, but being able to license intellectual property is a very different thing from ownership of a car, both in the effects on my rights and in the moral basis of the law. >>But I don't see why technology has made it less reasonable to grant ownership rights in creative works. I think the most important analogy between material and immaterial goods fifteen years ago was, that an immaterial good needed a physical medium, like a CD. And the buyer of the physical medium had after that property of a thing, and could do what he wanted ( in reasonable limits). Most importantly, as long as CDs were copied by cassettes, the buyer could supply his friends with low quality copies. So it seems to me, that the entire idea of intellectual property revolved around the inability of most people to produce a high quality copy of the medium. In contrast, nowadays everybody could easily produce and distribute a high quality copy. So I think that with the internet the physical medium vanished and with it the part of an immaterial good which made it possible to speak about 'ownership' and 'property' in the first place. So it is certainly the case that we need a consensus, what reasonable behaviour of creators and consumers is. But I think that talk about 'ownership' is just muddinging the water. And personally I find it quite frustrating that we have all these fascinating technology which create abundance of all digitial works. And we are not allowed to actually use them, because we can not figure out how to pay creators (which has not necessarily anything to do with copying in the first place).
  - rayiner 14y ago
    > Yes, but being able to license intellectual property is a very different thing from ownership of a car, both in the effects on my rights and in the moral basis of the law. How so?
    - yk 14y ago
      In case of rights: If I buy a car, I own it and the idea is, that I can do with it, what I want. Most importantly, when I buy a car the manufacturer has no longer any claim on the car and can for example not force me to just use one brand of gasoline. This is in contrast to intellectual property, where I do not actually own the copy, but I did only license the IP and have a contract with the creator. ( For example the MS EULA of Windows 98 did prohibit the use of it in nuclear power plants. ) On the other hand, I think that the moral basis for property rights is, that physical property is exclusive, in the sense that only one person can use a physical good at any single time. It is therefore morally wrong to steal, not because one enriches himself, but because the victim is deprived of the utility of the good. Again, this is quite different with IP, since the original 'owner' of the first copy is not deprived of the utility of 'his' copy.

by yk 14y ago

rayiner 14y ago

The creator of a creative work does have a right to control how you reproduce his work, because the law gives him that right. Is this a wholly artificial construct? Yes. But so is any property right. In the state of nature there is no concept of "my." Animals in the state of nature don't "own" things. They merely possess subject to a bigger, stronger animal coming along and relieving them of possession. The idea that you can "own" a physical object and the state will defend that "ownership" with violence on your behalf is a wholly artificial construct as well. As for technology changing which laws are reasonable, that is definitely true. But I don't see why technology has made it less reasonable to grant ownership rights in creative works. It has simply made it easier to violate those rights. Should the ease with which a right can be violated be a criterion for deciding which rights should be granted?

yk 14y ago
>> The idea that you can "own" a physical object and the state will defend that "ownership" with violence on your behalf is a wholly artificial construct as well. Yes, but being able to license intellectual property is a very different thing from ownership of a car, both in the effects on my rights and in the moral basis of the law. >>But I don't see why technology has made it less reasonable to grant ownership rights in creative works. I think the most important analogy between material and immaterial goods fifteen years ago was, that an immaterial good needed a physical medium, like a CD. And the buyer of the physical medium had after that property of a thing, and could do what he wanted ( in reasonable limits). Most importantly, as long as CDs were copied by cassettes, the buyer could supply his friends with low quality copies. So it seems to me, that the entire idea of intellectual property revolved around the inability of most people to produce a high quality copy of the medium. In contrast, nowadays everybody could easily produce and distribute a high quality copy. So I think that with the internet the physical medium vanished and with it the part of an immaterial good which made it possible to speak about 'ownership' and 'property' in the first place. So it is certainly the case that we need a consensus, what reasonable behaviour of creators and consumers is. But I think that talk about 'ownership' is just muddinging the water. And personally I find it quite frustrating that we have all these fascinating technology which create abundance of all digitial works. And we are not allowed to actually use them, because we can not figure out how to pay creators (which has not necessarily anything to do with copying in the first place).
- rayiner 14y ago
  > Yes, but being able to license intellectual property is a very different thing from ownership of a car, both in the effects on my rights and in the moral basis of the law. How so?
  - yk 14y ago
    In case of rights: If I buy a car, I own it and the idea is, that I can do with it, what I want. Most importantly, when I buy a car the manufacturer has no longer any claim on the car and can for example not force me to just use one brand of gasoline. This is in contrast to intellectual property, where I do not actually own the copy, but I did only license the IP and have a contract with the creator. ( For example the MS EULA of Windows 98 did prohibit the use of it in nuclear power plants. ) On the other hand, I think that the moral basis for property rights is, that physical property is exclusive, in the sense that only one person can use a physical good at any single time. It is therefore morally wrong to steal, not because one enriches himself, but because the victim is deprived of the utility of the good. Again, this is quite different with IP, since the original 'owner' of the first copy is not deprived of the utility of 'his' copy.