Subj : Re: GNU Public Licences Revisited (again)
To   : comp.programming
From : David Golden
Date : Sat Aug 27 2005 07:22 am

> The mere fact that you resort to slavery analogies, rather than
> constructing your argument from first principles, signifies this.


The analogy was between the effects of slavery law and the effects of 
copyright law in creating property rights, making a rather dry and
somewhat trivial technical point showing that a market in something
considered to be property is (duh) quite dependent on a law recognising
that thing as property, but that related service markets may also exist
even if something isn't considered property for whatever reason - in
the case of slavery, because people believed it wasn't right to own
people.  In the case of information, people might believe it isn't
right to own an information pattern in the abstract. The reason for why
people might believe that, about slavery or about information, was
outside the scope of the argument for which the slavery analogy was
used.

I'm not the one getting hung up on emotional stuff about slavery, 
anyway, nor did I say copyright was "as bad as" slavery nor did I
"equate programming with slavery" as one genius said - it's easy
to argue against an argument someone didn't make...

But hey, there is - and this was not the important point of the original
analogy - a small grain of similarity between slavery and copyright. In
both cases, you are imposing on the freedom of people (all laws are an 
abridgement of some freedom or other, so this is also a trivial point).

> But a good one, because without it--if I am stronger than you--I
>can take anything of yours I want and you have no LEGAL recourse.

If someone takes my car, I'd be a bit annoyed because I wouldn't have
the car anymore. Even in the complete absence of formal property
rights, the use of a car that was previously with me is now denied to
me, the car is with him now.

But if he makes a copy of my car, I still have mine.  He hasn't
taken my car, he's taken a copy of my car. Not the same thing,
and not something you'd give a crap about if you're
reasonable, at least so long as he changes the registration on his
car so you don't get speeding tickets that are supposed to be for him.

And if I know how to drive, and he learns how to drive from me, even
pays me to inform him (with information!) how to do so, should I be
able to tax him for ongoing use of "how to drive"? Should I be allowed
prevent him teaching "how to drive" to other people, stop him passing
on the "how to drive" information pattern because I "own" it?  Do I
stop knowing how to drive because he can? He hasn't taken  "how to
drive" from me!

I thus simply regard it as best to consider the physical substrates
of particular copies of information as property.  Treating the
information patterns themselves as property is wrong, since it's
perfectly possible for a particular physical copy of some information
pattern on one substrate to be with me and another copy on another
substrate to be with you.

Funny enough, you'll never show me an information pattern independent
of a particular physical substrate, whether in electron spin waves or
engraved on toadstools.   Granting property rights  for information
patterns is  overriding and devaluing physical property rights over ALL
substrates encoding the "same" information.

Freedom to learn, know, and teach arbitrary information are all
compromised by treating information patterns as property, for the
obvious reason that the holder of a property right on an information
pattern could interfere (you might not agree that those freedoms should
exist, of course, and one could quibble about copyright not being
treating information as property but rather the  monopoly on
duplication of information being akin to property, but it is necessary
to copy information into your memory space to learn it...). 

Abilities to learn, know and teach arbitrary information set humans and
recently the human-machine combo apart from other animals, in degree if
not in kind. Reason enough not to treat information as property, to do
so would be to cripple our humanity (and now machine-humanity I guess).

.