Subj : Re: GNU Public Licences Revisited (again)
To   : comp.programming
From : Scott Moore
Date : Sat Aug 27 2005 02:42 am

David Golden wrote:

> 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.

So it comes down to this. Shown a pattern that I came up with, for which
you could not produce given a million years of trying, you say, I see that,
I have the right to copy that. You wrote that book, I should be able to copy
that (although the book analogy seems to be strangely beyond the coverage
of your theory). Whatever I come up with, you have a right to copy it, since
information needs to be free.

You have the right to produce information, programs, yes, even books, TV shows
films, anything that is and is not covered by copyright. And give it out freely.
So your wish is achievable now. But you want more.

Information property rights ARE inherent. Here is a program, here is a book, a
film, that I have created. Good, bad, its all the same. I have ultimate property
rights over it. The program may solve a great puzzle facing everyone, the book
perhaps the secret of life, the film might reveal where Hitler is buried, so that
it can be solved once and for all. You won't get it, because I have ultimate
property rights over the information. No, the property right is not given by
laws, man, god, super powers, whatever. I have this ultimate property right
because I have it, and not you, or anyone else, has that information. If you
come to my house, break in, ransack the place, you still may not get it. It
could be well hidden, or....

It could be in my head.

Its simplistic to say that the copyright law exists to coax me to get that
idea out to the public, so anyone can benefit, but that is indeed part of what
the law says.

Lets say I came across Hitler's grave one day while touring South America.
It was a complete accident. There it was, Das Furer, written across the
tombstone. I want a million dollars for the information. Sheer case of
exploitation. Perhaps I got there on government land, under false pretenses
of doing forestry research, whatever. Surely I have no right to the
information. But there it is in my head.

Lets say I wrote that program from years of hard work. I want to sell the
program for $30 per copy, with the expectation of paying for my salary for
the year it took me to come up with the program.

Ah, but thats a trick question isn't it ? If there was no recognized property
right for programs, for information, I would never have created that program
in the first place. No, that isn't fair, lets really go with your model.
I would make the program. It takes a year to make the program, but I work
here at Mcdonalds, so, working evenings and weekends, I can make the program
in 5 years, and place that on the Internet.

So there's three examples, the "accidental" information hoarder, the all out
worker, and the good will worker. The guy who perhaps should be taken out back
and given a sound beating, the guy whose (perhaps misguided) economic model
simply won't work in the future of free information, and the guy who may get
enough fame from the free program that he can stop flipping burgers.

Mankind does not make laws like patent and copyright because of inherent ideas
about right and wrong. Right and wrong are reserved for weighty matters such
as murder, and yes, slavery.

Laws such as copyright and patent exist because they work, they create an
economy.

Now you say, that's not valid, there is another way. You might say its not
even moral, but hey, thats an opinion. The dividing line line between this
imperfect world of copyright and patent, and your perfect world is very thin,
and its what you stated at the top of this message. The very thin difference
between coming up with your own "patterns", which you are free to do with as
you please, and feeling the need to copy the patterns someone else comes up
with.

But, you say that its not right that some arbitrary pattern can be treated as
property. Well, I say it is pretty much an inherent right, since if I never
show anyone, it remains my ultimate property.

However, lets say you are right. Nobody should be able to treat a pattern
as property. Well, under that system, copyrights and patents can't exist.
That's ok, right? If patterns aren't property, nobody would come up with
one without the idea of freely distributing it.

So here are the two worlds, the one where copyrights and patents rule,
and the one where freeware/openware exist. Removing the "ownership of
patterns" is not going to create any new freeware/openware, because
the people clinging to the copyright and patent world would stop doing
that, and the net addition to freeware/openware would be nil. Paidware
would certainly cease, but good riddance, right?

Now in the current world, if you ignore copyright and patent for a moment,
if you, or anyone else, writes a program, and GPLs it, or other expedient
to get around the (incorrect) copyright and patent laws, the program meets
your test of the ultimate unowned program. Nobody can declare it property.
Even if you, or the author, wakes up one day and declares it was a mistake,
and he wants it back to remove it from circulation, he cannot. It is out
there, any "rights" were given up.

So I propose that the world where property rights over information does
not exist is here, living in parallel with the other, bad world of copyright
and patent. Yes, but the copyright/patent world still exists, doesn't it?
But its existence does not add anything to the "no rights to information"
world, does it? And if the copyright/patent world were wiped out, then
the "no information rights" would not gain anything, right (the greedy
people who were bent on gain via copyright/patent would become lawyers).

So it really comes down to a story I read when I was five (from a story
written in the days before copyright). Which I will leave you with:

========================================================================

One day a farmer's dog who just received a big, juicy bone from the
farmer, was walking down the road chewing his prize, feeling very
proud of his new bone.

Going over a bridge on a stream, the dog looked into the water, and saw
another dog, with a bone that appeared to be just as big and juicy as
the one the dog held in his teeth, perhaps even bigger, and more juicy.

Immediately the dog went from pride over his bone to jealousy. Before,
the dog was convinced he had the biggest, juiciest bone in all of the
land, but now, clearly that was not so. There was another dog, with
another bone that was perhaps bigger and better than his own.

The dog growled and barked at the other dog, prepared for a showdown
over the honor of the biggest, the juiciest bone. Having opened his
mouth, however, the bone fell into the water, and was lost.

-- 
Samiam is Scott A. Moore

Personal web site: http:/www.moorecad.com/scott
My electronics engineering consulting site: http://www.moorecad.com
ISO 7185 Standard Pascal web site: http://www.moorecad.com/standardpascal
Classic Basic Games web site: http://www.moorecad.com/classicbasic
The IP Pascal web site, a high performance, highly portable ISO 7185 Pascal
compiler system: http://www.moorecad.com/ippas

Good does not always win. But good is more patient.

.