Subj : Re: GNU Public Licences Revisited (again)
To   : comp.programming
From : David Golden
Date : Wed Sep 21 2005 03:21 am

Gerry Quinn wrote:
> Someone who wants to be paid, and isn't a dick, wants an economic and
> legal system that encourages it.

There's quite a difference between that and demanding
everyone else is restricted as the only acceptable encouragement.

> I never said it did.  I said goods (such as IP rights) can be
> expropriated

If I"P" rights aren't created in the first place, they can't be
expropriated.  (clearly lack of creation of I"P" rights is quite
different to information patterns not being created, as you yourself
presumably understand given your statement above that you were talking
about I"P" rights as distinct from information).

> Your argument is as nonsensical as saying money can't 
> be expropriated because a data register in your bank's computer still
> exists. 

Not that I necessarily agree much with centralised currency monooply *
and what passes for "money" these days either... but do let's remember
information does not exist independent of physical substrate:  a data
register encoding one value is physically different to a data register
encoding a different value in the same encoding scheme.   To overwrite
the information content of a data register in a computer without
authorisation you must thus grossly interfere with physical property,
altering the computer's physical state without the owner's consent.  

Note also that no matter how many copies you make of the information in
a bank's data register tracking an amount of virtual "money" (or at
least credit...), you DON'T have the "money" - because the quantity is
the one encoded in the bank's copy, not yours. It's a feature not
merely of the raw information but who's asserting it.

(* fun link:
http://www.promethea.org/Misc_Compositions/PrometheanCapitalism/Capital.html
)

>> Here's another interesting paper by Mark. A. Lemley:
>> http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=582602
> Mostly a whinge about terminology.  

Odd attitude.

>> Well, that would really depend on how good her work was.
> 
> No, it would depend on how saleable her work was, which under your
> scheme is likely to be close to zero irrespective of quality.
 
Work(1.) as in service of original creation, not necessarily "works"(2.)
as in mere "copies" (though actually, people do tend to pay a bit extra
for from-original-source copies.).  

>> All along, it's sounded to me like you subscribe to some
>> old labour theory of value: hey, maybe *you're* a closet marxist!

> That's a typical line of defence from your kind.

A labour theory of value IS a tad suggestive of Marx.  Me, I think the
idea that something's value to others necessarily has much relation to
the work put into it as pretty absurd, but hey.

.