Earlier quoted context omitted.
Don't people have a right to their property?
Indeed they do. For example my hard drive belongs to me and yours to you. There is no way I can arrange the pattern of magnetic ones and zeros such that it magically becomes YOUR property in any way that any proponent of traditional property would understand. That is to say imaginary property is a set of restrictions on how I am allowed to use my actual property. This restriction is supposed to be justified by societ…
Pirates who illegally streamed Jake Paul v Ben Askren targeted in lawsuit
41–50 of 55 posts
Re: Pirates who illegally streamed Jake Paul v Ben Askren targeted in lawsuit
#42Earlier quoted context omitted.
Don't people have a right to their property?
Indeed they do. For example my hard drive belongs to me and yours to you. There is no way I can arrange the pattern of magnetic ones and zeros such that it magically becomes YOUR property in any way that any proponent of traditional property would understand. That is to say imaginary property is a set of restrictions on how I am allowed to use my actual property. This restriction is supposed to be justified by societ…
But, since we're here and discussing the concept of ownership of information - would you say that people have a right to secrets? There might be some bits on my hard drive that I don't want anyone else to know, and if they mysteriously turn up on your hard drive despite my careful precautions, surely that is evidence of some sort of malfeasance?
Re: Pirates who illegally streamed Jake Paul v Ben Askren targeted in lawsuit
#43Re: Pirates who illegally streamed Jake Paul v Ben Askren targeted in lawsuit
#44Earlier quoted context omitted.
Indeed they do. For example my hard drive belongs to me and yours to you. There is no way I can arrange the pattern of magnetic ones and zeros such that it magically becomes YOUR property in any way that any proponent of traditional property would understand. That is to say imaginary property is a set of restrictions on how I am allowed to use my actual property. This restriction is supposed to be justified by societ…
You don't like fighting! Good for you! (Neither do I.) I'm sure a person like you has much more important things to pay attention to. So people like you and me don't pay money to watch fighting. So far we agree. But we differ here: I think it's fine of _other_ people pay money to watch fighting. And I think if someone produces a fighting program, he has the right to try to make some money from it.
It is particularly vexing for me to see all of this creative, hard work flippantly thrown aside because people suddenly become philosophers about bits and rearranging them.
If one doesn't like that people charge $$ to watch boxing fights... Then don't watch them! People are not entitled to having things for free because it's "theoretically possible to re-arrange my hard drive's bits in that exact manner".
edit; changed you->one to clarify I was speaking generally and not about the parent commenter specifically
Re: Pirates who illegally streamed Jake Paul v Ben Askren targeted in lawsuit
#45Earlier quoted context omitted.
Don't people have a right to their property?
Indeed they do. For example my hard drive belongs to me and yours to you. There is no way I can arrange the pattern of magnetic ones and zeros such that it magically becomes YOUR property in any way that any proponent of traditional property would understand. That is to say imaginary property is a set of restrictions on how I am allowed to use my actual property. This restriction is supposed to be justified by societ…
No. You yourself are not re-arranging any bits. Your computer receives bits, then decodes them, and plays them. There is no "re-arrange bits exactly like this album" button.
You wouldn't say that LPs are "placing restrictions on your record player". The artist may no longer have that specific product, but you can't really re-arrange the grooves on a record however you please either.
"This restriction is supposed to be justified by society benefiting from the useful arts and sciences."
I don't disagree that copyright law is poorly implemented. However, I do disagree that society somehow isn't benefiting from artists being paid for the work. It takes a -lot- of man hours to produce music, record it, mix and master it, and distribute it for release. None of that changes just because we distribute the end result electronically now.
If someone takes months and years to come up with an engaging story and universe for a book, they deserve to own that creation and get paid for it. Why would anyone make anything creative in a world where it would be impossible to make a living from that work? Are we to expect artists to have infinite money supply and just produce things for our leisure, for free?
This is just entitlement, with playing games about technicalities of distribution mediums to justify not paying people for their work. No one is forcing people to claim ownership of the things you create; Go ahead and write a book and make it public domain. Produce an album and make it public domain, if you feel that strongly about ownership. You can pay in the time, money, and man-hours of work involved yourself and still keep it free and public domain.
Re: Pirates who illegally streamed Jake Paul v Ben Askren targeted in lawsuit
#46Earlier quoted context omitted.
You don't like fighting! Good for you! (Neither do I.) I'm sure a person like you has much more important things to pay attention to. So people like you and me don't pay money to watch fighting. So far we agree. But we differ here: I think it's fine of _other_ people pay money to watch fighting. And I think if someone produces a fighting program, he has the right to try to make some money from it.
People conveniently like to ignore the costs (time, money, social capital, etc) it requires to even put on boxing or fighting events. Or to make music or films. It is particularly vexing for me to see all of this creative, hard work flippantly thrown aside because people suddenly become philosophers about bits and rearranging them. If one doesn't like that people charge $$ to watch boxing fights... Then don't watch t…
Re: Pirates who illegally streamed Jake Paul v Ben Askren targeted in lawsuit
#47Earlier quoted context omitted.
Uh... they aren't? They can be bought and sold. A company is a government-granted monopoly on the resources of that company, including its contracts with employees and contracts for services. You can buy and sell that company. Originally, all corporations were government-granted charters, and a lot of that notion is retained. Government manages your monopoly over your real estate -- if somebody tries to use it you're…
They aren't analogous to physical property. They can trivially be disposed of without any effect on the functioning of physical property. At best they require their own justification.
If you stop paying property tax you will eventually lose your property.
Re: Pirates who illegally streamed Jake Paul v Ben Askren targeted in lawsuit
#48Earlier quoted context omitted.
You are just deliberately misunderstanding. You can argue for IP if you please but please don't pretend that IP and property share anything but an analogy. Just because information can be used to describe anything doesn't imply that physical things and ownership tags on patterns of bits that decode to tagged patterns are even remotely the same they are actually in opposition. Physical things are scarce thus we are fa…
"It is granting a singular owner the privilege over say the concept of ham and cheese on white bread and demanding that people not make each other sandwiches that are identical in construction to the "owner" of that recipe" Nothing is being constructed by the end user. A music album is a finished product, encoded into bits from an original creation by the author. This is a side-effect of how computers innately functi…
He is very clearly selling the finished product of his work and time. The same is true when a musician sells one a cd he is selling the literal finished product of his work when he sells it fixed in a physical form. All the old rules of commerce apply to that good. The same is even true of an mp3. He is selling you the work of his computer to transfer to your computer the bits required to reproduce his sound.
The problem is that ultimately this very traditional payment of goods and services which works so well with sandwiches starts to break down with cds and mp3s because one doesn't need to steal anything at all cut the creator out of the loop. If one likes one can simply make your own sandwich or give a copy of a song to a friend. As soon as you aren't doing business with the author he has no inherent privilege over your interaction. In order to forbid cutting him out of the loop you must grant him new privileges over others property that resemble traditional property not at all.
You can grant him the right to be the only one allowed to put meat between bread, patents, or you can grant him the right to be the only one to produce with their own materials sandwiches identical or nearly enough to his own recipes copyright. These are always restrictions on what other people can do with their own property because computers are already property with all the rights attached as sandwiches.
The framers in fact discussed the purpose of copyright not to secure the owners natural rights alike property but in hopes that it would on net benefit society.
"The Congress shall have Power... To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries;"
The fact that it is inherently limited should give you the first clue that its not alike traditional property. If it was alike to a thing owned by you why would you by necessity be dispossessed of it. Originally in 14-28 years.
Jefferson spoke well and early against the very idea.
"Stable ownership is the gift of social law, and is given late in the progress of society. It would be curious then, if an idea, the fugitive fermentation of an individual brain, could, of natural right, be claimed in exclusive and stable property. If nature has made any one thing less susceptible than all others of exclusive property, it is the action of the thinking power called an idea, which an individual may exclusively possess as long as he keeps it to himself; but the moment it is divulged, it forces itself into the possession of every one, and the receiver cannot dispossess himself of it. Its peculiar character, too, is that no one possesses the less, because every other possesses the whole of it. He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me. That ideas should freely spread from one to another over the globe, for the moral and mutual instruction of man, and improvement of his condition, seems to have been peculiarly and benevolently designed by nature, when she made them, like fire, expansible over all space, without lessening their density in any point, and like the air in which we breathe, move, and have our physical being, incapable of confinement or exclusive appropriation. Inventions then cannot, in nature, be a subject of property."
It is equally clear that IP isn't alike natural property and that we must necessarily examine the bargain to ensure that it is best from societies perspective. Since copyright is a gift not a natural right we needn't feel bad if for example we restore say its original term. It wouldn't be a taking but rather a restoration of balance in privileges granted.
Re: Pirates who illegally streamed Jake Paul v Ben Askren targeted in lawsuit
#49Earlier quoted context omitted.
But it really isn't limitless, is it? We can abstract it into a 'bit arrangement', but that arrangement didn't emerge from entropy independently - someone invested time, effort, and other scarce resources to arrange those bits in a valuable, non-random configuration. The person copying clearly values that arrangement, or they wouldn't be copying it.
Perhaps they did invest time, but I’m not convinced that should give them the right to place a restriction on others. If I have an empty hard drive and copy someone’s mp3 a thousand times on it, without permission, what is really lost? Have I really harmed this person or stolen from them in any meaningful sense? If I then delete the data, is that really justice? Both directions lead to some laws that seem wrong at fa…
But if it wasn't worth something, you wouldn't do it.
So the person that created it wants a certain value, and the person copying it wants to copy it but doesn't want to pay that value.
Re: Pirates who illegally streamed Jake Paul v Ben Askren targeted in lawsuit
#50Earlier quoted context omitted.
People conveniently like to ignore the costs (time, money, social capital, etc) it requires to even put on boxing or fighting events. Or to make music or films. It is particularly vexing for me to see all of this creative, hard work flippantly thrown aside because people suddenly become philosophers about bits and rearranging them. If one doesn't like that people charge $$ to watch boxing fights... Then don't watch t…
You and I agree. But the "gatekeepers" on Hacker News believe that if something's not "hip" enough for them, it has no value and nobody should be enjoying it.