Re: FSF condemns partnership between Mozilla and Adobe to support Digital Restrictions Management

On Sun, May 18, 2014 at 10:50 PM, Zenaan Harkness <zen@freedbms.net> wrote:

Are you aware that there is a useful (from the perspective of
freedoms) distinction to be made between physical property and
so-called 'intellectual property'?

No. In fact hell no.

Consider if you please (or use the Socratic defense of not listening) the definition of property. How does something become property? Materials in the "wild" are not property. So how does it become property owned by some person(s)?

I like John Locke's answer in the labor theory of property/ownership/first appropriation. Natural materials become owned when a person, who automatically owns their ownself and thus their own labor, mixes that labor with the natural materials. So plowing a field, digging a well or a mine, or cutting down a tree are all ways of mixing one's labor with raw land, which combination is the basis for all property. Even unimproved land can be characterized as property if the would-be owner is willing to defend it.

All other forms of physical property are created by that same process. They are usually the fruits of owned land. Picking fruit from a wild orchard may not involved ownership of the orchard. But it certainly involves ownership of the picked fruit.

Intellectual property is the most pure form of personal property. It involves skull sweat. There may be little or no physical property or even no tools involved in the creation of the intellectual "stuff". But it is absolutely and unconditionally the fruit of human effort. Mental effort.

Now perhaps a farmer or blacksmith might opine that thinking is not labor. But they would be wrong. The fruits of thinking are bought and sold every day. As a software engineer and as an entrepreneur I sell my thinking every day.

I said above that intellectual property is the most pure form of property. That statement is based on the fact that intellectual property is nothing _but_ human labor. Just not physical labor. There is no natural or "wild" physical material mixed with the thinking. So the property is _only_ human labor.

And we have an unlimited supply because, while real estate is a finite supply, the scope of human thought is not finite. So no limit applies. And there is no barrier to entry. One cannot erect a fence to prevent people from thinking the way one could erect a fence to protect a field against trespassing.

Intellectual property is the most human form of property. Many animals will defend their own territory, often by marking, but always by attacking interlopers. Real estate predates humanity, probably by over a billion years.

It sounds like you are somewhat pro-freedom, yet from my position, to
use the word "property" as Jerry (and here you) are using it, in
relation to 'intellectual' things (like say mathematical algorithms),
is actually a conflation brought into our language by the pro-monopoly
pro-drm etc lobby groups.

No. Your history is wrong. And your example is silly because mathematical algorithms cannot be protected whether by copyright, patent, or trademark, They can be protected by trade secrecy,but that does not prevent anyone else from coming up with the same secret. But _stealing_ a trade secret is theft. Theft of what? Property.

Do you see this?

I see it. Your conclusions are wrong. Probably because you are weak on facts, law, and history, which weakness isleading you to false premises.

I can hold a stone, or a stick, and whilst I hold it, it is mine. When
I put it down, it could be argued to no longer be mine, but that leads
to fights too easily, so in my community, we acknowledge that
ownership of _physical_ property is something that ought be respected.

As a programmer, and a pro-GPL programmer at that, I say that the
greatest good, in general, for my community as a whole, is to license
the software I sell, under the GPL.

So you are a socialist. The truth comes out. I should have known. Please take your drivel elsewhere.

> But, contrary to Stallman's arguments, intellectual property is real and
> worth protecting.

RMS never said intellectual creations are not real.

Yes he did. To me.

RMS never said intellectual creations are not worth protecting.

Yes he did. To me.

PLEASE cite, when you are unsure. You were doing quite well up to this point.

I am not unsure. I am absolutely certain.

At the World Science Fiction Convention in Boston (cirra 1980) he made a presentation about his then-recent efforts. He also took questions from the audience. I asked whether he believed in intellectual property at all. He said no. At that point further discussion became pointless and I left.

> Otherwise I would consider every GPL "protected" product
> to have a BSD or an MIT license. It is my respect for the owner's ability
> to set terms of use for their property that protects GPL'd products. Not
> the terms of that or any other license.

Try telling that to Jerry :)

Jerry does not need my help. But you appear to be beyond my ability to help.

Lee Winter

Nashua, New Hampshire (Life Free or Die)

United States of America