Re: FSF condemns partnership between Mozilla and Adobe to support Digital Restrictions Management
On 5/19/14, Lee Winter <lee.j.i.winter@gmail.com> wrote:
> 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.
You are either severely misguided or strongly entrenched in a position
on which I vehemently disagree.
> 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.
...
I like that :)
When I pick up the stone, or the stick, it has become my property, due
to the fact of my picking it up (or fashioning the stick with the
stone etc etc).
> Intellectual property is the most pure form of personal property.
I hear your proposition. But a proposition is all it is. You have
already used the term 'intellectual property' and related it to
'purity' and 'personal property', as though intellectual thoughts,
ideas and images are 'things' and somehow not only property, but a
pure form of property, heavenly so to speak.
So, you'll have to try harder than presume the term you are trying to
define. As I said, that sort of thing is not going to work in these
parts.
> It involves skull sweat.
Now there's a new term - I usually find my skin sweats, although to be
honest I'm really not sure about my skull, since it's hidden from my
immediate view.
> There may be little or no physical property or even no
> tools involved in the creation of the intellectual "stuff".
To get really specific, we can talk about ideas, algorithms,
compositions or computer programs. But until they are manifested in an
implementation or performance, or even in a conversation sharing the
idea with another human, then 'it' only exists in the mind of the
thinker.
At least 'stuff' is better than 'property'.
I suggest using the common term though - thoughts.
So you had a thought. Good for you. You can call that an item of your
personal property all you like. Doesn't make a twat of difference to
me.
> But it is absolutely and unconditionally the fruit
> of human effort. Mental effort.
Thoughts are the fruit of mental effort.
I can agree with that.
> 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.
Sure, where:
fruits = manifestations, performances, compositions in writing etc
> As a software engineer and as an entrepreneur I sell my thinking
> every day.
Wrong.
You sell the 'fruits' of your thinking (to be generous with your
terminology), or rather, the output of your fingers on a keyboard and
mouse (or punched card if you still live in the '60s) - if you produce
nothing by your physical labour (of fingers etc), I suspect your
so-called 'programming' job won't last so long.
On the other hand, you may be able to by-pass fingers with an EEG
headset. Sure, you are still producing lines of code in a computer - a
semi-physical or on-computer digitally-represented manifestation - the
point being, it is still in this physical world, you have produced the
line(s) of code.
Those lines of code are even used to value companies angling for an
IPO. Not your thoughts, but the lines of code you managed to get into
the computer by some means.
> 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.
Again, you are continuing to use the term intellectual property in
your defense of, that's right, the term 'intellectual property'.
Some might 'ohh' and 'ahh' and 'how eloquent was he', but it don't
work for me :)
> Just not physical labor. There is no natural or "wild"
> physical material mixed with the thinking.
> So the property is _only_ human labor.
You can say thinking==property 1000 times,
yet it shall never make the two the same.
> 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.
Here you are saying things I basically agree with.
> Intellectual property is the most human form of property. Many animals
More twaddle though, promptly on the heels.
> 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,
Wow!
Finally! We're back to actual laws. We could almost have a sane debate.
Sounds a little opportunistic that you use "intellectual property"
over and again, even to essentially justify and define "intellectual
property", yet now jump the fence to specific laws.
> 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.
Look, how about I make it easy. Try 'theft of a trade secret by break
and enter' or perhaps 'theft of a trade secret by deceit' ?
...
>> 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.
Would a called myself a libertarian myself, but I've never done enough
reading to even be able to give a definition of libertarian.
So now I'm an evil socialist.. and as we know,
> The truth comes out. I should have known. Please
> take your drivel elsewhere.
socialists can only ever speak "drivel".
Thanks for clarifying that ... I wasn't sure before :)
>> 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.
Sure. Good for you. May be go read those links I posted.
> 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.
A man of patience and a willingness to hear the other person's POV I
see, to really go that extra mile to extract the truth of what someone
is saying ... admirable.
> Jerry does not need my help. But you appear to be beyond my ability to
> help.
Thank for that.
Zenaan
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