Information as Property

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z1235 Posted: Wed, Jan 27 2010 5:34 PM

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The tangible (physical) property universe comprises of 10^80 cubic meters of known universe, or 5x10^80 atoms in known physical universe. It would only take 266 bits to map (mark) every cubic meter of known universe with a different 266 bit number. 

Each separate instance of information ever created (and is about to be created in the forseeable future) -- all books, movies, songs, images, software, etc -- can be represented by a 10 gigabyte binary sequence. (This size was chosen to accommodate the longest individual piece of information created, such as the movie Avatar, but could be any size without loss of generalization). The size of the informational universe blanketed by all possible 10 gigabyte sequences is 2^(8x10^9) separate instances which is vastly larger than the 2^266 cubic meters of the known tangible universe. 

By creating a unique 10 gigabyte sequence of information an author/producer "homesteads" a particular portion of the whole (vast) informational universe (comprised of all possible 10 gigabyte sequences) much in the same way the first appropriator homesteads (has the strongest claim to ownership of) a particular portion of the whole tangible universe (comprised of all 2^266 cubic meters available). The "area" (in the informational universe) that is "homesteaded" (thus owned) by the creator/producer of any 10 gigabyte sequence is defined by all sufficiently similar 10 gigabyte sequences in the "vicinity" of the original sequence and all (signal processing and information theory-based) transformations thereof. 

Thus the case for information as property is presented. Explorers and potential "homesteaders" have the vast informational universe at their disposal. Much of that universe is useless (any random 10 gigabyte sequence), just like most of the 2^266 cubic meters of known tangible universe are useless and yet to be claimed (or homesteaded). However, entrepreneurs, explorers, and potential "homesteaders" willing to commit capital and labor to find the valuable pieces of BOTH informational and tangible universe shall be rewarded by a claim of ownership of such discovered property -- informational or tangible, regardless. 

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Stranger replied on Wed, Jan 27 2010 5:58 PM

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Interesting. It would also be the case that prospecting for resources would create a property right. For example if I send geologists out looking for oil deposits, then any oil that I find will become my property.

The intellectual communists would have you believe that anyone should have the right to drill to the same oil because wells are not scarce. This would of course result in the looting destruction of the oil resource.

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z1235 replied on Wed, Jan 27 2010 6:21 PM

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Stranger:

Interesting. It would also be the case that prospecting for resources would create a property right. For example if I send geologists out looking for oil deposits, then any oil that I find will become my property.

The intellectual communists would have you believe that anyone should have the right to drill to the same oil because wells are not scarce. This would of course result in the looting destruction of the oil resource.

By establishing an almost full analogy with tangible property, treating information as property would avoid much of the property vs contract rights arguments to which almost all IP vs anti-IP debates eventually devolve. IP is about property rights, pure and simple. 

Z.

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aerborne replied on Wed, Jan 27 2010 6:51 PM

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I disagree. It seems you don't understand the problem. The idea is infinitely reproducible. It's not a scarce good. You can't own the idea, and homesteading a 10GB sequence, or a napkin from the bar with the idea written on it, doesn't give you ownership of the idea.

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Stranger replied on Wed, Jan 27 2010 6:53 PM

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aerborne:

I disagree. It seems you don't understand the problem. The idea is infinitely reproducible. It's not a scarce good. You can't own the idea, and homesteading a 10GB sequence, or a napkin from the bar with the idea written on it, doesn't give you ownership of the idea.

This thread is not about ideas.

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aerborne replied on Wed, Jan 27 2010 6:56 PM

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Stranger:

aerborne:

I disagree. It seems you don't understand the problem. The idea is infinitely reproducible. It's not a scarce good. You can't own the idea, and homesteading a 10GB sequence, or a napkin from the bar with the idea written on it, doesn't give you ownership of the idea.

This thread is not about ideas.

information, ideas, call it what you will you're trying to support (C) yes? Stephen kings The Stand is a 1000+ page idea he had.

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nirgrahamUK replied on Wed, Jan 27 2010 6:57 PM

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Stranger:

This thread is not about ideas.

oh contraire:

z:

 the whole (vast) informational universe 

this is the platonic realm of ideas that clever people go into for the purpose of idea mining from which to return with golden-idea-nuggets, that are just their private property....

the nuggets tarnish from other people utilising the precious concept in their own schemes with their own material property.

I am being as serious as you are.

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Stranger replied on Wed, Jan 27 2010 7:03 PM

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aerborne:

Stranger:

aerborne:

I disagree. It seems you don't understand the problem. The idea is infinitely reproducible. It's not a scarce good. You can't own the idea, and homesteading a 10GB sequence, or a napkin from the bar with the idea written on it, doesn't give you ownership of the idea.

This thread is not about ideas.

information, ideas, call it what you will you're trying to support (C) yes? Stephen kings The Stand is a 1000+ page idea he had.

 

It's not a 1000 page idea, it's an idea that he produced into information working tirelessly for weeks.

Anyone could have the same idea. Only he could have written a book.

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Clayton replied on Wed, Jan 27 2010 7:05 PM

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z1235:

 

The tangible (physical) property universe comprises of 10^80 cubic meters of known universe, or 5x10^80 atoms in known physical universe. It would only take 266 bits to map (mark) every cubic meter of known universe with a different 266 bit number. 

Each separate instance of information ever created (and is about to be created in the forseeable future) -- all books, movies, songs, images, software, etc -- can be represented by a 10 gigabyte binary sequence. (This size was chosen to accommodate the longest individual piece of information created, such as the movie Avatar, but could be any size without loss of generalization). The size of the informational universe blanketed by all possible 10 gigabyte sequences is 2^(8x10^9) separate instances which is vastly larger than the 2^266 cubic meters of the known tangible universe. 

By creating a unique 10 gigabyte sequence of information an author/producer "homesteads" a particular portion of the whole (vast) informational universe (comprised of all possible 10 gigabyte sequences) much in the same way the first appropriator homesteads (has the strongest claim to ownership of) a particular portion of the whole tangible universe (comprised of all 2^266 cubic meters available). The "area" (in the informational universe) that is "homesteaded" (thus owned) by the creator/producer of any 10 gigabyte sequence is defined by all sufficiently similar 10 gigabyte sequences in the "vicinity" of the original sequence and all (signal processing and information theory-based) transformations thereof. 

Thus the case for information as property is presented. Explorers and potential "homesteaders" have the vast informational universe at their disposal. Much of that universe is useless (any random 10 gigabyte sequence), just like most of the 2^266 cubic meters of known tangible universe are useless and yet to be claimed (or homesteaded). However, entrepreneurs, explorers, and potential "homesteaders" willing to commit capital and labor to find the valuable pieces of BOTH informational and tangible universe shall be rewarded by a claim of ownership of such discovered property -- informational or tangible, regardless. 

This is a bunch of gobbledy-gook. You confuse property titles with actual property. A property title (e.g. your 266-bit number indexing every cubic meter of the universe) assigns and permits exchange of ownership of property, but it is not property itself. As Hoppe, Rothbard, et. al. have explained, when claims to property exceed the amount of real existing property, it is always the result of fraud.

Physical resources are scarce, this is why physical resources can be property. Property titles - much less all possible bit patterns - are not scarce and, therefore, cannot be property. It is a well-known property of our universe that bit patterns can be copied almost indefinitely and, in the digital age, very inexpensively. Physical resources are the opposite of bit patterns in this regard since the physical universe is bound by the law of conservation of mass and energy. Time and space are scarce resources, as well. It is the nature of the physical universe that utilization of a physical resource by me necessarily excludes simultaneous utilization of that physical resource by you. The same is absolutely not true of bit-patterns. Bit patterns can be utilized by indefinitely many people with no degradation to the usability of that pattern by others.

Claims of property in patterns is actually an invalid form of property title which claims ownership over a class of physical objects. For example, if I make a CD album and copyright it, I am claiming title to "all compact discs containing a pattern substantially similar (we can define this, mathematically) or which utilize more than 30 seconds of the audio stored on the master record." If I can specify how you may or may not use X, you do not own X, you are only a possessor of X. To claim ownership of a pattern is really to claim ownership of all physical resources which conform to that pattern, it is a claim to own a class of physical objects. This is as absurd as a geologist who discovers a new mineral - call it Gezunetite - and, by virtue of his discovery of this new mineral, thereby claims he owns all desposits of the mineral Gezunetite wheresoever they may be located on the planet. Nonsense!

Clayton -

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abskebabs replied on Wed, Jan 27 2010 7:06 PM

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I believe there is a confusion with arguments referring to information as property that rests on the notion of scracity.

One's means with which to obtain information may be considered scarce, whether that information is naturally rendered in a rather difficult format, or whether it is purposefully concealed using cryptography. This may make the acquisition of such information an economic in the sense that scarce means must be utillised for its attainment, but the information itself is not that which is "scarce." I think it is easy to confuse the two.

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z1235 replied on Wed, Jan 27 2010 7:09 PM

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aerborne:

I disagree. It seems you don't understand the problem. The idea is infinitely reproducible. It's not a scarce good. You can't own the idea, and homesteading a 10GB sequence, or a napkin from the bar with the idea written on it, doesn't give you ownership of the idea.

Information is not merely an idea. The idea to make the movie Avatar is an idea. Actually making it, and producing the unique10 gigabyte sequence is most definitely MUCH more than an idea. 

Z.

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Stranger replied on Wed, Jan 27 2010 7:12 PM

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ClaytonB:

Physical resources are scarce, this is why physical resources can be property. Property titles - much less all possible bit patterns - are not scarce and, therefore, cannot be property. It is a well-known property of our universe that bit patterns can be copied almost indefinitely and, in the digital age, very inexpensively. Physical resources are the opposite of bit patterns in this regard since the physical universe is bound by the law of conservation of mass and energy. Time and space are scarce resources, as well. It is the nature of the physical universe that utilization of a physical resource by me necessarily excludes simultaneous utilization of that physical resource by you. The same is absolutely not true of bit-patterns. Bit patterns can be utilized by indefinitely many people with no degradation to the usability of that pattern by others.

Oil wells are also very advanced. It is very easy to drain an oil deposit of all of its oil. Now why wouldn't the prospector have the right to deny others from draining an oil well that he discovered? He may still utilize his own oil wells to their fullest.

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Clayton replied on Wed, Jan 27 2010 7:15 PM

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nirgrahamUK:

Stranger:

This thread is not about ideas.

oh contraire:

z:

 the whole (vast) informational universe 

this is the platonic realm of ideas that clever people go into for the purpose of idea mining from which to return with golden-idea-nuggets, that are just their private property....

the nuggets tarnish from other people utilising the precious concept in their own schemes with their own material property.

I am being as serious as you are.

If you want your information to be valuable, it's up to you to keep it scarce. If James Cameron doesn't want anyone to copy his movie, there's a very simple way for him to accomplish this... show it only in venues on his property and only permit people to enter without cameras. Problem solved. The minute you broadcast the information you created, no matter how costly it was for you to create, you have given up "ownership" rights over that information. Limited distribution can be handled contractually, via NDAs. For example, Cameron - in order to earn more money by making it more convenient for moviegoers to see his movie - could sign on major cinema chains to show his movie on condition they not allow any copies of it to be made (yes, this can be done in an enforceable way). As for wide distribution, your only option is to use some kind of DRM-controlled hardware container (e.g. iPod) but the marginal value of this is low if the media being controlled is inherently analog since, once it is played back even on a DRM-controlled hardware container, it can always be copied via direct analog recording.

Clayton -

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Clayton replied on Wed, Jan 27 2010 7:18 PM

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Stranger:

ClaytonB:

Physical resources are scarce, this is why physical resources can be property. Property titles - much less all possible bit patterns - are not scarce and, therefore, cannot be property. It is a well-known property of our universe that bit patterns can be copied almost indefinitely and, in the digital age, very inexpensively. Physical resources are the opposite of bit patterns in this regard since the physical universe is bound by the law of conservation of mass and energy. Time and space are scarce resources, as well. It is the nature of the physical universe that utilization of a physical resource by me necessarily excludes simultaneous utilization of that physical resource by you. The same is absolutely not true of bit-patterns. Bit patterns can be utilized by indefinitely many people with no degradation to the usability of that pattern by others.

Oil wells are also very advanced. It is very easy to drain an oil deposit of all of its oil. Now why wouldn't the prospector have the right to deny others from draining an oil well that he discovered? He may still utilize his own oil wells to their fullest.

I see no comparison between IP and oil wells. Could you elaborate?

Clayton -

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nirgrahamUK replied on Wed, Jan 27 2010 7:19 PM

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you can also push out the problem of dispersion onto resellers, like movie theaters owned by other people than yourself, i.e. have them make performance bonds with you as a part to the original sale; that they will not allow camera bearers on their property or distribute the films themselves......

this keeps things within the realm of actual property rights.

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Clayton replied on Wed, Jan 27 2010 7:21 PM

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nirgrahamUK:

you can also push out the problem of dispersion onto resellers, like movie theaters owned by other people than yourself, i.e. have them make performance bonds with you as a part to the original sale; that they will not allow camera bearers on their property or distribute the films themselves......

this keeps things within the realm of actual property rights.

Exactly. 

Clayton -

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Stranger replied on Wed, Jan 27 2010 7:23 PM

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ClaytonB:

I see no comparison between IP and oil wells. Could you elaborate?

Why on Earth would someone have the right to own an oil field? It is just something that exists out there in the universe. The information on the existence of oil fields is not scarce.

Similarly how would someone have the right to own a fishery in the ocean? Anyone may have the right to fish there.

According the communistic theory it is much more efficient to allow "the market" to conduct unlimited fishing and unlimited oil drilling. This view of course will ultimately produce the total destruction of all the Earth's resources.

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nirgrahamUK replied on Wed, Jan 27 2010 7:27 PM

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Stranger:

Why on Earth would someone have the right to own an oil field?

If i put the oil field to my exclusive purpose. you cannot put it to your exclusive purpose.

if i have a cd. and you have a cd. and the same music could eminate from both. we can both enjoy music or silence , exclusive control, within our own homes without rivalry.

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Stranger replied on Wed, Jan 27 2010 7:29 PM

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ClaytonB:

As for wide distribution, your only option is to use some kind of DRM-controlled hardware container (e.g. iPod) but the marginal value of this is low if the media being controlled is inherently analog since, once it is played back even on a DRM-controlled hardware container, it can always be copied via direct analog recording.

Here's what really puzzles me. If you agree that property in information can be legitimately protected via DRM, then why are you opposed to providing the same protection through the security industry? It is much more efficient and much more consumer-friendly.

This is fallacy 10, by the way.

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Stranger replied on Wed, Jan 27 2010 7:31 PM

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nirgrahamUK:

Stranger:

Why on Earth would someone have the right to own an oil field?

because its physical, scarce, and rival.

If i put the oil field to my exclusive purpose. you cannot put it to your exclusive purpose.

if i have a cd. and you have a cd. and the same music could eminate from both. we can both enjoy music or silence , exclusive control, within our own homes without rivalry.

You can also exploit an oil field without rivalry. Just drill as many wells as you want.

edit: There are also technologies for horizontal drilling, therefore there is nothing limiting how many different producers can exploit the same oil patch.

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z1235 replied on Wed, Jan 27 2010 7:45 PM

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ClaytonB:

You confuse property titles with actual property. A property title (e.g. your 266-bit number indexing every cubic meter of the universe) assigns and permits exchange of ownership of property, but it is not property itself. As Hoppe, Rothbard, et. al. have explained, when claims to property exceed the amount of real existing property, it is always the result of fraud.

I am not "confusing" anything. I am purposefully making an analogy between the tangible (physical) universe and the informational universe. They are both vast and unclaimed. You invest capital and labor to homestead a physical piece of a new planet the same way David Cameron invests capital and labor to "homestead" a piece of the vast informational universe (defined by all possible 10 gigabyte binary patterns). You haven't shown how/where this analogy fails.

ClaytonB:

Physical resources are the opposite of bit patterns in this regard since the physical universe is bound by the law of conservation of mass and energy. Time and space are scarce resources, as well. It is the nature of the physical universe that utilization of a physical resource by me necessarily excludes simultaneous utilization of that physical resource by you. The same is absolutely not true of bit-patterns. Bit patterns can be utilized by indefinitely many people with no degradation to the usability of that pattern by others.

A single cubic (physical) meter out of 10^80 available, or a single physical atom out of 5x10^80 available are MUCH LESS SCARCE than a single 10 gigabyte instance out of 2^(8x10^9) possible/available. Go prospect your own area of that universe and leave David Cameron alone on his own homesteaded property around his particular 10 gigabyte sequence. Why butt in?

ClaytonB:

Claims of property in patterns is actually an invalid form of property title which claims ownership over a class of physical objects.

No it isn't. It only claims property over particular INFORMATION -- a particular 10 gigabyte pattern and its sufficiently similar transformations (i.e. "vicinity").

ClaytonB:

To claim ownership of a pattern is really to claim ownership of all physical resources which conform to that pattern, it is a claim to own a class of physical objects. This is as absurd as a geologist who discovers a new mineral - call it Gezunetite - and, by virtue of his discovery of this new mineral, thereby claims he owns all desposits of the mineral Gezunetite wheresoever they may be located on the planet. Nonsense!

This is a double strawman. (1) Only the creator/producer of a pattern can claim ownership of it, so naturally created patterns are no-one's property regardless of who found them first. The "prospecting" occurs in the informational universe and not in the physical one, and it's done by actually CREATING unique 10 gigabyte patterns. (2) Even when a previously created (or "homesteaded") 10 gigabyte pattern is copied onto some physical media owned by someone else, the information property owner has no ownership claim on the physical media. He merely claims ownership of the pattern itself. Remember, information property "lives" in the informational universe, and not the physical one. 

ClaytonB:

This is a bunch of gobbledy-gook.

ClaytonB:

Nonsense!

I don't see the need for such harsh language. 

Z.

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Stranger replied on Wed, Jan 27 2010 7:48 PM

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z1235:

I don't see the need for such harsh language. 

Z.

You are shattering the dreams of ideologues. They are going to get very angry.

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z1235 replied on Wed, Jan 27 2010 7:51 PM

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nirgrahamUK:

this is the platonic realm of ideas that clever people go into for the purpose of idea mining from which to return with golden-idea-nuggets, that are just their private property....

the nuggets tarnish from other people utilising the precious concept in their own schemes with their own material property.

I am being as serious as you are.

I'm sorry, but I don't follow. I thought the ideas = information fallacy has been addressed dozens of times by now. 

Z.

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z1235 replied on Wed, Jan 27 2010 8:11 PM

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abskebabs:

This may make the acquisition of such information an economic in the sense that scarce means must be utillised for its attainment, but the information itself is not that which is "scarce." I think it is easy to confuse the two.

Again, I'm not confusing anything. I'm establishing a full analogy between the physical (tangible) universe (property) and the informational universe (property), including rules of appropriation and demarcation of such property in both universes.

Z.

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I. Ryan replied on Wed, Jan 27 2010 8:14 PM

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ClaytonB:

This is a bunch of gobbledy-gook. You confuse property titles with actual property. A property title (e.g. your 266-bit number indexing every cubic meter of the universe) assigns and permits exchange of ownership of property, but it is not property itself. As Hoppe, Rothbard, et. al. have explained, when claims to property exceed the amount of real existing property, it is always the result of fraud.

Physical resources are scarce, this is why physical resources can be property. Property titles - much less all possible bit patterns - are not scarce and, therefore, cannot be property. It is a well-known property of our universe that bit patterns can be copied almost indefinitely and, in the digital age, very inexpensively. Physical resources are the opposite of bit patterns in this regard since the physical universe is bound by the law of conservation of mass and energy. Time and space are scarce resources, as well. It is the nature of the physical universe that utilization of a physical resource by me necessarily excludes simultaneous utilization of that physical resource by you. The same is absolutely not true of bit-patterns. Bit patterns can be utilized by indefinitely many people with no degradation to the usability of that pattern by others.

Claims of property in patterns is actually an invalid form of property title which claims ownership over a class of physical objects. For example, if I make a CD album and copyright it, I am claiming title to "all compact discs containing a pattern substantially similar (we can define this, mathematically) or which utilize more than 30 seconds of the audio stored on the master record." If I can specify how you may or may not use X, you do not own X, you are only a possessor of X. To claim ownership of a pattern is really to claim ownership of all physical resources which conform to that pattern, it is a claim to own a class of physical objects. This is as absurd as a geologist who discovers a new mineral - call it Gezunetite - and, by virtue of his discovery of this new mineral, thereby claims he owns all desposits of the mineral Gezunetite wheresoever they may be located on the planet. Nonsense!

Clayton -

Excellent.

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abskebabs replied on Wed, Jan 27 2010 8:41 PM

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z1235:

abskebabs:

This may make the acquisition of such information an economic in the sense that scarce means must be utillised for its attainment, but the information itself is not that which is "scarce." I think it is easy to confuse the two.

Again, I'm not confusing anything. I'm establishing a full analogy between the physical (tangible) universe (property) and the informational universe (property), including rules of appropriation and demarcation of such property in both universes.

Z.

 

The analogy is a failure however, since the former physical universe is composed of scarce means with quantitative relations between cause and effect whereas the same properties cannot be ascribed to the latter when one realises that the notion of scarcity can only be applied to describe the means with which to acquire information and not information itself.

Hence, the law of returns for one example does not apply to information. Mises uses the example of knowing the formula for coffee in Human Action as one such case.

You may of course argue that this example doesn not point against information as property since knowing how to make coffee is an idea. The difference between the two is the same distinction information theorists make between what they refer to as information (a definition far less malleable than what seems to be used by IP advocates on this forum lately) and knowledge.

The written text above could be viewed both as a sequence of symbols, and interpreted according to its information comment using a sum of p ln(p) terms, compared to that before the words were revealed but the number of symbols known. Otherwise, the meaning of the text could be perceived from which the ideas and knowledge conceived by it were interpreted. Both notions coexist and apply to the same line of text.

The use and reuse of the "information" in either case however does not deter or even affect the production of those objects that can be derived from a "knowing" the information. This is contrary to what is common with economic goods, and therefore property.

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z1235 replied on Wed, Jan 27 2010 9:11 PM

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abskebabs:

The analogy is a failure however, since the former physical universe is composed of scarce means with quantitative relations between cause and effect whereas the same properties cannot be ascribed to the latter when one realises that the notion of scarcity can only be applied to describe the means with which to acquire information and not information itself.

Hence, an analogy and not equality between the two concepts/universes. I am, of course, aware that the informational universe is different from the physical one. For one, I can touch things in the latter. Apart from listing differences between the two universes, what objections do you have to the presented analogous concepts of appropriation and demarcation of property in the informational universe? Why do you find the same concepts acceptable in one universe and not acceptable in the other?

As for scarcity, in the informational universe there is ONLY ONE 10 gigabyte pattern called "the movie Avatar". Regardless of how many times you copy a DVD with the same pattern (thus making such patterned DVDs non-scarce in the physical universe), there still only remains ONE such pattern in the informational universe (out of 2^(8x10^9) available), owned by its ONE proper owner (creator, producer, homesteader) making it very scarce there, indeed. 

Perhaps another analogy would be helpful... The owner of a roller-coaster ride is fully entitled to sell his rides to as many people would buy tickets for it. Your copying of Cameron's "Avatar" and selling it to the public is "butting into" his piece of informational universe (from which he is extracting a rent from the public enjoying his "ride") just like in the physical universe you would "butt into" the roller-coaster property and start selling rides every other hour (thus sharing the rent with the owner). Now if you wouldn't interfere in the latter case, why would you interfere in the former? What entitles you to ANY rents from informational property (piece of the informational universe) for which you have no claim whatsoever?

Z.

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BobT replied on Wed, Jan 27 2010 10:09 PM

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Stranger:

You can also exploit an oil field without rivalry. Just drill as many wells as you want.

edit: There are also technologies for horizontal drilling, therefore there is nothing limiting how many different producers can exploit the same oil patch.

Wow. How do you not understand this? If someone puts a well in a certain place, no one else can put a well in that exact place. If one person takes some oil, another person can't take that oil. There is rivalry because the actual oil is scarce - which is obvious considering you say that the well can be used up.

Whereas with information - such as the music on a cd - it can be copied an infinite amount of times without affecting the original. It can be used in many places at the same time. Hence, there is non-rivalry.

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Stranger replied on Wed, Jan 27 2010 10:30 PM

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BobT:

If someone puts a well in a certain place, no one else can put a well in that exact place. If one person takes some oil, another person can't take that oil.

Why would another person have the right to have that oil? They can just setup their own drill from the well and take some oil.

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Clayton replied on Wed, Jan 27 2010 11:27 PM

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Stranger:

BobT:

If someone puts a well in a certain place, no one else can put a well in that exact place. If one person takes some oil, another person can't take that oil.

Why would another person have the right to have that oil? They can just setup their own drill from the well and take some oil.

Stranger's point is that what is certainly property is the well hole and the oil pumped out of the well hole because you can't have two individuals who drill a hole in exactly the same place without a conflict arising and you can't have two individuals barreling the very same oil without a conflict arising - these are rival resources. z1235 or whoever started this thread seems to think that the free market will come crashing to the ground if more than one well can be drilled into the same oil reservoir. However, It is conceivable that property law could permit an indefinite number of drills to access the same oil reservoir... there is nothing inherently communistic or anti-free market about this. In fact, it might be more efficient since oil wells can be pumped more rapidly (=cheaply) if many drillers are drilling the same well. However, it could also conceivable that property law could find natural boundaries in reservoirs on the basis of how and where they are drilled. I'm no expert in the law of oil drilling and I assume there is already a sizable body of law on this very subject. But it is neither here nor there how many wells can be drilled into an oil reservoir in a manner consistent with property law. The idea of property stands above and outside oil wells or bit-patterns. Only scarce, physical resources can be property, and nothing else. Any legal system which treats things that are not scarce physical resources as though they were property creates artificial scarcity and multiplies property titles beyond the real property which is backing them, that is, such a legal system permits and protects fraud in a systemic way. Our legal system is filled with fraud... fractional reserve banking and intellectual property are but two notable examples.

Clayton -

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Clayton replied on Wed, Jan 27 2010 11:52 PM

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z1235:

ClaytonB:

You confuse property titles with actual property. A property title (e.g. your 266-bit number indexing every cubic meter of the universe) assigns and permits exchange of ownership of property, but it is not property itself. As Hoppe, Rothbard, et. al. have explained, when claims to property exceed the amount of real existing property, it is always the result of fraud.

I am not "confusing" anything. I am purposefully making an analogy between the tangible (physical) universe and the informational universe

An analogy which breaks down when you consider that physical resources are conserved (cannot be created or destroyed) and information is not*.

. They are both vast and unclaimed. You invest capital and labor to homestead a physical piece of a new planet

Your valiant efforts in homesteading a piece of property are not why you own it. The homesteading argument, or rule of first use, is a "tiebreaker" in property disputes. If you make a claim on some physical resource and I make a claim on that same physical resource (claims, like information, are not conserved and can be multiplied without limit... cf European colonization), a property conflict will arise. If we bring our dispute to a court, instead of just fighting it out, the court will want to know who was first using that physical resource, as evidenced by at least demarcating it, if not actively laboring on it. If neither of us was using the physical resource, then neither of us has a higher claim to it. Otherwise, one of us was using it first. Whoever was using it first is the owner.

the same way David Cameron invests capital and labor to "homestead" a piece of the vast informational universe (defined by all possible 10 gigabyte binary patterns). You haven't shown how/where this analogy fails.

Because by copying Avatar, I do not have to invade James Cameron's property or otherwise come into a property conflict with James Cameron. The proper solution to the copying issue is for the movie producer to only show his movie on his own property and require, as a condition for entering, that all customers leave their cameras outside. He can expand his reach by signing NDAs with a theater chain, so that the movie can be shown in many venues on the same terms.

ClaytonB:

Physical resources are the opposite of bit patterns in this regard since the physical universe is bound by the law of conservation of mass and energy. Time and space are scarce resources, as well. It is the nature of the physical universe that utilization of a physical resource by me necessarily excludes simultaneous utilization of that physical resource by you. The same is absolutely not true of bit-patterns. Bit patterns can be utilized by indefinitely many people with no degradation to the usability of that pattern by others.

A single cubic (physical) meter out of 10^80 available, or a single physical atom out of 5x10^80 available are MUCH LESS SCARCE than a single 10 gigabyte instance out of 2^(8x10^9) possible/available. Go prospect your own area of that universe and leave David Cameron alone on his own homesteaded property around his particular 10 gigabyte sequence. Why butt in?

Oh my. I don't see much point in continuing the discussion if this passes for a reasoned argument.

ClaytonB:

Claims of property in patterns is actually an invalid form of property title which claims ownership over a class of physical objects.

No it isn't.

Yes it is! Nyah nyah nyah nyah!

It only claims property over particular INFORMATION -- a particular 10 gigabyte pattern and its sufficiently similar transformations (i.e. "vicinity").

Property has nothing to do with claims. It's like the story of the turtle who declared he was king of all he could survey... he forced his "subject" turtles to keep stacking underneath him so he could be king of more and more of the jungle. Eventually, the bottom-most turtle burps and the whole stack comes crashing to the ground. What a vain exercise in self-aggrandizement. Sticking flags on islands or pins in a map or writing bits to a hard drive does not constitute property. You must understand that property is a way of dividing up the physical world. It is a human convention, like language, but its domain is the physical world. The reason for this is that property evolved to prevent conflicts and restricting property to the narrowest definition in real, material objects, limits the range of possible conflicts. Allowing things that are not scarce to be considered property creates the possibility for needless conflicts. It's like claiming that a certain region of air is your property. How silly! Air is an abundant (not scarce) resource (like information)... issuing property claims in the air is just to create needless conflicts, just as issuing property claims in information creates needless conflicts. And note that a much better case could be made for property claims in air than property claims in information because at least air is physical and finite.

ClaytonB:

This is a bunch of gobbledy-gook.

ClaytonB:

Nonsense!

I don't see the need for such harsh language. 

Z.

"Gobbledy-gook and "nonsense" are just ways of noting that your statements are absurd (rationally contradictory) or unsubstantiated ... with some character. I mean it good-naturedly... I'm more interested in discovering the truth than winning debates. If you can show me where I'm wrong, I'm more than happy to change my mind. I've changed my mind about 10,000 times in the last two years since taking up Austrian economics... I've had a real mental revolution.

Clayton -

*Physicist Leo Szilard created the Szilard engine cycle - similar to the Carnot cycle - to show that information is, in fact, physical. While it is true that information is physical, information is also easily replicated, making it - at scales greater than the quantum scale - non-rival. You can't copy a qubit without disturbing it, so you may have a case that qubits can be owned as property per se... but a classical bit is easily copied without disturbing the original "master" copy, meaning, classical Shannon information is not scarce and is non-rival.

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Clayton replied on Thu, Jan 28 2010 12:00 AM

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z1235:

abskebabs:

The analogy is a failure however, since the former physical universe is composed of scarce means with quantitative relations between cause and effect whereas the same properties cannot be ascribed to the latter when one realises that the notion of scarcity can only be applied to describe the means with which to acquire information and not information itself.

...

As for scarcity, in the informational universe there is ONLY ONE 10 gigabyte pattern called "the movie Avatar". Regardless of how many times you copy a DVD with the same pattern (thus making such patterned DVDs non-scarce in the physical universe), there still only remains ONE such pattern in the informational universe (out of 2^(8x10^9) available), owned by its ONE proper owner (creator, producer, homesteader) making it very scarce there, indeed.

Your last statement is a circular argument. Re-read it and see. Property is important because it helps us avoid conflicts with one another, in a world where there is only so much food to go around, only so much water, so much clothing and so much shelter... there's lots of reasons for humans to come into conflict with one another. But conflicts are destructive of human life and property. So, avoiding conflicts is a paramount issue for survival. Property helps us avoid conflicts. There is nothing about James Cameron's writing N bits of Avatar frames to his hard drive that makes me come into conflict with him by making a copy of it... after he has publicly released those bits. Before he releases those bits to the public domain, I would have to invade his property or otherwise violate his property rights in order to copy those bits. Hence, the correct solution for keeping information private is for the individual who wishes to keep it private to not publish it. This should be obvious.

Clayton -

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z1235 replied on Thu, Jan 28 2010 7:24 AM

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ClaytonB:

An analogy which breaks down when you consider that physical resources are conserved (cannot be created or destroyed) and information is not*.

How can you "destroy" a 10 gigabyte pattern that occupies its own location in the informational universe (of all possible 10GB patterns)? You can "destroy" it as much as you can "destroy" a cubic meter of the physical universe. 

ClaytonB:

Your valiant efforts in homesteading a piece of property are not why you own it. The homesteading argument, or rule of first use, is a "tiebreaker" in property disputes.

The same would be valid in the informational universe. The same logic would be used to decide who owns a particular 10GB pattern (and its informational vicinity) in the informational universe. If I created it, then I have "homesteaded" it (rule of first use) thus my claim to its ownership is superior to yours unless you can prove that you've "been there" (i.e. created the pattern) before I did. What's the problem?

ClaytonB:

If you make a claim on some physical resource and I make a claim on that same physical resource (claims, like information, are not conserved and can be multiplied without limit... cf European colonization), a property conflict will arise. If we bring our dispute to a court, instead of just fighting it out, the court will want to know who was first using that physical resource, as evidenced by at least demarcating it, if not actively laboring on it. If neither of us was using the physical resource, then neither of us has a higher claim to it. Otherwise, one of us was using it first. Whoever was using it first is the owner.

Exactly. If Cameron and you enter into a dispute over who owns the 10GB pattern "Avatar" (i.e. that particular area of the 10x10^9 dimensional informational universe) then the court would award ownership of that area to Cameron and not you. He "homesteaded" it by creating it, and you didn't, regardless of how easy it is for you to make a physical copy of his DVD. The law of property in the informational universe would only be concerned about appropriation and demarcation of areas in THAT universe. No matter what you do in the physical universe, Cameron owns that ONE area of the informational universe that's demarcated by his 10GB Avatar sequence and its vicinity. Simple really. 

ClaytonB:

Because by copying Avatar, I do not have to invade James Cameron's property or otherwise come into a property conflict with James Cameron.

You are entering into a conflict in the informational universe. You have no business "tresspassing" his informational universe area. You have no claim to that area whatsoever. Cameron homesteaded it, demarcated it, and it's rightfully his. Keep off, and homestead a different (non-rival, non-overlapping) area of the informational universe by creating a different 10GB pattern to call your own. Simple really.

ClaytonB:

The proper solution to the copying issue is for the movie producer to only show his movie on his own property and require, as a condition for entering, that all customers leave their cameras outside. He can expand his reach by signing NDAs with a theater chain, so that the movie can be shown in many venues on the same terms.

I don't see how your solution is more proper than mine. You're merely stating that Cameron's property in the informational universe cannot be property (i.e. his) unless he builds an electric fence and a repelling force-field around it. I know of many property areas in the physical universe that a perfectly properly owned without any fences or force fields around them. Why have this requirement for the informational universe? Can't you just keep off areas in the informational universe that are not yours? 

ClaytonB:

Property has nothing to do with claims.

It has everything to do with claims, especially when we both claim ownership to the same thing. 

ClaytonB:

You must understand that property is a way of dividing up the physical world.

I don't think I must, and you shouldn't limit your mind like that either. As humans increasingly trade and do commerce in the informational universe -- producing and trading property in it -- it is important to establish the concept of information as property, and my analogy is a budding attempt at formalizing it. 

ClaytonB:

It is a human convention, like language, but its domain is the physical world. The reason for this is that property evolved to prevent conflicts and restricting property to the narrowest definition in real, material objects, limits the range of possible conflicts.

Same thing with information, except its domain is the informational universe comprised of particular 10GB patterns as its building blocks -- just like particular cubic millimeters or atoms are building blocks of the physical universe. The analogy is complete. 

ClaytonB:

Allowing things that are not scarce to be considered property creates the possibility for needless conflicts.

Just like in the physical universe, the conflicts in the informational universe are hardly "needless" to the property owner. They are only "needless" to the ones wanting to steal or tresspass over what's not theirs. Cameron, "sitting at the porch" of his homesteaded property in the informational universe would beg to differ with your opinion, I would say. 

ClaytonB:

I mean it good-naturedly... I'm more interested in discovering the truth than winning debates. If you can show me where I'm wrong, I'm more than happy to change my mind.

Same here. Thanks for this. I knew it about you from your previous posts which made it all the more surprising to see you use such language. Bygones. 

ClaytonB:

I've had a real mental revolution.

Me too.

Z.

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z1235 replied on Thu, Jan 28 2010 7:37 AM

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ClaytonB:

Your last statement is a circular argument. Re-read it and see.

I couldn't see how it was circular. Do you mind explaining the circularity better?

ClaytonB:

Property helps us avoid conflicts. There is nothing about James Cameron's writing N bits of Avatar frames to his hard drive that makes me come into conflict with him by making a copy of it... after he has publicly released those bits.

You're coming into conflict with him in the informational universe. There you're tresspassing over his area (property). 

ClaytonB:

Before he releases those bits to the public domain, I would have to invade his property or otherwise violate his property rights in order to copy those bits. Hence, the correct solution for keeping information private is for the individual who wishes to keep it private to not publish it. This should be obvious.

Again, levels of protection (or actions of others in the physical universe) does not affect the fact that he is the owner of his own area of the informational universe. The ease of perpetrating crime, theft, or tresspass does not weaken the claim of the proper owner to his own property. 

Z.

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abskebabs replied on Thu, Jan 28 2010 7:38 AM

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z1235:

Hence, an analogy and not equality between the two concepts/universes. I am, of course, aware that the informational universe is different from the physical one. For one, I can touch things in the latter. Apart from listing differences between the two universes, what objections do you have to the presented analogous concepts of appropriation and demarcation of property in the informational universe? Why do you find the same concepts acceptable in one universe and not acceptable in the other?

As for scarcity, in the informational universe there is ONLY ONE 10 gigabyte pattern called "the movie Avatar". Regardless of how many times you copy a DVD with the same pattern (thus making such patterned DVDs non-scarce in the physical universe), there still only remains ONE such pattern in the informational universe (out of 2^(8x10^9) available), owned by its ONE proper owner (creator, producer, homesteader) making it very scarce there, indeed.

Again, it matters not that there is ONLY ONE 10 gigabyte pattern called "Avatar", anymore than if there is ONLY ONE way to make coffee. The "use" of either cannot be considered strictly as a means or economic good since they do not display quantitative limits with regard to their use in action, and for that reason cannot be considered scarce.

Since they are not even scarce, and hence cannot be considered economic goods, they fail to meet the requirements necessary and prior to even being considered property.

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z1235 replied on Thu, Jan 28 2010 8:06 AM

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abskebabs:

Since they are not even scarce, and hence cannot be considered economic goods, they fail to meet the requirements necessary and prior to even being considered property.

My Matlab software (a 4GB pattern on a DVD) is both a means and an economic good without which I would find it very hard to be productive in the physical world. Hence, I acknowledge the claim of the creator of that pattern (Mathworks) to own the area of the informational universe in the vicinity of their particular 4GB pattern. Mathworks owns it, and we don't, regardless of how many copies of the same pattern have criminally been made and sold by others in the physical universe.

Z.

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abskebabs replied on Thu, Jan 28 2010 8:37 AM

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z1235:

My Matlab software (a 4GB pattern on a DVD) is both a means and an economic good without which I would find it very hard to be productive in the physical world. Hence, I acknowledge the claim of the creator of that pattern (Mathworks) to own the area of the informational universe in the vicinity of their particular 4GB pattern. Mathworks owns it, and we don't, regardless of how many copies of the same pattern have criminally been made and sold by others in the physical universe.

No it is not, though the reason you disagree with me I think is because we are working with 2 different definitions of means and economic good. I'm using Mises' definition.

From pg 93 of the Scholar's edition of Human Action:

"Means are necessarily always limited, i.e., scarce with regard to the services for which man wants to use them. If this were not the case, there would not be any action with regard to them. Where man is not restrained by the insufficient quantity of things available, there is no need for any action.

      It is customary to call the end the ultimate good and the means goods. In applying this terminology economists mainly used to think as technologists and not as praxeologists. They differentiated between free goods and economic goods. They called free goods things available in superfluous abundance which man does not need to economize. Such goods are, however, not the object of any action. They are general conditions of human welfare; they are parts of the natural environment in which man lives and acts. Only the economic goods are the substratum of action. They alone are dealt with in economics."

Now arguably, we could drop Mises somewhat rigid definition with regard to knowledge and information (two different sides of the same coin in many ways), and say that it constitutes a means, though it is definitely not scarce, since it is not something which on its own is required to be economised, and this I mention to distinguish from our capacity to store it which is scarce.

Hence, for all intents and purposes information is a "non-scarce means", which would be equivalent to a free good, but not an economic good, since there is no limit to its use in the universe necessary for it to be economisable.

Refererences to current legal practices and definitions does not achieve your task of proving they are legitimate.

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z1235 replied on Thu, Jan 28 2010 9:36 AM

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abskebabs:

No it is not, though the reason you disagree with me I think is because we are working with 2 different definitions of means and economic good. I'm using Mises' definition.

I don't see how this is at all relevant for the paradigm of information (a 10GB pattern) as a building block (atom, cubic millimeter) of a 10x10^9 dimensional informational universe. The same way you can claim a cubic meter of the physical universe as yours, Cameron and Mathworks can claim the respective areas of the informational universe (demarcated as the informational vicinity surrounding their respective 10GB information patterns) as theirs. We all know that "prospecting" those patterns (from the depths of the vast informational universe) does not come free, and requires capital and labor, just like is required for prospecting the physical universe. Why would anyone invest capital and labor for the purpose of prospecting a "territory" that you claim to be "abundant" thus "non-scarce"? I claim that their respective homesteaded areas in the informational universe ARE scarce and rival, as they are both not easy to "prospect" for AND no two entities can occupy (homstead, own) the same area without causing a conflict. The analogy with the physical universe is air-tight (so far), I'm afraid. 

Z.

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Stranger replied on Thu, Jan 28 2010 9:54 AM

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ClaytonB:

Stranger's point is that what is certainly property is the well hole and the oil pumped out of the well hole because you can't have two individuals who drill a hole in exactly the same place without a conflict arising and you can't have two individuals barreling the very same oil without a conflict arising - these are rival resources. z1235 or whoever started this thread seems to think that the free market will come crashing to the ground if more than one well can be drilled into the same oil reservoir. However, It is conceivable that property law could permit an indefinite number of drills to access the same oil reservoir... there is nothing inherently communistic or anti-free market about this. In fact, it might be more efficient since oil wells can be pumped more rapidly (=cheaply) if many drillers are drilling the same well. However, it could also conceivable that property law could find natural boundaries in reservoirs on the basis of how and where they are drilled. I'm no expert in the law of oil drilling and I assume there is already a sizable body of law on this very subject. But it is neither here nor there how many wells can be drilled into an oil reservoir in a manner consistent with property law. The idea of property stands above and outside oil wells or bit-patterns. Only scarce, physical resources can be property, and nothing else. Any legal system which treats things that are not scarce physical resources as though they were property creates artificial scarcity and multiplies property titles beyond the real property which is backing them, that is, such a legal system permits and protects fraud in a systemic way. Our legal system is filled with fraud... fractional reserve banking and intellectual property are but two notable examples.

Clayton -

That still does not tell me how someone comes to own an oil deposit, or an ocean fishery, and this just confirms my earlier suspicions: the intellectual communists have no theory of property whatsoever.

Under traditional Rothbardian theory of property, it is simple. Whoever is first to produce an oil deposit owns it, whoever is first to fish in a fishery owns it, and whoever is first to exploit information owns it. It is clear, simple, contractual, economical and ethical. In order to create the impression that these things cannot be property, the intellectual communists resort to an onslaught of fallacies whose purpose is to obfuscate the nature of property itself, and the end result of their circle of fallacies is that they can no longer determine the ownership of any scarce resource.

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aerborne replied on Thu, Jan 28 2010 10:20 AM

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Stranger:

]

It's not a 1000 page idea, it's an idea that he produced into information working tirelessly for weeks.

Anyone could have the same idea. Only he could have written a book.

z1235:

Information is not merely an idea. The idea to make the movie Avatar is an idea. Actually making it, and producing the unique10 gigabyte sequence is most definitely MUCH more than an idea. 

Z.

You're both arguing what the word idea means and completely sidestepping the point. Semantic arguments are pedantic.The point is, *WHATEVER* word you want to call it. Avatar is an unscarce resource infinitely reproducible without destroying the quality of the original. Your idea for validating copyright law doesn't address THAT argument from the IP freely crowd (such as myself) because it doesn't matter whether you homestead a 10gb binary sequence, or a napkin from a bar, it's the same thing.

z1235:

abskebabs:

Since they are not even scarce, and hence cannot be considered economic goods, they fail to meet the requirements necessary and prior to even being considered property.

My Matlab software (a 4GB pattern on a DVD) is both a means and an economic good without which I would find it very hard to be productive in the physical world. Hence, I acknowledge the claim of the creator of that pattern (Mathworks) to own the area of the informational universe in the vicinity of their particular 4GB pattern. Mathworks owns it, and we don't, regardless of how many copies of the same pattern have criminally been made and sold by others in the physical universe.

Z

How does one homestead anything that's not digital but infinitely reproducible such as how to build a DVD player in the first place? How could copyright have existed 100 years ago when there was no digital media.