[altmanaltman]

I mean yeah, since its the privatization of data but I think the spirit is that data itself doesn't belong to anyone but rather what you can hold is yours? I don't know, it was a tongue in cheek comment and now I'm actually thinking about it.

[scotty79]

> I think the spirit is that data itself doesn't belong to anyone but rather what you can hold is yours?

It definitely belongs to someone. To the person holding it (provided that it wasn't stolen). Just as any other actual thing. Except for borrowed items.

[streetfighter64]

I don't know if I'm misunderstanding you, but tons of actual things don't belong to the person "holding" or using it. Leased cars, rented houses, work equipment, stolen items. It is a huge simplification saying that "anything belongs to the person holding it, except for borrowed items", which ignores a bunch of history and legal precedent establishing exactly what it is people mean when they say somebody owns something.

Your definition of data ownership certainly is a definition, but it's far from obvious or mainstream. If you texted an intimate photo to an ex, do you consider them as the owner of the photo, meaning that they're allowed to do whatever they want with that photo (as ownership typically implies)?

[scotty79]

> Leased cars, rented houses, work equipment, stolen items.

Basically only borrowed and stolen. Stealing (actual stealing) is a crime by itself. And it doesn't make sense to borrow data. If somebody borrows you a song, you can just make copy yourself and the copy is yours. Which is how reality always worked. Didn't you have a casette player with two slots? Those weren't for playing two tapes simultaneously. Is the new generation so brainwashed by virtual world of fictional intelectual property, terms and conditions nobody reads and licenses which claim to be source of your rights and don't give you any, that they have forgotten how information exchange actually works in the real world?

> which ignores a bunch of history and legal precedent establishing exactly what it is people mean when they say somebody owns something.

I think copyright ignored more. And doesn't reflect reality on top of that.

> but it's far from obvious or mainstream

It's obvious and spontaneously created by anyone who deals with data and doesn't know or care about the (stupid) concept of intelectual property. "Do you have the file?" What does it mean intuitively? Yes, I have it. I can make you a copy.

> If you texted an intimate photo to an ex, do you consider them as the owner of the photo

Yes. Obviously. Just as much as I am. Thinking otherwise would be believing falsehoods about reality.

> meaning that they're allowed to do whatever they want with that photo (as ownership typically implies)?

They obviously can do with it whatever they want to. Are they allowed? Is the sun allowed to rise up in the morning? What's use there is to forbidding it?

They can do thousand copies or delete it from existence. They can modify it. Print it. Whatever.

When they publish it. Well, what happens next depends entirely about whether I'm entitled to protection of things I consider private from being publicized. Or if I'm protected from harassment. I might be or I might not be. However whatever protections I am awarded in that regard have nothing to do with general rules about the data. If I harass a person with a megaphone that I own it still could be illegal.

[streetfighter64]

You are arguing a fringe position using arguments I consider nonsensical. For example:

> They obviously can do with it whatever they want to. Are they allowed? Is the sun allowed to rise up in the morning? What's use there is to forbidding it?

I obviously can go around punching people in the face on the street. What use is there to forbidding that? Perhaps that it's beneficial for society to discourage people from doing certain things?

As for ignoring history, are you aware that patents (N.b. copyright is far from the only law that applies to intellectual property) were created in order to encourage people to share their ideas, with the incentive of an exclusive right to them for a number of years? Because exactly the sort of "free for all" rights you are arguing for meant a huge incentive to keeping everything as secret as possible.

> Thinking otherwise would be believing falsehoods about reality.

There is no "ground truth" to ownership (neither for data nor physical property), only what people as a collective consider it to be. I'd say you're the one believing a falsehood about ownership, given that your position is in the definite minority.

Finally, can you explain what you think stealing is? Why is it a crime for me to take one bike to work but not the other, if they both stand unlocked outside the building?

[scotty79]

> I obviously can go around punching people in the face on the street. What use is there to forbidding that? Perhaps that it's beneficial for society to discourage people from doing certain things?

Right. I have to agree. Still, somehow copyright feels more like punishing people for not praying on Sunday than punching people in the face. All forbidden things are definitely not equal and some, naturally, feel more deserving of being forbidden and more easy to enforce the punishment for them without invading personal freedoms and privacy. It's entirely pointless to forbid things that don't (even potentially) harm living beings (there's no human right to having a viable business model) which would require permanent invigilation (even in private) for full enforcement.

> patents (N.b. copyright is far from the only law that applies to intellectual property) were created in order to encourage people to share their ideas

Which pretty much failed spectacularly and should have been ended about 100 years ago when it ran its course. Way before such abomination as software patents spawned in somebody's mind.

> Because exactly the sort of "free for all" rights you are arguing for meant a

The world is free for all. Every industrial economy that got big, got there by disregarding intellectual property. Even US, blatantly copying industrial designs from UK. Intellectual property is kicking off the ladder.

> huge incentive to keeping everything as secret as possible

There's only so much you can keep a secret if you want to go to market with it.

And despite wonderful protections of intellectual property many companies still choose to keep as much as they can secret. Because protections can't physically work 100% and they need to be 100% for them to work at all.

Patents serve many purposes but none of their stated goals.

> Finally, can you explain what you think stealing is?

Depriving someone of possession of something by taking the possession of it yourself. For data economy it can be slightly extended to taking the copy of information that is held by someone else without their permission (hacking basically). To be fair we should make another label for this act if we want to keep the original meaning of the word steal intact.

> Why is it a crime for me to take one bike to work but not the other, if they both stand unlocked outside the building?

Because you can keep your items in public spaces. This changes dynamics of theft a little bit. It is a crime to take my item that I left in publically accessible place because after you did that I no longer have the item.

If you were to just make a perfect copy of my bike that I left in public space, that would be totally ok because I would still have my bike.

The harm in act of stealing is not taking possession but depriving someone else of their possession.

[streetfighter64]

Well, I'm glad you at least seem to agree that taking information without permission is stealing. As in, hacking into a company's servers and copying their customer data, would be stealing, yes?

Now, if you're instead an employee of that company, and have access to their customer data (you're holding it), would you then agree that making a copy and selling it to somebody else, would be stealing? Or would you argue that because you as an employee got permission to hold the data, you thus own it and are allowed to sell it as you want? Or consider if you rent a VHS tape, does that give you ownership of the movie, and let you copy it as you want? If you store your code on a git server hosted by Microsoft, does that mean MS owns your code? If you hand in your laptop for repair, does that give the repair shop carte blance to make a copy of your hard drive?

Is the postal service allowed to read all your letters? After all, they're holding the letters, which would mean they own the data inside, and with modern tech it's easily possible to scan the contents of an envelope without opening or damaging it.

The crux of my position is that simply holding something, does not mean you own it. You seem to agree that physical items can be held by somebody who's not the owner, so why can data not?

To continue on with the bike example, what if I know you're out of town for a week. Then, by using your bike I'm certainly not depriving you of it. You might argue that I'm lowering its value by using it, but would you not then agree that piracy lowers the value of intellectual property?