[JoshTriplett]

You've described one side of the debate, yes. The technical side has no less merit; don't dismiss it offhandedly. Hence why I find the essay on bits having color so useful: it frames the debate nicely without actually taking a side.

The arguments you referenced would indeed make for relatively unsophisticated legal arguments, but they don't claim to be legal arguments; they're statements about technology and about how geeks want technology to work. They carry no less weight than statements about how lawyers want technology to work.

Or, to put it more snarkily: your claim that bits have some unrepresentable property of "color" sounds like non-geek misunderstanding to me. There is no legal problem here -- only a problem of non-geeks applying legalistic results where they shouldn't. :)

Let's not rehash the arguments that the essay already eloquently expresses; neither of us will get anywhere that way.

[shasta]

We apparently had different interpretations of the color article. You seem to think the article was about there being two valid viewpoints (color exists and it doesn't), whereas I think it was just about trying to get the computer scientist to understand color.

> Or, to put it more snarkily: your claim that bits have some unrepresentable property of "color" sounds like non-geek misunderstanding to me.

The legality of information should and does involve tracking how they were obtained. This is not a property of mathematical bits, but is a property of the physical encoding of those bits in this world. Since the argument here is over how the law should work, a geek making arguments like this is just wrong. This is not a "they're both right" situation.

> Let's not rehash the arguments that the essay already eloquently expresses; neither of us will get anywhere that way.

Go reread the essay and see if you can really find support for your viewpoint. I just skimmed it (quickly, admittedly) and it seems to say what I remembered it to say.

[JoshTriplett]

> Since the argument here is over how the law should work

I think we've talked past each other here. I agree with you about how the law works. As much as I might want it to work differently, it currently does not. However, read the second to last paragraph of the essay: "I think it's time for computer people to take Colour more seriously - if only so that we can better explain to the lawyers why they must give up their dream of enforcing Colour inside Friend Computer, where Colour does not and cannot exist." That one sentence nicely sums up both viewpoints: the law wants bits to have color, and technology does not support properties of bits beyond the bits themselves. You've argued the former, which I agree with. I've argued the latter, and you seem to think that in doing so I've disagreed with the former.

> whereas I think it was just about trying to get the computer scientist to understand color.

I'd argue that the same article would also help lawyers understand why technology cannot represent the color of bits.

In any case, I think the sentence I quoted above makes both viewpoints very clear. And while I recognize that the law sees bits as having color, I intend to continue working to make sure technology does not attempt to care.

[shasta]

I think the few bits about lawyers not understanding the limitations of metadata weren't the thrust of the article. I do agree that the two viewpoints there aren't opposed, but that point about metadata is not the same as the wrong headed one being made by people using the phrase "illegal number."

[nitrogen]

The only thing that makes the "illegal number" view wrong headed is a belief that the law as currently on the books has the final say on what is ethically/factually/morally/intellectually right and wrong.

I believe you are too hard on those who disagree with you, as you don't seem to acknowledge that those who disagree with the law's desire to stamp a color on everything have valid reasons for their disagreement.

[shasta]

Can you point me to a coherent presentation of the alternative possibility? The only alternatives I see are that either A) there are legally protected (uncolored) numbers, or B) there is no legally protected information at all.

I don't think option A is coherent. In fact most use of the phrase "illegal number" is by people who are attempting a reductio ad absurdum argument against the legal system (but don't understand color). But note that as a practical matter, we do have protected numbers. Good luck convincing a court that you produced an identical text to the last Harry Potter novel through any means other than copying.

Option B, the anarchistic approach, is no doubt consistent but would be a radical change from our present form of copyright.

[nitrogen]

It's my understanding from watching the DeCSS fiasco unfold that the "illegal number" phrase was coined to mock the DMCA's criminalization of circumvention tools, and the first illegal numbers described were various representations of DeCSS. I don't think that position is unreasonable or wrong headed at all.

You are right that, when applied to actual copyrighted materials, the only obvious options are A: "We'll voluntarily submit to the legal fiction that bits have color (or at least shades of gray) in the form of copyright law, because we can see some benefit to doing so," and B: "We believe that a society whose rules can be fully justified by concrete logic, evolutionary morality, and the laws of physics is preferable to a society founded upon legal fictions, and abolition of the concept of intellectual property follows from this."

However, I believe a good number of people hold position C: "We believe copyright law has significantly overstepped its useful bounds, and will pretend to hold position B in order to achieve a reasonable compromise."