[__MatrixMan__]

Since we're doing minor nitpicks...

Data can't be owned in the first place. We can debate the merits of copyright but it's not a property right.

I'm all for finding better ways to support authors. It's a shame that the best we have for them is "intellectual property" which has always been a bit of a farce.

[zugi]

Stallman tried to introduce the term "intellectual monopoly", which fits better, since they really are monopolies granted by the government for limited periods of time, intended to promote progress in science and the useful arts.

"Property" was chosen specifically as a bait and switch. It tries to get people to take a concept that has been understood for thousands of years for physical objects, and apply it to this novel century-or-two long experiment for encouraging the production of easily-copyable things.

[SideQuark]

> It tries to get people to take a concept that has been understood for thousands of years for physical objects

That's false. Property used to mean a set of rights that gives legal control over valuable things, not limited to simply "physical objects", has been around for thousands of years. Ancients used it for future payments, interest (which could be traded), and much more.

Ancient Syrians (600BC) gave exclusive rights for breadmakers to make certain breads for a year window, and these were property rights, tradeable, sellable, had futures, etc. Ancient Greeks had a patent system for "a new refinement in luxury" that were property rights. Athenaeus (200AD) describes the system in place then where inventors could own their inventions and be the only one to profit for some time.

These are all property rights - something owned by a person, sellable, tradeable, has value, exclusive use. That you (and too many others) seem to think property can only be a "physical object" is as short-sighted as some who claim property can only be land.

[JumpCrisscross]

> since they really are monopolies granted by the government

This is property.

[__MatrixMan__]

There are multiple usages of the word.

One of them refers to tangible things, was first codified more than 5000 years ago, and is almost entirely uncontroversial.

The other was popular in 1700's France re: their system of privileges, and the people found it so onerous that they embarked on a campaign of executing nobility until it seemed like the concept was good and dead.

We can use the word however we like, it's just a word, but if we conduct ourselves as if they're the same sort of thing, which France was doing at that time, we're in for the same sort of pain.

So what I'm saying is that its a bad idea for us to let data be property.

[JumpCrisscross]

> One of them refers to tangible things, was first codified more than 5000 years ago, and is almost entirely uncontroversial

Which definition are you referring to?

Debts, wholly intangible legal fictions, have been treated as property for thousands of years.

[__MatrixMan__]

I was thinking of the code of Hammurabi as the settled one, and membership in a trade guild--which you had to buy from the government--as the controversial one.

I wouldn't classify debt as an uncontroversial kind of property. In medieval Europe, Christians were prohibited from owning debt by their religions (Jews weren't, so they ended up being the lenders, which is probably why the stereotypes exist today).

I'd argue that the fungibility/resale of debt is a bad idea because it takes on weird properties when too much of it accumulates in one place.

[rmunn]

Slight correction: Jews were religiously prohibited from charging interest... to other Jews. (As I understand it, and someone please correct me if I'm wrong: not being Jewish myself, my information is second- or third-hand for most of this). Which is part of why they ended up being moneylenders to the non-Jews they lived among. Another part was that, as people who often had to pack up and move, fleeing from armed groups (who may or may not have had the official sanction of the local authorities, but usually did have their unofficial sanction), Jews tended to gravitate towards professions where most of their wealth was portable. Farming? Nope, get chased off your land and your profession is gone. Blacksmithing? Your tools and your stock-in-trade are too heavy to move quickly. Also nope, not if you expect to need to run for your lives at very short notice. But moneylending, or selling gold and jewelry? That works. Grab one or two chests and throw them onto the cart, and you've preserved most of the core of your business, even if the mob torches the shop and any tools that were impractical to move.

So Jews ended up gravitating towards being jewelers, bankers, moneylenders, and so on. All of which, yes, did feed into stereotypes.

[JumpCrisscross]

> was thinking of the code of Hammurabi

Do we have evidence around what the Code considered property? It seems to be vague [1]. (“Stealing” is applied to minor sons and slaves, for instance. And the terms “article” and named tangible items are used in some cases, while in others the translators chose the term property per se.)

> wouldn't classify debt as an uncontroversial kind of property

I wouldn’t either. I’m saying it’s old. And I wouldn’t say the concept of privately-owned land is “an uncontroversial kind of property” either, entire races had to be wiped out to consolidate that view.

[1] https://avalon.law.yale.edu/ancient/hamframe.asp

[simonh]

All, or at least most property rights are monopoly rights anyway. I have a monopoly right over my house, and my car, my bank balance. That's just what ownership means.

[ekianjo]

Those rights are very flimsy actually. The government can seize your house, your car, and your money anytime. Hardly a monopoly when a third party can break it at will.

[AlecSchueler]

That the state which grants you your right can take them away doesn't make them flimsy.

And it's certainly more than "hardly" a monopoly. If the government gives a certain company right to operate on train track infrastructure but denies the same to every other company, then does that first company hardly have a monopoly?

[ekianjo]

Large companies that have money lobby governments to ensure they do not threaten their monopolies. Individuals can't do that.

[BobaFloutist]

By that standard, nobody has any right to anything. I think it's pretty widely understood that rights range from aspirational descriptions of a just world to widely accepted legal consensus.

[simonh]

Sure. That’s how rights work. It’s why we need to keep on fighting for them when necessary.

[JumpCrisscross]

> Data can't be owned in the first place

Of course it can. Ownership is a social construct.

It’s more accurate to say data resists being controlled. But honestly, so do e.g. air and mineral rights and the “ownership” of catalytic converters in cars parked on the street.

[randallsquared]

We've built a lot of layers of social machinery on top of it, but looking at the behavior of animals, ownership predates humanity, let alone social convention. Coming at it from that direction, something can be private property only if it is defensible in principle. Physical objects meet this bar, but concepts and types do not.

[JumpCrisscross]

> something can be private property only if it is defensible in principle. Physical objects meet this bar, but concepts and types do not

Why not? I sing song. You sing song. I beat you with stick because that’s my song. You stop singing song.

[__MatrixMan__]

Well it really comes down to how good you are with that stick. You "can" stop me from singing your song... But can you? You don't even know where I am.

[pocksuppet]

And this is the premise on which Anna's Archive operates.

The operator isn't even called Anna, just in case that wasn't already obvious to literally everyone.

[JumpCrisscross]

> You "can" stop me from singing your song... But can you?

Yes. I kill you. Stealing was usually punishable by death in ancient cultures.

> You don't even know where I am

This isn’t a thing in early human societies.

Like, yes, you could theoretically get away. Lots of thieves of physical property actually get away. That doesn’t make said property indefensible in principle.

[TFNA]

The countries that still employ the death penalty highly overlap with countries that disrespect intellectual property, to the point of bootleg media being openly sold in the market, a thriving local torrent scene, etc. Appealing to ancient blood codes doesn’t bolster your case as much as you think.

[lcnPylGDnU4H9OF]

>> You don't even know where I am

> This isn’t a thing in early human societies.

Sure it is. I hear you sing your song. I travel. I sing your song to other people while you're not around to hear it. You don't even know where I am.

(Of course, there was never any "theft", as it were. I even paid to go to your concert!)

[margalabargala]

There's multiple types of ownership.

There's legal title. And then there's possession.

AA clearly possesses this data. It's not incorrect for them to refer to it as "their" data, until and unless it is removed from their possession.

[JumpCrisscross]

> It's not incorrect for them to refer to it as "their" data

Totally agree.

[sublinear]

You don't distinguish between the data and the data source.

Plenty of data becomes stale almost immediately. Plenty of data sources can be owned, but they also tend to be people.

[__MatrixMan__]

Yes, but it is a social contract governing things that can't be easily copied.

We desperately need better social contracts which help us deal with data-about-me and data-i-created, but neither of those align very well with property.

[WarmWash]

I own paper money that is pretty easy to copy and worth far more than the paper it's on...

[__MatrixMan__]

Easier to copy than a bit?

[WarmWash]

Trivially more difficult, kids in middle school were doing it so that bar isn't that high.

[JumpCrisscross]

> but it is a social contract governing things that can't be easily copied

I think it’s fair to argue this makes data something that should not be able to be owned. But saying it can’t be owned is plain wrong.

[__MatrixMan__]

You're right. We can implement social contracts however we please.

But regarding the particular implementation as codified in US law (and I think elsewhere also), property rights do not extend to data.

[JumpCrisscross]

> regarding the particular implementation as codified in US law (and I think elsewhere also), property rights do not extend to data

Maybe not in general, though I’m curious for a source. Practically speaking, what separates data and information is a necessarily subjective exercise. And information absolutely can be property.

[__MatrixMan__]

What kind of source would satisfy you?

There are laws about what happens to me if I break into your house and steal your property. I can therefore find you case precedent indicating that a TV is property because people have been charged with violating those laws when they steal a TV.

But I can't present to you the absence of such a thing. We have trademark, copyright, and patent law, but as far as I'm aware there's no crosstalk with things that talk about property, things like armed robbery.

[simonh]

Property can and does refer to rights over both tangible and intangible assets. It simply refers to ownership. Trademarks, brand identity and trade secrets are property. Some kinds of license can be property, and bought or sold. Shares in companies, or bonds are property. You may not like it, but that's a separate question.

What's usually happening here is that property is being misinterpreted as meaning something like object, but it just refers to a right of ownership which can be of objects.

[bcrosby95]

It seems like you're completely ignoring the privacy angle. If no one can own data how can privacy be a thing?

[__MatrixMan__]

We desperately need good abstractions that help us reason about data-i-created, vs data-i-have-a-responsibility-to-maintain, vs data-about-me... But I see no reason to jam any of these pegs into the round hole that is property rights.

[Aurornis]

> Data can't be owned in the first place. We can debate the merits of copyright but it's not a property right.

This is factually incorrect. I don’t know if you’re unaware of the law or introducing your own beliefs about what it should be, but this is not how the law works.

[__MatrixMan__]

Which law, copyright? Trademark? Patent?

These are things you can infringe upon, but they all have dynamics that depart pretty wildly from the laws governing property.

[Aurornis]

Intellectual property law.

[stevehawk]

* can't (?)

[__MatrixMan__]

Edited, Thanks.