[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.

[cerebralstatic]

There have also been long(-SH) periods of times where they were banned from any form of guild participation or membership, which drove them to this - i.e. in Bohemia, at least around the 15th century, re-selling wares that no one else wanted to buy (in the book I have read this in, bloodied clothing and weaponry from battle was one example) was one of their means to survive.

[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

[__MatrixMan__]

Yeah good point. There's a whole spectrum of applications of "property". People can and do fight over it, and consensus shifts with time.

I think we can agree that data is at least not on the uncontroversial end of that spectrum.

I guess I just don't see a meaningful difference between:

"____ cannot be property"

And

"At some other place or time ____ might be property but as a participant in the consensus for this place and time I am proposing that we not allow ____ to be property"

Its like rights. They only exist if you fight for them. Controversial notions of property are only legitimate if we let them be... so let's interfere with that legitimacy (and if we must, enforcement).

[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.