[Gllug] Regarding priracy (sic)

[Doug Winter]

On Wed 05 Mar chris.wareham at btopenworld.com wrote:
> Doug Winter <doug at pigeonhold.com> wrote:
> > I think the anti-copyright mob would assert that it isn't "your"
> > music, you merely created it.  The claim that creation engenders
> > ownership is the crux of the moral case for copyright.  That has as
> > many problems as theories of ownership in meatspace.
> 
> That's the same as saying that the house you live in isn't yours, so I
> can move in and tell you to like it or leave. In fact taking the
> anti-copyright stance to its ridiculous extreme (which the Coca-Cola
> example already did), I could argue I've got even more right to use
> your house as you probably didn't build it.

There are lots of theories of ownership in the real world too.  

Taking your example - in capitalist societies you own land because you
bought it from someone, and they bought it from someone and so forth.
However, obviously at some point that land wasn't bought from someone
since nobody owned it - it was just taken.  So in some senses, you "own"
stolen property and really don't have any right to it at all.

Claiming that you have "legitimate" ownership of a piece of land
clearly depends just as much on socially accepted standards of
ownership.  I don't think you could claim that even in the real world
there is any "natural" notion of property as we tend to interpret it
today.

Utilitarians would say that the test of ownership was "the greatest good
for society" - so if someone could use your house for the greater public
good than you can, then they can have it.  This principle is the one
used in compulsory purchase by the state - exactly the instance you
suggest.

Some societies have even tried (to greater or lesser success) the
communist theory of ownership, based on need.

> Just because music or software appears ephemeral doesn't mean it
> shouldn't have the same intrinsic value as your house. If you want to
> allow anyone to live in your house without paying, then fine. The same
> logic applies to my music and the software I write. If you want us all
> to live in a copyright free, propertyless society then show me an
> example of an Anarchist society that works (they never do for more
> than a very short amount of time, as human nature and Michel's Iron
> Law of Oligarchy soon kick in).

Music and software clearly has value - otherwise people wouldn't want to
own it :)  However I'd contend that information is of a different class
of stuff from tangible property, precisely because of the very low
duplication costs and the lack of scarcity - properties that will never
be held by things in the real world (except perhaps for biros :)

> Anyway I've made my stance pretty clear, and any further clarification
> is just going to add to the dismal amount of noise on this list.

er, right.

I'm not sure this is totally off topic anyhow - the very concept of free
software depends on a rather different notion of ownership from that of
the proprietarians.

doug.

-- 
http://www.britishsteal.com                        doug at pigeonhold.com
1024D/6973E2CF print 2C95 66AD 1596 37D2 41FC 609F 76C0 A4EC 6973 E2CF
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