[ExI] intellectual property again

JOSHUA JOB nanite1018 at gmail.com
Thu Mar 4 04:11:26 UTC 2010


On Mar 3, 2010, at 10:47 PM, Emlyn wrote:

> I honestly don't see how any extropian or transhumanist who is looking
> at the future with an honest eye can countenance a future like this.
> The copyfight happening now is not a mundane economic squabble, it is
> a political fight for our futures, and one whose importance I think is
> very difficult to overstate. Don't accept it!
> 
> -- 
> Emlyn
Every example you gave can be answered with one short answer: own your choices.

If you decide to buy a metacortex from a company which does not guarantee complete freedom of use and alteration by you or anyone else, then you have to live with those consequences. If you buy your memory storage, your upload services, your teleportation services, your ebooks, your movies, music, etc. from companies which do not grant you certain rights or priveleges, you  chose to pay for them, with those restrictions, and so must abide by those contracts.

To have any other answer is to absolve personal responsibility. I do not like massive overuse of patents, copyrights, etc., and so I think I am going to begin to move toward purchasing from companies that allow easy transference of data. Already many media companies are working to develop a type of universal ownership, where you can see any movie or song you've ever purchased, anywhere, whether on the internet, in hotels, or on demand in your home, for free (that is, for no more than the cost of the purchase in the first place). Why are they doing this? Because they realize that their is enormous money to be made by reassuring people that when they buy something, they don't just own the DVD, but they own the right to access that content on any device anywhere, now or in the future. Such a strategy eliminates all these stupid lawsuits, all the bad press, and a major incentive for downloading of pirated materials (that is, you can use them anywhere).

The existence of IP doesn't mean it has to be enforced, and you can certainly give your business to those corporations that are more liberal, and work to change the system through market forces and campaigns. But ultimately, you are choosing to enter into these agreements, and so you need to accept the responsibility of your actions. Whether it is the principle of Self-Transformation (versions 2.6 and 3) or the principle of Spontaneous Order (v2.6) or Self-Direction (v3), the principles of extropy have always placed emphasis on personal responsibility. Disliking the consequences of people's bad decisions is no reason to say that they should not be held responsible.

Such is my pro-IP response to your argument.


Joshua Job
nanite1018 at gmail.com






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