[ExI] intellectual property again

Emlyn emlynoregan at gmail.com
Thu Mar 4 07:13:32 UTC 2010


On 4 March 2010 14:41, JOSHUA JOB <nanite1018 at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> 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.

Nice in theory.

>
> 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.

Here, different kinds of IP come into play.

In the world of copyright, you are right. Don't want to abide by the
license restrictions of the copyright owner? Buy a substitute. Now
there are other great arguments for getting rid of copyright
(specifically, it's a monopoly extended by the state, which doesn't
appear to serve any purpose except to make money for people who
already have vast amounts of it, to the detriment of the general
population of individuals).

But patents are a massive issue, because patents will lock up entire
areas of innovation. If a metacortex relies on some basic
technologies, all of which require permission from a patent holder,
then there might not be a way to get a liberated metacortex. In a
world where such a thing is available, there's a good chance it is a
necessary condition of existence, or at least leaves those without
them at a massive disadvantage. Combined with only being able to buy
closed commercial products, it's a scary future.

>
> 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).
>

Well, but isn't this an argument against your own position? You're
saying here that these companies are developing ubiquitous, relatively
open services in response to people going around them and just taking
copies. What would have happened if people *couldn't* just duplicate
copies amongst themselves? How likely are the above developments in
that alternate universe? Note that it has been technically possible
for many years to do this stuff; the only reason it hasn't happened is
because the content industry have been fighting it tooth and nail.

> 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.

I try to. They're few and far between. I far prefer to use open
source, and consume and produce creative common licensed or public
domain information. That's not always practical, unfortunately.

> 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.

You can say this is an individual's choice, but that doesn't make it
so, especially if said individuals are beholden to an intellectual
property regime which restricts their choices, in practical terms, to
a very small set, laden with boobytraps. I guess people in the eastern
bloc had choices - take what the state provides or go without - but we
wouldn't call it choice, we'd call it oppression. If I am forced into
a situation where I cannot make choices commensurate with my
interests, where the other parties are in collusion with the
government against me, that's not freedom.

And all of this is only one tiny facet of this argument; I haven't
even mentioned the massive good that comes to individuals from
information being free.

-- 
Emlyn

http://www.songsofmiseryanddespair.com - My show, Fringe 2010
http://point7.wordpress.com - My blog



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