The Technology Liberation Front - Latest Comments in Locke on Copyright

Re: Locke on Copyright

jimharper — Mon, 24 Dec 2007 01:40:41 -0000

e_f, Tom: I think both of you are too fixated on copyright. I am talking about the natural state of affairs with information.

I used the example of what I ate for breakfast (and in prior discussions the wearing of a yellow hat) because these things are obviously not subject to statutory protection of any kind.

As to what I had for breakfast, even in the absence of any statutory protection, my authority to control it is total. (That's not a hint, BTW.)

That item of information is something I am 1) excluding you from getting. I am 2) using it to illsutrate this story. I would 3) sell it to you (alienate it) for the right price, in which case you would 4) acquire it. Thanks to a good memory, I can 5) preserve it in perpetuity.

Tom, I use the term "property" precisely because of the legal connotations. "Good" doesn't have *enough* of the legal connotations!

I think it's a stretch to say that I'm the author of the fact of what I had for breakfast, and it's really not a fact used in trade, so I don't think the other terms you've suggested fit at all.

Re: Locke on Copyright

eee_eff — Sat, 22 Dec 2007 23:06:55 -0000

Of course, I was speaking about all information, not just works of authorship. For example, I own the fact/knowledge of what I ate for breakfast this morning. I could sell it to you or trade it with you under a variety of licensing terms.

Wrong. Information is NOT protectable by copyright. Only the expression itself is protectable.

So Whereas the sentence "I finished my Eggs Benedict in a hurry because I needed to catch the 8:05 train to the City." could be covered by copyright, you have NO AUTHORITY to restrict the information itself, i.e., the fact that you did eat Eggs Benedict for breakfast, or that you take the 8:05 train downtown.

Re: Locke on Copyright

Anonymous — Fri, 21 Dec 2007 20:26:46 -0000

Steve R.: Thanks for the encouraging words!

Jim: I understand your plight, and agree that it's hard to find a suitable term, but I don't think "property" will help. That carries legal connotations that don't fit the subject very well. (You might check out the standard tests for "property" that I run through in chapter 3 of my book.) Maybe you could use "good," a more neutral term and one well-established in economics, instead of "property." If you insist on a legal term, I'd use "author's rights" or "trade secret."

Re: Locke on Copyright

jimharper — Fri, 21 Dec 2007 10:18:24 -0000

Of course, I was speaking about all information, not just works of authorship. For example, I own the fact/knowledge of what I ate for breakfast this morning. I could sell it to you or trade it with you under a variety of licensing terms. Were I to tell it to you without restriction, you could repeat/replicate it without limit, and I would have no recourse - like a piece of property I had abandoned.

I'm not exercising any right particular to authors in controlling this "stuff" - I'm exercising dominion over my body and brain. So I think it is closer to a piece of property created and controlled by the intellect, or "intellectual property."

I understand that people load up terms with baggage, and we've had our debates here about the term "intellectual property," but do we change the language to avoid the baggage, or work to get people past their baggage? The most neutral term for this "stuff," not larded with baggage, is probably "cognitive and volitional product." But what loon (other than me) is ever going to adopt that term?

Re: Locke on Copyright

Steve_R — Thu, 20 Dec 2007 15:29:29 -0000

Excellent post.

Re: Locke on Copyright

tom W. Bell — Thu, 20 Dec 2007 15:25:41 -0000

Jim,

I guess I wouldn't object too much to that narrow formulation of the sorts of rights authors enjoy. Indeed, it pretty closely resembles so-called (but misleadingly so) "common law copyright." I'm still a little wary of applying "property," here, though, as that term comes freighted with implications that you would have to explain away. Better, I think, to use sui generis term ("author's rights," as some commentators called the common law version, for instance).

Re: Locke on Copyright

jimharper — Thu, 20 Dec 2007 12:57:31 -0000

It's nice to have some expert discussion of how Locke looked at it. I did a non-expert ramble through Locke and intellectual property a couple years back.

Because I think information is most analogous to property (but radically different in its properties), I've adopted the view that information is a form of property, but that it is abandoned if not concealed, to be made use of by any successor coming across it.

Whaddya think of that?