Subject: Re: RFC3271 and independance of "cyberspace"

From: "James Pullicino" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 1 May 2002 10:39:23 +0200

That would be nice!!!

James

----- Original Message -----
From: "Keith Moore" <[email-masked]>
To: "Alexandre Dulaunoy" <[email-masked]>
Cc: <[email-masked]>
Sent: Wednesday, May 01, 2002 2:16 AM
Subject: Re: RFC3271 and independance of "cyberspace"

> > ""
> >    Internet is for everyone - but it won't be if legislation around the
> >    world creates a thicket of incompatible laws that hinder the growth
> >    of electronic commerce, stymie the protection of intellectual
> >    property, and stifle freedom of expression and the development of
> >    market economies.  Let us dedicate ourselves to the creation of a
> >    global legal framework in which laws work across national boundaries
> >    to reinforce the upward spiral of value that the Internet is capable
> >    of creating.
> > ""
>
> I'd like to propose an alternate paragraph here:
>
> ""
> Internet is for everyone - but it won't be if intellectual property laws
> continue to encroach on our freedom to develop and use new technologies,
> to share ideas and expressions of ideas with others, to comment on and
> criticize others' ideas and expressions of ideas, to restrict our use
> of ordinary language, and to effectively give a small number of people
> control over the distribution and licensing of popular works.  Let us
> dedicate ourselves to the worldwide abolishment of the provisions in
> intellectual property laws - copyrights, patents, and trademarks - which
> stifle the freedom of expression and the development of a gloabl
marketplace
> of ideas, to reinforce the upward spiral of real value (not to be confused
> with money) that the citizens of the world can create with the Internet's
> help.
> ""
>
> Keith
>

---

From: "Eric A. Hall" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 01 May 2002 09:47:33 -0500

Keith Moore wrote:

> Let us dedicate ourselves to the worldwide abolishment of the
> provisions in intellectual property laws - copyrights, patents, and
> trademarks - which stifle the freedom of expression and the development
> of a gloabl marketplace of ideas, to reinforce the upward spiral of
> real value (not to be confused with money) that the citizens of the
> world can create with the Internet's help.

The solution to the IPR problem is to make it so that everybody can have
and generate as much of their own IPR as they wish, rather than to take
from those that already have it.

In an information economy, information is currency. The benefit of an
information capitalism is that everybody who wants to participate can
generate their own wealth. The direction you are heading is information
communism, where nobody has the ability to get beyond zero wealth.

This is not a defense of extensions. I also feel that Disney et al should
have been investing in new assets rather than working to lockup old
assets. Rather, this is the counter-point to your specific statement
above. Having billions of pieces of IPR is better than having none.

-- 
Eric A. Hall                                        http://www.ehsco.com/
Internet Core Protocols          http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/coreprot/

---

From: Keith Moore <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 01 May 2002 11:37:09 -0400

> from those that already have it.

I disagree.  People already can, at least in theory, generate as much
as their own intellectual property as they wish - and the problems still
exist.

There are several problems here, so I doubt there is "a" single solution.  
But current IPR laws err in several ways: 

They treat information and ideas as if they were similar to tangible 
property, useful only to the person who possesses the property, 
therefore subject to scarcity and to the laws of supply and demand.  

They assume that the public benefits, and "progress in science and useful 
arts" is furthered, by making information in general artifically scarce.
There are limited circumstances when this is the case, but in general 
it is not.   Often information becomes more valuable to everyone when
it is made available to everyone.

They assume that publication (copying) is expensive, requiring a
substantial investment in resources, and therefore that controlling
the act of copying is a reasonable way to protect authors' investments
in creating their works.  (e.g. the owner of a printing press has made
a substantial investment in that press and therefore has assets that 
he/she doesn't want to lose in a copyright infringement suit)

They provide property rights to information indefinitely, rather
than for a limited time.  At the same time, they fail to provide 
any incentives to the public to preserve information in its 
original form without change after the copyright expires.

There are many more bad assumptions in current IPR laws, but these 
will suffice for an illustration.

> generate their own wealth. 

And the downside of information capitalism is that it facilitates 
control over the many by those few who possess "crucial" pieces of
information - the information produced by everyone else is nearly 
useless in comparison.  Ironically, what you call "information capitalism"
encourages centralized control.

The public does not benefit by creating incentives to hoard crucial
information.

> above. Having billions of pieces of IPR is better than having none.

I prefer to envision a world where people contribute information for
the greater common good more often than they try to hoard it for the
sake of having complete control.  Which is not to say that creators 
wouldn't benefit from people using their works - just that giving
creators complete control over their works as if they were "property" 
is very much against the public interest.

Keith

---

From: "Eric A. Hall" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 01 May 2002 10:45:19 -0500

Keith Moore wrote:

> useless in comparison.  Ironically, what you call "information
> capitalism" encourages centralized control.

I think we are looking at this in two different ways.

Which of the following two options is more likely to feed starving
children in Africa:

  1) the Africans produce millions of pieces of valuable IPR

  2) we take Steamboat Willie away from Disney, making it valueless
     to everybody

Clearly, allowing people to generate their own value is going to improve
the global lot moreso than mugging the IPR barons.

Where you cite centralized control, that control only exists because
people are not improving their own portfolios. If everybody who was
capable of doing so built up their own IPR collections, then the
centralized wealth would not be so disproportionate.

On the other hand, if everybody has none, then the benefits go to the
distributors and those who can leverage the material for other purposes,
while the creators are at a disadvantage. That direction abosultely favors
an imbalance, and it rewards the exploiters vs the creators.

---

From: Keith Moore <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 01 May 2002 12:00:55 -0400

>   2) we take Steamboat Willie away from Disney, making it valueless

neither one is going to help starving children.  you falsely assume
that "millions of pieces of valuable IPR" can be created out of
thin air.  the only way that information has substantial monetary 
value is if it is somehow important enough that people are willing 
to pay money for it and scarce enough that equivalent information 
is not avaialble elsewhere.  and in most cases it costs money to 
make a piece of information that important or scarce - for instance 
by advertising it, or by suppressing the competition.
  
> people are not improving their own portfolios. 

no, that control exists because those that have wealth and control
also have the means to increase that wealth and retain that control -
and to encourage the government to help them do so.

that and most people have better things to do with their energy than
"improving their own portfolios".   a world in which everybody 
has to hoard information in order to be competitive (read: to avoid 
being poor) is not a world that I find desirable in general, and 
certainly not desirable for the sake of preserving some folks' 
control over the exchange of ideas or for propping up some other folks' 
misguided beliefs in capitalism as an ultimate ideal.

Keith

---

From: "Eric A. Hall" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 01 May 2002 11:11:26 -0500

Keith Moore wrote:

> you falsely assume that "millions of pieces of valuable IPR" can be
> created out of thin air.

I make no such assumptions. It would certainly help things, for example,
if you were to donate your IPR to them. Which is better, that I donate my
IPR for them to sell, or that you take my IPR away so that it has zero
value to everybody?

---

From: Keith Moore <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 01 May 2002 12:43:27 -0400

> IPR for them to sell, or that you take my IPR away so that it has zero

there are so many false assumptions here that it's difficult to respond
at all.  most people do not seek solely to maximize their holdings at 
the expense of others.  "your IPR" could do far more good if it were 
given away for everyone to use, than if it were sold for someone's 
exclusive use.  the fact that it would have "zero value" on the market 
doesn't mean that it would have "zero value" in any reasonable sense.  
gcc costs nothing, but it has (indirectly) benefitted millions, and 
its value is immense.

at any rate, I'm not proposing to "take your IPR away" - only to limit
the current scope of IPR somewhat to better "promote the progress of 
science and useful arts" while avoiding some of the abuses we're 
currently seeing.  there will still be a need to protect the investment
made by content creators and to provide them with a means of profiting 
from that investment. 

Keith