I've been asking Eugene Volokh to write about property rights and intellectual property for months, and he's finally done it! He argues that intellectual property rights are just as valid a concept as tangible property rights. That's not to say that the existence of intellectual property is good policy, but he thinks the idea is reasonable.
On the other hand, I think that in the digital age intellectual property can be reduced down to the allowing of ownership of pure numbers. For that reason, I think that intellectual property is ultimately doomed.
For my musings on the subject:
1. Ownership -- how can anyone "own" digitally-encoded information? Anything encoded digitally is just a bing number, and how can anyone own a number?
2. Ownership 2 -- more on the same topic.
3. Common Law and Copyright -- can "everyone is doing it" justify violating copyright laws?
How can anyone own a number? Well, in many ways, it's more than a number, it's a collection of numbers.
In the same way, a novel is just a collection of letters, in non-alphebetical order. Yet copyright of these letter-combinations has been legally respected for quite a long time. Even if you change a few letters of the combination or all of them by reproducing it in a different language, it's legally enforceable and few think that odd.
Not only are mp3's a collection of numbers, but like the novel translated to Spanish, the numbers can actually change. For instance, if a song has a skip on it, the number changes. It could also be compiled in a different compression format and changed completely.
But in the same way that novels are a collection of letters (characters, and numbers) assigned non-alphabetically, what can be copyrighted isn't anything physical at all. It's the story or the words (if someone takes an NiN song and puts it to lounge music, it's still a violation, regardless of format and the fact that the 1s and 0s completely change).
If I take a novel that isn't available online and type it out, despite the fact that there are no 1s and 0s assigned the the novel, I'm still breaking copyright.
Ultimately, IP may ultimately dissintegrate but it will be a matter of enforcement, not that it can't logically exist when reduced to numeral.
I think you're wrong, and that you missed the essence of what I was was trying to say in the posts I linked to.
The proper tool can convert any number into any song, for instance.
It's not as simple as you're making it out to be.
Your statement that intellectual property (especially on the net or on computers is just a bunch of 1's and 0's is a spurious argument, made just to soothe your tortured soul because you a) steal a lot of internet or computer intellectual property, b) can't think of any way that intellectual property can be completly "protected" and therefore, if you can't do it right, just don't do it, or c) you like the argument and are taking a contrary side of the discussion, just to encourage responses.
The easiest way to show the fallicy of your argument is to point out that "material things" are just made up of atoms (mostly hydrogen) and isn't it also rediculous to allow someone to "own" hydrogen, oxygen, iron, etc. atoms? After all, they are all virtually identical, just as 1's and 0's are! What makes the physical things unique enough to warrant ownership protection is the "information" that is contained in the patterns of the atoms and the "physical idea" (i.e., the concept of a wheel or chair) that the "uniqueness challenged" atoms exhibit.
Just because it's easy to steal ideas, music, etc. doesn't mean it's right. It's also easy to steal candy from a baby. The baby may cry, but he/she lacks any ability to prevent theft on their own.
Sometimes I've heard friends suggest that Bill Gates makes an obscene profit off of his software. I usually agree that his profits are all out of proportion to his individual effort in producing the products. However, that does not justify stealing his software! Theft is still theft! I solve the problem of "not wanting to put lots of money in Bill Gates pockets for inferior, buggy, substandard software" by mostly using alternative software. Some of the alternatives are freely available (Linux, for example), some I can write, myself, some are purchasable (Mac OS X, for example), and sometimes, I even purchase Bill Gates software (when I don't have the time or other resources to play around with the alternatives). Those are the only ethical options open to me and all the rest of us who use computers, electronics and/or have access to the internet.
Now, ethics is a "HAIRY" business. Some people (I'd like to think I fall in this category) try to remain ethical in all areas of their lives. Others, (and I've seen it in most of my children), only feel that ethics "really" matters if they have a chance of being caught. Laws and morality are the societal tools that civilization uses to try to install ethics in the "ethically challenged". I, personally, have broken a few laws. I try to only do it when I disagree with the intent of the law, never just for convenience or because I don't have the money to do something I want to do.
If you are a moral creature and actually have a set of ethics that you believe in, then you also will not steal items, just because it's so easy and you aren't going to get caught, anyway. Morally, it is just as wrong to suggest that I make a copy of a DVD I have and give it to you, as it would be to ask me to "shop-lift" the DVD for you, or rob a store or person, to let you buy the DVD. Ethically, these actions are completely equivalent!
So, if you persist in fallaciously believing that stealing software, music, movies, etc. should not be a crime, then THE EQUIVALENCE IS THAT STEALING ANYTHING SHOULD NOT BE A CRIME!
I doubt you believe that. Even crooks feel that they are being unfairly taken advantage of if someone else steals their loot.
jlw
Actually, I don't download music off the internet at all. I don't even have any software installed to do so. Not only that, but my CD burner hasn't been working in months, so I couldn't copy music if I wanted to. Trust me, my soul isn't being tortured over the issue.
Your comparison of "1s and 0s" to atoms doesn't seem particularly apt to me. The main difference is (as Eugene pointed out in his posts) that with atoms, the ability to exlcude others from use is important in ensuring that you yourself are able to make use of your property. With intellectual property, the same difficulty does not apply: you can listen to a song you wrote and enjoy it, no matter how many other people also have copies.
Additionally, there's quite a moral difference between "robbing" a store (an inherently violent act) and making a copy of a CD. You might be able to make an analogy between non-violent theft and copying, but even in those cases there's a significant difference because one is a material object (and thus has exclusionary value) and the other is not.
And please, you know that a) I am a "moral creature", and b) that I love property rights. My point here isn't to take a position on the morality of IP, but simply to claim that its demise is inevitable. This may turn out to be a bad thing, but I suspect not.
Once the Greek gnostics started spreading their knowledge rather than hoarding it, the world changed a great deal for the better.