episode 23: Network neutrality, ubiquitous wifi, and DRM

[Michiel B. de Jong]

One day later than planned this week, sorry! here's episode 23:

https://unhosted.org/decentralize/23/Network-neutrality,-ubiquitous-wifi,-and-DRM.html

Comments welcome!

Cheers,
Michiel

[Hugo Roy]

Le mer. 22/05/13, 16:17, Michiel B. de Jong <anyt...@michielbdejong.com>:

I don't get what the first paragraph has to do with unhosted at
all. Also, the logic completely fails at: “Hence the idea of
intellectual property.” There is absolutely no logical connection
from the fact that an invention can be used at the
advantage/disadvantage of someone and from the conclusion that
there is such a thing as “intellectual property”

--
Hugo Roy | Free Software Foundation Europe, www.fsfe.org
FSFE Legal Team, Deputy Coordinator, www.fsfe.org/legal
FSFE French Team, Coordinator, www.fsfe.org/fr/

Support Free Software, sign up! https://fsfe.org/support

[Michiel B. de Jong]

On 2013-05-22 16:28, Hugo Roy wrote:
> I don't get what the first paragraph has to do with unhosted at
> all.

Cavemen with hammers are totally unhosted! ;)
the reason i brought that example up is because i think it lets you
imagine how intellectual property would work in a time when there was no
government and no law, only social instincts.

> Also, the logic completely fails at: “Hence the idea of
> intellectual property.” There is absolutely no logical connection
> from the fact that an invention can be used at the
> advantage/disadvantage of someone and from the conclusion that
> there is such a thing as “intellectual property”

ok well, let's at least say you can use an invention in a trade
situation "as if" it is your intellectual property. you can offer your
invention to another person as if you were offering a physical object,
or any other asset which we say can be "owned". basically what you're
selling is your exclusive access to a scarce good. and this exclusivity
fades away naturally as the knowledge gets more common, so then its
value in trade fades.

it is not a moral thing, more practical arising from human interaction.
for instance, a storyteller can charge for telling a story he knows, and
if both sides of the trade are happy, then there is a deal. doesn't mean
that the other person would then be impeded in any way from reproducing
that story. :)

i hope that explains my standpoint a bit. in this context it mainly
serves to say an ISP can charge for the last-mile connectivity it is
providing, but it cannot "sell" the services you access through that.

[Nick Jennings]

On Wed, May 22, 2013 at 4:42 PM, Michiel B. de Jong <anyt...@michielbdejong.com> wrote:

On 2013-05-22 16:28, Hugo Roy wrote:

I don't get what the first paragraph has to do with unhosted at
all.

Cavemen with hammers are totally unhosted! ;)
the reason i brought that example up is because i think it lets you imagine how intellectual property would work in a time when there was no government and no law, only social instincts.

Also, the logic completely fails at: “Hence the idea of
intellectual property.” There is absolutely no logical connection
from the fact that an invention can be used at the
advantage/disadvantage of someone and from the conclusion that
there is such a thing as “intellectual property”

ok well, let's at least say you can use an invention in a trade situation "as if" it is your intellectual property. you can offer your invention to another person as if you were offering a physical object, or any other asset which we say can be "owned". basically what you're selling is your exclusive access to a scarce good. and this exclusivity fades away naturally as the knowledge gets more common, so then its value in trade fades.

I agree with Hugo here, I don't think this makes any sense, whatsoever. Deciding whether to teach someone something is not intellectual property, it's just knowledge that you either do or don't share. Once that person learns it, they can do whatever they want with that knowledge. There never is any hint of intellectual property - which is, as you know, the premise that "even if you know how to do it, you still can't do it because i haven't given you permission"

There's not even a hint of correlation there, and it actually confuses the topic by implying otherwise.

it is not a moral thing, more practical arising from human interaction. for instance, a storyteller can charge for telling a story he knows, and if both sides of the trade are happy, then there is a deal. doesn't mean that the other person would then be impeded in any way from reproducing that story. :)

Well, I think this is also very different. Most stories are known, and story tellers are hired because they are masters (or aspire to be masters) of their craft. Anyone who was there, or heard of it, can tell the story of the night Billy drank 10 litres of beer and got into a fight with a pigeon, but you might be more inclined to hear it from someone who knows how to tell a good story. Again, that's nothing like intellectual property.

 

i hope that explains my standpoint a bit. in this context it mainly serves to say an ISP can charge for the last-mile connectivity it is providing, but it cannot "sell" the services you access through that.

--
Hugo Roy | Free Software Foundation Europe, www.fsfe.org
FSFE Legal Team, Deputy Coordinator, www.fsfe.org/legal
FSFE French Team, Coordinator, www.fsfe.org/fr/

Support Free Software, sign up! https://fsfe.org/support

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[Michiel B. de Jong]

On 2013-05-22 17:30, Nick Jennings wrote:
> Deciding whether to teach someone something is not intellectual

> property, its just knowledge that you either do or dont share. Once

> that person learns it, they can do whatever they want with that
> knowledge. There never is any hint of intellectual property - which
> is, as you know, the premise that "even if you know how to do it, you

> still cant do it because i havent given you permission"

ok i see your point. i changed it to say "a tradable asset", and linked
to the wikipedia discussion of the term "Intellectual Property"

[Hugo Roy]

Le mer. 22/05/13, 16:42, Michiel B. de Jong <anyt...@michielbdejong.com>:

> On 2013-05-22 16:28, Hugo Roy wrote:
> >I don't get what the first paragraph has to do with unhosted at
> >all.
>
> Cavemen with hammers are totally unhosted! ;)
> the reason i brought that example up is because i think it lets you
> imagine how intellectual property would work in a time when there
> was no government and no law, only social instincts.
>
> >Also, the logic completely fails at: “Hence the idea of
> >intellectual property.” There is absolutely no logical connection
> >from the fact that an invention can be used at the
> >advantage/disadvantage of someone and from the conclusion that
> >there is such a thing as “intellectual property”
>
> ok well, let's at least say you can use an invention in a trade
> situation "as if" it is your intellectual property. you can offer
> your invention to another person as if you were offering a physical
> object, or any other asset which we say can be "owned". basically
> what you're selling is your exclusive access to a scarce good. and
> this exclusivity fades away naturally as the knowledge gets more
> common, so then its value in trade fades.

Property might be in some form an exclusive right; and often the
poster-child for exclusive rights. But not all exclusive rights
are property (and actually, not all properties are exclusive
rights either, historically).

Trying to think of copyright or patents outside of "social
interactions" or legal institutions is silly IMHO.