identity copyright
Brokenpa
paper caused by junk mail? Annoyed by telemarketers invading the privacy of
your home via phone? Worried about your identity being stolen? Scared of your
genetic information being used to deny you insurance or job benefits? I
propose making the people who cause the problems pay for the solutions, using
legal models and means of enforcement already in existence and known to be
effective.
In the current information economy, personal information is unquestionably
both a commodity and, particularly in the case of genetic information, a
possible basis of egregious discrimination. Current legal structures provide
inadequate protection against nuisance communication, identity theft, and
genetic discrimination. But the fact that such information is a commodity
means that personal information can now be considered similar to copyrightable
original art, a kind of unique and intrinsically valuable intellectual property
deserving of compensation to the originating individual when such information
is used by unauthorized agents with the intent of financial gain.
Legal Model
Laws should be passed guaranteeing individuals inalienable and nontransferable
copyright in perpetuity on their name, image, home address, phone numbers,
social security numbers and other governmental registrations, email addresses,
credit card numbers, DNA records, and similar identity-related information.
Such information would have the same public status as current use, except that
for-profit use unauthorized by the individual, such as junk mailings,
telemarketing calls, spam email, personal information database sales, credit
record sales, etc, would entail royalties to be paid by the unauthorized users
to the individual.
Enforcement Model
Any organization using personal information for profit would be required to
pay license fees, with the fees being scaled according to the frequency with
which they use the information. Royalty fees would be collected by an
ASCAP/BMI/SESAC-like industry of competing nonprofit guilds which would take a
limited percentage of the fees in exchange for guaranteeing the remainder of
the royalties to the individual and providing legal aid in cases of identity
theft, discrimination based on DNA records, etc. Individuals would register
with a guild much as musicians and authors do now, and would be free to switch
guilds if they feel that their current organization provided inadequate
services. The percentage of royalties kept by the guild would constitute the
individual's dues. Guilds would not be empowered to license out or sell
personal information, and would be subject to massive legal penalties for
misuse of such information.
In short, you get paid every time you get spammed, junk-mailed, cold-called,
etc. You get paid every time one company sells your name to another company.
If you don't get paid, just tell your guild and it sues the spammer for you.
If your identity is stolen or you are discriminated against based on your
personal information, your guild provides you with legal aid already paid for
by your dues. And if your guild does you wrong, you can sue it yourself. I'm
sure it wouldn't work perfectly, but it would be a lot better than the current
situation. It's your information. It's their fault. I think they should pay.
Chris
said:
<snip all>
You can only copyright *original* material that is the product of "imagination"
(broadly defined). Your parents (guardians, etc.) might argue a theoretical
copyright to your name. SSN, Driver's Licence number, etc., etc., etc. are
neither your idea nor, really, original.
Sorry, there's not a shred of legal ground for such an idea. Better to get the
law treat it simply as theft.
--
You can't have a light, without a
dark, to stick it in. -- Arlo Guthrie
William Fason
"Chris" <Chri...@nwlink.com.com> wrote in message
news:3cad3951.15802019@localhost...
Brokenpa
>You can only copyright *original* material that is the product of
>"imagination"
>(broadly defined). Your parents (guardians, etc.) might argue a theoretical
>copyright to your name. SSN, Driver's Licence number, etc., etc., etc. are
>neither your idea nor, really, original.
>
>Sorry, there's not a shred of legal ground for such an idea. Better to get
>the
>law treat it simply as theft.
>
be brought under existing copyright laws or that it is work of the imagination.
I'm just noting that information technology makes identity valuable in a way
similar to copyrightable material, such that personal information is now a
traded commodity, and going on from there to state that the individual 'owning'
the identity is similarly deserving of compensation when others attempt to
profit from or abuse their identity without permission.
Copyright laws were not really needed until the printing press and like
technologies made original work easy to reproduce and sell without
authorization, and were passed in response to the new situation created by new
technologies. Legal recognition that identity is now similarly unique,
valuable, and easily abused would be a step toward protection for individuals,
and copyright law offers an established working model for such recognition to
be enacted and enforced.
William Fason
Answer: Your name.
"Brokenpa" <brok...@aol.com> wrote
> similar to copyrightable material, such that personal information is now a
> traded commodity,
Yep, you can hardly open a newspaper or magazine, or turn on a TV without
encountering information about other people.
> technologies. Legal recognition that identity is now similarly unique,
> valuable, and easily abused would be a step toward protection for
individuals,
> and copyright law offers an established working model for such recognition
to
> be enacted and enforced.
What a stupid idea.
Brokenpa
>Yep, you can hardly open a newspaper or magazine, or turn on a TV without
>encountering information about other people.
Yes, but the magazines aren't publishing their home addresses, SSNs, credit
records, etc. I'm talking about unique personal info, the use of which can be
at best annoying and at worst devastating to one's financial standing. If you
were totally unconcerned with your info being picked up, you wouldn't have that
stuck that "nospam" in your e-mail address...
William Fason
> Yes, but the magazines aren't publishing their home addresses, SSNs,
The magazines tend to focus on trivial stuff like who the celebs are
screwing, who's gay, etc.
Newspapers do. They publish are sorts of "sensitive" stuff like addresses,
liens, judgments, civil suits, arrests, foreclosures, property sales,
amounts paid.
Do you know what single agency is responsible for the release into the
public domain of more SSNs than anyone else? The IRS. They put it on tax
liens which they file in the real property records, which are as public as
public can be. Oh yeah, they also include the address of the taxpayer.
And here's another one. When I prepare a judgment lien, I *always* include
the person's full name, aliases (maiden name, nick name), DOB, DL, SSN, home
addresses, work addresses. And then I file it in the deed records for the
world to see. If you became king and promulgated your Personal Information
Ownership Decree, I suppose all that would become a crime.
> I'm talking about unique personal info, the use of which can be at best
annoying and at worst devastating to one's financial standing.
Ever been to a courthouse and done research? One look and you'd probably
run in terror at all the personal information that leeks out in legal
proceedings.
And then you have all that independent media such as www.thesmokinggun.com
>credit records, etc.
If by "credit records" you mean conusmer credit reports, that's already
regulated. The law forbids access without a legally-defined permissible
purpose. But your original post didn't mention that, you throw it out only
as a strawman, and what you are arguing for ("you own the information about
yourself") goes far beyond credit reports.
BTW, if you buy steak from the butcher, who "owns" that information? You or
the butcher?
> If you were totally unconcerned with your info being picked up, you
wouldn't have that stuck that "nospam" in your e-mail address...
I'm not concerned that someone knows my email address, but I like not
getting so many ads for nude psychic cheeleaders.
Joe Moore
>BTW, if you buy steak from the butcher, who "owns" that information? You or
>the butcher?
OK, I'll bite.
Please give me one good reason why it is in my interest or the public
interest for the butcher to know that "I" in particular bought the
steak?
Why should the butcher have any claim to ownership of that
information? Is there a sign in the shop which says "Choice Steaks
$7.00 per pound + the permanent right to make as much money as I can
from my knowledge of the fact that you in particular bought a steak
from me regardless of the negative impact it may have on the quality
of your life"?
joemooreaterolsdotcom
William Fason
> Please give me one good reason why it is in my interest or the public
> interest for the butcher to know that "I" in particular bought the
> steak?
In case there's a recall. <g>
Most private-sector firms that collect information about consumers do so
only in order to sell more merchandise. Oh the horrors....
> Why should the butcher have any claim to ownership of that
I did not say he did. My argument is that nobody "owns" the fact that you
bought a steak - not you, not the butcher, not the guy in line behind you
who noticed that you bought the steak. You have no *general* right to
control the use of information about yourself, with the implication that
anyone wishing to transfer or collect almost any kind of information about
you should first get your permission. That's absurd and unconstitutional.
You should be free to do business with those who agree on your definition of
good privacy practices. You should be free to pay cash without being pulled
aside, searched, treated like a criminal, forced to surrender property
without due process under some flimsy forfeiture statute, profiled by the
state, or forced to fill out invasive questionnaires under the rationale of
"helping to fight the war again [money-laundering][drugs][terror][fascist
kiddie porn][some other great evil that threatens Life As We Know It].
So long as you can pay cash, you still have privacy even in the sense that's
implied by the original poster's argument.
Joe Moore
>"Joe Moore" <mun...@bad.example.com> wrote
>> Please give me one good reason why it is in my interest or the public
>> interest for the butcher to know that "I" in particular bought the
>> steak?
>
>In case there's a recall. <g>
>
>Most private-sector firms that collect information about consumers do so
>only in order to sell more merchandise. Oh the horrors....
Of course selling more merchandise by improving the value they
provide to the customer would never occur to them. They seem
to believe that each customer wants to have everyone he buys
something from analysing his wishes and trying to sell him something
else. That's why this year's version of Turbo Tax insists that I
install Internet Explorer, changes my default browser settings,
and litters my desktop with AOL icons and such instead of
just helping me to do my )(*&)&* taxes.
> You have no *general* right to
>control the use of information about yourself, with the implication that
>anyone wishing to transfer or collect almost any kind of information about
>you should first get your permission. That's absurd and unconstitutional.
As far a constitutionality goes, that's for the courts to decide. And
the constitution can always be ammended. But laws restricting the
collection and use of information have a long history Blackmail is
illegal. Industrial espionage is illegal. Stalking is illegal.
Voyeurism is illegal. Copying and selling the information used to
describe to a machine how to do certain functions or reproduce
certain artistic performances without consent is illegal.
In each of these situations, society has decided that the negative
effects on society of those information collections or usages are
enough to warrant banning them.
It seems reasonable to me (and evidently to a lot of Europe) that
the negative consequences to individuals and to society in general
of the unrestricted proliferation of private collections of personal
information about unconsenting individuals justifies restrictions.
>You should be free to do business with those who agree on your definition of
>good privacy practices.
I would be free to do that if there were any, if there were any
cost effective way to find them when I needed them, and if there were
some legal protection for me if they changed those practices or are
bought by another business after collecting my personal information.
I am also free to do business with those grocery stores that agree
with my personal definition of the accuracy of the scales they use to
weigh produce. Fortunately for me, society recognizes the need for
minimum standards in that area.
>You should be free to pay cash without being pulled
>aside, searched, treated like a criminal, forced to surrender property
>without due process under some flimsy forfeiture statute, profiled by the
>state, or forced to fill out invasive questionnaires under the rationale of
>"helping to fight the war again [money-laundering][drugs][terror][fascist
>kiddie porn][some other great evil that threatens Life As We Know It].
Examples of government abuses in the areas of privacy and civil
liberty don't constitute an argument against the need for protection
against private sector privacy abuses. For one thing, any data
collected for private reasons can be purchased or otherwise obtained
by governments. Also, in a free society, most individuals have far
more life affecting interactions with the private sector than they do
with government.
>So long as you can pay cash, you still have privacy even in the sense that's
>implied by the original poster's argument.
But for how long? Facial recognition systems are getting cheaper and
more effective every day. And when their use eventually proliferates
throughout the private sector, the electronic description of
everyone's faces will be just another piece of personal information
to be collected without consent while people pay cash, compared
with privately available databases, stored with whatever other
information can be discerned about them, and sold to whoever
wants to buy it.
joemooreaterolsdotcom