Comments on: CONTENT CONSUMPTION THROUGH TECHNOLOGY

By: afischer

afischer — Mon, 18 Feb 2008 22:02:31 +0000

Don’t worry Mb my guess is that Costa was plenty drunk when he wrote this so you have at least that taken care of.

By: acosta

acosta — Mon, 18 Feb 2008 19:34:46 +0000

“These long, convoluted–but nevertheless important–philosophical discussions would be so much better [... in a ...] pub or in any case over a beer.”

…. as they so often are. Ha.

By: MbF

MbF — Mon, 18 Feb 2008 17:40:45 +0000

These long, convoluted–but nevertheless important–philosophical discussions would be so much better in a salon,a club,a pub or in any case over a beer. See how captured by the digital age you already are? What you have gained in access to each other over greater distances, you have lost in “quality” of the experience. No beer!

I don’t mean to be fascetious. There is a different quality to the interaction which has both pros and cons. As a mostly pre-digital person (a/k/a a dinosaur), I am not that qualified to explore this issue. Only once have I resorted to what amounts to an E-Book, and that was only in an emergency in the middle of the night when both libraries and bookstores were closed.

But sorry Costa, this is a digression from the message to the medium.

By: acosta

acosta — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 04:29:19 +0000

well, ok so this comment is fairly difficult for a number of reasons:

1) this conversation has evolved into something quite wonderful … a discussion of the ideas of property. i think this warrants a lot more discussion (that’s an obvious understatement), but as the teebs-afischer exchange here as been excellent especially as i think it might be applied to digital property, i am currently writing myself an email to write a post about digital property.

2) i’m very happy that conversation has evolved here … that was my main objective with the post. even though i now have rethought a lot of the things in the post by encouragement of the comments, i am counting this as an overwhelming success. i hope you agree. i haven’t posted here … and for that i am somewhat of a hypocrite (though that’s not perhaps the correct term) … but i have work. what the hell do you guys do in the middle of the day? (some of excluded … i know what you do and why you have time).

3) jrgreen comment #26 … this is terrible. i assume this is work funded by the public (as almost all fundamental work is these days … however we might all feel about that) and to suggest that i don’t even have the right to know about what the work is *based on* is completely absurd. the fact that someone even wrote that code is somewhat deplorable. but more importantly …

4) post the links you sent to me (eureka, etc.) and describe the significance scientifically. this is tremendously interesting, especially in the light of current projects between you, me, and some members of the vdov.net audience.

5) i would love alec to comment here. he was the initial reason we really started talking about the issue of digital property and property in general, and i’m quite certain he would have some insight. sorry to call you out …

6) tomorrow morning (assuming i don’t get pulled away by stupid lab crap … which is quite honestly very likely), i plan on rereading all of this and reposting. but … knowing that probably won’t happen, please proceed without my input. i know lame. back to fighting matlab and new government-funded proposals.

cheers.

By: jrgreen

jrgreen — Tue, 12 Feb 2008 18:23:58 +0000

In trying to access the references to an article published in the Journal of Chemical Physics I received the message: “Error has occurred in eRights.” I have never seen this before. Apparently my institution hasn’t paid enough for my “eRights” to extend to citations. What does that right cost?

By: acosta

acosta — Mon, 11 Feb 2008 22:16:07 +0000

wow so this topic is popular eh? at least it accomplished what i set out to do. i have so much to respond to … yet i have meetings and work through the rest of the day/night. soon though. does anyone actually work around here?

By: Teebs

Teebs — Mon, 11 Feb 2008 22:02:00 +0000

I imagine that when this issue becomes commonplace and fought over, and those fighting for hospital/doctor/scientist ownership use the tumor as an position booster, policy will change on that. It’s my guess that to date, no post-op patient has become incensed over his/her property loss, and therefore there has been no reason for the rules to be any different.
Just a guess.

By: afischer

afischer — Mon, 11 Feb 2008 21:54:48 +0000

“your example of the genetic sequence is particularly interesting, though I would submit the digital product belongs to the person whose genetic sequence was copied”

As would I, but consider this… If a hospital removes a tumor from you it becomes their property.

By: Teebs

Teebs — Mon, 11 Feb 2008 21:33:41 +0000

Well you pretty much said what I would say. It is a relatively new issue, and therefore regulating it has unique obstacles — obstacles I’m not terribly familiar with (your example of the genetic sequence is particularly interesting, though I would submit the digital product belongs to the person whose genetic sequence was copied, and the copier would be paid as if performing a service — just as someone who gets a hip replacement owns the new hip, the doctor just rendered a service for pay). But I am quite certain that as issues of physical property have evolved drastically over the past millennium, digital property will evolve and codify and in time, no one will be able to understand why it was ever an issue; a few generations from now owning something with no physical representation will seem quite common place, and those of you fighting are surely laying the groundwork for that generation’s subversives, huzzah!.

By: afischer

afischer — Mon, 11 Feb 2008 21:09:29 +0000

The problem with digital “property” is that it loses a lot of what makes property ownable in the first place. It becomes infinitely reproducible with no loss to the original digital copy. One of the physicists in Shawna’s program responded to the MPAA “you wouldn’t steal a handbag” ad by saying he would if he could copy the handbag completely with everything inside of it without in any way damaging the original handbag… if that was even considered stealing.

But in reality you are probably right. Digital information doesn’t really have any sort of mythical property of “needing to be free” and we will eventually come up with a widely accepted set of rules and regulations that govern how we deal with it.

By: afischer

afischer — Mon, 11 Feb 2008 21:03:37 +0000

I see. It is interesting because a vary similar discussion came up here between myself, a bioinformatics programmer, and an applied math professor. It is very likely that soon it will be reasonably cheap and fast to have your entire genome sequenced, with the hope of finding markers of disease risks. The question then is the “digital” information of your genetic sequence then must “belong” to someone… who?

By: Teebs

Teebs — Mon, 11 Feb 2008 20:19:59 +0000

And actually, GMs motives sat just fine with me, a business is in business to make money. It was the governments facilitation that left me reeling from the stench.

By: Teebs

Teebs — Mon, 11 Feb 2008 20:16:25 +0000

Yes that is a wonderfully eloquent examination of surface level modern economics. Fairly irrelevant to my point, though.
My point was that a right is just a rule that is made in response to necessity in the interest of structure, efficiency, production. So that to say they can’t exist with digital property seems very false to me, as they are created and forgotten in the name of the three previously mentioned motives. My one example was of a case they were forgotten, nothing more.

By: afischer

afischer — Mon, 11 Feb 2008 19:53:58 +0000

The difference between non-existent “rights” or “codes of exchange” or whatever you would like to call them and the abuse of existing rights is actually very important.

The fact that in most cases public and private you are secure in your property is extremely important to the way the US economy works (for better or for worse, your world view depending). The fact that GM did this is naturally odious to most citizens. If no property rights existed then it would not seem fundamentally opposed to the US way of life. Violations of property rights (since they exist) are the exception rather than the rule.

By: Teebs

Teebs — Mon, 11 Feb 2008 19:27:44 +0000

And as far as that specific example, I would not have brought it up if it were an issue of ‘eminent domain.’ As I understand eminent domain that is an issue of a highway, or government project of some kind, which can reasonably be assumed to be aimed at the benefit or use of the public. A GM plant hardly fits that. Some people were bought out willingly. However, a large portion of the community refused to move yet watched their homes and churches and schools demolished despite their refusal — if I remember correctly, the last few who simply would not exit their homes were ‘forced out’ by everything around them being demolished anyways, they could not live there any longer in any reasonable fashion.
The fact that this wasn’t an issue of eminent domain is exactly why it’s worth mentioning.

By: Teebs

Teebs — Mon, 11 Feb 2008 19:23:31 +0000

I’m not sure that I care about the distinction between their existence or their abuse — it certainly doesn’t recreate their community or bar this from reoccurring. If you wish to say they exist but were abused, what meaning does their existence have? And I submitted from the beginning that the existence of a right is relative and changing, not that it does not ever exist. So, sure, under that eras version of a ‘right’ they had a right to their homes and community, then were forcibly removed while they protested to their government and to the men wielding the wrecking balls — all to no avail.
I guess we’d have to make a decision about the word ‘right’ in more general terms or we will just be going back and forth on semantics, and I’ve done enough masturbating today already.
My much broader point, which I may not have articulated, is that to get red in the face over the non-existence of digital property rights is going to be a waste of time and create nothing other than a hernia with no reasonable purpose. The word ‘rights’ here just means a method of codifying our interaction and exchange, and the word property is just an ingrained part of our society: nothing exists without ownership, so unless the digital information does not exist, or unless we do not plan to exchange it (which I think defeats the purpose), it certainly does require a codified system of rules for exchange, which sounds like property rights to me. Certainly there are BAD ways of going about it, but you’d be hard pressed to maintain a system of totally free exchange of digital information in our society without a major overhaul of deeper issues. Digital information does NOT occupy a totally independent existence from long-term societal assumptions and rules of exchange. To redefine or eliminate ownership, property, or rights for this one element of exchange is not possible without the a much broader and destabilizing shift in values — one I would completely support, by the way. I’ve been arguing against the benefits of physical property for quite some time.

By: afischer

afischer — Mon, 11 Feb 2008 19:05:20 +0000

I do wholly agree with your last part though. Simply because the value of the digital copy is effectively 0 does not necessarily mean physical copies are thus reduced. As long as the physical copy is desirable and not produced in near infinite quantities then physical copies will have value.

A CD is not that great, mostly just a lot of easily breakable plastic produced in massive quantities. Therefore it is not desirable and produced in massive quantities.

Vinyl on the other hand is produced in small quantities and is desirable (at least to some). Which is why physical big black circle with grooves records are still collected for the sake of collecting them. The idea of collecting CD’s just to have CD’s is a bit… weird, especially with the advent of digital music.

By: afischer

afischer — Mon, 11 Feb 2008 18:59:39 +0000

I take issue with the GM/Poletown example in one aspect. Simply because their property rights were abused does not mean that they do not have them. The same is true with all rights.

Also (as I am ignorant of this example) I am assuming they were bought out, forcibly, using eminent domain?

By: Teebs

Teebs — Mon, 11 Feb 2008 18:48:23 +0000

I should also add my favorite example of the un-inherent and constantly shifting nature of physical property rights. In the 1980s the citizens of the community of Poletown in Detroit saw their community literally demolished, against their will, despite their ownership of their homes, schools, churches, and despite their please to their elected officials, all at the behest of GM who lobbied to have the city give them the area to build new plants. A true testament to the relative nature of the idea of a ‘right,’ as well as to the true nature and purpose of government (to act in the interest of the ‘haves,’ in whatever form that is, in this case, fluid capital).

By: Teebs

Teebs — Mon, 11 Feb 2008 18:40:37 +0000

God damnit. There’s a typo that will actually change my argument if not pointed out. Second paragraph, third sentence, second word: WORLD*, not word.