From: Alex F. Bokov (alexboko@umich.edu)
Date: Thu Jun 28 2001 - 09:15:13 MDT
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
On 28 Jun 2001, Felix Ungman wrote:
> I just discovered that in the US (ironicallly), intellectual property is granted on the basis of the common good. Here in Sweden its based on the aknowledgement of something akin to a "natural" right of the author to posess control of his works.
Natural rights stem from animal territorial instincts, which in turn evolve
when an animal is able to protect resources at a cost less than the value
of those resources to an animal. You do NOT have a natural right to that
which you cannot plausibly defend, and I have yet to see a robust scheme
for defending intellectual "property".
At any rate, common good, individual good, ethics, justice, etc. have
nothing to do with my position in the intellectual property debate. I
have the opinion that open content materials have a selective
advantage and we have three ways to respond-- adapt; fail to adapt;
rely on government to postpone the time when we will have to either
adapt or fail.
For a while now, I've had an idea for an alternate-history novel,
where in the early 1900's, the wagon manufacturers succeeded at
pressuring the governments and FUDing the public into rejecting the
automobile, and the course of history thereafter. I bet one could get
quite a bit of satirical mileage out of this... I just wish I had more
time. If there are any people with better writing skills or more time
lurking, feel free to steal my idea and write the novel in my stead.
> Alex F. Bokov wrote:
> >Felix:
> >> Otherwise we'll be doomed to a life as the self-supporting farmer on
> >> the open commons of computation.
> >
> >I don't know why it would be so bad to be a self-supporting
> >info-farmer.
>
> Ever heard of the Tragedy of the computational commons?
I'm afraid that I haven't. Please enlighten me.
- --
Malcolm X 12th Group Koresh
Why are the above words in my signature? Check out:
http://www.echelon.wiretapped.net
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: PGP 6.5.8
iQBpAwUBOztKA5vUJaRNHMexAQHFTgKaAnA/SAal1aJv+OzO/cpDiIxMtszBhPuA
XwZJjCunn1fQ5/GuC4z0OaFY42dcgT95Y7Iex0ylY+EA2mEYoFUoG9IJrTDZGaKV
mv/C7kduhNhomt5Z
=VsGS
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Sat Nov 02 2002 - 08:08:20 MST