Re: Smart Mobs

From: Anders Sandberg (asa@nada.kth.se)
Date: Tue Jul 16 2002 - 15:44:04 MDT


On Tue, Jul 16, 2002 at 01:03:51PM -0700, Brian D Williams wrote:
>
> Is it still theft when 10's of millions are doing it?
>
>
> Yes.

The real issue is, was it theft in the first place? And if culture and
law changes, is it still theft? And perhaps most important, is it
immoral?

To a large extent theft is culturally constructed (ouch, I hate saying
things like that!): what is and isn't theft is defined not by natural
law but by cultural norms - witness how taxation is accepted as most as
non-theft while libertarians consider it theft but lack the cultural
clout to make it so. Similarly for borrowing pens - as long as they
are cheap and not very necessary few mind, even if technically the
diffusion of pens is a lot of theft.

So instead of debating endlessly over whether file sharing is theft or
not, we should perhaps ask ourselves 1) what are the benefits and
failings of this activity, 2) what does these imply morally, and 3) what
solutions - legal, technical, economical - can create the best outcome?

What worries me most right now isn't theft, but that the fear of theft
leads to a closing of technology in order to protect obsolete business
plans. If the record industry is saved at the price of the ability to do
arbitrary computations or the possibility for ordinary people to be
media producers, then it has not been worth it.

-- 
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Anders Sandberg                                      Towards Ascension!
asa@nada.kth.se                            http://www.nada.kth.se/~asa/
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