Should information be considered a natural resource?

[Coito ergo sum]

Information is the property of the creator or recorder. Reducing an observation or thought to durable media is a creative act and that expression of information is the private property of the creator. That's how it is and how it should remain.

Contrary to the oft-heard canard, information does not want to be "free," it's just that cheapskates don't want to pay for information that someone else has labored to compile.

It's more complicated than that.

Information might be property of the creator or recorder, or it might not. It depends. And, even if it is property of the creator or recorder, that doesn't mean other people can't use it, as they very often can.

Happens here all the time -- copyrighted material is cut and pasted here all the time, with wild abandon. Nobody pays for it.

Much information is free.

EDIT - LOL - I just took and copied Seth's "property" by copying his post.

The OP is not a question of what "is" it's a question of what "should be." I simply stated my opinion on how things should be, and you should pay me a dollar every time you replicate my creation.

You phrased your post in terms of what "is." "Information is the property of the creator or recorder." That's overly simplistic in terms of what "is" and certainly is not, by any reasonable estimation, what "should be." Suggesting that anything written by anyone is their individual property and can't be used ever for any purpose by anyone would silence the world. It's an example of not thinking the issue through.

I didn't say it couldn't be used by anyone else, I said that it's the property of the person who creates it, and should remain so, as distinguished from the cheapskate information thieves and plagarist's assertion that "intellectual property" ought to have no meaning or force and that anyone who creates a work of intellectual property axiomatically consents to placing it in the public domain merely by publishing it.

People who advocate against copyright law are just greedy bastards who don't have the wit to create their own intellectual property so they want to be able to steal the labor and intellectual property of others for no better reason than that they want it.

It's a sub-set I suppose of the standard collectivist mindset that everybody should enjoy equality of outcome, even if some people work much harder than others to achieve more.

Yawn -- when something is exclusively your property, you have the right to exclude others from using it. That's why the "right" in intellectual property is called a "copyright" and doesn't mean the same thing as having a property right in a car or a toaster.

Moreover, copyright law is a creature of statute - you know - the government - the legislature. Without a statute, someone writing a song or a story had no rights in it after it was published. The whole thing is a creation of the legislature that you only want funded voluntarily. How many people will be agreeing to fund the copyright office? And, how many people would agree to be bound by it? Not those "cheapskates" who want it for free...right?

The idea of excluding others from using a word, just because someone else slapped the word on a can of soda or other product, is not some natural right. It's created by the legislature out of whole cloth, and could have whatever boundaries that the legislature wants it to have, which would be in accordance with the will of the people. If they did away with trademark and copyright law tomorrow, then that's what it would be. And, in your world of only voluntarism, you can bet that most of the country would decline to agree to trademark and copyright law or to spend one penny on funding the trademark office or copyright office, or to fund law enforcement's enforcement of it, because they'd prefer to get free downloads. We've already seen it with Napster and Limewire, and the bevy of Torrents that are out there. LOL.

[Jonesboy]

I was passing a library today and it got me thinking about the above. I'm not even sure it makes any sense, but I did begin to ponder on it, inconclusively obviously, otherwise I would not be asking.

What do you think? Is information something natural that should be considered a human right not to be denied, or should it be considered property?

Do you mean
"let's have information piped in just like what natural resources is "?
Or do you mean
"let's have stuff for free like what natural resources is" ?
How about BIg Tits? Where do they come into it? Have you thought about that? Have you? Have you? who you staring at?

[apophenia]

"Information wants to be $1.99."

— open sores slogan

[Jonesboy]

"Information wants to be $1.99."

— open sores slogan

Does anyone get that spectacular nothing?
The Hey Dude BIGGGG

Hey mate. YOU look like a poseur with a mighty fine farting trumpet. I'll bet you've trumpeted not just here but everywhere, all through your life. Phoney. The Big TRumpeter. Pharp-phone the Phoney. That's what they all called you. Always mitched off sports. And now just the biochemically sad impressario. The turd in the murk. Let's not get italian about this. I said let's not get italian about this.

[apophenia]

[Seth]

A few things.

First. Information is not intellectual property and is NOT covered by copyright any more than an artist can copyright the paint he uses on his canvas. Copyright protects use of created ideas, ideas are made up of information. For example witnessing a car crash is information, writing a short story about it is a created idea. Someone else witnessing the same car crash and writing another story is not in breach of the firsts copyright.

I knew it would descend into that but it is an erroneous position.

I suppose that depends on how you define "information" and "creative work." Copyright protects the expression of an idea, not the idea itself, so you are correct in that regard. But the expression of an idea is also information, and a specific expression is the property of the creator of that expression, and should be.

People who advocate against copyright law are just greedy bastards who don't have the wit to create their own intellectual property so they want to be able to steal the labor and intellectual property of others for no better reason than that they want it.

Secondly this. Which is absolutely the wrong way round. Most advocates FOR copyright law are not the creators of the work but distribution networks who only make money from the distribution.

Horse. Shit. As a creator of intellectual property in at least two fields (photography and writing) I can tell you without any doubt that your assertion is utter crapola. The vast majority of content creators wish to both profit from their creation and control the use of it, and that's why copyright laws exist in the first place, to protect the rights of creators to the exclusive use and control of their creation.

Since they create nothing they wish to profit from the intellectual property of others because they have no wits to create themselves they try and keep things in copyright even after the creator is long dead, just so they can keep making money.

Well, so what? If I want my heirs to continue to control and benefit from my works, that's my right. You have not expressed any rational why anyone else should be in control of the intellectual property of another against their will. Most copyright infringers are simply jealous, greedy, arrogant and unable to create their own intellectual property so they (like most socialists) steal it instead of paying for what they get.

Also many advocates for altering copyright law or encouraging creative commons licencing are the very creators of works who understand perfectly that while they have a right to be paid for their specific work, others should have the right to use it.

Socialist dupes. Anyway, anyone who wants to donate their work to the public domain is free to do so and has always been free to do so. All they have to do is file a notice with the copyright authorities and it's done.

There are many people who do support CCL or Nocopyright, who are making a lot of money from their works.

Good for them. That's their right. But fuck them if they want to take away MY copyrights by amending the law.

The only people who would stand in the way of such are reactionary backwards thinking plutocrats who wish to maintain a status quo which was anachronistic by the end of the Napoleonic era. Greedy parasitic cunts that want paid when a kid cuts a superman out of his comic book to use on school poster, who think that fair use is robbery and who CREATE NOTHING but laws to protect their greed.

Yup, just as I thought, socialist propaganda. If it doesn't belong to you, you can't use it without permission. Didn't your momma teach you that when you were four?

Now the distinction between information and ideas is out the way, a final point.

We do not own or come up with information.

Maybe you don't, but I sure as hell do, and I have international copyright law on my side. What you got, besides socialist propaganda?

We perceive it, at best quantify it, but either we accept that it is inherent to nature or we accept that everything we know is a human creation, an artifice, a convenient fiction we use to map our way around an external reality we know nothing about.

You may sail blithely around not thinking original thoughts, but I assure you that there are many other people who do. That you don't doesn't entitle you to steal what they think up. So what if it's a "human creation?" Humans are part of nature, and therefore everything they think up is "inherent to nature."

I think the latter may be approaching solipsism and the former idealism, neither of which sits comfortably with me.

Still if you want to bicker about copyright law, be my guest, its quite amusing.

Just because you think that information is independent of the human mind that created it doesn't mean you're correct.

Of course, it's just another manifestation of the asinine and immoral socialist notion that everyone ought to be enslaved to the collective and compelled to produce according to their ability (on pain of death) and that others ought to be allowed to steal what they produce for their own use according to their own definition of "need."

Fucking low-life thieving scum. They just can't learn to play nice with others and the world would be far better off without them.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

"Information wants to be $1.99.©"

— open sores slogan

[Audley Strange]

A few things.

First. Information is not intellectual property and is NOT covered by copyright any more than an artist can copyright the paint he uses on his canvas. Copyright protects use of created ideas, ideas are made up of information. For example witnessing a car crash is information, writing a short story about it is a created idea. Someone else witnessing the same car crash and writing another story is not in breach of the firsts copyright.

I knew it would descend into that but it is an erroneous position.

I suppose that depends on how you define "information" and "creative work." Copyright protects the expression of an idea, not the idea itself, so you are correct in that regard. But the expression of an idea is also information, and a specific expression is the property of the creator of that expression, and should be.

People who advocate against copyright law are just greedy bastards who don't have the wit to create their own intellectual property so they want to be able to steal the labor and intellectual property of others for no better reason than that they want it.

Secondly this. Which is absolutely the wrong way round. Most advocates FOR copyright law are not the creators of the work but distribution networks who only make money from the distribution.

Horse. Shit. As a creator of intellectual property in at least two fields (photography and writing) I can tell you without any doubt that your assertion is utter crapola. The vast majority of content creators wish to both profit from their creation and control the use of it, and that's why copyright laws exist in the first place, to protect the rights of creators to the exclusive use and control of their creation.

Since they create nothing they wish to profit from the intellectual property of others because they have no wits to create themselves they try and keep things in copyright even after the creator is long dead, just so they can keep making money.

Well, so what? If I want my heirs to continue to control and benefit from my works, that's my right. You have not expressed any rational why anyone else should be in control of the intellectual property of another against their will. Most copyright infringers are simply jealous, greedy, arrogant and unable to create their own intellectual property so they (like most socialists) steal it instead of paying for what they get.

Also many advocates for altering copyright law or encouraging creative commons licencing are the very creators of works who understand perfectly that while they have a right to be paid for their specific work, others should have the right to use it.

Socialist dupes. Anyway, anyone who wants to donate their work to the public domain is free to do so and has always been free to do so. All they have to do is file a notice with the copyright authorities and it's done.

There are many people who do support CCL or Nocopyright, who are making a lot of money from their works.

Good for them. That's their right. But fuck them if they want to take away MY copyrights by amending the law.

The only people who would stand in the way of such are reactionary backwards thinking plutocrats who wish to maintain a status quo which was anachronistic by the end of the Napoleonic era. Greedy parasitic cunts that want paid when a kid cuts a superman out of his comic book to use on school poster, who think that fair use is robbery and who CREATE NOTHING but laws to protect their greed.

Yup, just as I thought, socialist propaganda. If it doesn't belong to you, you can't use it without permission. Didn't your momma teach you that when you were four?

Now the distinction between information and ideas is out the way, a final point.

We do not own or come up with information.

Maybe you don't, but I sure as hell do, and I have international copyright law on my side. What you got, besides socialist propaganda?

We perceive it, at best quantify it, but either we accept that it is inherent to nature or we accept that everything we know is a human creation, an artifice, a convenient fiction we use to map our way around an external reality we know nothing about.

You may sail blithely around not thinking original thoughts, but I assure you that there are many other people who do. That you don't doesn't entitle you to steal what they think up. So what if it's a "human creation?" Humans are part of nature, and therefore everything they think up is "inherent to nature."

I think the latter may be approaching solipsism and the former idealism, neither of which sits comfortably with me.

Still if you want to bicker about copyright law, be my guest, its quite amusing.

Just because you think that information is independent of the human mind that created it doesn't mean you're correct.

Of course, it's just another manifestation of the asinine and immoral socialist notion that everyone ought to be enslaved to the collective and compelled to produce according to their ability (on pain of death) and that others ought to be allowed to steal what they produce for their own use according to their own definition of "need."

Fucking low-life thieving scum. They just can't learn to play nice with others and the world would be far better off without them.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

People have accused me of making him up.