Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!looking!brad
From: brad@looking.UUCP (Brad Templeton)
Newsgroups: comp.misc
Subject: Re: Piracy
Keywords: copy protection piracy
Message-ID: <1707@looking.UUCP>
Date: 1 Jun 88 19:51:23 GMT
References: <9160@cisunx.UUCP> <1801@uhccux.UUCP> <807@netxcom.UUCP> <1641@looking.UUCP> <174@proxftl.UUCP> <1654@looking.UUCP> <895@actnyc.UUCP> <501@novavax.UUCP>
Reply-To: brad@looking.UUCP (Brad Templeton)
Organization: Looking Glass Software Ltd.
Lines: 33

In article <501@novavax.UUCP> maddoxt@novavax.UUCP (Thomas Maddox) writes:
>My sense is that we do not yet understand *information as
>property* fully enough to make absolute pronouncements;

I don't think it's so much "information as property" as it is
"creations as property."  I do think that a person's creations are the
truest form of property, and should be under the creator's ownership
and total control.

Some creations happen to be purely instantiated as information, and
that brings up the question of how one can tell the difference between
created and copied information, but it doesn't concern the issue of
whether you should own your creations.  (Other than the creations of
your gonads, which are deemed to own themselves, eventually.)

>	(As an aside, I believe most of us are committed in some way
>to the free flow of information; we feel that a culture which
>generates such a flow is a more open and civilized culture than one
>which does not.  Thus, we may be caught on the point where the right
>to personal property conflicts with this more general principle that
>dissemination of information is a good thing.)
>
As an aside, it is worth noting that most people believe that the
private ownership of plain old material property and value is most
conducive to the free and increased flow of such property.  The
economies of propertied states seem to be far more productive
and wealthier per capita than non-propertied states.

So it may well be that the best thing for the free flow of information
is encouraging the ownership of information.  It gives people a motive
to encourage the flow of valuable information.
-- 
Brad Templeton, Looking Glass Software Ltd. - Waterloo, Ontario 519/884-7473