From: ervan@rice.edu (Ervan Darnell)
Newsgroups: alt.politics.libertarian
Subject: Re: radio waves as public property
Date: 8 Jan 93 01:31:13 GMT
Reply-To: ervan@rice.edu (Ervan Darnell)
Organization: Rice University
Originator: ervan@athene.cs.rice.edu


bolden@beta.math.unc.edu (Jeffrey Bolden) writes:
|> ervan@rice.edu (Ervan Darnell) writes:
|> >
|> >bolden@beta.math.unc.edu (Jeffrey Bolden) writes:
|> >|> 	I think it depends on what you consider to be property.  Clearly
|> >|> the air is public property.  Clearly the radio signal... is public.  Is
|> >|> the content of the radio signal public though?  I would think not, that is
|> >|> the whole basis of intelectual property.  Otherwise, would a station lose
|> >|> all rights to a show just because they broadcast it publically?
|> >
|> >My first reaction is: what about radar detectors?  I have always thought they
|> >should be legal under the notion that radio signals are public.
|> >Of course, this begs the question of what does 'content' mean in
|> >this context.  How can I not receive the content of something unless
|> >I am wholesale prevented from receiving the signal?  I.e. does it make
|> >any sense to say you can receive a signal but not try to understand
|> >it?
|> >
|> >How about this for an analogy: someone carelessly drops a copyrighted
|> >novel on your lawn.  Are you permitted to 'receive' it (i.e. pick
|> >it up) but not to read it?  It seems to me that in this case the copy
|> >of it is yours, but that implies nothing about the rights to the work.
|> >Why not the same with radio waves?  If you receive them (passively)
|> >the instance is yours but that doesn't give you the right to rebroadcast
|> >or otherwise infringe on the copyright.
|> 
|> 
|> 	Actually your analogy of the radar detector is a good one.  I
|> guess to use your language yes, you have the right to receive signal but
|> no right to try and understand it.  The anonlogy of the copyrighted book
|> is also good.  When the author sells the book he is giving the possessor
|> of the book his permission to read it, but not to duplicate, alter,
|> republish, etc... it.  The person sending out radar signals is simply not
|> giving yourthe right to "read" his signals.  Seems perfectly legitimate to
|> me.  

Thanks for the compliment, but I am not sure that we in agreement.
When I buy a book, the author (or publisher) and I are making a specific
agreement about what and I can and cannot do with that book.  Any
agreement is fine.  The question is: what happens when I receive
it without making that negotiation since I never asked for it?
It seems one has to make some default assumption about whose property 
it is.  I would say that the book dropped in my yard is now my
property (assuming we are not talking about stolen property).  Likewise,
the radio signals 'dropped' on my property are mine.  Just as surely
as I can read the book since it is my property, I can 'read' the radio waves
since they are my property (the ones in my yard that is).  The fuzzy notion
here is that intellectual property rights cannot be assumed in the same
way that physical property rights can.  My possession of physical
property *does* make me the owner of the right to it, but my possession of
intellectual property (only one instance of it) *does not* make me
the owner of the full right to it.  Again, I'm talking about default
assumptions for the case where the parties do not have an explicit
agreement.  So, in the analogy, the right
to republish the book is assumed to be a separate thing from the 
right to possess then instance
and the right to rebroadcast the TV program is separate from the
right to watch it (possess the one instance).

To restate my conclusion, I do think that any analysis one wishes to
perform on radio waves you receive is fair game.  However, that gives
you no authority to restribute it.  To respond directly to your last
sentence, I would say the person sending out the radar signals is
in no position to dictate to me the circumstances of their reception
since I didn't ask for them.  The particular instance is my property
without strings attached.

Regardless of how one feels about that argument, here are a couple of
related issues:
If my argument is accepted, do the police then need a warrant to
listen to phone conversations that happen to be transmitted?
If 'yes', then surely individuals would not be allowed to listen
either thus destroying the public airwaves principle
(since they could easily make the information known to
the police).  One could escape this by saying the police could
not use such information even if it were public, but that seems
rather strange.  If 'no', then what does one make of the
constitutional protections against unreasonable search and seizure?

What about theft in the form of blocking the signal?  Can I put up
a large metal plate that prevents my neighbor from getting the signal
so long as the plate is on my property?  Surely the answer is 'no',
but drawing the distinction between passive reception and active
interception (but not jamming) *on your own property* might be tricky
on the sort of philosophical grounds being argued here.  This actually
happened in a more amusing form where a fellow stole power from a
nearby line by using inductors entirely on his property even
though the line was on someone else's.  Where the magnetic waves
own on his property his or not?
Xref: sparky alt.politics.libertarian:3036 comp.org.eff.talk:8331 alt.amateur-comp:482 soc.culture.usa:9469 alt.activism:20073