From: pete@cssc-syd.tansu.com.au (Peter Alexander Merel)
Newsgroups: alt.cyberpunk
Subject: Re: Rights in cyberspace
Keywords: Freedom information cyberpunk
Date: 18 Aug 92 06:29:41 GMT
Organization: Customised Software Solutions Centres, AOTC

tmaddox@netcom.com (Tom Maddox) writes:

>In article <1992Aug13.013045.15676@cssc-syd.tansu.com.au> pete@cssc-syd.tansu.com.au (Peter Alexander Merel) writes:
>>tmaddox@netcom.com (Tom Maddox) writes:
>>>information is not a commodity [...] *Sometimes* it can acquire commodity 
>>>status, but in general it does not have it.  
>>
>>If you can sell something and still keep a copy that doesn't mean that 
>>control of that thing isn't saleable. 
>
>You're assuming the existence of that which you intend to prove.  If
>information were a commodity, then giving it to you would mean losing 
>ownership of it; however, when (as is often the case) it is not, then not.

Ownership is equivalent to control. If I give you some corn and you use it
to feed the millions then I have lost control of it. If I give you an idea
and you use it to enlighten the millions then I have lost control of it. Under
what circumstances may you give information without losing control over it?

>>A farmer can sell as much corn as he likes and still have plenty left. 
>
>	Not if that was his last bushel of corn.  There's the difference I 
>was talking about.  If I own a commodity, I own a finite amount or number of
>it and anything ... I give away or sell will leave me with that much less.

If the farmer gives away his last bushel he cannot grow more. Otherwise he can.
Neither case implies that corn is not a commodity.

>	But if I tell you that you can ftp a copy of _Moby-Dick_ from 
>Project gutenberg, I have lost nothing.  

If you give away the last copy of Moby Dick (even if we have to
brainscrape you to make sure) then you cannot make more, and have lost
something. My point is that there is no qualitative difference between
a physical object and a virtual object - both require an investment of
finite resources, and _control_ over either is saleable.

I grant that economies of scale imply a different 'control strategy'
for information than for corn (in small amounts); on a large scale I
think the most appropiate 'control strategies' (I'm trying and failing
to avoid the word 'finance') are equivalent. Whether or not the concept
of 'a commodity' is appropriate at such scales is something we're not
going to resolve here, but I still can't see why information is less
inherently a commodity than corn.

>The fact that I can sometimes convert
>information into a commodity (by, for instance, concealing the fact that 
>a particular stock is about to climb or nosedive) doesn't mean that information
>is a commodity; it simply is a function of the fact that in a capitalist 
>economy, *anything* can become a commodity, including your love for your
>mother.

This seems a pretty fine hair to split; what's the difference between
*being* a commodity and *becoming* a commodity? Can you name something
simple that *is* a commodity and does not *become* a commodity? [Oh shit
let's just go back to defining cyberpunk okay?]

-- 
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Newsgroups: alt.cyberpunk