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< | We Are All Prometheus Now | >
> | Intellectual Property and Thought Control | | | | |
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< | The ideas in this essay crystallized after watching Cory Doctorow’s recent lecture, The Coming War on the General Purpose Computer, and upon reflection is also a reaction to reading some articles by Robert Hale.
We believe that in a free society, government enforces laws that limit freedom of action in order to protect our safety and a democratically determined social order. We'd like to believe that our thoughts can't be restricted. Maybe we could accept a limit on what we can read or hear -- if only rarely, when needed to keep us safe from our darkest fears, terrorists, child pornographers, identity thieves.... But, our sense of freedom recoils from the notion of the state imposing and enforcing limits on how we think, independent of any manifested action. | >
> | We believe that in a free society, government enforces laws that limit freedom of action in order to protect our safety and a democratically determined social order. We'd like to believe that our thoughts can't be restricted. Maybe we could accept a limit on what we can read or hear -- if only rarely, when needed to keep us safe from our darkest fears, terrorists, child pornographers, identity thieves.... But, our sense of freedom recoils from the notion of the state imposing and enforcing limits on how we think, even where thoughts are not physically manifested. And yet, the laws that apply force to support the concept of intellectual property violate this core principle. | | |
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< | Computers challenge our idea of a free society with freedom of thought and conscience. Computers are the main way we share knowledge. They run 3-D printers that build physical objects. They run machines to manipulate DNA and modify microorganisms. Governments may enforce laws to stop computers from copying movies, build counterfeit or dangerous goods, or synthesize patented or dangerous microorganisms. But, controlling what we can do with a computer doesn't just limit the freedom to do. It also infringes on the freedom to think. | | | When we think about computers, we don't usually think about what computers actually are, just what they do -- the software they run or the content they display. The computer is just a passive, invisible entity. We don't even call most of them "computers." We use words like "smartphone," or "tablet" instead of "tablet computer." Kindles and Nooks are "e-readers." We call desktop PCs that have joysticks instead of keyboards "game consoles," and we cannot seen and are not shown the computers in our Blu-Ray players and automobiles. But, these are all programmable, universal computers.
Universal computers are special, because they can execute any algorithm. An algorithm is thought broken down into pieces -- a set of process and rules that can be described using logic. What algorithms may be run on a computer is limited only by the speed of its circuitry and capacity to store data. It is always important to keep in mind that any computer is a "thinking machine," Computers process concrete logical instructions. In that sense, computer thinking seems to differ from people thinking -- but nevertheless, computers do an increasing amount of our thinking for us. | | |
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< | The concept of intellectual property has always been about the control and restriction of thought. The IP regime depends on the state's police power to enforce artificial boundaries around thoughts, so as to create a scarcity in the supply of information, the demand for which can then give it a price. The ability to freely distribute and display with networked computers reveals that this loss of freedom is based on a flawed economic bargain. But what about the other part of this -- that our safety and security depends on restricting what we can do with computers? There is no algorithm that can protect us without being circumvented by someone thinking up a hack for it. A state regime that backs up "good" countermeasure algorithms will thus have to police thought about "bad" hacker algorithms. And just as in the IP regime, the state will fail, except in its ability to punish those who aren't skillful enough to avoid capture and make life harder for dissident thought. use these algorithms to circumvent restrictions on other things governments want to control, like the ability to organize protest, and ultimately, the power to develop real solutions to the problems posed by new technologies.
-- BahradSokhansanj - 5 Mar 2012 | >
> | Intellectual property laws are all about the use of force to support artificial boundaries around thoughts, to make them scarce and thus commercially valuable. The state applies force by banning the "bad" algorithms that pierce the boundaries. The state therefore must, by necessity, police thought. The state must by force, the threat and actuality of imprisonment, prevent the execution of certain algorithms, and the creation of others. Thought is restricted, even where that thought may improve our lives in small ways, like by making the transfer of large amounts of data more efficient, or big ways, like by allowing dissidents to organize protests more safely. More urgently then just our convenience, there is our basic assumption that a free society is based on the freedom to think. The laws that try to regulate thought will inevitably lead to injustice. Innovators who seek to benefit society as a whole fall under the hammer of the law, while those who seek to use algorithms to commit crimes in the shadows slip around the enforcers. The powerless, too unskilled or lacking in resources to escape detection, are the ones who are caught. | | | | |
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< | Very interesting piece. One preliminary comment: I'm not quite persuaded yet that this piece has demonstrated that the choice between freedom and safety is a false one. I think there can be very persuasive arguments made that in many circumstances, freedom is a better choice than safety. However, I'm not sure the tension between the two dissolves so easily. I think your piece does more to make a case for freedom (since safety is impossible due to locks being circumventable) than it does to demonstrate that freedom and safety are not in tension. There may be a point to be made though that increased freedom in some circumstances increases safety - that might also be what you are getting at. If that's the case, I think that point could be more explicit. However, specifically with respect to lab synthesization of biological warfare implements, I think the argument that freedom increases safety might be difficult to make. Maybe the safety increase could come from full freedom to share information leading to antidotes for the weapons. But what if there are no antidotes? Then there would seem to be safety 'costs' to the freedom.
I think the argument for freedom would have to be from first principles, that freedom is precious, futility - that restricting freedom would not work, or that restricting freedom in the area in question would have offsetting perverse consequences somewhere else. I think the piece as it is now leans towards the 'it's futile to try to restrict freedoms in this area' argument.
-- DevinMcDougall - 20 Jan 2012
Thank you very much for your thoughtful comments, Devin. I'm going to have to think about this... I'm not sure what it would be to argue for freedom from first principles might look like? I'm trying to start from the initial point that we associate the core of freedom as being the freedom of thought, and that's what's being challenged by all of this -- so if you want the restrictions, then you have to accept the loss of that core freedom (and then what freedoms are really left?) and then, that this would be futile anyway, so it's not really like you're trading freedom for anything but illusory security -- and in fact, real solutions for the security problems can only come from human creativity, which requires freedom to think about these unthinkable algorithms.
-- BahradSokhansanj - 21 Jan 2012 | >
> | If intellectual property were really about the act of creation by thought -- if it were the way to create a free market of ideas -- can it be compatible with a legal regime that inhibits the freedom of thought and the freedom to create? The digital age reveals what intellectual property has always been about, the parcelization and control of thoughts to benefit those who did not create but rather owned the means of amplification and distribution -- the industrialists who run printing presses, the studio executives, and the financiers behind them. There is no moral case for intellectual property as protection for creators. How can one exist, when the laws needed to enforce intellectual property take away the freedom of people to create?
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< | I've changed the article, but now it's rougher and represents a couple of conflicting ideas. Maybe this really needs to be split in two essays, or I should just focus on the freedom/security false balance (for example, take the time to explain how thinking about algorithms led to secure commerce, for example, better than the solution that government tried to provide through control). | >
> | -- BahradSokhansanj - 18 Mar 2012 | | | | |
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< | -- BahradSokhansanj - 24 Jan 2012 | | | |
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