Free flow of information?

Hey people. I'm starting this thread in relation to this:
http://dis.4chan.org/read/newpol/1293992141/1-40

 I think the flow of information is a MASSIVE issue that is not beeing discussed enough.

So, do you think the flow of information should be totaly unrestricted? Or do you believe there should be laws that protect people from malicious use.

Personaly I would like to see fully unrestricted flow of information one day, but i think that a sudden change in the way we currently manage it could be catastrophical. I believe an good order of abolishing restrictions would be to

a) abolish all copiright and intelectual property laws.
b) make all bank transactions available online
c) enforce transparency in bussinesses and states by forcing them to release all info they manage - including all their financial info.
d) allow some 20 years for the world to digest itself

Please feel free to attack my point of view and add your own. Scepticism is a bless...

a) No.
So how do scientists get paid for their work in relation to the value of their work? The economy is dependent on technology and innovation and in particular accurate judgement of the worth of certain research, market forces accomplish this.
b) Limited.
This should be limited to those in political offices or administrative positions in state services like the police, if it were applied to every citizen it would be a huge breach of privacy, however for those who have accepted the responsibilities of government it's fine.
c) Limited.
This should really be restricted to tax accounting and valuation, noting down every single transaction would be a bureaucratic nightmare not to mention a breach of privacy with their customers, it would be one step closer to having to ask the government for permission to buy or sell something.

a) The abolition of copyright laws would cripple many industries. Why would anyone, for example, design a new piece of software if somebody can copy the code and sell it with a different wrapper?

b) Do you mean that you could see anybody's bank transactions? That's absurd, and a flagrant violation pf privacy.

c' Businesses are private. Are you allowed to break into your neighbour's house to rifle through his bills and receipts?

a) you can't: as an anonymous individual you're not in a
position to do so. you can support initiatives such as TPB,
perhaps even look into the idea of cypherspace, but the
law is the law and it doesn't get rewritten according to your
wishes.

b) cool idea, but how exactly do you propose we get these big
corporations to comply? we can't boycott them because we don't
have traction amongst their customers, we can't force them
because we don't have influence.

c) see b

d) eh

i can't help but feel this is another 'what would you do if you
were the supreme dictator of the world'-thread... dream.

perhaps start by asking yourself what's happening in the world
re corporatism, personal liberties, expanding governmental
powers, etc... what's the big picture? where are we right
now? where do we seem to be going? from there, you can
start thinking about what you (as an anonymous individual) can
do.

>>4
"...but the
law is the law and it doesn't get rewritten according to your
wishes."

How many wishes will it take?  How many people will it take?  I'd like to think that enough people backing one ideal would make a wish a reality.

How many wishes will it take?
one, really.

How many people will it take?
at least a few.

I'd like to think that enough people backing one ideal would make a wish a reality.
i think it depends on reality, the ideal, the people that are backing it and the methods they employ. care to define those?

>>5

a) It will take 8 wishes.

b) It will take 34 people.

>>7
Your reference flies over my head.

>>1

Both A and B would be bad changes. A specifically was enacted to promote technological growth, a semester of college history will get you up to speed on why. B would be bad due to a sudden dependence on 100% computer based transactions, which suck. Im 24, so its not like im repping the oldschool flags. In person transactions make me feel safer because there is a strong, more affirmable, paper trail.

as for the rest, i can support that, especially D.

>>7
I STRONGLY disagree.
By my calculations it will take 17 wishes, but only 31 people.
Damn conservative.

>>2
>>3
a) I knew i would face these questions sooner or later and I am well aware that this is how many industries work today. But on the other hand, are you guys happy with the way the industries are run these days?(intelectual property on DNA strains, trade secrets on health technologies and attempting to control the internet under the pretence of intelectual property infringement)

b)Fair enough. I think >>2 is right about distinguishing between private persons and public servants.

c)I think the confusing part here is that under current laws, companies are considered 'legal persons' and share the same rights like you and me. I do believe there are massive differences between companies and individuals.

>>11
C)This actually only applies to corporations.  Partnerships, and proprietary businesses are properties under control of one or more person.

>>12
You're right, i actually meant corporations but couldn't find the right word (I'm not a native speaker)
>>9 True about personal transactions. As to A), I don't know what they teach you in your country, but where I come from college history only makes you think in a nationalistic way. The point though is WHO OWNS THIS TECHNOLOGICAL GROWTH.

Excuse the long example following, but i think in the end you'll understand where i'm comming from:

A few years back i was discussing with a friend. I was saying that humans and animals are prety much the same thing. He said:
-Wow man, we have cars, computers, mobile phones etc. Do you know any animals that can do this?
My reply was: Hold on a minute dude, can you make cars?
-No
Can you make computers?
-No
Mobile phones even?
-No
So how come you think you are smarter than animals? Take away the technology and you can't even survive in nature. Just because some people ARE smarter than both you and animal, and they make you wake up in the morning and work all day to get paper money in order to exchange it for the new flashy object they created doesn't make you very smart.
-Silence...

You see my friends, we humans often oversimplify things in order to comprehend them. But as more and more middle class people are chewed and spit out poor by the system, more people start to wake up and understand how they have been fucked dry by the system they 'are part of'. It's like a wake up slap. And if you don't feel like becoming violent, information is the next best choice in my opinion.

You see i come from greece and I can see corruption outside my window. I can smell Goldman Sachs and Deutche Bank in the air (I'm referring to the GS 'swaps' and the 'spreads' game respectivelly). I can hear the cannons and bombs of economic and currency warfare everyday. And I am FED UP.

In my honest opinion greece is terminaly fucked and oddly enough, i don't feel very bad about it, it was shit anyway. But if this project the bankers are pushing through in greece is successfull, they're not going to stop in ireland or portugal or spain. They're going to put this new war through until they manage to re-arrange the whole fucking planet.

You might think I'm paranoid or whatever, and i can't blame you if you're sitting comfortably in you soft chair in your massive house. But please spend half a minute what you would be without your car, your house and your job.

From where i'm standing there are two roads. Violence and information. I realy wish people knew what happened to their taxes and public property. I wish thet when (and if i ever) have children i will at least be able to explain to them how the scam was pulled.

Anyway, sorry for getting too long here but some things are hard to put in a few words.

PS. Welcome to WWIV
http://www.inmotionmagazine.com/auto/fourth.html
http://flag.blackened.net/revolt/mexico/ezln/1997/jigsaw.html

>>13
Your friend is pretty gullible to fall for an argument like that on your premise and you are very evil to pull it on him.  The fact of that matter is he could but he's talking in general about humanity.  You switched the conversation to him specifically; he obviously did not at the moment of questioning possess any of the skills to assemble those gadgets but you both missed point that you can learn them on your own time and build your own gadgets.  Then, in the moment of disconnect, you spring on him (and us) an argument that follows few of the premises.

>>14 I think i might be confusing you because i'm talking about two different things on the same post (theree actually if you invlude my reply to>>12). Freedom of technology and freedom of information such as to expose corruption. With the first i was replying to >>9 . The second part about the banks and greece is pretty much frustration i couldn't hold in. I should have left some more space between the two or put it two different posts.

Now,in respect to your reply (>>14). Yes, of course we could make any of the above items if we had the technology to do it. But we don't. This is the whole point. That restricting information such as technology seperates humans in 'enlighted' and 'not enlighted' and that even though we have the brains to match many 'clever' people, we can't. Instead we have to work in order to accuire the USE (not the production ,development and true understanding) of the technology. Isn't this another kind of slavery? One that comes from restricting and withholding info?

 So the point is: Where do you draw the line between what information (or technology if you like) should be public and what sould be private in order to protect the public from this technological 'slavery'.

>>15
My apologies.  Your two ideas blended together and the only assumption I could make was you were trying to transition the topic to Greece.

Instead we have to work in order to acquire the [possession] of the technology
That's because we do not live in a post-scarcity society and there is, as of yet, no easy avenue to achieving a post-scarcity world.  Until such a situation arises where it is feasible, realistically and economically, to give people whatever they want at the drop of the hat, creating no serious or consistent strain upon another person, personal effort and desire, the demonstration of how much you are (legally) willing to risk to accomplish things, is the only fair way to judge the distribution of goods.  Currency follows from this concept, as do economy.

If we are talking about education or such intangible things, we apply the same heuristics above to indicate that the represented professors and instructors live within this frame of a limited world and must, for their skills, request/demand some compensation to survive.  (Don't get me wrong; they get compensated way too much in my country in my opinion.)

If you think anything of the above has gone too far away from your point, bear with it nonetheless.

As to your question I am going to provide an enigmatic answer: there is no way to draw the line between what kind of information should be public and what kind should be private or, more to the point, what kind of information is important for someone to know and what kind of information is unimportant for anyone else to know.  In this matter, all choices are arbitrary and subjective and inherently selfish.  The drive to want to know something within equally arbitrary constraints called a "system" is the judge of whether or not the subject deserves to learn any information that is not handed to them freely.  A search engine can teach you that easily enough: querying common things is simple, but the more uncommon or more specific the queries become the harder you have to work to extract a useful result.

Note that, by bridging the my above remarks on material technology with your question about access to information, I am not implying that information is limited or that human ambition is limited.  Rather, the delivery system(s) is limited and that is an inescapable fact.  Information does not exist raw, without ink and breath and electricity to convey it.

>>16
Wow, you are very inteligent and well educated. I had to read your post numenous times in order to understand what you mean. (And i'm not saying this ironicaly)

 Of course we don't live in a post scarcity world and although it sounds like a nice high target to set, i'm not sure if it is within human nature - or nature in general. You make a very good point, basicaly saying that we need to work in order to have access to resources including technology and information. And of course we have no other reason to work other that to get a reward. But I think all this is way off-topic.

 Regarding your last two paragraphs, you make another good point: That there is unlimited information and human ambition to learn but limited connection between the two. I'm not sure whether or not this kind of systematic approach is enough though, because - even though it locates the limit to the system - it doesn't tell us whether this is a systematic limit, or maybe a limit relevant to bad information management by the society. In simple words, although i realy like your way of thinking, i am inclined to believe that what limits the free flow of information(technology) between the creator and the public is more related to the class structure of our societies rather than a systematic limitation to spread the technology/information equaly and in a fair for all manner.

>>11
Corruption can only exist by force or by fooling enough people into thinking it's justified, the fact corrupt forces are abusing patents and copyright laws is inevitable and would happen to it's alternatives. The key here is contrasting the 2, in particular taking into account how they fare in the hands of the ignorant masses, it's easy to say "if people would do this and that the world would be a better place" but that's not going to happen.

At the moment the only way to prevent those evil corporations from copyrighting public domain or setting draconian punishments for breaches of copyright law is to organize mass movements and take it to court, I'm pretty sure instead of applying all this energy to individual cases it would be more effective to amend intellectual property right law to protect public property as well or to disqualify punishment against those who used intellectual property unknowingly.

One problem with abolishing the copyright entirely is that a lot of people would lose the incentive to publish anything.  It takes a lot of time to create content.  Most movies take over a year from writing and casting to release day.  Novels might take 6 months or more.  Video games (at least the large releases) can take 2 years from concept to completion. 

If these products were essentially free at the moment of release, no one would spend the kind of time and money needed to produce these things.  Studio time ain't cheap, nor is the hardware needed to produce games, movies and music.  Without the possiblity of a payoff, it's all loss.

I do see how something that is public and part of public culture shouldn't be copyrighted.  I don't think it would be resonable to copyright common cultural ideas.  Making people pay every time they want to sing happy birthday is stupid.  So is trying to copyright Paul Bunyon, Casey at the Bat, or things like that. 

personally, I'd limit copyright to 5 years.  That way people would still get their payday, but eventually the information would be free.

>>19
5 years is arbitrary.

>>19
If the only incentive for some people to "create" is the money from copyrights, then fuck 'em.
Give me plain old creative impulse any day.

>>19
Hello my friend. I write electronic music and publish it for free. I work to make a living, just like anyone else i guess. I don't think i could ever charge anyone to hear my music for two reasons A) I don't consider music a product and B) I get my reward when i see people party hard and enjoy themselves with my music.

 Do you think I could ever compete against professional producers with managers, contracts etc? For me most of those people are small dicked attention whores who consider themselves too importand to have a normal job or even associate with normal average people. And in the end of the day it's them who steal ideas from the real undergound, not the other way around.

 Music is nothing but a bunch of memes. There is no original artist(well, that's an overstatement actually). Art is a living evolving entity. Artists are nothing more than the cells of this organism.

Enjoy the recycled music the commercialization of art leads us to. (Both Thumbs Down)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i4_f6pfabQk

If you are happy with this industry keep buying music, don't copy or share it and preferably only listen to it through headphones. You don't want other people to enjoy for free something you paid for;)

PS. Here's an original composer for the contrast:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JctKjVHmo2g

>>19
I'm make it a year max

>>23

I see what you're getting at, but at the same time I don't think we can take one case and generalize.  You made your choice.  That doesn't mean that other people would want to make the same choice.  If I make a movie and it costs me $10,000 (pretty cheap for a movie BTW) I would either have to have a large wad of cash to pay back the costs of making the movie, or I'd have to sell the copies.  Nothing prevents me from giving it away, but it would be difficult for me to keep making costly art unless I can somehow recoup my costs.

Some art does lend itself to being free.  Pencil and paper drawings are easy and cheap to make.  Other things aren't that cheap and easy.

>>24

5 years was just a best guess.  I think it should be long enough to cover the cost of production, yet short enough that things become public domain within a reasonable timeframe.  I think that it's rediculous that mickey mouse is still coptrighted after disney died.  It makes no sense.

>>21
The thing you're sitting in front of was designed and developed by teams of scientists who were doing it for a living, not everything can be built in a garden shed by an amateur.

>>25
That would motivate people to murder scientists so they don't have to pay for the costs of research and development.

What do you guys think about copyrights on GMOs? Personaly I believe it's madness. Especialy if you consider that these organisms are sterile and farmers have to buy seeds every year at prices set by the corporations (monsanto mainly). On top of that we're talking obout a monopoly - a market with no competition. How the hell will this work in the long run?

I think copyright laws, the way they are set and practiced in the corrupt world we live in, serve the interests of only a tiny fraction of the world population. Instead of protecting the public interest and the free market, they are used to protect the interests of the elite corporations and distort any hopes for healthy competition.

>>28
Sounds like text book marxism. Obviously you're a tool.

>>29
Mate, you will NEVER hear Marxists talk about free market and competition. I do respect Marxism but it's a bit old and backwards nowadays.

>>29
"text book marxism"

sounds like Beck-speak to me.

let me say why your an idiot for each step you mentioned


a) abolish all copiright and intelectual property laws.
omg your a fucking idiot. if thier is no copyright laws people have no motivation to share how things are done.this protects people inventions so they can benifit from thier work. if thier wasnt copyright we wouldnt have scientific advancement as quickly as we do now because people wouldnt share thier discoverys just because others would take thier idea with no punishment.

b) make all bank transactions available online this one is meh but thiers a higher chance of fraud

c) enforce transparency in bussinesses and states by forcing. them to release all info they manage - including all their financial info.
again omg your a fucking idiot. why should someone be able to just look up a buisness's secrets and copy them, this reduces motivation to do anything new because it will just be stolen and it would be easier just to steal someone else market strategy.

d) allow some 20 years for the world to digest itself
lol wut?

>>30
>>31
hurr rich people did it
Corruption will never go away, if you had your little communist revolution it would just end up with a ruling class rising to power anyway. Try again.

>>32
Hello clown. It sounds like you're not realy in the mood to discuss seriously. There is an excellent part of 4chan for people like you called /b/ i believe. You can meet many epople of your level there and you can swear at each other all you want there.

a)The current rate of scientific progress is trully unimaginable and thescientists that work hard DO need to be rewarded. BUT when corporations hire scientists for a project, the copyrights and patents for the end product belong to the corporations, NOT the scientists. Also, as discussed earlier, total abolishion of copyright may not be the best choice. Instead, maintaining the copyrights for a certain period before becoming public has been proposed. I do agree with this.

b)Point taken. Still there is massive fraud today that hides behind bank confidentiality. That's why we're here, to discuss and contrast our opinions...

c)Industrial sabotage and espionage is a fact. Face it. Corporations have the sole purpose of making money for their stock holders and investors. Some patents are too serious and important to be handled in such a way. There is a whole world between the extremes (total transparency/total secrecy) and I'm sure a good enough solution exists if we keep an open mind.

d)dramatic changes can't happen in a day.

>>33
I'm not a commie man. I am closer to anarchy but not an anarchist either. It's funny, but without knowing you used the same arguement that anarchists (bakunin if i remember well) used against communists in the First International in the late 1800's( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hague_Congress_(1872) ). Therefore I agree with you. By the way the result was the expulsion of Bakunin by Carl Marx from the First International (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mikhail_Bakunin - The First International and the rise of the anarchist movement )

PS. Read more books

>>34
Anarchy sounds fun.  Like a Zombie Apocalypse, but with people :D

Guys if you want to talk about anarchy start a thread on it and I promise i'll come in and reply all your questions and even take all the abuse you throw at me. But please don't ruin this thread.

>>37
see anarchy thread

>>38
Much appreciated

>>11
companies are considered 'legal persons' and share the same rights like you and me.
That's obviously bullshit. The problem isn't corporate personhood, but rather, lack of restrictions lacking their power. Corporations need to be recognized as "people", to a certain extent, so that they can enter into contracts, etc. And thankfully, corporations can't vote, though Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission (2010).

bump

>>40
WRONG

>>40
Whoops! I fogot to add "though Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission (2010) needs to be overturned and over with. It's a bullshit ruling."

>>42
WRONG
Nice rebuttal there, chief. Stop reading Reddit, and actually understand things for yourself.

>>43

Sorry, just tired of long tl;dr arguments that go nowhere because some folks are too bullheaded to actually read what's written and give it some consideration.

>>44
Stop reading Reddit, and you won't get so worn out then.

the need to be recognized as bodies of individuals mang, cuz thats all there is

>>40

>>45
stop trying to put people down, and maybe you will be taken seriously.

>>47
"Putting people down" is not necessary if they put themselves down preemptively, using nothing more that entertaining rhetorical drivel from popular news aggregation websites. If you stop doing that, maybe you'll be taken seriously.

>>48

I love it when people think they have some idea of who I am or what I read based on comments like: WRONG

Haha, you must think you have super powers. How do you even take yourself seriously?

>>49
Everyone knows I have super powers and also that I'm a much better person than you...All my friends are like, ">>49 is stupid, we don't even like >>49".....so there.

>>49
I love it when people think they have some idea of who I am or what I read based on comments like: WRONG
Because simply stating that something is "WRONG" with no reason in rebuttal is nothing approaching a coherent argument. If you think you can be taken seriously based just on one word, you're on something else.

Right people. What kind of information should be strictly personal and what sould be public?

>>48
Stop putting people down, it's mean. You should have learned this on the playground in middle school.

>>28 What do you guys think about copyrights on GMOs?

I want to copyright niggers, so that I can round them all up and sterilize them.

a) abolish all copiright and intelectual property laws.

YES

b) make all bank transactions available online

NO.  Individuals have the right to privacy. This should only apply to public officials, business and people who use personal accounts for business use which they're not supposed to. That's why banks have business accounts.

c) enforce transparency in bussinesses and states by forcing them to release all info they manage - including all their financial info.

All their info, yes. All OUR info, no. Again, violation of privacy. Using hatchet solutions instead of a scalpal leads to back door violations of civil rights.

d) allow some 20 years for the world to digest itself

No. 1 year tops.

>>55
So I pick cotton for a living but I am an amazing writer but instead of getting paid to write books for a living and bringing joy to millions I have to pick cotton and can only write for 1 hour a day and have to live in poverty to do so.

>>56
Yup, that would get rip of all the crap literature that's being produced at the moment.

>>57
gief moneys plox

>>58, >>56

Mate, I'm a musician and still I'm against intelectual property. There's nothing wrong with selling books or CD's but the way things work right now, the big money usualy goes to publishing houses and the record industry. They're just using our work and us to blag more money from their customers. They 'create' artists to sell them and dispose them when they're done. And don't tell me that these industries don't bring people up and then drop them.

I don't buy books, so I don't know how it works for writters, but I blame the music industry for the shitty music that comes out. At the same time, commercial music hardly ever has something to offer to the musical art/science, it's just a muss-up of techniques and sounds that have initialy been used by underground and/or traditional music. If somebody had a pattent on these chords: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OdVurJFMDUI , a great part of copyrighted music should be illegal!

This is how music and the arts work. Artists steal from each other hoping that someday they will manage to actualy produce something original which is what they will be remembered for. That's why I think it's crazy to have intellectual property on arts. How different is it  from science though?

Very nice short movie from romain gavras on musicians stealing from each other below.

Part 1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KZNqJ9geMJE
Part 2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=buxTFlfZhwM

I think the above is based on the true story of 'the amen break': http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5SaFTm2bcac

Good thread bump

>>59
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OdVurJFMDUI
Maybe these "over-emotional faggots singing to chords" songs should be illegal unless their rendition just happens to be good enough to pay the copyright fee.

>>61
For fuck's sake yes! THEY should be paying US to listen to them!

a) abolish all copiright and intelectual property laws.
No, we shouldn't abolish copyright, but rather reform it drastically. The term and the "concept" of "intellectual property" should be done away with completely, though. It's a huge clusterfuck.

Thomas Jefferson said it best:
http://www.let.rug.nl/usa/presidents/thomas-jefferson/letters-of-thomas-jefferson/jefl220.php
It has been pretended by some, (and in England especially,) that inventors have a natural and exclusive right to their inventions, and not merely for their own lives, but inheritable to their heirs. But while it is a moot question whether the origin of any kind of property is derived from nature at all, it would be singular to admit a natural and even an hereditary right to inventors. It is agreed by those who have seriously considered the subject, that no individual has, of natural right, a separate property in an acre of land, for instance. By an universal law, indeed, whatever, whether fixed or movable, belongs to all men equally and in common, is the property for the moment of him who occupies it; but when he relinquishes the occupation, the property goes with it. Stable ownership is the gift of social law, and is given late in the progress of society. It would be curious then, if an idea, the fugitive fermentation of an individual brain, could, of natural right, be claimed in exclusive and stable property. If nature has made any one thing less susceptible than all others of exclusive property, it is the action of the thinking power called an idea, which an individual may exclusively possess as long as he keeps it to himself; but the moment it is divulged, it forces itself into the possession of every one, and the receiver cannot dispossess himself of it. Its peculiar character, too, is that no one possesses the less, because every other possesses the whole of it. He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me. That ideas should freely spread from one to another over the globe, for the moral and mutual instruction of man, and improvement of his condition, seems to have been peculiarly and benevolently designed by nature, when she made them, like fire, expansible over all space, without lessening their density in any point, and like the air in which we breathe, move, and have our physical being, incapable of confinement or exclusive appropriation. Inventions then cannot, in nature, be a subject of property. Society may give an exclusive right to the profits arising from them, as an encouragement to men to pursue ideas which may produce utility, but this may or may not be done, according to the will and convenience of the society, without claim or complaint from any body. Accordingly, it is a fact, as far as I am informed, that England was, until wecopied her, the only country on earth which ever, by a general law, gave a legal right to the exclusive use of an idea. In some other countries it is sometimes done, in a great case, and by a special and personal act, but, generally speaking, other nations have thought that these monopolies produce more embarrassment than advantage to society; and it may be observed that the nations which refuse monopolies of invention, are as fruitful as England in new and useful devices.