Could Quantum Computing Kill Copyright?
torrentfreak.com
torrentfreak.com
I highly recommend reading this essay, it answers a very similar question. http://ansuz.sooke.bc.ca/lawpoli/colour/2004061001.php
These are some good videos on this, if you haven't seen them already:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Q25-S7jzgs
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zL2FOrx41N0
A large (and growing) part of the world's population will want some kind of guarantee that they'll be compensated for their time and they'll be pushing for some kind of IP. Whether or not this will be better or worse for society, only data can tell us. But regardless of that, people want to optimize for what they think is best for themselves and their offspring and will vote on the basis of that.
Copyright is a form of for-profit censorship. There are always people who will vote for censorship and slavery in order to maximize the exploitation of other people fot the benefit of themselves and theif offspring. the fact that there are always people willing to support and profit from opression does not mean that everybody else should not condemn, fight and try everything they can to end it.
As of now, copyright is not democratically supported. It is directed and enforced against the majority for the benefit of a influential minority, but it was never, anywhere on this planet, supported by any kind of democratic vote by the people. It originated in a dictatorship and has been spread behind closed doors and shielded by various party mechanisms from a direct popular vote, because the probable result of this vote would be a "no".
The turmoil around ACTA, where even talking about the negotiations was a no-go disguised as "national security" to prevent any opposition to even form, has shown that the politics around copyright is as undemocratic as ever.
I do not feel any moral obligation whatsoever to obey such a authoritarian law clearly not backed by the majority of my peers. Copying and sharing stuff is simply not wrong as long as the majority of my peers does not condemn it. I will never let a authoritarian, profit-oriented minority legislate my morals.
More likely, you're just another pirate stealing food from the dinner table, all the while complaining how bad it tastes and how small the portions are.
Keep talking yourself into it, and keep calling people with different political opinions names, if it makes you more easily cope with the undemocratic authoritative nature of today's copyright.
I wrote about this in my original post, you can read it there. Copyright is a new, unnatural form of "property" and only a minority has such a kind of property and it is enforced against the majority. But the majority was never asked whether they want this new type of property to be enforced against them, it has just been postulated as "beneficial" a few centuries ago and then enforced. No one, never ever on this planet has ever voted about it, it has since it's beginnings been enforced top down, and never legitimated bottom up.
You cant just go out and define a new type of property which resides inside others people communication and then enforce it by monitoring their communication, without ever asking them about it in the first place. Of course, you can do it, but then its an authoritative, not democratic feature. But do not expect those of us who believe in democracy to feel morally obliged to obey somebodys profit-oriented authoritative laws.
As more and more people transition to work producing only digital information, do you really think that protections for that work are going to become less popular?
I dont know. What I do know is that the majority of my peers does _not_ support IP in its current form...
> Did we ever have a formal, democratic vote on land ownership?
...while the majority of my peers _does_ support the notion of ownership of physical items. I also personally do not know anybody who doesnt, so the motivation to push for a vote on something where the result is "obvious" is relatively low, but I of course wouldn't oppose it.
> You could say the same things about any kind of property.
So you in principle do agree that the public should be more directly involved in the creation of laws which it is required to abide by.
The whole concept of trial by jury of peers implies that the peers had a role in the creating of the law, and that they do not merely decide whether a law created by a authoritative, undemocratic body, which the majority of them might not even agree with, has been disobeyed.
You got that completely backwards. See Breyer's essay and Landis and Posner's analysis of it, both cited here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Uneasy_Case_for_Copyright
As a poster on that page says, this will explain it:
However, fundamental difference: in a qc this data is represented by a super-position of states. Which is fine, but I would argue each image has not been individually created. And to write out 9.2 x 10^600,000 images is going to take a fair amount of disk space (and time). Which is what I'd imagine you'd have to do to claim copyright over them all.
Excuse me? The number of atoms in the observable universe is estimated to be 10^80. This idea is obviously complete nonsense, quantum computing or not. Next thing they'll be telling us that they'll find SHA256 collisions by simply trying 2^256 messages...
If it becomes impossible for people to make a living creating digital work you're soon going to have a super-efficient network of tubes full of nothing but shit.
If the movie industry refuses to sell movies that aren't on plastic, the Internet will obsolesce them. That will not spell the end of video as entertainment, as it will leave a void to be filled by somebody smarter and faster. MP3s didn't kill music, despite all the dire warnings. The news is struggling, but sites like huffpo have shown you can make money giving away news. There's no reason someone can't come up with a model whereby they can make money making good news.
Copyright, as it was intended, is fine. I make something, that means I can sell it, not you. I'm okay with that. I'm not okay with limiting users, and I'm certainly not okay with suing them or charging them with crimes. The laws, as they are being written, enable copyright holders to pursue the latter course of action as an alternative to innovating and adapting. That, I am not okay with. There's nothing stopping anyone from making money with quality content on the Internet, save the confines of their own lack of imagination.
But I also hear a lot of people use these arguments to rationalize violating copyrights, and I think that's wrong.
Brilliant! Someone do this please.