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Comment by p49k | Hacker News Reader

There is an enormous difference between a tie rack (or any commodity, including digital ones) and a letter or photo of a personal nature. There is nuance in this situation that has to be understood and recognized in order to evaluate why the feature exists and if it provides value.

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There's an enormous difference between a physical object, which has inherent scarcity; and information, which does not. We strongly enforce property rights on physical objects because since they are scarce, theft is possible (if a person acquires a physical object then someone else acquires it, it is necessary that the original acquirer no longer possesses it - therefore either it was a gift, or it was paid for in some manner, or the second acquisition was theft). The notion of theft of information was invented by politicians due to an utter lack of creativity with respect to how to incentivise the creation of a non-scarce resource. While physical property rights are rights in the positive sense (they grant owners of physical objects the right not to have those objects removed from them without due consideration), intellectual property rights are rights only in the negative sense (they grant the owners no inherent abilities they did not already have, instead they only restrict the freedom of others by limiting their rights to acquire something that would otherwise be limitlessly abundant).

You’re still not getting it. The “gift” I describe can be a letter or photo of personal nature. My point stands.

Grandma gifts you a photo of her and her partner. Do you believe that you shouldn’t be able to show your own family their ancestors picture?

It’s obviously not reasonable. She could explicitly ask, but ultimately the choice is yours.

> Grandma gifts you a photo of her and her partner.

Which is a contrived example that conveniently sidesteps the two most relevant factors: the personal/intimate nature of the communication and the consequences of sharing it against the person’s will during a timeframe in which it would have an effect on the person's life.

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