guest@hyper.UUCP (guest) (03/08/88)
I tried to keep myself from posting this, I know it will just encourage
them to keep harping on the issue, but I just can't go on silently
suffering their non-logical assertions. So ...
The issue is copyright infringement, software piracy, idea theft or
whatever else you like to call it. My perspective is not whether
such things are currently illegal, but whether there is coercion
involved, and just who is invoking the coercion.
"Define your terms!"
Coercion - The initiation of the use of physical force, or the
the threat thereof.
Fraud - (I will avoid defining the term fraud, except to say
that it is non-passive -- it requires the initiation
of some action.)
Theft - The use of coercion or fraud to obtain some value.
Is it possible for someone to violate the copyright law without engaging
in coercion or fraud? Yes! In fact that is the most common form of
piracy. Is such piracy theft? No! (By my definitions. Not by legal
definitions which have nothing to do with logic.)
Is it possible for a copyright holder to enforce his copyright without
the use of coercion? No! (In most cases.) Ironically the copyright
holder who uses coercion to maintain his asking price is directly
obtaining value by that act. The copyright holder is the thief!!!!
Your mission, should you decide to accept it is to show that my premises
(definitions) are not robust, or that I erred in their application. (logic)
- John M. Logajan {...!rutgers!} umn-cs!hyper!ns!logajan
- Network System Corp.; 7600 Boone Ave; Brooklyn Park, MN 55428) (03/10/88)
Yesterday I went into my local store to get a game. I took it from
the shelf and tried to walk out of the door. "Hold it", said the
owner,"drop the game, or I call the police". I dropped the game.
And of course I immediately went to the cops and told them about the
theft the store owner had committed.
In Logajan terms:
1) Fraud + Theft. I have the value
2) Coercion
3) Theft (I dropped the game, by coercion, owner gets the value back)
What's wrong ? Theft is a 'common sense' word and not a little
Logic 100 Token. It has a meaning in terms of social interaction
that we are all aware off. The Logajan approach is the standard and
wrong AI approach.
That is the try to narrow an elaborate concept into a single rule
(and then with the addition of lots of exception like (OK it is
no theft if the value originally belongs to the owner and if the thief is still on the premises and so on...)
Aloha aus Samoa
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--------------------------------------------------------------guest@hyper.UUCP (guest) (03/12/88)
Logajan says: >> Coercion - The initiation of the use of physical force, or the >> the threat thereof. >> Fraud - (I will avoid defining the term fraud, except to say >> that it is non-passive -- it requires the initiation >> Theft - The use of coercion or fraud to obtain some value. >> ... The copyright holder is the thief!!!! wallman-george@cs.yale says: > Yesterday I went into my local store to get a game. I took it from > the shelf and tried to walk out of the door. "Hold it", said the > owner,"drop the game, or I call the police". I dropped the game. > And of course I immediately went to the cops and told them about the > theft the store owner had committed. wallman-george@cs.yale's counter-example is much more interesting than his analysis of it. He essentially concludes that 'common-sense' dictates definitions for concepts like 'theft' which we ought leave undisturbed. I don't find that a very enlightened world view, frankly. His counter-example is good in that it does indeed address a rather enormous hole in my definition of theft. Something was left out due to my pre-occupation with the normal modes of software piracy. My definition was good as far as it went, it just didn't go far enough to cover all that we intuitively feel it should. It wasn't general enought. I was thinking about how to fix it, but what I was coming up with sounded too ad hoc-ish. (Something Mr. Wallman complained about.) Then I recalled something I was thinking about four years ago -- a more general theory of rational human interaction. Only now did I realize the broad power of this new theory. It's an Occam's razor of human interaction, against which all inter-human conduct can be compared. To wit: The General Theory of Reciprocity: Anyone who initiates action X toward another cannot then rationally object to the application of equivalent action X toward himself. Let's try a few examples: 1) Anyone who initiates the use of force against another cannot object to the use of force against himself. (Justification of self-defense.) 2) Anyone who initiates the use of fraud ... 3) Anyone who initiates the taking of property from another cannot object to the taking of property from himself. (Wallman's case -- disproved!) 4) Anyone who initiates the copying of software from another cannot object to the copying of his software. (Logajan's case -- proved!) I like this new theory. I think I'll call it Logajan's Theory, or how about Logajan's Rule ... err wait ... how about: Logajan's Golden Rule ... Yeah! That's the ticket! - John M. Logajan {...!rutgers!} umn-cs!hyper!ns!logajan - Network System Corp.; 7600 Boone Ave; Brooklyn Park, MN 55428
pes@ux63.bath.ac.uk (Smee) (03/17/88)
Logajan (apparently) says... > >The General Theory of Reciprocity: > Anyone who initiates action X toward another cannot then rationally > object to the application of equivalent action X toward himself. > > Logajan's Golden Rule ... Yeah! That's the ticket! > >- John M. Logajan {...!rutgers!} umn-cs!hyper!ns!logajan >- Network System Corp.; 7600 Boone Ave; Brooklyn Park, MN 55428 Careful John. Someone suggested that nearly 2000 years ago, and got nailed to a tree basically for saying how great it would be to be nice to people for a change. (To paraphrase Douglas Adams -- HHGG part 2). :-) (No, I'm not super religious, but I can accept the bible as an interesting story; maybe even as metaphorically expressed history. Either way, this guy sounds like he was a pretty good dude, to me. Shame that not everyone who professes actual faith is likewise. Anyway, this looks dangerously like getting metaphysical -- I suppose if anyone wants to challenge this one on religious grounds, they should e-mail me, or move it to net.religion.) Cheers, Paul