Hal Finney writes: ...stuff elided...
Getting back to the original discussion, though, I think the point remains that such a tenuous and abstract form of ownership does not serve as a good foundation for a model of cyberspace as private property. Cyberspace, in my view, is essentially a conversation. Its value comes from the interplay between different people who contribute, each bringing their own expertise and points of view. It seems odd to me for someone to lay claims to the ownership of the conversation, especially someone who is not participating.
Well, I have _never_ said that anyone can "lay claim to ownership" of a conversation! I had hoped I had made this clearer. Think of a coffehouse. Perhaps in Vienna in the 1920s and 30s, when the Vienna Circle was meeting....Wittgenstein, Freud, Carnap, Reichenbach, Popper, others. Nobody "owned" their conversation, but certainly the coffeehouse owner was free to set his polices, his "two-espresso minimums," whatever. Clearer?
One problem in thinking about these issues is focussing too closely on cur- rent software in the form of mailing lists and usenet. Already newer forms of communication such as IRC, MUDs, etc. are breaking out of these molds. Other possibilities include more fluid communications models where organization is provided by links between messages. In such a system, there would be no "cypherpunks list" as such; rather, messages on the kinds of topics we find interesting would be linked together in various ways, with side ties to messages on related topics as well. Who would "own" this kind of cyberspace?
This is why I specifically mentioned Mosaic, WWW, and other "future" systems. This is why "Pushing the Limits" was part of the title of my thread. I don't see Hal's point here....I am not just focussing on the current approach to mailing lists. This is why the broader issues of cyberspace are so interesting.
Because of these considerations, I think cyberspace is not really subject to the kinds of ownership and control that we associate with private property. Look at the Extropians list as an example. They try to say that the list is private property and feel free to kick people off. But sometimes people get disgusted with their autocratic practices and leave. The list ends up losing value. The more they tighten their iron fist of ownership the more individuals slip out of their grasp, to paraphrase noted cyberspace pundit Princess Leia. (I say this not to disparage members of that list, which has a lot of talented people, but because to me it is a good example of the mis- application of the idea of private property.)
Both Hal and I left the Extropians list, for whatever reasons. But saying that things can lose value is not inconsistent with the ownership of the forum or place....that was my Fry's Electronics example. Fry's does not "own" its customer base, and it could easily lose it. But it owns its own places of businesses and thus can set policies without "democratic input" from other folks who _claim_ to own a part of it.
My model of the ultimate future of cyberspace emphasizes selectivity and filtering of a huge corpus of messages, articles, essays, debates, etc. The hard part is going to be picking out what is interesting to you, and making your contributions in such a way that interested people see them. I really don't think our current infrastructure of mailing lists and usenet does a very good job of this, and I hope that in the future better approaches will be possible. It's not clear what role ownership will play in that system.
I agree with Hal here. But on the issue of "ownership," laws will play a small role. Crypto will provide the key. Regions in cyberspace will be "owned" by the "right of arms" of the creators/colonizers being the ones able to control access, limit behaviors, etc. Of course, no one can be forced to visit "Tim's Cyberspace Coffeehouse." But if they do, a la the Fry's Electronics or Vienna examples, it's "my house, my rules." It's amazingly straightforward. --Tim May -- .......................................................................... Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, tcmay@netcom.com | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero 408-688-5409 | knowledge, reputations, information markets, W.A.S.T.E.: Aptos, CA | black markets, collapse of governments. Higher Power: 2^859433 | Public Key: PGP and MailSafe available. "National borders are just speed bumps on the information superhighway."