Whose hardware is it anyway?
p2pnet.net News View:- With the recent launch of the Petition to protect Information Technology property rights at the Ottawa Linux Symposium (French translation in progress), we now move to the harder stage of explaining the petition not only to those who we want to sign it, but those whose activities we wish to influence. It’s not only politicians who must help protect our property rights, but also software authors whom we want to discourage from working with monopolies in the hardware manufacturing and content industries to circumvent our property rights.
I’m drafting a paper titled “Protecting property rights in a digital world” that I hope to use to explain the different pieces of the puzzle.
Summary: We have works under copyright, media used to store these works, and hardware/software used to create, distribute and access these works. Each of these things has their own owners which must have their rights protected: authors (and non-creator copyright holders) of digital works, owners of the media (Physical CDs, etc), owners of the hardware, and authors/users of software.
We have a petition for users’ rights which focused on the balance needed in copyright to protect the rights of past and future authors, as well as audiences. The current petition focuses entirely on the property rights of the owner of information technology hardware. Authors should strongly support us given it’s not possible to protect their rights as authors of digital works without first protecting the rights of those who own the hardware used to produce, distribute and access digital works.
The rights of people purchasing media is important, as is the balance needed in software to protect the sometimes conflicting interests of various rightsholders. We’ve left these components for later discussions.
Who owns the hardware?
The important question we must ask is this: Who owns the hardware, and what rights should these owners of tangible property expect to be protected in the law?
As an owner of hardware, I expect to be able to control of my hardware for any lawful purpose. Where there is software, I should have the right to replace that software with software of my own choosing, including the right to author and run my own software on the hardware, if I have these skills.
Without this basic right, these devices won’tt be obeying the instructions of the owner, or protect the interests of the owner. Our property might be protecting the special interests of some third party who considers the owner to be a threat. There are many harmful aspects of this which can be understood by thinking of other things we own, from our homes to our vehicles, and the harm to society if property rights were abolished.
While it’s possible to commit crimes within our homes, or with our vehicles, we generally recognize it’s inappropriate to revoke property rights to stop these crimes.
Car owners have quite appropriately rejected having speed controls built into their cars given it’s impossible for technology to tell the difference between illegal speeding and a skilled driver trying to avoid a collision. When it comes to our homes, the idea of using spy equipment or armed private security guards in our homes to protect the special interests of someone else should make every law abiding citizen cringe. The very act of monitoring our private lives can be more harmful than the crimes theoretically being avoided, and any monitoring and control can be abused for far more harmful and/or unlawful purposes.
Hardware manufacturers have their own special interests, some legal and some not legal. Giving hardware manufacturers control over our hardware is more likely to increase the severity of the lawbreaking by these manufacturers, not decrease lawbreaking by the owners of these devices.
Protecting our property rights!
While the need to protect the property rights of hardware owners should be obvious, even those in our community are not yet familiar with thinking of ourselves as property owners. An example can be seen in the public debate about the modernization of the GNU General Public License (moving to GPL Version 3).
In a recent article in CNet News.com, Linus Torvalds, the founder and leader of the Linux kernel project, was quoted as follows:
“Say I’m a hardware manufacturer. I decide I love some particular piece of open-source software, but when I sell my hardware, I want to make sure it runs only one particular version of that software, because that’s what I’ve validated. So I make my hardware check the cryptographic signature of the binary before I run it,” Torvalds said. “The GPLv3 doesn’t seem to allow that, and in fact, most of the GPLv3 changes seem to be explicitly designed exactly to not allow the above kind of use, which I don’t think it has any business doing.”
I strongly disagree with Torvalds’ language, and disagree with his objections to the enhanced GPL.
If I purchase hardware, it’s my hardware and is no longer owned by the manufacturer. If my hardware checks a cryptographic signature on a binary file to verify its origins, it should be my signature signed with my key since I’m the owner of the hardware. It should be illegal for any hardware manufacturer, whether they’re using GNU GPL’d licensed software or not, to use cryptographic signatures to lock the owner of hardware out of their own hardware.
While I’m uncomfortable when people refer to infringement of intangible exclusive rights such as copyright as if it were “theft” (See the Jefferson Debate), I’m quite comfortable stating that I believe it’s theft of tangible property when hardware manufacturers lock out the owners of the hardware.
Unfortunately, many governments have attempted to dodge any responsibility of protecting the hardware property rights of their citizens from attempts by hardware manufacturers to circumvent their rights. This has left gaping legal loopholes in many license agreements which assumed basic property rights were protected.
The GNU GPL was written with the assumption that the owner of hardware couldn’t be locked out of their own hardware.
This meant that if the owner of the hardware had the full source code to software, and a legal license that protected it as Free/Libre and Open Source Software (FLOSS), then the owner of the hardware would have nothing that could restrict them from running the FLOSS on their own hardware. Being able to run the software is the first condition for software being FLOSS, and holes in the law should not be able to be used to circumvent the intent of a FLOSS license.
There should be no controversy about the provisions of the GPL which protect property rights, and to be honest I’m stunned by people like Linus Torvalds who disagree.
I wonder if his disagreement relates to personality conflicts with people within the Free Software Foundation?
Whatever the personalities, we all have a responsibility to help protect the rights of information technology property owners. Without the right of hardware owners to install software of their own choosing, FLOSS has no future as hardware vendors will be able to revoke these rights from us. It is unfortunate that thus far the GNU GPL is the only FLOSS license that is seeking to help protect our property rights.
Not only should we be actively trying to educate members of our community, we also need to educate the general public and politicians. People who purchase information technology hardware must think of themselves as property rights holders, and the government must step forward and protect these rights, rather than allowing hardware manufacturers to infringe our rights.
Russell McOrmond – p2pnet contributing editor
[McOrmond is an independent author (software and non-software) who uses modern business models and licensing (Free/Libre and Open Source Software, Creative Commons). He's also the CLUE policy coordinator.]
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July 30th, 2006 at 12:50 am
I wholeheartedly agree.
It’s like when i run gnu/linux on my linksys router, or on my ipod. I bought the hardware, and i should beable to run whatever i like on it period. Torvalds’ is clearly in the wrong in this argument.
That’s another thing with intangible goods like music/software. They expect to charge you the equivilent price of a physical product, yet you don’t actually own it, instead you are licensing it from them.
If you license a physical product like a car, you wouldn’t expect to pay the actual price of the car just to rent it would you? Thats exactly what these people are doing. It’s all about control, and they have the laws designed in their favour.
July 30th, 2006 at 1:49 am
I see it in a slightly different manner. If I purchase a tangible item, it is mine to do with as I please, as long as I’m not harming others in some way. If I buy a book, I can photocopy it all day long and the author can’t do jack. The content of the book, while not written by me, is owned by me. I purchased the physical book, and part of the physical makeup of that book is the content within. Likewise, a CD’s contents, after a PURCHASE, are mine to do with as I please. The problem is that governmental arms (be it judicial or legislative) have chosen to ignore my rights to do with my physical property as I wish. I don’t buy that “Intellectual Property” bullshit, because it IS just that.
Bullshit.
There’s no such thing as intellectual property. Merriam-Webster says that “intellect” is “1 a : the power of knowing as distinguished from the power to feel and to will : the capacity for knowledge b : the capacity for rational or intelligent thought especially when highly developed”
How can you assign property rights to knowing or thinking? Do you own your thoughts? Can you purchase thoughts from someone else? M-W says that “property” (the related definition anyway) means “2 a : something owned or possessed; specifically : a piece of real estate b : the exclusive right to possess, enjoy, and dispose of a thing : OWNERSHIP c : something to which a person or business has a legal title”
Let’s link this together. “The capacity for rational or intelligent thought that is owned or possessed.” “The capacity for rational or intelligent thought is something that someone has the exclusive right to possess, enjoy, and dispose of.” “The capacity for rational or intelligent thought to which someone has a legal title.” Makes no sense, correct?
M-W defines “intellectual property” as “property (as an idea, invention, or process) that derives from the work of the mind or intellect; also : an application, right, or registration relating to this”
Property that derives from the work of the mind. What’s property again? “Something owned or possessed.” By this definition, IP can apply to the CD, but not to the music it creates. You can’t own or possess music. Likewise, you can own the canvas a piece of art is painted on, or the comic book, manga, poster, whatever…but the image itself is not tangible, and therefore doesn’t meet the definition of property.
The CD is property. The music, images, video, and other constructs are not tangible and therefore aren’t property. Therefore, IP as used nowadays is a misnomer. If you hand me a book, you’re handing the container of the story, not the story itself. But it doesn’t cost $10 to manufacture a plastic disk with a stamped pattern in it. If I’m paying $10 for the CD alone, not the material that using it creates, then I’m getting ripped off and I want my money back.
Thanks for listening to me while I dump my erratic train of thought on IP. Most of it’s probably wrong.
July 30th, 2006 at 7:18 am
“If I’m paying $10 for the CD alone, not the material that using it creates, then I’m getting ripped off and I want my money back.
[...] Most of it’s probably wrong.”
No, you are right. that is in effect the same what some Dr. Thorsten Braun of the IPFI (the RIAA under different name) is saying on a german “FAQ” site:
[...]
Wem gehört die Musik auf einer CD?
Wer eine CD kauft, erwirbt nur das Sacheigentum an der Plastikscheibe, nicht etwa auch die Rechte der Autoren (Komponisten und Textdichter), ausübenden Künstler und Hersteller. Grob vereinfachend kann man das mit der Miete eines Autos vergleichen: Als Mieter bekomme ich zwar einen Schlüssel und darf das Auto vertragsgemäà bewegen, aber natürlich nicht weitervermieten oder gar verkaufen.
Dirty Translation with a little help from google:
To whom does the music on a CD belong?
The person that buys a CD, acquires only the special property at the plastic disk , not also the rights of the authors (composers and text poets), exercising artist and manufacturers. Roughly simplified you can compare that with the rent of a car: As a tenant I get a key and i am allowed to use it as stated in the contract but of course not rerent it or even sell it further.
“http://www.ifpi.de/recht/kopieren.htm
So if YOU are really giving 10$ away since January 2004 for the right to own a tiny piece of Makrolon® made by german company Bayer worth only a few cents, then allow me to say not much intellectual property in your case that needs protection by IP laws
(no real offence intended)
July 31st, 2006 at 7:14 pm
My recommendation is to separate out the different “things” involved in this debate, and the owners of each.
Talk about hardware, who owns it, and who should get to control it (IE: who decides what software can be installed on it: the owner or the manufacturer).
The conversation about purchased/licensed music or software is an entirely separate conversation that should remain separate in our minds. It is all too easy to have politicians get confused when a number of unrelated issues are mixed together. They will then worry about the rights of the copyright holders (of the music or of the software), forgetting about the rights of the owner of the hardware, and we get right back to the mess we are in today.
July 31st, 2006 at 7:16 pm
Those reading the comments here may want to see the comments posted to the Digital Copyright Canada BLOG:
http://www.digital-copyright.ca/node/2567