That's not a real tension. There is no case where the inherent value of some commodity keeps its price high despite easy availability. That's the point of the "diamonds in the desert" thought experiment.

Inherent value provides a ceiling on the price of whatever it is.

Availability also provides a ceiling on the price.

If I give you two theorems that say C < 300 and also C < 10, why would you describe those as being "in tension" with each other?

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jonahx 3 days ago | parent | next [-]

The tension arises because in some cases, at least for a while, the availability can be suppressed. Like when some expert releases an expensive ebook or video course "Secrets of X". Ofc many such books are scams, but assume for sake of argument the information is actually valuable. The initial buyers are motivated not to share it. It remains a scarce commodity for a while. But all it takes is one person to make a torrent, and the game is over. So there are two incentives -- one trying to keep it scarce, and the other trying to make it free.

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_DeadFred_ 3 days ago | parent [-]

Copyright was created because we realized that it takes effort to put works together (in the original case it was educational information) but that distribution can be done without rewarding that initial effort. Which then results in the initial effort not happening. Which then ends up in a dumber, less intelligent, idea poor world without those works.

Society agreed to copyright because of the social benefit of having people willing to put effort/expense into creating works. We're not talking zero value internet BS, but real works. People who create the works don't make them scarce, their distribution is infinitely scalable. They just make it so that they are compensated.

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carlosjobim 3 days ago | parent | prev [-]

Most information is not easily available, it is purposefully hidden because knowledge is power and money. And that's through all fields and not only Coca-Cola recipes.

The argument is that authors will stop making information publicly available because piracy takes away the value. So instead information will be hidden in vaults and do good only for a few people. Like how maps used to be top state secrets.

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ndriscoll 3 days ago | parent [-]

The obvious fix for this is to either eliminate trade secret protections in favor of patents, or make them conditioned upon escrow with the government to be released to the public domain after some time (perhaps half the time of a patent).

Don't want to release your recipe ever? Tough cookies when your lead scientists bring it to a competitor.

Trade secrets are counter to the purpose of "IP" law. The public has no interest in protecting them and every interest in... not doing that.

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carlosjobim 3 days ago | parent [-]

Until every new born child is forcefully implanted with a microchip in their brain at birth, you will never be able to stop people from thinking and having secrets.

If people are not fairly compensated for sharing their secrets and discoveries with the public, they won't do it. They'll take it to the grave if so be. And we loose out on information which can benefit an enormous amount of people.

So the quoted person is absolutely right that there is a great tension between these two factors. How should great ideas be greatly compensated while giving the widest access possible? Neither piracy nor expensive access to information is the right solution.

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ndriscoll 3 days ago | parent [-]

Trade secrets never expire and sharing them is a crime, so currently people can take them to their grave and the government will have their backs in doing so. A single person's secret is also unlikely to matter much next to the potential of global corporations' secrets, and the nature of corporations is that they are made of people who have little reason not to take an offer with a competitor after they've learned the necessary secrets to do their job. Hence, don't protect those corporations unless they offer something in return (explicitly divulging them/contributing to the common knowledgebase). Without that protection, knowledge can more naturally spread.

The fair compensation they should be offered is time limited protection. Otherwise it should simply be legal for any of their employees to spread that knowledge. Giving unlimited protection to not divulge knowledge is counter to the entire point of "IP" law.

"The" Coca-Cola formula would have lost its patent restrictions a century ago. It's still unshared. Why exactly should we continue to grant any legal protection from an employee sharing it?

	▲	carlosjobim 3 days ago \| parent [-]
		We're way off topic, and it seems like this thread is just turning into unproductive argument. I'm just arguing that there will always be tension between information wanting to be free and information creators wanting to profit from their ideas or their work. We don't even have to involve companies and trade secrets in discussing that tension, it was just an example.