Stallman tried to introduce the term "intellectual monopoly", which fits better, since they really are monopolies granted by the government for limited periods of time, intended to promote progress in science and the useful arts.

"Property" was chosen specifically as a bait and switch. It tries to get people to take a concept that has been understood for thousands of years for physical objects, and apply it to this novel century-or-two long experiment for encouraging the production of easily-copyable things.

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simonh 39 minutes ago | parent | next [-]

All, or at least most property rights are monopoly rights anyway. I have a monopoly right over my house, and my car, my bank balance. That's just what ownership means.

	▲	ekianjo 17 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		Those rights are very flimsy actually. The government can seize your house, your car, and your money anytime. Hardly a monopoly when a third party can break it at will.

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JumpCrisscross an hour ago | parent | prev [-]

> since they really are monopolies granted by the government

This is property.

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__MatrixMan__ 34 minutes ago | parent [-]

There are multiple usages of the word.

One of them refers to tangible things, was first codified more than 5000 years ago, and is almost entirely uncontroversial.

The other was popular in 1700's France re: their system of privileges, and the people found it so onerous that they embarked on a campaign of executing nobility until it seemed like the concept was good and dead.

We can use the word however we like, it's just a word, but if we conduct ourselves as if they're the same sort of thing, which France was doing at that time, we're in for the same sort of pain.

So what I'm saying is that its a bad idea for us to let data be property.

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JumpCrisscross 27 minutes ago | parent [-]

> One of them refers to tangible things, was first codified more than 5000 years ago, and is almost entirely uncontroversial

Which definition are you referring to?

Debts, wholly intangible legal fictions, have been treated as property for thousands of years.

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__MatrixMan__ 16 minutes ago | parent [-]

I was thinking of the code of Hammurabi as the settled one, and membership in a trade guild--which you had to buy from the government--as the controversial one.

I wouldn't classify debt as an uncontroversial kind of property. In medieval Europe, Christians were prohibited from owning debt by their religions (Jews weren't, so they ended up being the lenders, which is probably why the stereotypes exist today).

I'd argue that the fungibility/resale of debt is a bad idea because it takes on weird properties when too much of it accumulates in one place.

	▲	JumpCrisscross 13 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		> was thinking of the code of Hammurabi Do we have evidence around what the Code considered property? It seems to be vague [1]. (“Stealing” is applied to minor sons and slaves, for instance.) > wouldn't classify debt as an uncontroversial kind of property I wouldn’t either. I’m saying it’s old. And I wouldn’t say the concept of privately-owned land is “an uncontroversial kind of property” either, entire races had to be wiped out to consolidate that view. [1] https://avalon.law.yale.edu/ancient/hamframe.asp