From: Hal <hfinney@shell.portal.com>
Date: Mon, 4 Apr 94 12:59:10 PDT
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: Re:  This List--Public, Private, or Other?
Message-ID: <199404042000.NAA10597@jobe.shell.portal.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


I can find a lot more to agree with in Tim's clarification of his views
on ownership of cyberspace:

> In different words, the list exists as an "emergent phenomenon," like
> a popular trend or a fad. It's "official" existence is not crucial, as
> that could evaporate, change, etc.
> 
> [...]
>
> To wrap it up: Cyberspace ownership has more similarities to the
> voluntary asssociations desscribed here--customer bases, clubs,
> subscriptions to magazines, etc.--than to conventional ideas of
> "public" and "private" property ownership.
> 
> --Tim May

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.

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?

One possible unambiguous answer is to simply say that people own their own
words, and to leave it at that.  In that sense nobody owns the cp list;
rather, each poster owns his postings.  This is pretty uncontroversial, I
think.  But even then the value of a posting depends heavily on the context
in which it appears, and this simple ownership model does not particularly
capture that.

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.)

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.

Hal