Re: Return to feudalism
Very true. I recently witnessed something, and will try to explain in as non-technical terms as possible: the event was around distributed applications and in particular the presentation was about micropayments. The audience of 30-40 was rather tech-savvy - developers, entrepreneurs and assorted lurkers. A system was described that can pay for the video stream in real time, as the stream is being pulled, in units of about 5-10 seconds of video. The payment mechanism is embedded in the network delivery fabric. Nothing controversial so far. The main advantage was announced: the price depends on the video quality (essentially, a bitrate) of each segment, so that if you get a particular segment at lower quality (because of network congestion), you pay less for that particular 10-second segment. The question for the presenter came up, why would the content authors/owners agree to this, in other words why is the content value equated with the bitrate, why is the payload treated the same as the carrier? The reaction of the audience was pretty much unanimous: this is a non-issue - of course that the value of a movie is equal to the bitrate at which it is consumed. The speaker didn't even understand the question - the counterargument was that Amazon AWS also charges per gigabyte, so what is odd about charging for movies per, basically, weight? These are the people who are actively developing the systems which will deal with the content in the future. The state of mind is that the value created outside the tech domain - fiber, switches, routers, encoders, players - does not figure at all. The embedded payment systems may not even recognize a possibility of such value. This is not new. It started in 2000s when EFF argued that "bits want to be free", there is no "content", and DRM is evil. This attitude effectively squeezed out pretty much all small publishers from the market, as only few huge monopolies could afford to effectively charge for the content (through lawsuits and switching to the expensive real time you-pay-we-stream-to-you model.) The real question, after the long intro: was there ever a monetary value in the content beyond the cost of the physical carrier? Thick books are usually more expensive than thin ones. Paperback is cheaper than hardcover. Tickets for big theaters are more expensive than tickets for fringe rat-infested venues. What happens when the carrier becomes effectively free? As with the disappearance of the labor, problem-solving with the technology seems to point to the same conclusion: problem-free society is a nightmare. On 9/18/17, 17:06, John Hopkins wrote: > Whomever, whatever controls the protocols, controls the device and > reaps the rewards that the device brings. This is because the protocol > is a proxy for the actualized projection of energy or the pathway that > energy is mandated to follow # distributed via : no commercial use without permission #is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: http://mx.kein.org/mailman/listinfo/nettime-l # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nett...@kein.org # @nettime_bot tweets mail w/ sender unless #ANON is in Subject:
Re: Return to feudalism
On 19 September 2017 at 01:39, mp wrote: > > > “Property, Commoning and the Politics of Free Software” (PhD, 2010) > > It was published here: > > http://www.commoner.org.uk/?p=107 > > And here: > > https://commoning.wordpress.com/essay/ > > Thank. I'm reading it. Will comment later. -- Frederic # distributed via : no commercial use without permission #is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: http://mx.kein.org/mailman/listinfo/nettime-l # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nett...@kein.org # @nettime_bot tweets mail w/ sender unless #ANON is in Subject:
Re: Return to feudalism
On 09/19/2017 01:05 PM, franz schaefer wrote: so if labour is no longer a relevant measure of value - as it is no longer needed, then indeed the only thing that is relevant for the value is the soil. marx most of the time neglects this as soil, back his days was abundant. the value of things harvested of nature was mostly determined by the labour it took to havest it and not su much by the value of the soil. All your points are totally well-taken, but still it's possible to get more precise about it: - When discussing the plantation economy and the colonial exploitation of the kinds of wealth that are now called "natural resources," like precious metals and so on, Marx tended to use the term "primitive accumulation," meaning the stuff was ripped off by force, including the force of enslavement, rather than being produced by free labor. A few years ago David Harvey began translating primitive accumulation into "accumulation by dispossession," both in order to accentuate the "ripped off by force" aspect, and to stress that this kind of accumulation has hardly disappeared, it is still ongoing. Now we talk about the "extractive economy" to indicate both this violence and its products, especially coal, oil, gas, rare earths and so on. - When describing soil properly speaking, and the relationship between the hungry laboring city and the crops that grow from the fertility of the soil in the countryside, Marx used the term "metabolic relation," which is rather different from primitive accumulation. In Marx's day the city/country relation was a huge issue, because soil fertility tended to decline while population tended to rise. The young Marx was deeply involved in peasant revolts (that's how he got kicked out of Germany), so he explored all the questions of soil fertility and throughout his life he continued to recognize both the agency of the natural world, and the way that agency evolved in the metabolic relation between city and country, or if you prefer, between humanity and nature. In the year 2000 John Bellamy Foster transformed the contemporary understanding of Marx in a book called Marx's Ecology where he recovered this aspect of Marx's thought, which was basically ignored due to the incredible transformations brought by industry - notably the invention of synthetic nitrogen, which overcame the declining soil fertility that had obsessed nineteenth-century demographers. Of course we have a new obsession in the twenty-first century: climate change. The products of the extractive economy produce CO2 and so does industrial ag, in a big way. Plenty of violence and ripoffs attend both processes. But now it looks as though the environmental consequences are about to dwarf those concerning wealth and redistribution. The metabolic relation between industrial society and the biogeochemical cycles of the earth is what any good Marxist should be thinking about and intervening in right now, imho. best, Brian # distributed via : no commercial use without permission #is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: http://mx.kein.org/mailman/listinfo/nettime-l # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nett...@kein.org # @nettime_bot tweets mail w/ sender unless #ANON is in Subject:
Re: Return to feudalism
> As Karl M. analyzed relationships of labor, reproduction and capital in the
> era when there was pervasive need for human labor, we need new analysis for
> the era when no one needs any human labor (5-6% of population needing to
> work is practically "no one").
well actually that certain karl m. tried to analyze that in the
"grundrisse". as far as i have read it he did not come all to far in his
conclusions. mainly that the notion of labor as meassure of value then makes
no longer sense.
yet he hints in an other place what that means:
"Capitalist production, therefore, develops technology, and
the combining together of various processes into a social whole, only by
sapping the original sources of all wealth - the soil and the labourer."
so if labour is no longer a relevant measure of value - as it is no longer
needed, then indeed the only thing that is relevant for the value is the
soil. marx most of the time neglects this as soil, back his days was
abundant. the value of things harvested of nature was mostly determined by
the labour it took to havest it and not su much by the value of the soil.
yet in a society where labour is not a factor anymore then the value of the
soil will mostly determin the value.
those who own the land with access to rare-minerals, oil, space for wind
turbines and solar panels, etc.. will hold the keys to value.
and of course those who command the "dead labour" frozen in so called
"intellectual property".
we should fight the later and fairly distribute access to the former. in the
communist utopia still the ecological footprint ("its use of soil") would be
a measure of the value of goods - so that we make careful use of it.
in the distopian version the ones that got rich via their control of
technology will use their wealth to buy all the soil and thus cementing
their power.
so i think "return to feudalism" describes this well...
mond
--
~~
.Franz Schaefer GPG KeyID: CFA2F632
.. +43 699 106 14 590 +43 720502048 Fingerprint: 57C2 C0CC
... schae...@mond.at 6F0A 54C7 0D88 D37E
... http://www.mond.at/ C17C CB16 CFA2 F632
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Re: Return to feudalism
As Karl M. analyzed relationships of labor, reproduction and capital in
the era when there was pervasive need for human labor, we need new
analysis for the era when no one needs any human labor (5-6% of
population needing to work is practically "no one").
What is the value of the attention when the purchasing power is zero?
The most likely uplifting answer is, after the redundants are given some
food and shelter ("basic income"), pacification. The dystopian
prediction being kill them all.
The human drive to be useful to the society - the most dangerous drive
in the new context - needs to be managed, channeled and neutered. I
think that we can see the outlines of the things to come in gaming and
VR. As porn has domesticated sex, these industries have potential to
domesticate this last link we have with the so-called "humanity". This
requires more production ingenuity than porn, and if we're lucky it
cannot be fully automated, so some jobs after all. Panem et circenses,
this time industrial strength.
Back to the new economy, the direct value of the attention will be
proportional to the savings on brute-force pacification. Which means
that increasing the costs of brute-force pacification is the end game,
the new objective of the class struggle in the 21st century: unruliness,
Nixon's Madman doctrine trickling down to level of the individual.
On 9/18/17, 17:06, John Hopkins wrote:
We in the west exist in a different energy-harvesting regime, but one
that concentrates our attentions with impressive thoroughness. It has
many tentacles, many of them screen-related, though as pointed out, IoT
quickly insinuates itself into tampons, medicine, wine bottles, toilets,
... everything ...
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Re: Return to feudalism
Whomever, whatever controls the protocols, controls the device and reaps the rewards that the device brings. This is because the protocol is a proxy for the actualized projection of energy or the pathway that energy is mandated to follow. A protocol determines the characteristics of the energy flow: where power accumulates, where it is sourced -- at the scale of electronic circuits up to the widest expression of the techno-social system. An electronic circuit is simply a set of parameters/protocols to confine and direct the flow of electrons. Allowing them to temporarily persist before being shunted along by the 'force' of electric current. Did you ever consider that electrical generation is a 'push' service? When we 'pay' attention to the dominant flows -- of what is labeled, for the Marxist to understand, 'social capital**', but is actualized as 'social energy' -- we give our personal energy to those dominant flows: we are paying with our invaluable and limited life-time. The accumulation of power and energy in the socio-political sphere ultimately rests on the ability of protocols within that system to accumulate and direct the energies of the human lives of those 'participating' in that system. The statement "Kim Jong-Un would have less power if the population of North Korea were 250,000 instead of 25 million" may seem obvious, but to generate a nuclear weapon requires a certain minimal 'infrastructure' which, again, ultimately rests on human shoulders to create and maintain. For generating the same weapon system, the population size will differ somewhat from nation-state to nation-state, based on other energy sources available to the system (in whatever form: relative ease of access to hydrocarbons, intellectual development, etc), but there is a certain minimum cumulate energy level necessary to 'build a (nuclear) bomb'. The bomb, with its purpose to direct concentrated destructive energy to the 'enemy' is a cumulative expression of many interlocking protocols that actually 'gather' energies together for that energized expression. That minimum energy level is also necessary to control the process to the high degree of precision necessary to materialize the technologies necessary to construct a bomb. This is why there is a difference between simply building a bomb (where size doesn't matter), and fabricating one that fits in the nose-cone of an ICBM: smaller size equilibrates with higher degree of precision which means greater energy consumption per unit device: therefore more difficult to do unless you tap more energy from the given population base, or you have a larger population base... If you starve 23 of the 25 million North Koreans to near-death you might make a dent in the energy procurement system necessary to construct a bomb, though perhaps not. The elites drive the process, though they need to eat as well. We in the west exist in a different energy-harvesting regime, but one that concentrates our attentions with impressive thoroughness. It has many tentacles, many of them screen-related, though as pointed out, IoT quickly insinuates itself into tampons, medicine, wine bottles, toilets, ... everything ... IoT represents another dimension of the acquisition and control of power flows: regulation via feedback. Regulation saps energy from a system by forcing it into rigid flow patterns. Regulation exists on a sliding scale that spans anarchism to state-sponsored sclerosis. Regulate what is 'necessary' to reach the goals of the system, let the rest go. Regulation demands constant feedback to ensure the sweet spot, feedback costs energy. Big data is regulation run amok, and one [energy] price is CO2-generating, hydrocarbon-burning server farms. When everything is known about every living consumer, then the planet will be covered with server farms. **capital is far too mechanistic/materialist word to be using anymore (or should have ever been!), rooted as it is in Newtonian relations -- capital is an expression that reifies what is a temporal concentration of energy (gold in Ft. Knox, bbl of petroleum reserves, well-fed human slaves, explosives, buildings, anything human-constructed, human-compiled, etc, etc...). These concentrations of energized matter persist only for a time, they are transitory and cannot be maintained except through the addition of energy to the system to maintain their order (ever own a house?). jh On 17/Sep/17 12:39, Morlock Elloi wrote: This meme cannot be repeated often enough (even if one starts to resemble RMS). While esoteric discourses about consequences can be amusing, we really need to get back to the root causes. They are not novel, just often forgotten. -- ++ Dr. John Hopkins, BSc, MFA, PhD hanging on to the Laramide Orogeny twitter: @neoscenes http://tech-no-mad.net/blog/ ++ # distributed via : no
Re: Return to feudalism
On 19/09/17 00:18, Frederic Janssens wrote: > On 18 September 2017 at 22:28, mp wrote: > >> >> >> and from the thesis where these quotes feature: >> >> Interesting. Has this thesis a name, an author, and is it available ? “Property, Commoning and the Politics of Free Software” (PhD, 2010) It was published here: http://www.commoner.org.uk/?p=107 And here: https://commoning.wordpress.com/essay/ Instead of a license: The words of “Property, Commoning and the Politics of Free Software” that you can read on your screen or print on paper belong to everyone. There is only one mind. However, by default they seem to belong to me exclusively in (copyright) law and in certain customs. These customs I wish to change. A culture where the word needs no protection from enclosure should be a minimum demand. Sharing is caring. If you use substantial parts or make money – ha! – on any of this, then do please get in touch, and if you forget to refer to where “your” ideas came from in an academic context, well that’s your problem. I don’t really believe in that system anyway, so what happens there is of little interest. Attribution is not only to be nice, but also to provide links between words with ideas, arguments and other trains of thought. Think carefully. # distributed via : no commercial use without permission #is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: http://mx.kein.org/mailman/listinfo/nettime-l # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nett...@kein.org # @nettime_bot tweets mail w/ sender unless #ANON is in Subject:
Re: Return to feudalism
On 18 September 2017 at 22:28, mp wrote: > > > and from the thesis where these quotes feature: > > Interesting. Has this thesis a name, an author, and is it available ? -- Frederic # distributed via : no commercial use without permission #is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: http://mx.kein.org/mailman/listinfo/nettime-l # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nett...@kein.org # @nettime_bot tweets mail w/ sender unless #ANON is in Subject:
Re: Return to feudalism
On 18/09/17 00:58, Morlock Elloi wrote: > Using the concept of property is legitimate and effective action. It > exists, is enforced, works, and however biased it may be, or however > odious one may think it is (alternative being ... ?), it is far too > ingrained into the society to be 100% biased. Rejecting it on moral > grounds (in favor of what?) would be like Indians rejecting use of > firearms. Indeed. Property relations: social relations with regard to things. Rather difficult to do without. How (and by who) they are configured is what matters. “It is not wrong to say that the nature and intent of a society reveal themselves in the legal and customary concepts of property held by the various members and classes of that society. These property concepts do not change without an incipient or fundamental change in the nature of the society itself. The history of property relations in a given society is thus, in a way, the history of the society itself .” (Schurmann 1956: 507) “No doubt the eighteenth century preferred rational treaties expounding the theory of property to historical essays describing the theories of property. But … we … know that the institution of property has had its history and that that history has not yet come to an end … We begin with the knowledge that there must be as many theories of property as there have been systems of property rights. Consequently we abandon the search for the true theory of property and study the theories of the past ages. Only thus can we learn how to construct a theory suitable to our own circumstances” (Schlatter 1951: 10). and from the thesis where these quotes feature: "...The commons is seen as the paradigmatic non-property case. Yet both commoning and private property concern the same subject matter: how we relate to each other with regard to things and with regard to the rest of the world. Who has access to what resource, what are those with access allowed to use the resource for, who takes responsibility for the resource, what happens to the wealth that can be generated from the resources, who can sell, buy or otherwise transfer the privilege of access to a resource and its wealth effects, who makes the decisions about these things, how are the decision-making processes organised in cases where more than one individual holds the decision-making authority and, finally, with reference to what values are these decisions legitimised? Once we uncover the elements which both share, these two different kinds of property can be brought together under one analytical umbrella. The purpose is to reveal the way in which each of them functions and the different kinds of social relations that they give rise to. In this way the applicability of either of the two in a given context – for instance a particular resource or class of objects – can be assessed on the same terms. A normative evaluation can start from there. Because property in general has come to be understood as synonymous with private property, the way in which analysts are able to think about property has been greatly limited. By opening up the analytical framework of property to include at once commoning and private property, both will be seen in a new light. Moreover, given the anti-capitalist starting point of the thesis, understanding commoning in the same terms as property can better facilitate a transfer of land, its resources, and the means of production and distribution, from being organised with private property rights to become organised through modes of commoning. It should here be noted that I am in no way arguing that private property should be done away with [1], rather I am hoping to reveal its anatomy, so that we may assess its usefulness for different purposes and in different domains. While the idea is to better be able to limit its range, my account of property should not be understood as a normative exercise. While I point to certain normative implications throughout my discussion, it is not my primary objective to provide a thorough moral analysis of property. Many of these have been provided by others more skilled in such matters. Rather, I will address the way in which property is understood to function in liberal jurisprudence. Specifically, I will draw upon J.W. Harris’s work, whose analytical approach and framework describes with most accuracy the way in which the institution of property in capitalist democracy functions legally as well as economically. His account is consistent with, and indeed clarifies, many preceding accounts of property in liberal jurisprudence on the one hand, and on the other, economic policy which implements and regulates property." Property is a code. Happy hacking. m [1] I prefer dominion over a few things, like, generally, underwear, toothbrush and, sometimes, bed. # distributed via : no commercial use without permission #is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics o
Re: Return to feudalism
When the OWS' twitter account and website got hijacked by certain Justine Tunney and co., it was rare. Those days when Tunney got hired by Google and started to promote her boss and the working conditions at Google campus -like free lunch- it was pretty awkward. Then she went on promoting minocracy on twitter, even publicly campaigning for Eric f.ink Schmidt as CEO for the US.. it was like a sci-fi Things changed when Snowden leaked about the PRISM, and all other stuff.. and Assange published the book about Google's visit.. This was Wikileak's first effective sabotaging to the upcoming US elections. Schmidt lost all his chance to make a serious candidate, He became publicly as a bad candidate as say Anne Marie Slaughter, George Soros, or Henry Kissenger's, excellency. Hillary was not any better though. Trump + Bennon, and Industrial Internet guy behind Cambridge Analytica, ran a counter-campaign, not against a Clinton but against Tunney's premature US CEO campaign for Google Party's Schmidt candidate. Hillary was so unpopular after Wikileak's intervention that she looked even worse to (global) public then Schmidt. Then, Trump took over as the CEO of US. Silicon Valley is in grief but there emerges a new contender candidate.. Elon Musk. What is common in Musk, Schmidt, Soros, Slaughter, Kissinger,.. less but also with Clinton and Trump being the worse of the worse? We are looking at the realisation of Platos' dream of philosopher king. These people do not belong to capitalist class anymore. They are philosopher kings to be. Especially Musk and Schmidt.. Kissinger and Soros do belong to the previous generation, still have to bear an adviser position. The agency of managerial class, which is preparing to claim full economic and political power, unified, absolute is Musk, and Schmidt. The way Trump translates such thrust, and by reversing towards national capitalists, sounds and looks like fascism Which was a form of managerial class power-claim; though was not aiming absolute power. Its contemporary varieties was developmental-nationalist and Keynesian-corporatist, and nomenclature-socialist forms of state. Managerial class,did not have the economic means to forge a full-scale attack then. It has today captured both Wall Street, Washington, Silicon Valley, Beijing, Moscow, and Brussels.. Capitalists this time might really be f.cked up. But worse then the capitalists, is the situation of those non-capitalist and non-managerial ones. Billions of whose lives are at fire as of today. Some of those amongst the billions are against all forms of domination, they are divergent class, los unmanagables giving the fight. We are at the dawn of a last major fight to be given between the ruling/to be classes hungry for absolute power and those who would never accept to be ruled and bullied like this, also on be half of the passivized. On 17 September 2017 at 20:39, Morlock Elloi wrote: > This meme cannot be repeated often enough (even if one starts to resemble > RMS). > > While esoteric discourses about consequences can be amusing, we really > need to get back to the root causes. They are not novel, just often > forgotten. > > From https://theconversation.com/the-internet-of-things-is-sendin > g-us-back-to-the-middle-ages-81435 : > > The underlying problem is ownership > <> # distributed via : no commercial use without permission #is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: http://mx.kein.org/mailman/listinfo/nettime-l # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nett...@kein.org # @nettime_bot tweets mail w/ sender unless #ANON is in Subject:
Re: Return to feudalism
Central Services get you, sooner or later.
I think that the chasm between the think/talk-space ("private property
bad", "things very bad, should be better", "rapture must be coming",
"tweet/go to conferences and publish/like", etc.) and the act-space
("stone the Google bus", "leak secrets through redundant publishing",
etc.) is getting huge.
Most likely because thinkers squat on the traditions from the past
centuries, when human-to-human (H2H) communication had measurable
effects, and despite all the talk about precarity that still seems the
comfortable position to be in.
We are now in the age where machine-to-human (M2H) communications
matter, and actors are left to their own devices. What we see are mostly
outliers on both ends of the act-space. The mainstream does not exist.
The fault is with think/talkers. But I repeat myself.
Using the concept of property is legitimate and effective action. It
exists, is enforced, works, and however biased it may be, or however
odious one may think it is (alternative being ... ?), it is far too
ingrained into the society to be 100% biased. Rejecting it on moral
grounds (in favor of what?) would be like Indians rejecting use of firearms.
Example:
All components are in the mix: data is recognized as property, the
hardware on which data lives is legally separated from the data itself,
it seems that we are one mass lobbying step away from legislation that
equates data generated by users actions with creative works. The
property of creative work, in the imperial lands at least, can be
transferred only with a written contract stipulating compensation.
Click-through agreements won't do.
I'm reminded of De Niro as the terrorist plumber in the movie Brazil
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Re: Return to feudalism
re has already told farmers that they don’t really >> own their tractors but just license the software – so they can’t fix >> their own farm equipment or even take it to an independent repair shop. >> The farmers are objecting, but maybe some people are willing to let >> things slide when it comes to smartphones, which are often bought on a >> payment installment plan and traded in as soon as possible. >> >> How long will it be before we realize they’re trying to apply the same >> rules to our smart homes, smart televisions in our living rooms and >> bedrooms, smart toilets and internet-enabled cars? >> >> A return to feudalism? >> >> The issue of who gets to control property has a long history. In the >> feudal system of medieval Europe, the king owned almost everything, and >> everyone else’s property rights depended on their relationship with the >> king. Peasants lived on land granted by the king to a local lord, and >> workers didn’t always even own the tools they used for farming or other >> trades like carpentry and blacksmithing. >> >> Over the centuries, Western economies and legal systems evolved into our >> modern commercial arrangement: People and private companies often buy >> and sell items themselves and own land, tools and other objects >> outright. Apart from a few basic government rules like environmental >> protection and public health, ownership comes with no trailing strings >> attached. >> >> This system means that a car company can’t stop me from painting my car >> a shocking shade of pink or from getting the oil changed at whatever >> repair shop I choose. I can even try to modify or fix my car myself. The >> same is true for my television, my farm equipment and my refrigerator. >> >> Yet the expansion of the internet of things seems to be bringing us back >> to something like that old feudal model, where people didn’t own the >> items they used every day. In this 21st-century version, companies are >> using intellectual property law – intended to protect ideas – to control >> physical objects consumers think they own. >> > > # distributed via : no commercial use without permission > #is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, > # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets > # more info: http://mx.kein.org/mailman/listinfo/nettime-l > # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nett...@kein.org > # @nettime_bot tweets mail w/ sender unless #ANON is in Subject: > # distributed via : no commercial use without permission #is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: http://mx.kein.org/mailman/listinfo/nettime-l # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nett...@kein.org # @nettime_bot tweets mail w/ sender unless #ANON is in Subject:
Return to feudalism
This meme cannot be repeated often enough (even if one starts to resemble RMS). While esoteric discourses about consequences can be amusing, we really need to get back to the root causes. They are not novel, just often forgotten. From https://theconversation.com/the-internet-of-things-is-sending-us-back-to-the-middle-ages-81435 : The underlying problem is ownership One key reason we don’t control our devices is that the companies that make them seem to think – and definitely act like – they still own them, even after we’ve bought them. A person may purchase a nice-looking box full of electronics that can function as a smartphone, the corporate argument goes, but they buy a license only to use the software inside. The companies say they still own the software, and because they own it, they can control it. It’s as if a car dealer sold a car, but claimed ownership of the motor. This sort of arrangement is destroying the concept of basic property ownership. John Deere has already told farmers that they don’t really own their tractors but just license the software – so they can’t fix their own farm equipment or even take it to an independent repair shop. The farmers are objecting, but maybe some people are willing to let things slide when it comes to smartphones, which are often bought on a payment installment plan and traded in as soon as possible. How long will it be before we realize they’re trying to apply the same rules to our smart homes, smart televisions in our living rooms and bedrooms, smart toilets and internet-enabled cars? A return to feudalism? The issue of who gets to control property has a long history. In the feudal system of medieval Europe, the king owned almost everything, and everyone else’s property rights depended on their relationship with the king. Peasants lived on land granted by the king to a local lord, and workers didn’t always even own the tools they used for farming or other trades like carpentry and blacksmithing. Over the centuries, Western economies and legal systems evolved into our modern commercial arrangement: People and private companies often buy and sell items themselves and own land, tools and other objects outright. Apart from a few basic government rules like environmental protection and public health, ownership comes with no trailing strings attached. This system means that a car company can’t stop me from painting my car a shocking shade of pink or from getting the oil changed at whatever repair shop I choose. I can even try to modify or fix my car myself. The same is true for my television, my farm equipment and my refrigerator. Yet the expansion of the internet of things seems to be bringing us back to something like that old feudal model, where people didn’t own the items they used every day. In this 21st-century version, companies are using intellectual property law – intended to protect ideas – to control physical objects consumers think they own. # distributed via : no commercial use without permission #is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: http://mx.kein.org/mailman/listinfo/nettime-l # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nett...@kein.org # @nettime_bot tweets mail w/ sender unless #ANON is in Subject:
