Re:why not? (Score 1)

Okay, first off, yes, I can own information. In the most limited sense, I can have a piece of information, whether it be my favorite food or a piece of code I wrote, I can refuse to share it with anyone, and it is mine and mine alone. Even if it becomes known, I still "own" it. The creation of an item confers ownership until it is transferred. At the most basic level, all items are just "information" - they have a molecular structure that can be expressed as information. If you possess the ability to construct an item from that information, you can have the item. So the idea that information is somehow in the public domain is ludicrous. As for the idea that I have no idea to profit... You are correct. I do not have the right to profit. Nor do you have the right to walk down the street. Rights are an arbitrary construction. There is nothing that you can do that man cannot take away from you. But while there are no inherent rights in this life, you can do whatever you so choose. And I choose to profit. Business is built on profit. The world is built on profit. No matter what you sell, provide, or do, you make profit. You make wooden canoes? You trade them for money. If you sell them for the exact cost of the materials used to make them, you will starve. If you sell them for MORE than the cost, and call that inflated cost the cost of labor, then you are making a PROFIT. Time is worth nothing but what you say it is. You write BearShare. You make money from its sales/advertisting revenue/handouts by people who like it/etc. I can guarantee you that you've gotten more out of it than you put in or you wouldn't do it. Even anarchists have to eat. Given the choice between a world where one corporation controls the means of nanoproduction or a world in which it's free, I'd take the corporate world. Why? Because they spent the money to create that process; therefore they deserve to use it. There is no inherent right to information. You do not have the right to use the information I created. Only I do. If I choose to sell it, or use it to enslave the populace, well... tough.