They're having trouble with covert ops funding due to the impending budget shutdown.

Because property rights have a direct relation to 'primary use'.  Said another way, it's theft to steal my bike, because I can't use it.  You have harmed me by denying me the use of my own things.  Data doesn't have the same issues, as I can copy your bike design for my own use and never deny you your own bike.  The state monopoly that is copyright originally existed to incentivise the producers to produce more, by offering the possibility of making money for a short time off of the works, but even that ended after 15 years originally.  Now it's the life of the author plus 70 years, and doesn't benefit the author except by proxy, as the copyright holders are invariablely a publishing company.  Companies don't have rights, only people do; and even the children of the author don't have a right to unearned benefits.


Nonesense.  Spotify works because it's actually more convenient than doing the work of searching for the desired ringtone.  Spotify's business model is dependent upon access, not copyrights.  They could charge for public domain ringtones as well, so long as it's easier to get the desired MIDI version of Bach than it would be to either find an artist who has already done it or do it themselves.

I'll say it again, some people who mine do so because their conditions negate the effects of consuming electricity.  Most are people who live in small efficency apartments heated only by electro-resistive heating, and have neither the room nor the resources to set up a rack of machines, but do have a decent gaming class video card.  Some people live in areas with below average costs of electricity, and have a comparative advantage as a result.  By definition, roughly half of the bitcoin network exists in places with below average electric costs, but some can be very low.

That makes even less sense than calling copyright infringement "piracy" in order to compare it to the violent mugging of a trade ship at sea.

The events are not comparable.  Copyright infringement is the violation of a state granted monopoly on data.  No physical harm, or threat of harm, comes to those who claim the copyright.  Nor are they denied the use of their data themselves for it.  Copyright has moved far from it's original intent of the framers, and of it's use in the Constitution; and even they were wary about copyright, and were very clear that they did not consider it property, nor the control of it as a natural right. 

Lacking the support of the state, private data is only protected so long as the owner can do so.  By publishing it, they are making it public by definition.  A person can protect their personal or trade secrets with strong encryption, but protecting data that has been released to the public is much harder to do, and cannot be reasonably enforced without an unnatural state supported monopoly.  I said before that IP would be the first to pass away because in anything close to an anarchist state, the public would be unconcerned about the violation of laws that only exist because of the monopolies granted by a prior state.

I didn't claim that it was.

I suggested that, but she chose what she did for her own reasons.  She didn't feel the need to share with me. 

Nina Paley, the artist responsible for Copying is not Theft and Sita sings the Blues has put up a Mybitcoin.com donation button on her blog site.  (http://blog.ninapaley.com/)  It's on the right hand side.  Please show your support for a fellow traveler.

I can pretty much promise that copyrights would have no force in a true free market.

Could someone buy bitcoins from the ATM?

Very good point.  In my defense, they didn't exist when I brought this up.  Perhaps bitcoinusa is a solution.

Hasn't stopped me yet.  And from what I can tell, it hasn't stopped anyone else either.

A data haven might yet prove to be the killer Bitcoin app.  The idea has been tried on several occasions, all have been crushed by outside forces.  The Principality of Sealand being both the most successful and most rediculous recent example that comes to mind.

I don't disagree, but those niches have been filled.  I'm not sure that the world needs another international trade hub.  Liberty is great, but the people still need an income, more so if the city-state they live in cannot support itself sans trade.  If it were not for the trade of the harbor, Hong Kong would starve.  Seasteading, as many challenges that if faces, seems like a more viable possibility because at least such a city-state can technically move.  The human soul strives for liberty, but the human body toils to eat.

Sorry, I can't.  But what happens if a very small nation recognizes bitcoin as an official tax currency?  I think that if Bitcoin has any successes at all, such a recognition is only a matter of time.  There are precedents for such a maneuver, such as the many small South American nations that peg their own national currencies to the US $ despite having no control over the value of the US $ whatever.  The first hurdle that Bitcoin must get over, is to reach some level of acceptable monetary inflation rate without getting crushed.  This will take till at least 2013 when the first block reward drop occurs.  That is a major weak moment.  If we survive that, then the next hurdle is achieving a fairly stable market price.  It won't take much longer than that before some tiny coastal nation that depends heavily on international trade (think taiwan) for their own local economies to support Bitcoin, even if that is only on an unofficial basis.  I can't even hazard a guess how long that would take under the best of situations.  But once one small nation was willing to openly support Bitcoin, then that means that the threats of bigger nations to suppress same were already doomed to failure, and Bitcoin will outlive us all.

http://thedailybell.com/1957/G20-Considers-Global-Currency.html

Just because it is a conspiracy theory, doesn't mean it's wrong.

Be careful of confirmation bias.

Looks interesting as a thought experiment; however, there is always a reason that unproductive regions are largely uninhabited.

That's against the law?

Corporations, unions and PACs have different political donation rules altogether.  I don't know them well, but I doubt that this would work.

I'd be willing to bet his son Rand does first.

After all, it was Rand that was willing to bitch about how his toilet in Kentucky has to abide by California's water conservation laws, and doesn't work on a single flush.