Another take at intellectual property - what about bitcoin private keys?

[fergalish]

Inspired by Topic: Legal Research in which there is a debate about whether a bitcoin private key can be considered property which endows rights on the owner, specifically the right to compute some mathematical functions which transfer a perceived value to another individual.

Well, there was a previous, very long, thread about intellectual property here, in which many contributors rejected Intellectual Property Rights (call this the anti-IPR position) - for example, if one can somehow obtain a digital copy of a Hollywood blockbuster, then he is fully within his rights to view it and make additional copies at will; no-one can tell him how he should utilize his physical property (the computer). The information bits composing the film (or game or mp3) are not considered property.

Well, it seems perfectly clear that bitcoin private keys cannot ever be considered physical property. If they are to be considered property at all, it can only be as intellectual property - like an mp3, they are merely strings of bits.

This would seem to be a problem for anyone who holds anti-IPR pro-bitcoin positions. If someone, by manipulating his computer, manages to hack and obtain some bitcoin private keys (and, obviously, the associated bitcoins), then, according to anti-IPR, no theft has taken place and no anti-IPR judicial system will recognize a loss.  Any physical attempt to recover the bitcoins would thus be unlawful.

It's not clear to me, though, what the anti-IPR position on hacking is. I mean, a hacker is merely issuing instructions to his own hardware which make it transmit certain bits of information, right? No-one can deny him that...    And the hacked party is free to program his own hardware to act, or not to act, on receipt of those bits of information...

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[nybble41]

Obviously, numbers (including private keys) are not property. Using them to misrepresent yourself as someone else may, in some cases, be a form of fraud. I do not think that applies to Bitcoin, however, since the only thing you are really representing is that you have the private key, which is perfectly true. There is no actual property involved to substantiate a claim of fraud.

Hacking isn't really a question of IPR; the central question is whether, by sending commands to your PC and causing it to act contrary to the wishes of its owner, the hacker has trespassed on the owner's physical property rights in the PC. The counter-argument would naturally be that a hacker can't cause the PC to do anything it wasn't programmed to do by the owner, by accident or default if not deliberate intent. I lean more toward the latter camp, but I will admit that the trespass argument has some merit.

Assuming the trespass argument is discarded, where does that leave us regarding hacking? I would say that we are left with contracts. Specifically, the end-user's contract with their ISP, the ISP's contract with their upstream provider, and contracts between ISPs and backhaul providers. These contracts should prohibit use of the connection for hacking, specify administrative procedure and penalties, and require similar provisions on the part of anyone connecting to the same network. Anyone caught hacking could then be kicked from the network and/or fined for breach of contract.

[Richy_T]

Obviously, numbers (including private keys) are not property. Using them to misrepresent yourself as someone else may, in some cases, be a form of fraud. I do not think that applies to Bitcoin, however, since the only thing you are really representing is that you have the private key, which is perfectly true. There is no actual property involved to substantiate a claim of fraud.

Hacking isn't really a question of IPR; the central question is whether, by sending commands to your PC and causing it to act contrary to the wishes of its owner, the hacker has trespassed on the owner's physical property rights in the PC. The counter-argument would naturally be that a hacker can't cause the PC to do anything it wasn't programmed to do by the owner, by accident or default if not deliberate intent. I lean more toward the latter camp, but I will admit that the trespass argument has some merit.

Assuming the trespass argument is discarded, where does that leave us regarding hacking? I would say that we are left with contracts. Specifically, the end-user's contract with their ISP, the ISP's contract with their upstream provider, and contracts between ISPs and backhaul providers. These contracts should prohibit use of the connection for hacking, specify administrative procedure and penalties, and require similar provisions on the part of anyone connecting to the same network. Anyone caught hacking could then be kicked from the network and/or fined for breach of contract.

There's always the good old "Theft of power" and "Theft of services"

Private keys are clearly not "intellectual property" of any kind though.

[420]

Obviously, numbers (including private keys) are not property. Using them to misrepresent yourself as someone else may, in some cases, be a form of fraud. I do not think that applies to Bitcoin, however, since the only thing you are really representing is that you have the private key, which is perfectly true. There is no actual property involved to substantiate a claim of fraud.

Hacking isn't really a question of IPR; the central question is whether, by sending commands to your PC and causing it to act contrary to the wishes of its owner, the hacker has trespassed on the owner's physical property rights in the PC. The counter-argument would naturally be that a hacker can't cause the PC to do anything it wasn't programmed to do by the owner, by accident or default if not deliberate intent. I lean more toward the latter camp, but I will admit that the trespass argument has some merit.

Assuming the trespass argument is discarded, where does that leave us regarding hacking? I would say that we are left with contracts. Specifically, the end-user's contract with their ISP, the ISP's contract with their upstream provider, and contracts between ISPs and backhaul providers. These contracts should prohibit use of the connection for hacking, specify administrative procedure and penalties, and require similar provisions on the part of anyone connecting to the same network. Anyone caught hacking could then be kicked from the network and/or fined for breach of contract.

me likey

[fergalish]

There's always the good old "Theft of power" and "Theft of services"
Private keys are clearly not "intellectual property" of any kind though.

Is this a genuine anti-IPR position, or is it something that just occurred to you now? Is there such a thing as "theft of power"? Wouldn't that be just revolution? I don't understand your reference to "theft of service". What does that mean? Is it possible to steal a service? Wouldn't that just mean enslaving the service provider and so have no relevance to bitcoin private keys?

Aren't there any anti-IPR pro-bitcoin libertarians here willing to tackle this issue? Seems thorny enough to me.

[Richy_T]

There's always the good old "Theft of power" and "Theft of services"
Private keys are clearly not "intellectual property" of any kind though.

Is this a genuine anti-IPR position, or is it something that just occurred to you now? Is there such a thing as "theft of power"? Wouldn't that be just revolution? I don't understand your reference to "theft of service". What does that mean? Is it possible to steal a service? Wouldn't that just mean enslaving the service provider and so have no relevance to bitcoin private keys?

Aren't there any anti-IPR pro-bitcoin libertarians here willing to tackle this issue? Seems thorny enough to me.

Power of the I*V=W kind. Hackers have been charged with this since by hacking into systems, they are using power on that systems that they haven't paid for or been authorized to use. Theft of services is more usually used for cable (the TV kind, not the spools) but I think may have been applied in similar cases.

[hashman]

There's always the good old "Theft of power" and "Theft of services"
Private keys are clearly not "intellectual property" of any kind though.

Is this a genuine anti-IPR position, or is it something that just occurred to you now? Is there such a thing as "theft of power"? Wouldn't that be just revolution? I don't understand your reference to "theft of service". What does that mean? Is it possible to steal a service? Wouldn't that just mean enslaving the service provider and so have no relevance to bitcoin private keys?

Aren't there any anti-IPR pro-bitcoin libertarians here willing to tackle this issue? Seems thorny enough to me.

What issue exactly? 
Do you mean the question of whether it's OK for you to pick up a $100 bill that I leave on the floor?   
I'm not sure there's anything new here, but that doesn't mean there aren't issues to debate about property rights. 

[fergalish]

What issue exactly? 
Do you mean the question of whether it's OK for you to pick up a $100 bill that I leave on the floor?   
I'm not sure there's anything new here, but that doesn't mean there aren't issues to debate about property rights.

No. It's more like you leave your wallet (I mean wallet that holds banknotes etc, not bitcoin wallet) on the table in a restaurant. I pass by, grab the wallet, and take your $100 bill.  In a sense, your wallet is a piece of hardware that dumbly responds to "commands" given by my fingers: "open", "extract $100", "close". Like a hacked computer, in some sense.

It is obvious that I could have looked at your driving license and returned the wallet to you, intact. It's further obvious that the wallet and its contents are someone's "property".

This is not the case with a bitcoin private key (BPK) - recall I'm hypothesizing anti-IPR. BPKs cannot be considered property, just like an mp3.

Let's make another example. It's anti-IPR world again, and Mr. X is a bitcoin user. He doesn't risk leaving bitcoins on his computer so he takes a printout of his BPKs and stores it in his wallet (the banknote kind). Mr Y finds the wallet and, being a good citizen, returns the wallet to its owner complete with all the contents.  However, before doing so he makes a copy of the BPKs and later that day extracts the associated bitcoins. The printout is clearly Mr X's property, but what about the number written on it?

[Richy_T]

Let's make another example. It's anti-IPR world again, and Mr. X is a bitcoin user. He doesn't risk leaving bitcoins on his computer so he takes a printout of his BPKs and stores it in his wallet (the banknote kind). Mr Y finds the wallet and, being a good citizen, returns the wallet to its owner complete with all the contents.  However, before doing so he makes a copy of the BPKs and later that day extracts the associated bitcoins. The printout is clearly Mr X's property, but what about the number written on it?

No moreso than the numbers on your credit cards. IP tends to protect creative works and does not apply to numbers (that creative works can be represented at numbers is sometimes brought out but that's another discussion).

[fergalish]

Let's make another example. It's anti-IPR world again, and Mr. X is a bitcoin user. He doesn't risk leaving bitcoins on his computer so he takes a printout of his BPKs and stores it in his wallet (the banknote kind). Mr Y finds the wallet and, being a good citizen, returns the wallet to its owner complete with all the contents.  However, before doing so he makes a copy of the BPKs and later that day extracts the associated bitcoins. The printout is clearly Mr X's property, but what about the number written on it?

No more so than the numbers on your credit cards. IP tends to protect creative works and does not apply to numbers (that creative works can be represented at numbers is sometimes brought out but that's another discussion).

Well, bitcoin private keys are creative works, of a sort - created by a software on the user's instruction. A vanity address might be considered more creative. But, yeah, numbers can't be copyright. Though when the Bluray decryption key (or was it DVD) was cracked, people started putting it on t-shirts shouting "freedom of speech" 'cos the industry tried its damnedest to stop anyone from copying what was, effectively, a number.

But, let's remember, I'm not talking about today's society. I'm talking specifically about an anti-IPR society, e.g. a libertarian society. This forum is full of libs and I'm surprised none have weighed in on this thread. How could a lib, in a lib (ie NAP etc) society, justify taking action against someone who copied their private keys? Indeed, this might even apply to GPG keys, SSH keys, any kind of "secret number".

I find it interesting what you say about the numbers on a credit card. Yeah, they're jut numbers, but if someone asks you to pay for a new TV and you quote numbers that do not "belong" to you, that'd be considered fraud. In some sense, bitcoin private keys are a bit like a credit card number - a digital money MUST (obviously) be really just a bunch of special numbers. Any society, therefore, that does not prohibit the illicit copying of these numbers cannot use digital money. If it is not possible to apply special protection to certain classes of data, digital money cannot be utilized.

[Richy_T]

But, let's remember, I'm not talking about today's society. I'm talking specifically about an anti-IPR society, e.g. a libertarian society. This forum is full of libs and I'm surprised none have weighed in on this thread. How could a lib, in a lib (ie NAP etc) society, justify taking action against someone who copied their private keys? Indeed, this might even apply to GPG keys, SSH keys, any kind of "secret number".

I find it interesting what you say about the numbers on a credit card. Yeah, they're jut numbers, but if someone asks you to pay for a new TV and you quote numbers that do not "belong" to you, that'd be considered fraud. In some sense, bitcoin private keys are a bit like a credit card number - a digital money MUST (obviously) be really just a bunch of special numbers. Any society, therefore, that does not prohibit the illicit copying of these numbers cannot use digital money. If it is not possible to apply special protection to certain classes of data, digital money cannot be utilized.

That's the key, it's fraud. Not really anything to do with "intellectual property"

[mobodick]

Inspired by Topic: Legal Research in which there is a debate about whether a bitcoin private key can be considered property which endows rights on the owner, specifically the right to compute some mathematical functions which transfer a perceived value to another individual.

Well, there was a previous, very long, thread about intellectual property here, in which many contributors rejected Intellectual Property Rights (call this the anti-IPR position) - for example, if one can somehow obtain a digital copy of a Hollywood blockbuster, then he is fully within his rights to view it and make additional copies at will; no-one can tell him how he should utilize his physical property (the computer). The information bits composing the film (or game or mp3) are not considered property.

Well, it seems perfectly clear that bitcoin private keys cannot ever be considered physical property. If they are to be considered property at all, it can only be as intellectual property - like an mp3, they are merely strings of bits.

This would seem to be a problem for anyone who holds anti-IPR pro-bitcoin positions. If someone, by manipulating his computer, manages to hack and obtain some bitcoin private keys (and, obviously, the associated bitcoins), then, according to anti-IPR, no theft has taken place and no anti-IPR judicial system will recognize a loss.  Any physical attempt to recover the bitcoins would thus be unlawful.

It's not clear to me, though, what the anti-IPR position on hacking is. I mean, a hacker is merely issuing instructions to his own hardware which make it transmit certain bits of information, right? No-one can deny him that...    And the hacked party is free to program his own hardware to act, or not to act, on receipt of those bits of information...

You cannot infer that because an mp3 is a string of numbers and a bitcoin address is a string of numbers that the bitcoin address is IP because the thing an mp3 represents is also IP'd.
It's a logical fallacy.
You infer that because two things share a propertie they must share this other property.
Without any other information this is a false assumption.

You should first define what IP is, and then see if it applies to a bitcoin addres. And leave the mp3 out of it. MAYBE you will find out that the address should be IP in the same way an mp3 is, but you cannot decide beforehand and based on other random properties like that it is representable as numeral information.
For instance, the bible can be represented like a string of numbers, but there is no IP on it.
And there are mp3's that altho they are strings of numbers, are completely IP free.
So the fact that you're dealing with a string of numbers does not imply IP in any way.

[mobodick]

Let's make another example. It's anti-IPR world again, and Mr. X is a bitcoin user. He doesn't risk leaving bitcoins on his computer so he takes a printout of his BPKs and stores it in his wallet (the banknote kind). Mr Y finds the wallet and, being a good citizen, returns the wallet to its owner complete with all the contents.  However, before doing so he makes a copy of the BPKs and later that day extracts the associated bitcoins. The printout is clearly Mr X's property, but what about the number written on it?

No more so than the numbers on your credit cards. IP tends to protect creative works and does not apply to numbers (that creative works can be represented at numbers is sometimes brought out but that's another discussion).

Well, bitcoin private keys are creative works, of a sort - created by a software on the user's instruction. A vanity address might be considered more creative. But, yeah, numbers can't be copyright. Though when the Bluray decryption key (or was it DVD) was cracked, people started putting it on t-shirts shouting "freedom of speech" 'cos the industry tried its damnedest to stop anyone from copying what was, effectively, a number.

But, let's remember, I'm not talking about today's society. I'm talking specifically about an anti-IPR society, e.g. a libertarian society. This forum is full of libs and I'm surprised none have weighed in on this thread. How could a lib, in a lib (ie NAP etc) society, justify taking action against someone who copied their private keys? Indeed, this might even apply to GPG keys, SSH keys, any kind of "secret number".

I find it interesting what you say about the numbers on a credit card. Yeah, they're jut numbers, but if someone asks you to pay for a new TV and you quote numbers that do not "belong" to you, that'd be considered fraud. In some sense, bitcoin private keys are a bit like a credit card number - a digital money MUST (obviously) be really just a bunch of special numbers. Any society, therefore, that does not prohibit the illicit copying of these numbers cannot use digital money. If it is not possible to apply special protection to certain classes of data, digital money cannot be utilized.

You're confusing Intelectual Property with just normal general Property.
IP is a very specific subcategory of property that was invented to allow creative people to produce something they can sell without other people ripping off their ideas.
You cannot generalize that to all information produced by human action.
The best way to protect things like personal numbers is to think of its unique properties and place in society and make laws that fit that situation.
Making it too general will create a whole set of new problems which are not solved easily as information is a tricky substance.

[Richy_T]

You're confusing Intelectual Property with just normal general Property.
IP is a very specific subcategory of property that was invented to allow creative people to produce something they can sell without other people ripping off their ideas.
You cannot generalize that to all information produced by human action.
The best way to protect things like personal numbers is to think of its unique properties and place in society and make laws that fit that situation.
Making it too general will create a whole set of new problems which are not solved easily as information is a tricky substance.

Except that "intellectual property" is not a real thing, it's just a concept invented with the intent to confuse and conflate the idea with real property to provoke stronger protection

[mobodick]

You're confusing Intelectual Property with just normal general Property.
IP is a very specific subcategory of property that was invented to allow creative people to produce something they can sell without other people ripping off their ideas.
You cannot generalize that to all information produced by human action.
The best way to protect things like personal numbers is to think of its unique properties and place in society and make laws that fit that situation.
Making it too general will create a whole set of new problems which are not solved easily as information is a tricky substance.

Except that "intellectual property" is not a real thing, it's just a concept invented with the intent to confuse and conflate the idea with real property to provoke stronger protection

Not quite.
It is just a device invented to protect the livelyhood of creative folks.
What completely screwed it up was the relatively recent extentions of length of this right so even grand-children of the holder can profit. That is of course bullshit and should be reversed immediately.
Another thing that realy screwed it up was transferability. IP should only be expressable by the author period.

But without IP at all we would have a lot less culture. People would just not be able to produce enough of it and survive.

So while the intention was good and it functioned well for many years some rich groups or people screwed it up over the years and now we have shit laws peddled mainly by the US.

[Richy_T]

Not quite.
It is just a device invented to protect the livelyhood of creative folks.
What completely screwed it up was the relatively recent extentions of length of this right so even grand-children of the holder can profit. That is of course bullshit and should be reversed immediately.
Another thing that realy screwed it up was transferability. IP should only be expressable by the author period.

But without IP at all we would have a lot less culture. People would just not be able to produce enough of it and survive.

So while the intention was good and it functioned well for many years some rich groups or people screwed it up over the years and now we have shit laws peddled mainly by the US.

Well, the protection was there before the phrase "intellectual property" was ever invented. Then it was just a guarantee of a monopoly of the rights to use in exchange for promoting creativity. Though culture was doing pretty well (and possibly even better) before such laws were enacted.

[mobodick]

Not quite.
It is just a device invented to protect the livelyhood of creative folks.
What completely screwed it up was the relatively recent extentions of length of this right so even grand-children of the holder can profit. That is of course bullshit and should be reversed immediately.
Another thing that realy screwed it up was transferability. IP should only be expressable by the author period.

But without IP at all we would have a lot less culture. People would just not be able to produce enough of it and survive.

So while the intention was good and it functioned well for many years some rich groups or people screwed it up over the years and now we have shit laws peddled mainly by the US.

Well, the protection was there before the phrase "intellectual property" was ever invented. Then it was just a guarantee of a monopoly of the rights to use in exchange for promoting creativity. Though culture was doing pretty well (and possibly even better) before such laws were enacted.

IP is a broad word and cannot be said to be 'invented' at any one time. It is a collection of laws that deal with different specific situations.
The older laws can just as easily be called IP rights.
Before these laws there was no protection.
But then again, culture was not as fruitfull as it is now. Most people were peasants that never got to deal with these issues.
Culture was doing well for the few rich people that could afford it.
Because of the spread of literacy culture started to spread quicker and more people got involved in conflicts about ownership of ideas etc.
So laws were necessary to resolve these conflicts.
The problems we have now come mostly from big firms abusing their position. But that doesn't make IP laws useless, it means the current implementation sucks.

[Richy_T]

Well, the protection was there before the phrase "intellectual property" was ever invented. Then it was just a guarantee of a monopoly of the rights to use in exchange for promoting creativity. Though culture was doing pretty well (and possibly even better) before such laws were enacted.

IP is a broad word and cannot be said to be 'invented' at any one time. It is a collection of laws that deal with different specific situations.
The older laws can just as easily be called IP rights.
Before these laws there was no protection.
But then again, culture was not as fruitfull as it is now. Most people were peasants that never got to deal with these issues.
Culture was doing well for the few rich people that could afford it.
Because of the spread of literacy culture started to spread quicker and more people got involved in conflicts about ownership of ideas etc.
So laws were necessary to resolve these conflicts.
The problems we have now come mostly from big firms abusing their position. But that doesn't make IP laws useless, it means the current implementation sucks.

[/quote]

Maybe. All I'm saying is that the phrase "intellectual property" itself was chosen to pre-bias any discussion in a certain way. We can discuss the legitimacy of me copying something that you have done or created but when it's "intellectual property", then suddenly it's a different ball game.

[fergalish]

I think I haven't explained myself clearly. I'm not trying to say bitcoins and mp3s are IP, or that IP is good, or IP is bad or anything similar. Here's what I'm trying to do:

I'm hypothesizing a [libertarian] society where there is no such thing as IP and I'm asking a question about that society. Now, in this society, it is not permitted to regulate any persons use of their private property, as long as they does not infringe on anyone else's property rights and do not violate the NonAggressionPrinciple (NAP). Read the IP thread I linked to in the OP for more details.

Thus, in this society, duplicating an mp3 cannot be outlawed - no property has been damaged or stolen, and no aggression has occurred.

In these circumstances, therefore, could there be any rational justification for outlawing the copying of a bitcoin private key?  The BPK is not property, and no aggression has taken place.

Just to make it clear, I have an anti-libertarian inclination (though I keep an open mind), and I'm trying to present libertarians with a difficult question. In short: "In your libertarian world, how can you abolish IP and still claim a loss if your bitcoins are stolen? Therefore: get ye gone and sully the bitcoin world no more with your libertarian trash."  Ta-da!  

That's the key, [copying a BPK is] fraud. Not really anything to do with "intellectual property"

Assuming you are actually referring to the anti-IPR society, how is it fraud to copy a number, and execute mathematical functions on it? What exactly have I defrauded you of if I copy they keys in your possession, and transfer the associated bitcoins to a key in my possession.

You cannot infer that because an mp3 is a string of numbers and a bitcoin address is a string of numbers that the bitcoin address is IP because the thing an mp3 represents is also IP'd.

I didn't. I said: "...bitcoin private keys cannot ever be considered physical property. If they are to be considered property at all, it can only be as intellectual property - like an mp3..."
I didn't say because, I said like.

And remember, I was referring to this hypothetical anti-IPR society.

[casascius]

I don't think libertarian necessarily means anti IP.  A brief Google search leads me to believe opinions on this are all over the map.  I believe in IP (just not as presently implemented in the US, particularly am not a fan of the status quo patent system).

I also think private keys have nothing to do with IP.  A private key, being a random number, is not IP.  The presence or absence of laws regarding IP in this hypothetical society would matter as much as the presence or absence of laws regarding oranges.

In the same hypothetical libertarian society that has no IP laws, credit card fraud would still be outlawed because it violates the property rights of others.  It is not the act of copying the credit card number that constitutes the fraud (I might have it legitimately, as a merchant for example), but the act of falsely representing the cardholder's intent by presenting a transaction against his account, the number being just a vehicle to make that misrepresentation.  It is the same whether I make that misrepresentation in person, or if I do it online with the use of a software program (in this case a web browser) that allows me to communicate and express my intent.  I see no reason why Bitcoin fraud would be any different.