Is the government entitled in any way to “proprietary information” that is then treated like property?
We (some of us) allow corporations to treat proprietary information as intellectual property with the same legal protections as physical property because it benefits society to protect the revenue streams of eg hollywood so that they will continue producing new movies at a profit. But it is a specific hack to protect revenue streams of businesses to incentivize them to produce new and valuable information.
We never agreed to the same protections for the state, or even that such is good or necessary.
I am not sure how treating a video bitstream of war crimes (produced with hardware purchased with my tax money) as “property” that does not belong to me (a member of the group who paid for its production) benefits society. I am not sure how punishing someone who furnished me with a copy of that bitstream as someone who “stole” benefits society or encourages production of new or innovative or valuable information. Recall, that is the whole basis for the concept of “intellectual property” - a metaphor for businesses to profit from spending time and money producing new bitstreams, by shoehorning it into old physical property protection systems. The state is not a business and their prosperity is not an explicit goal of our society.
All it does it protect the state, who has demonstrated over and over again its willingness to break the law, perpetrate violence, and lie to everyone about all of it.
That is not a legal interpretation of “property” that we agreed to.
We (some of us) allow corporations to treat proprietary information as intellectual property with the same legal protections as physical property because it benefits society to protect the revenue streams of eg hollywood so that they will continue producing new movies at a profit. But it is a specific hack to protect revenue streams of businesses to incentivize them to produce new and valuable information.
We never agreed to the same protections for the state, or even that such is good or necessary.
I am not sure how treating a video bitstream of war crimes (produced with hardware purchased with my tax money) as “property” that does not belong to me (a member of the group who paid for its production) benefits society. I am not sure how punishing someone who furnished me with a copy of that bitstream as someone who “stole” benefits society or encourages production of new or innovative or valuable information. Recall, that is the whole basis for the concept of “intellectual property” - a metaphor for businesses to profit from spending time and money producing new bitstreams, by shoehorning it into old physical property protection systems. The state is not a business and their prosperity is not an explicit goal of our society.
All it does it protect the state, who has demonstrated over and over again its willingness to break the law, perpetrate violence, and lie to everyone about all of it.
That is not a legal interpretation of “property” that we agreed to.