"I don't think it is in society's best interest to think of information about a person as being generally owned by them."
What is the worse case scenario of people start widely adopting that notion? It becomes harder to run certain types of businesses that count on that not being true? We have to adopt new social etiquette for public photography if we don't want to appear rude?
Pictures are a subcategory of information generally. It would be really awkward not to be able to talk about your friends (online or otherwise) without their explicit permission. And what about strangers? Criticism and news of all kinds would violate such a more, and I don't see how that could be a good thing. You can imagine a world in which people demand that the Wikipedia page about them being taken down, and simple politeness militates that it is.
I suppose you could make a special case for photos, but I don't really see anything that specifically commends it relative to other information about you.
It would be really awkward not to be able to talk about your friends (online or otherwise) without their explicit permission.
Would this concept of ownership of information be particularly stronger than our existing concept of ownership of creative works? If I tell a friend a story then I and he consider myself to be the "owner" of that story, but I certainly don't tend to mind if he retells the story as his own in a noncommercial context, so long as I am not present. However if he gets my story published, then I am going to be rather upset.
If a friend wants to talk about me with other people at a bar, that is fine I guess. If he writes a book about me, I would absolutely consider that a considerable breach of trust. I have no problem with being on the receiving end of this notion of privacy.
While the bar is a noncommercial setting to tell stories, it's hardly a private one. The analogy seems to suggest that the distinguishing feature that triggers the more is on one side commercialism and on the other side publicness, but then it doesn't quite keep it consistent. So I guess I don't quite get it: why, under this reasoning, is it OK for him to tell the story about you at the bar?
Not at the moment of the conversation, but there's nothing stopping one of the people there from blogging about it once they get home (think Silicon Valley "overheard" product leaks).
The fact that a piece of information passes through a volatile medium before ending up in a more permanent form doesn't change the value or ownership of the information.
On a tangent, Google Glass passive audio and video recordings will be much more damaging to one's privacy than photos shared intentionally by friends.
Unless you have a model relase, its not clear you should be publishing the likenesses of others. Facebook is using these images for commercial purposes, period. While this is a devil's argument case, its not without merit.
That's an interesting angle. But presumably if someone comes along and creates a non-commercial FB competitor and people post photos of you there instead, that doesn't really address the real issue here, right?
Non-profits are subject to the same restrictions, it would seem. The red cross cannot sell fake designer goods to raise money "for charity" (and the $1MM CEO salary), etc. Nor can they use the likeness of Rihanna or Beyonce to further their ad campaigns without writen permission.
File this under "fun facts", and I can certainly understand not knowing, but the singular of "mores" is "mos". I seem to remember that it might have different meanings (in Latin) in the singular and plural, but that could easily be a false memory or a transference from vis/vires.
That is an insufficiently imaginative worst case scenario, especially if you're going to put "Orwellian police state" on the other side of the scale -- with apologies if you were not planning on going there. How about: it becomes a crime to do an unauthorized biography? Someone is jailed for writing an angry blog post about their ex? Etc.
Honestly, I think I could cope. That sounds easily preferable to the path we are on today.
However it is certain that putting the brakes on the rampant disregard for privacy does not have to result in such a pleasant extreme. "Banning unauthorized biographies" is many steps removed from "the public loses their trust in centralized social networks"
Sorry, I didn't go as far as I could. Let me try again: it becomes a crime to think about or discuss someone who has asked not to be thought about or discussed. There. That's pretty much the worst I can think of.
I hope you'll be OK, because it is almost inconceivable to me that the future will be more private with the progress of technology and miniaturization, and given how much people seem to care about it now.
Don't worry about me jamesaguilar, I'm good at coping.
I really can't say that I am bothered at the notion of somebody owning the information about themselves. If I write a story, I own that currently and other people cannot use that story without my permission. I'm just not seeing ownership of my life story as a particularly more bothersome concept.
Hell, throw a bone to historians and keep a concept of public domain after a period of time. I don't get to own other sorts of data forever, so that is fine.
Is information in your head your information or mine?
Stories have many characters. If I cheat you, lie to you, call you names, win over your girlfriend, and steal your dog, can I prevent you from using my story without permission?
This notion of information ownership is relevant in practical things. Look at the use of SLAPPs [1], for example. Or credit reporting, or Yelp, or even reporting crimes. All could be impacted by the radical version of personal ownership of personal data.
The right of ownership of fiction is mainly a commercial right: "To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries." So it doesn't really apply in non-commercial contexts. It's very limited in practice.
The book The Quantum Thief [2] has an interesting society where information ownership extends that far. If you don't have contract agreement to see or remember somebody, you won't.
Oh don't get me wrong, I'm not saying it would be ideal, I am saying that I could cope. Certainly fear of this sort of future would not put me off campaigning for slowing the erosion of privacy, as it seems to for jamesaguilar.
Nevertheless, I think you are seeing problems where there would be none. Reporting a crime involves violating the perpetrates privacy? Well sometimes stopping a crime or defending yourself violates the perpetrators right to not be struck or even killed. We seem to operate pretty well with self-defense exceptions to general bans on violence. It is easy to imagine analogues.
Our lawmakers agree with you, which is why the US has laws specifically excluding public persons (politicians, celebrities, etc.) from being able to claim many breach of privacy violations a normal private citizen is afforded.
Comments
What is the worse case scenario of people start widely adopting that notion? It becomes harder to run certain types of businesses that count on that not being true? We have to adopt new social etiquette for public photography if we don't want to appear rude?
Pictures are a subcategory of information generally. It would be really awkward not to be able to talk about your friends (online or otherwise) without their explicit permission. And what about strangers? Criticism and news of all kinds would violate such a more, and I don't see how that could be a good thing. You can imagine a world in which people demand that the Wikipedia page about them being taken down, and simple politeness militates that it is.
I suppose you could make a special case for photos, but I don't really see anything that specifically commends it relative to other information about you.
Would this concept of ownership of information be particularly stronger than our existing concept of ownership of creative works? If I tell a friend a story then I and he consider myself to be the "owner" of that story, but I certainly don't tend to mind if he retells the story as his own in a noncommercial context, so long as I am not present. However if he gets my story published, then I am going to be rather upset.
If a friend wants to talk about me with other people at a bar, that is fine I guess. If he writes a book about me, I would absolutely consider that a considerable breach of trust. I have no problem with being on the receiving end of this notion of privacy.
While the bar is a noncommercial setting to tell stories, it's hardly a private one. The analogy seems to suggest that the distinguishing feature that triggers the more is on one side commercialism and on the other side publicness, but then it doesn't quite keep it consistent. So I guess I don't quite get it: why, under this reasoning, is it OK for him to tell the story about you at the bar?
There is no physical record of the bar story.
Not at the moment of the conversation, but there's nothing stopping one of the people there from blogging about it once they get home (think Silicon Valley "overheard" product leaks).
The fact that a piece of information passes through a volatile medium before ending up in a more permanent form doesn't change the value or ownership of the information.
On a tangent, Google Glass passive audio and video recordings will be much more damaging to one's privacy than photos shared intentionally by friends.
Unless you have a model relase, its not clear you should be publishing the likenesses of others. Facebook is using these images for commercial purposes, period. While this is a devil's argument case, its not without merit.
That's an interesting angle. But presumably if someone comes along and creates a non-commercial FB competitor and people post photos of you there instead, that doesn't really address the real issue here, right?
Non-profits are subject to the same restrictions, it would seem. The red cross cannot sell fake designer goods to raise money "for charity" (and the $1MM CEO salary), etc. Nor can they use the likeness of Rihanna or Beyonce to further their ad campaigns without writen permission.
File this under "fun facts", and I can certainly understand not knowing, but the singular of "mores" is "mos". I seem to remember that it might have different meanings (in Latin) in the singular and plural, but that could easily be a false memory or a transference from vis/vires.
TIL, thanks. I have had that wrong for, like, ever.
That is an insufficiently imaginative worst case scenario, especially if you're going to put "Orwellian police state" on the other side of the scale -- with apologies if you were not planning on going there. How about: it becomes a crime to do an unauthorized biography? Someone is jailed for writing an angry blog post about their ex? Etc.
Honestly, I think I could cope. That sounds easily preferable to the path we are on today.
However it is certain that putting the brakes on the rampant disregard for privacy does not have to result in such a pleasant extreme. "Banning unauthorized biographies" is many steps removed from "the public loses their trust in centralized social networks"
Sorry, I didn't go as far as I could. Let me try again: it becomes a crime to think about or discuss someone who has asked not to be thought about or discussed. There. That's pretty much the worst I can think of.
I hope you'll be OK, because it is almost inconceivable to me that the future will be more private with the progress of technology and miniaturization, and given how much people seem to care about it now.
Don't worry about me jamesaguilar, I'm good at coping.
I really can't say that I am bothered at the notion of somebody owning the information about themselves. If I write a story, I own that currently and other people cannot use that story without my permission. I'm just not seeing ownership of my life story as a particularly more bothersome concept.
Hell, throw a bone to historians and keep a concept of public domain after a period of time. I don't get to own other sorts of data forever, so that is fine.
Is information in your head your information or mine?
Stories have many characters. If I cheat you, lie to you, call you names, win over your girlfriend, and steal your dog, can I prevent you from using my story without permission?
This notion of information ownership is relevant in practical things. Look at the use of SLAPPs [1], for example. Or credit reporting, or Yelp, or even reporting crimes. All could be impacted by the radical version of personal ownership of personal data.
The right of ownership of fiction is mainly a commercial right: "To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries." So it doesn't really apply in non-commercial contexts. It's very limited in practice.
The book The Quantum Thief [2] has an interesting society where information ownership extends that far. If you don't have contract agreement to see or remember somebody, you won't.
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SLAPP [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Quantum_Thief
Oh don't get me wrong, I'm not saying it would be ideal, I am saying that I could cope. Certainly fear of this sort of future would not put me off campaigning for slowing the erosion of privacy, as it seems to for jamesaguilar.
Nevertheless, I think you are seeing problems where there would be none. Reporting a crime involves violating the perpetrates privacy? Well sometimes stopping a crime or defending yourself violates the perpetrators right to not be struck or even killed. We seem to operate pretty well with self-defense exceptions to general bans on violence. It is easy to imagine analogues.
You can never criticise a politician if there's a law that lets anyone control their own name. Democracy becomes unworkable.
Similarly, you can't criticise business leaders or civil servants. So corruption becomes rife.
Our lawmakers agree with you, which is why the US has laws specifically excluding public persons (politicians, celebrities, etc.) from being able to claim many breach of privacy violations a normal private citizen is afforded.
What happens when a Yelp review of a business is considered to be owned by the business? (Replace business with sole proprietor, if you like.)