I think it's more that we see copyright as a necessary evil that can be used to defend our rights, but will be abused by the powerful, regardless.
To me, the biggest sin of cyberlibertarianism is the assumption that "cyberspace" is de facto another universe, separate from material reality, that doesn't need to be affected by the mundane and vulgar rules of "meatspace." John Barlow refers to "your governments" as if using a computer actually separates him from the state in some meaningful way, as if he has ascended beyond the flesh and now looks down upon the world as a being of pure Mind. But of course, "cyberspace" is just computers, servers, infrastructure using power and resources and thus is inextricably subject to government and systems of law. Zion was never an escape.
So yes, because cyberspace doesn't actually change the rules of the game, we have to play the game, crooked as it is, with the hand we're dealt. The legal pretense of ownership and copyright is all we have. If you want to abandon the idea of "ownership" altogether, then the wealthiest and most powerful still wind up controlling everything by virtue of their wealth and power. What do you suggest?
The whole thing just shows a huge lack of imagination, at least for something which is supposedly a 'founding document'. Barlow's "cyberspace" is for irrelevant shit like furry larping or talking about the latest Deep Space 9. Its not a place where you do banking (or even watch DS9).
> John Barlow refers to "your governments" as if using a computer actually separates him from the state in some meaningful way, as if he has ascended beyond the flesh and now looks down upon the world as a being of pure Mind. But of course, "cyberspace" is just computers, servers, infrastructure using power and resources and thus is inextricably subject to government and systems of law. Zion was never an escape.
I don't understand what you're trying to say here, is it that "cyberspace" couldn't exist as anything "real" because governments can just shut down servers? That's why you can't buy drugs and credit card numbers online anymore, right? Sarcasm aside, you seem to be using the fallibility of the current-popular physical layer to dismiss the otherwise separate tangible "space" that does seem to exist when lots of people can communicate fluidly with each other across vast distances. Or is your critique centered on the ability of "cyberspace" to go beyond just communication and serve as a space one can actually "live" in?
> The legal pretense of ownership and copyright is all we have. If you want to abandon the idea of "ownership" altogether, then the wealthiest and most powerful still wind up controlling everything by virtue of their wealth and power.
Limiting abandonment of "ownership" to only "copyright" and IP generally, what do you propose the wealthy would control that would allow them to replicate present circumstances in "cyberspace"? The best I can think of would be communications infrastructure, and they didn't build that by themselves (at least in the US) to begin with.
For example, why would TikTok continue to be usable as a brainrot generator & propaganda tool when content is necessarily separate from the algorithm and presentation layers? Current bastards exploit their centralized control based on this house of cards ownership structure. Nothing is practically stopping users from cloning the contents from the cdn and writing a new frontend besides legal threats. This is true of almost every tech business that exists, and many of them themselves exploited this asymmetry during their founding. They exist because billionaires use the legal system to scare individual upstarts from threatening their business model.
To me, the biggest sin of cyberlibertarianism is the assumption that "cyberspace" is de facto another universe, separate from material reality, that doesn't need to be affected by the mundane and vulgar rules of "meatspace." John Barlow refers to "your governments" as if using a computer actually separates him from the state in some meaningful way, as if he has ascended beyond the flesh and now looks down upon the world as a being of pure Mind. But of course, "cyberspace" is just computers, servers, infrastructure using power and resources and thus is inextricably subject to government and systems of law. Zion was never an escape.
So yes, because cyberspace doesn't actually change the rules of the game, we have to play the game, crooked as it is, with the hand we're dealt. The legal pretense of ownership and copyright is all we have. If you want to abandon the idea of "ownership" altogether, then the wealthiest and most powerful still wind up controlling everything by virtue of their wealth and power. What do you suggest?