

Could Quantum Computing Kill Copyright? - Garbage
http://torrentfreak.com/could-quantum-computing-kill-copyright-110731/

======
tonfa
No it couldn't, a judge is not a program and law does not work like
engineering.

I highly recommend reading this essay, it answers a very similar question.
<http://ansuz.sooke.bc.ca/lawpoli/colour/2004061001.php>

~~~
ZoFreX
This should really be required reading. Far too often geeks try to classify
legal issues using technical classifiers, or even worse, to solve them with
technical means. Arguments that make the assumption that the same bits
produced in different ways should have identical legal status are very flawed!

------
nextparadigms
I don't think copyright is _compatible_ with the Internet. It's time for
everyone to realize that. Times change, and some laws become obsolete. It's
not the first time it has happened and it's not going to be the last. Then a
couple of decades later you look back at them and realize how absurd they have
been. Not all industries have copyright, and they seem to have done pretty
well so far without, most likely much better than they would've done _with_
it.

These are some good videos on this, if you haven't seen them already:

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Q25-S7jzgs>

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zL2FOrx41N0>

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Plm1ulrp2s&feature=relat...](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Plm1ulrp2s&feature=related)

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ajobYLLUstg>

~~~
wynand
I have some pretty strong feelings about IP (I oppose software patents and I
think copyright terms are too long) but I suspect that IP will become more
sophisticated and pervasive. Robin Hansson has a post about what he calls
"IP+" ([http://www.overcomingbias.com/2011/07/ip-like-barbed-
wire.ht...](http://www.overcomingbias.com/2011/07/ip-like-barbed-wire.html)).
I don't like the future he paints but it is better than today's setup.

A large (and growing) part of the world's population will want some kind of
guarantee that they'll be compensated for their time and they'll be pushing
for some kind of IP. Whether or not this will be better or worse for society,
only data can tell us. But regardless of that, people want to optimize for
what they think is best for themselves and their offspring and will vote on
the basis of that.

~~~
muuh-gnu
> people want to optimize for what they think is best for themselves and their
> offspring

Copyright is a form of for-profit censorship. There are always people who will
vote for censorship and slavery in order to maximize the exploitation of other
people fot the benefit of themselves and theif offspring. the fact that there
are always people willing to support and profit from opression does not mean
that everybody else should not condemn, fight and try everything they can to
end it.

As of now, copyright is not democratically supported. It is directed and
enforced against the majority for the benefit of a influential minority, but
it was never, anywhere on this planet, supported by any kind of democratic
vote by the people. It originated in a dictatorship and has been spread behind
closed doors and shielded by various party mechanisms from a direct popular
vote, because the probable result of this vote would be a "no".

The turmoil around ACTA, where even talking about the negotiations was a no-go
disguised as "national security" to prevent any opposition to even form, has
shown that the politics around copyright is as undemocratic as ever.

I do not feel any moral obligation whatsoever to obey such a authoritarian law
clearly not backed by the majority of my peers. Copying and sharing stuff is
simply not _wrong_ as long as the majority of my peers does not condemn it. I
will never let a authoritarian, profit-oriented minority legislate my morals.

~~~
cageface
Guess what, by violating copyright you're _enabling_ the very people that seem
to outrage you so. If you really cared so much about this, you'd put your time
and money where your mouth is and support the people working outside
copyright.

More likely, you're just another pirate stealing food from the dinner table,
all the while complaining how bad it tastes and how small the portions are.

~~~
muuh-gnu
> you're just another pirate stealing

Keep talking yourself into it, and keep calling people with different
political opinions names, if it makes you more easily cope with the
undemocratic authoritative nature of today's copyright.

~~~
cageface
In what way is it undemocratic? If you're talking about the continual
extension of copyright terms to prevent older works from falling into the
public domain I agree. Copyright is also the bedrock of the GPL.

~~~
muuh-gnu
> In what way is it undemocratic?

I wrote about this in my original post, you can read it there. Copyright is a
new, unnatural form of "property" and only a minority has such a kind of
property and it is enforced against the majority. But the majority was never
asked whether they want this new type of property to be enforced against them,
it has just been postulated as "beneficial" a few centuries ago and then
enforced. No one, never ever on this planet has ever voted about it, it has
since it's beginnings been enforced top down, and never legitimated bottom up.

You cant just go out and define a new type of property which resides inside
others people communication and then enforce it by monitoring their
communication, without ever asking them about it in the first place. Of
course, you can do it, but then its an authoritative, not democratic feature.
But do not expect those of us who believe in democracy to feel morally obliged
to obey somebodys profit-oriented authoritative laws.

~~~
cageface
You could say the same things about any kind of property. Did we ever have a
formal, democratic vote on land ownership?

As more and more people transition to work producing only digital information,
do you really think that protections for that work are going to become _less_
popular?

~~~
muuh-gnu
> do you really think that protections for that work are going to become less
> popular?

I dont know. What I do know is that the majority of my peers does _not_
support IP in its current form...

> Did we ever have a formal, democratic vote on land ownership?

...while the majority of my peers _does_ support the notion of ownership of
physical items. I also personally do not know anybody who doesnt, so the
motivation to push for a vote on something where the result is "obvious" is
relatively low, but I of course wouldn't oppose it.

> You could say the same things about any kind of property.

So you in principle do agree that the public should be more directly involved
in the creation of laws which it is required to abide by.

The whole concept of trial by jury of peers implies that the peers had a role
in the creating of the law, and that they do not merely decide whether a law
created by a authoritative, undemocratic body, which the majority of them
might not even agree with, has been disobeyed.

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StavrosK
Yet another article that completely misses the point of copyright. What's the
article trying to say? That you can create all images, therefore you own the
copyright?

As a poster on that page says, this will explain it:

<http://ansuz.sooke.bc.ca/entry/23>

~~~
iwwr
There is an interesting IP minefield in the fledgling area of procedural
generation. That is, if you can define a procedural texture that looks the
same as another procedural texture (but different generating rules), are you
breaking copyright? Can you patent the algorithm that generates a tree?

~~~
_delirium
I agree that that one is an interesting angle. I think the quantum-computing
angle is unnecessary buzzword intrusion, though; most (all?) of the same
difficulties can be posed with procedural-generation systems using classical
computation.

------
retube
tl;dr : a quantum computer could create every single pixel permutation of an
image, which you could then claim copyright for.

However, fundamental difference: in a qc this data is represented by a super-
position of states. Which is fine, but I would argue each image has not been
individually created. And to write out 9.2 x 10^600,000 images is going to
take a fair amount of disk space (and time). Which is what I'd imagine you'd
have to do to claim copyright over them all.

~~~
ZoFreX
If you create a 500x500 pixel image on your computer, you own the copyright on
that image. But copyright isn't like patents or trademarks with "prior art":
If I also make an image through some means (take a photograph, paint a
picture, etc) that ends up being identical at 500x500 pixels, you don't own
the copyright on my image.

~~~
retube
Makes sense, I'm sure you're right - which further invalidates the article's
supposition!

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wcoenen
The article quotes 9.802 * 10^602059 possible images. And that storing these
would require _massive storage_.

Excuse me? The number of atoms in the observable universe is estimated to be
10^80. This idea is obviously complete nonsense, quantum computing or not.
Next thing they'll be telling us that they'll find SHA256 collisions by simply
trying 2^256 messages...

------
redthrowaway
The Law isn't just going to roll over and admit defeat. Copyright will
continue to exist so long as the minority it serves is louder than the
majority it hurts. If we want to protect our tubes, at some point we in the
Internet industry are going to have to get our hands dirty in DC. The only way
to beat them is to out-lobby them, and that's a long game. Google's taken a
few tentative steps, but it will be at least a decade before the tech lobby is
anywhere near as powerful as the entertainment lobby. Even then, we have to
ask ourselves: Is it worth it? Do we really want tech lobbyists writing laws?
Do we want Microsoft, Google, Apple, and Oracle deciding what's best for tech
and encoding that in law? Or are we better off, in the long run, simply
staying faster than the law and letting them legislate against whatever we
were doing a year ago?

~~~
cageface
The question of whether copyright serves the minority or the majority is going
to depend very much on who you ask. If you ask the typical hacker, who tends
to see digital works as generic stuff in the "tubes", copyright is annoying
inefficiency. For people that create that content though, copyright is what
makes it possible for them to put food on the table and, more importantly,
focus with the attention that good work requires.

If it becomes impossible for people to make a living creating digital work
you're soon going to have a super-efficient network of tubes full of nothing
but shit.

~~~
redthrowaway
The history of technology is one of disrupting old industries. The death of
quality, be it content, hand-made goods, or mom and pop shops, has been
heralded many times. Each time, somebody manages to find a way to make good
products.

If the movie industry refuses to sell movies that aren't on plastic, the
Internet will obsolesce them. That will not spell the end of video as
entertainment, as it will leave a void to be filled by somebody smarter and
faster. MP3s didn't kill music, despite all the dire warnings. The news is
struggling, but sites like huffpo have shown you can make money giving away
news. There's no reason someone can't come up with a model whereby they can
make money making good news.

Copyright, as it was intended, is fine. I make something, that means I can
sell it, not you. I'm okay with that. I'm not okay with limiting users, and
I'm certainly not okay with suing them or charging them with crimes. The laws,
as they are being written, enable copyright holders to pursue the latter
course of action as an alternative to innovating and adapting. That, I am not
okay with. There's nothing stopping anyone from making money with quality
content on the Internet, save the confines of their own lack of imagination.

~~~
cageface
I agree that the music & film industries have done dumb, counter-productive
things and I agree also agree that the way forward is to provide better and
more convenient service, like Netflix.

But I also hear a lot of people use these arguments to rationalize violating
copyrights, and I think that's wrong.

------
paulgb
Ignoring the technology bit, the legal side of the article is naive
speculation.

------
maeon3
I can't make all possible 256x256 images, but I COULD describe the space with
an algorithm that would make them all. If I walk into the patent office with
the algorithm, and tell them that if a new person comes into the patent
office, you have to run my algorithm to see if my algorithm hasn't already
defined the picture, obviously of which it has. then I can sue them, and take
them to court for infringing on my inventions.

Brilliant! Someone do this please.

~~~
mooism2
Patents and copyrights are different things. The linked article is about
copyrights, not patents.

