The future of information

[parallaxicality]

There is a fundamental problem with information: the higher the quality, the more energy and time one must invest in acquiring or producing it; however, there is no objective way of measuring and thus quantifying, its value. This means that something overheard in a pub has as much chance of gaining currency as a double-blind stastically valid sample study conducted over 5 years, or that a guy picking his nose on Youtube can gain more viewers than a David Attenborough documentary.

Ever since information was first recorded, there has been one, and only one, method of granting it objective value, which has been to create an artificial scarcity. Either restrict the ability to interpret information to a small group of monks/scribes/programmers, and leave the vast majority to glean it secondhand, or since the invention of printing, create artificial walls around it, such as copyright, to which only those who pay have access.

This scarcity is, I think, a good thing. It ensures that the press and scientific organisations have adequate funding for their research, and that people who produce information can do so for a living.

But the internet has pulled down many of the walls we've spent centuries putting up around information. The artificial value we've assigned to it is crumbling. Copyright lawyers seem to believe that the same system can function in a post-internet world, but I have to wonder if they have any idea how the internet works. There are already censorship-proof web-browsers, such as Freenet, that if everyone adopted would end copyright tomorrow.

I don't know where this is going. Some people think that loss of copyright would be a price worth paying for the democratisation of information, but they are wrong. Without some way of monetising information, there is no way to ensure its quality, and eventually, information will be everywhere, but facts will be nowhere, and we will be, without realising it, in a new Dark Age.

[BioSci]

Some people think that loss of copyright would be a price worth paying for the democratisation of information, but they are wrong. Without some way of monetising information, there is no way to ensure its quality, and eventually, information will be everywhere, but facts will be nowhere, and we will be, without realising it, in a new Dark Age.

Just a quick comment: information, per se, is not copyrightable. One can only copyright original, creative, content.

Simple information, data, or facts can not be copyrighted - although one can copyright the design, arrangement, or expression of such information.

[Solfe]

Well, I think about this topic a lot and I have to say that copyright isn't the only issue here. There is the whole evil triangle of copyright - attribution - plagiarism. What makes this evil is that sometimes you want to protect information and lock it away for reasons other than control or money which is at odds with transmitting or preserving information.

Attribution is a valid reason to lock up information or at least "tag it in the wild" so that it retains its value over time. Who wants every woo-woo's paper to have the same weight as a Nobel laureate because people can just change the names on stuff? Omission of attribution is bad enough, but eliminating ownership divorces author from idea. Oddly the reverse would also be true. Sometimes "Anonymous" authors want to say something that cannot be backtracked to them. Image the damage if a whistle-blower piece was tagged back on to a half dozen "authors" because we did away with the convention of attribution?

Plagiarism is the other side of that, people will always steal "ideas" and if it is done enough there is no way to "authenticate" or "value" either the idea or the original author. I hate it when people call plagiarism "theft"; it is more like taking someone else credentials and wrecking them. It is its own thing, but trashing credentials or devaluing work is more correct than "theft".

Copyright has a twist on it that most people miss. Yes, it locks up ideas for a period of time but it also protects unpublished information essentially forever. Until the Fawkes Guys and Gals break into Coca-Cola, Pepsi and KFC the formulas for these products are safe from the public. That is one of the protections of copyright that most people overlook. Unpublished information can be "discovered" by others (except by theft, which is of course illegal). What protects Coca-Cola also protects your bank statements.

I would lean heavily to the idea that all three of these things are in serious trouble due to the Internet and maybe a rethink on all of them are in order. Throwing them completely away would be foolish.

[BioSci]

Copyright has a twist on it that most people miss. Yes, it locks up ideas for a period of time but it also protects unpublished information essentially forever. Until the Fawkes Guys and Gals break into Coca-Cola, Pepsi and KFC the formulas for these products are safe from the public. That is one of the protections of copyright that most people overlook. Unpublished information can be "discovered" by others (except by theft, which is of course illegal). What protects Coca-Cola also protects your bank statements.

Some further clarifications:

Ideas can not be copyrighted - only particular expressions of an idea can be copyrighted.
Example: the idea of a house made of cards - no copyright - but a specific drawing, picture, or construction of a house of cards can be copyrighted.

Unpublished information is also not subject to copyright - rather, it can be considered a trade secret, which is a separate category of protected property rights that does cover Coca-Cola. If such "information" is published, then the specific expression of that information can be copyrighted but the information itself can not be copyrighted.

One's personal bank statements are not generally considered trade secrets, they are private, confidential, information covered by banking laws and privacy acts. Similar to one's medical records.

Basically there are four main types of intellectual property:
Patents - new, useful "inventions" - right to commercial monopoly - make, use, sell, import, export...
Copyright - creative acts, writings - right to control copying, display, performance, ...
Trade marks - brand names, logos - right to use and control use of.
Trade secrets - information that is not published - ability to recover damages if "stolen"

[grapes]

Until the Fawkes Guys and Gals break into Coca-Cola, Pepsi and KFC the formulas for these products are safe from the public. That is one of the protections of copyright that most people overlook.

Maybe they overlook them because they're not copyrighted.

[danscope]

The thing about information is that you really want 'corroboration' of information before you can consider it as ' Fact ' .
When I first heard about 'nibiru' etc etc , I was curious, but........BUT..... just a little research into it was all that was needed before the plain truth of the matter was revealed.
The internet is a wonderfull thing. Just remember: there is always a few con-artists amoung the crowd. And that's a fact.

Dan

[Jens]

I don't know where this is going. Some people think that loss of copyright would be a price worth paying for the democratisation of information, but they are wrong. Without some way of monetising information, there is no way to ensure its quality, and eventually, information will be everywhere, but facts will be nowhere, and we will be, without realising it, in a new Dark Age.

Though I'm not an expert, I think that there probably were no copyright laws in eras before the dark ages, such as Athens and Rome, and that it didn't prevent creativity. Intellectual property rights may be a way of accelerating innovation, but they are certainly not a necessary prerequisite. Innovation certainly existed before the development of IPRs.

[Xelebes]

Copyright protects more the person with the press than it does for the person with the pen. A contract with a publisher, performer or distributor allows the printer to guarantee that they have a commercial monopoly for the item they are copying and printing. Copyright then allows the author to be compensated by the copier.

[parallaxicality]

Back in those days, information was restricted by the fact that few people could read and fewer people could write. Copyright was unnecessary because a) the literary sphere was small enough that people could keep an eye on each other and b) artists were protected by patrons. Patronage has been suggested as a path beyond copyright, but it would mean the death of free speech, since we could only report what our patrons wanted us to say

[Ara Pacis]

I disagree with the original premise that scarcity is the only method of quantifying value. Popularity is one method, and while predicated on subjectivity is still quantifiable. Peer Review is another method of quantifying value in the sense of quantifying objective validity. Even bit-rate and contrast of one datum with another datum in a piece, to determine complexity of a particular work of some medium, insofar as it cannot be reduced as much for compression encoding is another method of objectively establishing a comparative value.

If the issue is about piracy, then the EFF has suggested new models that use an ISP-based ASCAP type of system due to new media resembling broadcasting in extent if not in function. I'm not that worried about scarcity, as the sheer volume of information makes it impossible to consume more than a certain amount of information, even if one has access to more than that amount. To that end, the major internet companies know this and much of their business is methods and services for winnowing information, so that one may sip from the firehose, so to speak.

[Perikles]

I think that there probably were no copyright laws in eras before the dark ages, such as Athens and Rome, and that it didn't prevent creativity.

The only way we know about such ancient laws is by extant court cases, and (I think) there are none relating to copyright. But I don't think the comparison holds up very well. Plagiarism was no doubt rife, but because the societies were so small I suspect that any form of copying would be seen a flattery rather than a threat. Just a guess.

[Xelebes]

The number of literate people prior to the invention of the press was very limited so the number of plagiarists were less. It was also difficult for things to get copied since you had to do it by hand (pen.) It wasn't until the invention of the press that plagiarism and copyright became concerns.

[Perikles]

The number of literate people prior to the invention of the press was very limited so the number of plagiarists were less.

Well, I was really talking about Ancient Athens, where this was cartainly not the case. The literacy rate is debatable, but probably the majority of the free population. Anyway, the material likely to be copied was composed for the theatre, and any copying was probably verbal. Having said that, what you say is correct for modern Europe.

[Xelebes]

Well, I was really talking about Ancient Athens, where this was cartainly not the case. The literacy rate is debatable, but probably the majority of the free population. Anyway, the material likely to be copied was composed for the theatre, and any copying was probably verbal. Having said that, what you say is correct for modern Europe.

There is also the notion of patronage. If someone was plagiarising somebody who had patronage, they would not be getting much money at all because common folk - the target audience of the plagiarist - was not used to spending much money, if at all, for their art and the artist with patronage already had a secure flow of income. Philosophical circles in Athens would have been a bit like clubs where the interested would give money but the money was not in writing the book, the money was in the performance (dramas, lectures and so forth.)

[ammer]

I'm baffled by the OP's statements. I can't match them with what I actually see happening in the "Information Age" all around me.

Ever since information was first recorded, there has been one, and only one, method of granting it objective value, which has been to create an artificial scarcity. Either restrict the ability to interpret information to a small group of monks/scribes/programmers, and leave the vast majority to glean it secondhand, or since the invention of printing, create artificial walls around it, such as copyright, to which only those who pay have access.

So what about the objective value of Wikipedia?

This scarcity is, I think, a good thing. It ensures that the press and scientific organisations have adequate funding for their research, and that people who produce information can do so for a living.

In the digital age where copying information is virtually costless, artificial scracity in general destroys value. The extra penny is lost to the middleman, the gatekeeper, who is only protecting the information, while not adding value. In the past, the gatekeepers did add value by distributing the information, but that was before the internet. Just one example: what about science publishers, how much value do they add to research today?

The internet will pull down a lot of business models that can't adopt: add value or perish. Other businesses will emerge and thrive. I'm not an economist, but I can't imagine this to be bad for society, getting rid of unnecessary middlemen.

[Jens]

Back in those days, information was restricted by the fact that few people could read and fewer people could write. Copyright was unnecessary because a) the literary sphere was small enough that people could keep an eye on each other and b) artists were protected by patrons. Patronage has been suggested as a path beyond copyright, but it would mean the death of free speech, since we could only report what our patrons wanted us to say

On the first point, I suspect that copyright wasn't used because it wasn't a concept that people worried about much. In reality, I think there was a lot of plagiarism, just think of the bards who went around singing songs. I suspect that they copied others, and didn't pay royalties, and that the payment of royalties wasn't something that anybody had really considered. I think it's fairly accepted that it was common in pre-copyright days for authors to plagiarize other works. For example.

About the patrons, you're probably correct to some extent. Creativity certainly would continue to exist, because clearly Mozart was very creative despite having patrons. Free speech is more difficult. It would mean, I suppose, finding a patron who agreed with you, or at least was willing to suffer you. I'd also say that not having copyrights doesn't mean automatically that you can't sell anything. Just think of all the classic works that are no longer copyrighted, but which are still sold.

[parallaxicality]

So what about the objective value of Wikipedia?

Wikipedia has no objective value. It's only value is as a gateway to genuinely peer reviewed sources backed by actual, verified expertise.

what about science publishers, how much value do they add to research today?

They ensure that genuinely qualified scientists have a prestigious title under which to release their papers rather than the Fire Mountain Weirdlologer.

[Perikles]

I don't know where this is going. Some people think that loss of copyright would be a price worth paying for the democratisation of information, but they are wrong. Without some way of monetising information, there is no way to ensure its quality, and eventually, information will be everywhere, but facts will be nowhere, and we will be, without realising it, in a new Dark Age.

I have just noticed this paragraph, which I think is a concern I share as well. The real problem of proliferation of information is that almost all of it is worthless, and on the internet there is no method of sorting the small amount of wheat from the vast quantities of chaff.

One skill acquired by an education is the ability to assess the value of information, and I fear this skill is being eroded by the perception that you don't actually need to know anything because you have google there to tell you. Why learn a foreign language when you have an on-line translator? (That is a rhetorical question, by the way. If you need to respond to it, then you are probably proving my point).

[IsaacKuo]

The real problem of proliferation of information is that almost all of it is worthless, and on the internet there is no method of sorting the small amount of wheat from the vast quantities of chaff.

Sure there is. Google's entire existence is based on this.

One skill acquired by an education is the ability to assess the value of information, and I fear this skill is being eroded by the perception that you don't actually need to know anything because you have google there to tell you.

But how does Google figure out which links to point you to? For years, it was with web crawling algorithms which tried to figure out which links were high quality implicitly by gathering data on links and clicks. With Google+, they are getting more explicit, where users explicitly "+1" on links and users explicitly share quality links with their circles. (Google didn't invent the idea of Google+; they saw Facebook as an awesome information gathering tool for getting the masses to do search refinement for them, but knew Facebook wouldn't just let them have all that data.)

These are fundamentally high tech ways to do what we used to do without computers--cut away wheat from chaff via the opinion of others. You'd trust an article in a respected scientific journal rather than the National Enquirer not because you personally investigated the merits of the articles but because you trusted others to investigate them for you.

[parallaxicality]

Have you ever tried Googling "2012 apocalypse"? You're lucky if you find three kernels of wheat in the first 20 pages.

[IsaacKuo]

Have you ever tried Googling "2012 apocalypse"? You're lucky if you find three kernels of wheat in the first 20 pages.

This is one reason why Google is pushing forward with Google+. It allows for personalized search and personalized ratings. Google will be able to figure out which sites would be interesting to you, as rated by other people with similar interests/beliefs/view of reality. Also, these are based on post-click ratings, rather than the current method of implicit ratings from clicked on links.

As it is, Google search is more or less a one-size-fits-all approach, which doesn't work well if the majority of people are more interested in crazy 2012 theories than the scientific mainstream you're interested in.

[Ara Pacis]

Have you ever tried Googling "2012 apocalypse"? You're lucky if you find three kernels of wheat in the first 20 pages.

That information is quantifiably valuable due to its popularity. If you want quality, then you should state that instead of quantity. Even then, the Google results represent a quality of the information in terms of some metric, which may not be your preferred metric.

Wikipedia has no objective value. It's only value is as a gateway to genuinely peer reviewed sources backed by actual, verified expertise.

Again, incorrect. Wikipedia is not a clearinghouse for information but also exists as a repository for information. Even if you don't follow the links, a lot can be learned from the articles.

I think you're confusing quality and quantified value, and I don't think they are the same thing.

[parallaxicality]

That information is quantifiably valuable due to its popularity. If you want quality, then you should state that instead of quantity. Even then, the Google results represent a quality of the information in terms of some metric, which may not be your preferred metric.

The point I was making was how we quantify quality. High-quality information, whether creative, scientific or journalistic, requires an investment of time, money and resources to produce. In order to make the creation of high-quality information worthwhile, we have to quantify its value. The means by which he have done so since the invention of writing was to create an artificial scarcity.

Again, incorrect. Wikipedia is not a clearinghouse for information but also exists as a repository for information. Even if you don't follow the links, a lot can be learned from the articles.

According to whom? I edit Wikipedia every day. I am more familiar than most with how information gets onto it. Any faith I have in the expertise or lack thereof of my collaborators is entirely based on personal trust. If you are, as I assume you are, qualified enough to verify that the information on Wikipedia is of high enough quality to be trusted, and you trust it, then fine. But you can't vouch for it in a scientific journal, nor can you be sure that it will retain its standard, nor can you evaluate the information outside your chosen field.

[IsaacKuo]

The point I was making was how we quantify quality. High-quality information, whether creative, scientific or journalistic, requires an investment of time, money and resources to produce. In order to make the creation of high-quality information worthwhile, we have to quantify its value. The means by which he have done so since the invention of writing was to create an artificial scarcity.

Actually, the means by which we have quantified the value since the invention of writing has been based on the labor theory. It costs man-hours to create high quality information, and this is one way to quantify its value. This method works well for creative writing and typical reporting. In the case of scientific papers or exotic exploration reporting, there may also be significant material costs involved, in addition to the labor costs.

Creation of artificial scarcity is completely unnecessary for quantifying value. It might be used to facilitate monetizing content creation, but it's not at all necessary in order to quantify the effort.

[parallaxicality]

Actually, the means by which we have quantified the value since the invention of writing has been based on the labor theory. It costs man-hours to create high quality information, and this is one way to quantify its value. This method works well for creative writing and typical reporting. In the case of scientific papers or exotic exploration reporting, there may also be significant material costs involved, in addition to the labor costs.

Creation of artificial scarcity is completely unnecessary for quantifying value. It might be used to facilitate monetizing content creation, but it's not at all necessary in order to quantify the effort.

Man hours don't say much about quality; one can spend a lifetime manufacturing low quality information. Monetising information is the only way we have of assigning objective value to a subjective concept.

[IsaacKuo]

Man hours don't say much about quality; one can spend a lifetime manufacturing low quality information. Monetising information is the only way we have of assigning objective value to a subjective concept.

That's nonsense, there are many ways to assign a value which are equally objective. Monetising isn't really "objective" at all, of course--it's simply what some people subjectively feel like paying for something, modified by various specific circumstances which let them get away with either spending more or less than they'd ultimately be willing to pay.

Popular vote is an equally objective method, as is number of readers/audience size, as is number of man-hours spent reading/viewing the piece. Then there's also "impact factor"--number of references in other works.

There are all sorts of measures possible, that are just as objective if not more objective than the fickle market value.

Personally, I'd go with man-hours spent reading/viewing the piece. There are few things as precious in life as time. For people to spend that precious time reading or viewing a particular creative work is, to me, a telling indication that they feel they have received something of value for it. And unlike money, time is roughly equally valuable for all people. Using monetizing as a measure heavily weights things toward the opinions of a small minority--the wealthy elites. Using time as a measure weighs the opinions of all roughly equally.

[baskerbosse]

The dieting and self-help book industry is worth a fortune.
It's still not quality information.

Monetizing does not ensure quality.
Neither does scarcity.


Peter

[Ara Pacis]

The point I was making was how we quantify quality. High-quality information, whether creative, scientific or journalistic, requires an investment of time, money and resources to produce. In order to make the creation of high-quality information worthwhile, we have to quantify its value. The means by which he have done so since the invention of writing was to create an artificial scarcity.

I think Isaac addresses this well above.

According to whom? I edit Wikipedia every day. I am more familiar than most with how information gets onto it. Any faith I have in the expertise or lack thereof of my collaborators is entirely based on personal trust. If you are, as I assume you are, qualified enough to verify that the information on Wikipedia is of high enough quality to be trusted, and you trust it, then fine. But you can't vouch for it in a scientific journal, nor can you be sure that it will retain its standard, nor can you evaluate the information outside your chosen field.

According to your statement above, Wikipedia articles have a quality. That's was the point I was making. It may not be as good as you like, but it's often better than nothing. Some people need to learn to walk before they run. The Quality of information exists along a spectrum.

[parallaxicality]

Personally, I'd go with man-hours spent reading/viewing the piece. There are few things as precious in life as time. For people to spend that precious time reading or viewing a particular creative work is, to me, a telling indication that they feel they have received something of value for it. And unlike money, time is roughly equally valuable for all people. Using monetizing as a measure heavily weights things toward the opinions of a small minority--the wealthy elites. Using time as a measure weighs the opinions of all roughly equally.

Alex Jones's conspiracy website is one of the most heavily trafficked on the web. I'm sure there are articles in Nature that have been less heavily scrutinised than many articles on his site.

According to your statement above, Wikipedia articles have a quality. That's was the point I was making. It may not be as good as you like, but it's often better than nothing. Some people need to learn to walk before they run. The Quality of information exists along a spectrum.

No, according to my statement, you think Wikipedia articles have quality. As do I; I wrote several of them. But is the fact that we can both cite Wikipedia articles which we personally view as having quality automatically mean that they do?

[IsaacKuo]

Alex Jones's conspiracy website is one of the most heavily trafficked on the web. I'm sure there are articles in Nature that have been less heavily scrutinised than many articles on his site.

So what? Your supposed "only" objective measure does no better. Even worse, actually, where deep pocketed industries have a financial stake in deceiving the public (tobacco industry, oil industry, coal industry, etc).

Just because you don't like the results of a measure does not make it any less of a measure.

The reader/viewer man-hours measure is an objective measure of a creative work's popularity, not truth level.

And in case you hadn't noticed, most people don't actually want the truth. Most people would rather have self-affirmation than the truth. That's what most people actually look for on the web, which is why everyone mostly hangs out with similar minded people with similar interests and similar world views.

It seems to me like you wish for a return to some sort of centralized ivory tower system where the media elites decide what everyone should consume and they ram it down the throats of the people whether they like it or not. Well, that has been the case in some times of history (network radio/TV era, newspaper era to a lesser extent). But that's not how things are going to work on the Internet. Deal with it.

But is the fact that we can both cite Wikipedia articles which we personally view as having quality automatically mean that they do?

Actually, yes. Whether or not others also find them as having quality is another matter, but it only takes one person to find something of value in order for it to have value.