To continue a thread, and to overcome the character limit on comment posts. Here is my response to Andrew:
The joys of blogging – to get intelligent pushback and the honing of thoughts.
In the comments to a previous post we have run into semantics about what is theft. I have posited deprivation as a test. Maybe that is inadequate or a subset of the issue.
Let me explore, therefore, the related question of: “What is ownable?” – ownable in an inherent sense.
I would argue that somethings aren’t inherently ownable – the air, the warmth of the sun, the nation etc. These things have an inherent sense of being “in common.” It is inherently impossible to take these things and demarcate them for one’s exclusive use. They are not ownable.
Ownable things are able to be demarcated (particularised) for one’s exclusive use.
Any form of object is therefore inherently ownable – I can say, “This thing is particularly and exclusively under my control.”
Some intangibles (or at least non-physicals) may also be ownable – my time for instance. Although one could argue that my time is certainly tangible even if it is not an object – I will have a sense of loss if deprived of it.
Emotions, concepts, numbers, ideas and universally generic objects etc. cannot be demarcated in this way. I cannot stop you feeling, thinking, counting, imagining or breathing etc. If I think the same thought as you, feel the same emotion I have not deprive you of them. They cannot be brought under exclusive control.
My assertion is that deprivability is at least a useful (possibly inadequate) test to determine the difference.
But my expansion allows an interaction with your concept of “permission.” That relates to my concept of “exclusive control” and so we agree on some things:
So, to your examples:
“I think theft of a mule is also in that category, because taking my neighbour’s mule is not itself immoral – it is only so when I do it without permission, that is what stealing is.”
The theft of a mule is Command 8 theft – the owner’s control over a specific thing has been subverted.
“Would you not pay an accountant? You haven’t taken anything tangible from them, but isn’t that still theft?”
The accountant owns himself. If I fail to pay him for his time I have subverted his control over himself. I would call that theft. I have deprived him of himself for a time, if you like.
“If I steal my neighbour’s bull and use it to inseminate my cow, and then give the bull back, is that still stealing? Yes, I think it is.”
I agree – but what are you stealing? What ownable thing? The sperm, the time the bull could have been spent working for its owner? Those things are able to be exclusively demarcated and the owner has been deprived. Other things – the DNA information, the bloodline, the species itself are greyer areas perhaps.
But:
“So how then is it different if I take someone’s idea or sonic recording without permission?”
Surely you cannot own an idea? Surely I don’t need / can’t have / is absurd to posit your permission to think about an idea that you’ve had.
An idea cannot be made exclusive. (What’s that thought experiment – to put someone in a room and tell them that if they think about polar bears they lose? You cannot control an idea)
Ideas are inherently in common. If you insist on controlling my thoughts you brushing with the absurd.
But to the “sonic recording” – the crux of this debate will end up at this issue I suspect.
The question is this, is a song more like an”idea” or more like an “ownable thing.”
I would suggest that in the end the basic nature of music is that it is “information.” Can “information” be particularised or made exclusive to be controlled? Is it inherently ownable?
My scandalous point of view is – I don’t think it is. And that is the debate at hand.
Mostly because information is everywhere. If I look at your copyrighted painting, do you now own a part of my brain? Could I have avoided the information transaction if I didn’t want to be beholden to you in some way? No. You cannot make the information of your painting exclusively under your control. It can’t be made exclusive! Every person who sees the painting receives it’s information and stores it and remembers it in some way. The information in the painting is in common!
My argument (an argument in development for sure) is, therefore, that while the expression of information may be _regulated_ the information itself cannot be owned. That regulation can take the form of an agreement (I won’t render the information pertaining to your painting that is now in my head, I won’t represent the information pertaining to your painting in my camera) or human law (we hereby say that no-one will render information pertaining to your painting)
I’m not even saying that it should not be regulated. I am certainly not suggesting that is wrong for illegal downloads to be illegal.
What I’m saying is that IP laws are matters of human regulation, not divine imperative, and so they can be critiqued, and even reconsidered.
Keep pushing back at me,
W.
John 
To build upon your thoughts:The reason copyright is about copies, is because copies are not about theft. Theft, as I understand at least the British law system, involves that sense of deprivation of a tangible object. Copying is the creation of a second instance of the same thing: it is adding a new 'thing' (an intangible, generally), not changing the ownership of the initial thing.This is, in part, why the advent of the internet has caused so many IP headaches. Computers are all about copying. When you download a song, that string of 0s and 1s has just been copied over and over across computers, servers, etc., to you. Trying to control 'copies' in the digital age is built on a very outmoded concept of tangibles.Likewise ideas. If I get an idea from you, now both you and I have idea 'X'. Not deprivation, duplication. Theft isn't the right category for thinking through such issues.