"This article written by Paul Graham in 2012 discusses how the definition of ownership and law has changed over time according to the needs of technology and society. It also points out that some powerful groups try to protect existing definitions of ownership and manipulate the legal system to serve their own interests. Graham states that the definition of ownership needs to keep up with technological advancements, and this process can be facilitated by democratic societies and numerous sovereign countries.

---

# Defining Property (Evaluating the Definition of Property Ownership)

March 2012

The crazy legal measures that the labels and studios have been taking have a lot of that flavor. Newspapers and magazines are just as screwed, but they are at least declining gracefully. The RIAA and MPAA would make us breathe through tubes if they could.

Ultimately it comes down to common sense. When you're abusing the legal system by trying to use mass lawsuits against randomly chosen people as a form of exemplary punishment, or lobbying for laws that would break the Internet if they passed, that's ipso facto evidence you're using a definition of property that doesn't work.

This is where it's helpful to have working democracies and multiple sovereign countries. If the world had a single, autocratic government, the labels and studios could buy laws making the definition of property be whatever they wanted. But fortunately there are still some countries that are not copyright colonies of the US, and even in the US, [politicians](http://tctechcrunch2011.files.wordpress.com/2012/01/congress-on-sopa-done.png) still seem to be afraid of actual voters, in sufficient numbers. [3]

The people running the US may not like it when voters or other countries refuse to bend to their will, but ultimately it's in all our interest that there's not a single point of attack for people trying to warp the law to serve their own purposes. Private property is an extremely useful idea — arguably one of our greatest inventions. So far, each new definition of it has brought us increasing material wealth. [4] It seems reasonable to suppose the newest one will too. It would be a disaster if we all had to keep running an obsolete version just because a few powerful people were too lazy to upgrade.

#### Notes

[1] If you want to learn more about hunter gatherers I strongly recommend Elizabeth Marshall Thomas's [_The Harmless People_](http://www.amazon.com/Harmless-People-Elizabeth-Marshall-Thomas/dp/0394427793) and [_The Old Way_](http://www.amazon.com/Old-Way-Story-First-People/dp/0374225524).

[2] Change in the definition of property is driven mostly by technological progress, however, and since technological progress is accelerating, so presumably will the rate of change in the definition of property. Which means it's all the more important for societies to be able to respond gracefully to such changes, because they will come at an ever increasing rate.

[3] As far as I know, the term ""copyright colony"" was first used by [Myles Peterson](http://torrentfreak.com/australia-us-copyright-colony-or-just-a-good-friend-120121/).

[4] The state of technology isn't simply a function of the definition of property. They each constrain the other. But that being so, you can't mess with the definition of property without affecting (and probably harming) the state of technology. The history of the USSR offers a vivid illustration of that.

**Thanks** to Sam Altman and Geoff Ralston for reading drafts of this.

---

Relevant Keywords: defining property, legal measures in property definition, RIAA and MPAA property definition, impact of property definition on technology, property rights and democracy, copyright laws, changes in property definition, property as an invention, influence of technology on property definition, property definition controversies."