From John Perry Barlow at Edge.org: The big error with information has been mistaking the container for the content. When we started turning information into a product [after] Gutenberg, it was easy to think that the product was the book; dealing with it like other manufactured goods. In terms of distribution, there wasn’t a useful distinction to be made between books and toasters. We’re still focused on this idea that information is a product, a property, a thing. We have failed to recognise that information occurs fluidly and interactively and exists only in that sense. Trying to own information in the standard property model doesn’t work. Property is something that can be taken from you. If I own a horse and you steal it, I can’t ride it anymore and its value has been lost to me. But if I have an idea and you steal it, not only do I still have the same idea, but the fact that two people now have that idea makes it intrinsically more valuable. It has gained in value by virtue of y...
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