Owned: Property, Privacy and the New Digital Serfdom

Crisis of digital ownership:

{ ** Gleened in part from: The ‘Internet of Things’ Is Sending Us Back to the Middle Ages
 

by: Pocket Worthy

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Stories to fuel your mind.

The ‘Internet of Things’ Is Sending Us Back to the Middle Ages

Who owns all these devices we buy?

 Who controls them?

 Who do they control?

• Joshua A.T. Fairfield

One key reason we don’t control our devices is that the companies that make them seem to think – and definitely act like – they still own them, even after we’ve bought them. A person may purchase a a nice-looking box full of electronics that can function as a smartphone, the corporate argument goes, but they buy a license only to use the software inside. The companies say they still own the software, and because they own it, they can control it. It’s as if a car dealer sold a car, but claimed ownership of the motor. 

This sort of arrangement is destroying the concept of basic property ownership. John Deere has already told farmers that they don’t really own their tractors but just license the software – so they can’t fix their own farm equipment or even take it to an independent repair shop.

 Yet the expansion of the internet of things seems to be bringing us back to something like that old feudal model, where people didn’t own the items they used every day. In this 21st-century version, companies are using intellectual property law – intended to protect ideas – to control physical objects consumers think they own.
 

Recent years have seen progress in reclaiming ownership from would-be digital barons. What is important is that we recognize and reject what these companies are trying to do, buy accordingly, vigorously exercise our rights to use, repair and modify our smart property, and support efforts to strengthen those rights. The idea of property is still powerful in our cultural imagination, and it won’t die easily. That gives us a window of opportunity. I hope we will take it. 

Joshua A.T. Fairfield is a Professor of Law at Washington and Lee University.

** So you see things are not as you may have thought -  " They "run the show - with the do not pay attention to the man behind the curtain!  The scheme which is an invalid statement and the more reason to pay more attention!