I used the example of what I ate for breakfast (and in prior discussions the wearing of a yellow hat) because these things are obviously not subject to statutory protection of any kind.

As to what I had for breakfast, even in the absence of any statutory protection, my authority to control it is total. (That’s not a hint, BTW.)

That item of information is something I am 1) excluding you from getting. I am 2) using it to illsutrate this story. I would 3) sell it to you (alienate it) for the right price, in which case you would 4) acquire it. Thanks to a good memory, I can 5) preserve it in perpetuity.

Tom, I use the term “property” precisely because of the legal connotations. “Good” doesn’t have enough of the legal connotations!

I think it’s a stretch to say that I’m the author of the fact of what I had for breakfast, and it’s really not a fact used in trade, so I don’t think the other terms you’ve suggested fit at all.

Wrong. Information is NOT protectable by copyright. Only the expression itself is protectable.

So Whereas the sentence “I finished my Eggs Benedict in a hurry because I needed to catch the 8:05 train to the City.” could be covered by copyright, you have NO AUTHORITY to restrict the information itself, i.e., the fact that you did eat Eggs Benedict for breakfast, or that you take the 8:05 train downtown.

Jim: I understand your plight, and agree that it’s hard to find a suitable term, but I don’t think “property” will help. That carries legal connotations that don’t fit the subject very well. (You might check out the standard tests for “property” that I run through in chapter 3 of my book.) Maybe you could use “good,” a more neutral term and one well-established in economics, instead of “property.” If you insist on a legal term, I’d use “author’s rights” or “trade secret.”

I’m not exercising any right particular to authors in controlling this “stuff” – I’m exercising dominion over my body and brain. So I think it is closer to a piece of property created and controlled by the intellect, or “intellectual property.”

I understand that people load up terms with baggage, and we’ve had our debates here about the term “intellectual property,” but do we change the language to avoid the baggage, or work to get people past their baggage? The most neutral term for this “stuff,” not larded with baggage, is probably “cognitive and volitional product.” But what loon (other than me) is ever going to adopt that term?

I guess I wouldn’t object too much to that narrow formulation of the sorts of rights authors enjoy. Indeed, it pretty closely resembles so-called (but misleadingly so) “common law copyright.” I’m still a little wary of applying “property,” here, though, as that term comes freighted with implications that you would have to explain away. Better, I think, to use sui generis term (“author’s rights,” as some commentators called the common law version, for instance).

Because I think information is most analogous to property (but radically different in its properties), I’ve adopted the view that information is a form of property, but that it is abandoned if not concealed, to be made use of by any successor coming across it.

Whaddya think of that?