It points out that imaginary property is wholly unlike physical property. One is naturally exclusive, as multiple people cannot all use the same property at the same time. The other is not, as information is more valuable when shared.
Importing concepts of physical property is sloppy thinking and detrimental to society because it advocates for an unreasonable and unworkable basis. It's interesting in that vein that you have a "sweat of the brow" concept of copyright interest, when this theory has been directly rejected under US law (Feist v. Rural).
The term imaginary property recognizes such contributions to society as the product of the imagination and is more productive as a starting place for discussion thereof, even if it also lumps the disparate legal concepts together to some degree, though this may be unavoidable at this point.
"The term imaginary property recognizes such contributions to society as the product of the imagination and is more productive as a starting place for discussion thereof"
No, it's derogatory. Very few phrases of the form "Oh, it's just your imaginary X" are designed to be complimentary. In common parlance, "imaginary" is just synonymous with "not real". The phrase "imaginary property" is designed purely to advance an agenda where people write books, create films, make software, etc all for some "manna" which, when pushed, advocates can't actually specify beyond saying "they'll find new business models". Yes, they will. Involving not writing books, films, etc.
> The other is not, as information is more valuable when shared.
If this were true, there would be no need for insider trading laws, we'd play poker with all the cards face up, and targets of blackmail would just laugh it off.
You're pointing out the asymmetry of the value, rather than disputing it.
The information the insiders are trading on is relevant to the stock price (i.e. valuable to stockholders), the poker card info is valuable to the other players (or cheats wouldn't be after it), and the target of the blackmail has something important to hide or they wouldn't pay up.
I still don't see how that is the case with your examples.
Insider trading laws, for example, exist exactly because only a few people having the info reduces its value, there would be no point in having them if that wasn't the case. Obviously, the value to the few having the information is increased because they can use the information to their advantage - but the overall value of something has to consider externalities as well, which in this case would mean considering at least the losses that unsuspecting trading partners incur, which already would make it a zero-sum game, so there at least is no positive value in keeping the information secret. Now, another externality of keeping insider information secret is that it leads to the market making less rational decisions about asset allocation, for example allocating capital to a company that is actually less efficient at doing its job in society than its competitor that publishes such information immediately and honestly, thus likely wasting resources in comparison to the allocation that would happen in an honest market. I mean, after all, we put quite a lot of effort into making sure that price discovery in the stock market is not being manipulated, and into creating public exchanges with public price information in the first place, so presumably there is some value to society in making this information widely available?
You're only looking at half of the value, though. It's because it has value to others that it's worth keeping the secret. I'm asserting that the normal case is for the value to others to outweigh the individual's value. You are correct that it's asymmetric, of course. And yes, zero sum games would tend to be something of a limiting case. I'm not sure you can find a negative sum game for society as a whole, though you can for some particular group.
Importing concepts of physical property is sloppy thinking and detrimental to society because it advocates for an unreasonable and unworkable basis. It's interesting in that vein that you have a "sweat of the brow" concept of copyright interest, when this theory has been directly rejected under US law (Feist v. Rural).
The term imaginary property recognizes such contributions to society as the product of the imagination and is more productive as a starting place for discussion thereof, even if it also lumps the disparate legal concepts together to some degree, though this may be unavoidable at this point.