Quote from: hazek on December 09, 2012, 02:33:48 PM

Quote from: Serith on December 09, 2012, 01:56:31 PM

In another thread I posted that this idea could be used to legally define Bitcoin.

Quote from: Serith on November 19, 2012, 09:56:47 PM

...
bitcoin, namecoin, litecoin etc. is a message that has core feature which differentiate it from any other type of message. Bitcoin is a record in distributed database that solves the Byzantine Generals' Problem. In another words it is a record in distributed database that is consistent among all it's users, and that's exactly the reason why it is possible for such record to have a value. And it can be declared that record in such database is property, because that's what makes it different from WoW gold or EVE ISKs.

I disagree with your reasoning.

I don't think these record entries i.e. bitcoins have value because they're part of that record but because the "space" in that record is scarce and I think it's quite irrelevant what sort of record it is. Even in games such as WoW or EvE you have scarcity. If my account is hacked (pw is information not property) someone with access to it can then destroy my tangible incorporeal scarce spaceship (my property) or they can transfer it to another character. It doesn't matter that in EVE this digital property has a virtually non existent production cost, what is important is scarcity and the items my toon owns are definitely scarce even if only artificially imposed by the designers of the game.

Come to think of it, the artificial scarcity imposed by the game designers is no different than the artificial scarcity of Bitcoin unspent outputs. The only difference is the production cost of the two which affects the time and chance for this scarcity to remain.

I strongly think that when it comes to property scarcity is the most crucial property, without it no property ownership makes a lot of sense because if a thing isn't scarce it's irrelevant if someone claims it be theirs because anyone can just get some of that thing without the claimed owner even noticing anything.

If Bitcoin database was not consistant between users and each individual had his own version of blockchain then it wouldn't have mattered if it scarce or not, but scarcity is also important, without it bitcoin would have been useless as medium of exchange.

It's hard to define what kind of scarcity is valuable. For example, namecoin is inflationary and is has value, each grain of sand is unique but it has no value.

Quote from: hazek on December 09, 2012, 12:57:59 PM

The important part of my definition is scarcity. I do not regard entities that aren't scarce as property for example such as information that can be easily and cheaply perfectly copied without causing a loss what so ever to the original medium it was carried by.

Your definition of scarcity is possible because it relies on the feature of bitcoin database, which is consistency! The information can't be easily and cheaply copied without causing a loss because if you do, for example by forking Bitcoin then your version will be different than what everyone else has and it will have no value.

Piece of gold looks the same to everyone because laws of physics.
Bitcoin database looks the same to everyone because it solves Byzantine Generals' Problem
EVE item looks the same to everyone because game designers have only one valid version of items database.

Obviously, gold is the most robust solution in terms of consistency because it's hard to defy laws of physics, Bitcoin comes next and a centralized solution such as EVE money is least robust. The way how Bitcoin solves the problem of consistency is it's core feature, and it can be used to define it as property, for example: record in a database distributed among many people that solves the Byzantine Generals' Problem is property.