ripley said:
to me rather un-property like, rather un-commodity like. if it's a commodity, then isn't it usually alienable?
if it's inextricable from identity (like moral rights of the author) then surely it's not a commodity, is it? The rights to it derive from somewhere else than the usual understandings of the commodity relationship, or the property relation. You have to look elsewhere: culture, identity.. some other institution that grants rights.
I don't think "theft" is really a useful term, except that it gets people's moral dander up in ways other things don't (seems like it's okay to be absolutist about transgressions of the property system - i.e. economic trasnsgressions, but we must be relativists about things like insult, obscenity, fakeness).
first, and i say this merely to avoid misunderstanding, i actually do like m.i.a., that is, everytime i hear one of her records out i start to tap my feet or sway my hips -- still not sure if i'll go so far as to buy her album
and i like her voice
now onward to the "meta" issues . . . .
i think by the term "theft," woebot has in mind the more general concept of "trespass"
and i think that by using the term "commodity," woebot meant to suggest that certain kinds of property cannot and ought not to be made into freely transferable commodities, that people can cheapen, exploit, fake, sell
identity is a kind of property, i.e., you become what you are by entering into an appropriative relationship with different parts of your surroundings -- you make this apple your own, eat the apple, digest the apple -- and by more complicated appropriative processes, you make this way of smoking a cigarette your own mannerism, you make this way of walking your own walk, this way of dancing your own style of dance, etc, etc
you make someone else's arguments and ideas your own if you "digest" them thoroughly (even if technically you misunderstand/misappropriate the finer points)
what is your own may come to you, as it were, by the grace of god or nature, such as your curly hair, the tone of your voice, etc
other things are your own b/c you were born into that circumstance, e.g., class background, ethnic background
and still other things become your own b/c you seek out what is alien and strange and then struggle to come to terms with it
AND SO woebot's argument seems to be that it's cool to appropriate some things but not other things -- in particular, you shouldn't appropriate someone else's class background, especially if that background is lower or working class, b/c to do so is insulting (or patronizing)
so maybe the trespass here is more akin to "insult" than "theft"? or does it have the complexion of both "insult" and "theft"? and perhaps other kinds of trespass as well?
(again, insult is a trespass against someone's sense of his own identity or nature -- and so it's a failure to give proper respect to another's identity -- i.e., a failure of recognition -- and the trespass can be subjective, objective or both)