The digitisation of (already) dematerialised information
The digitisation of (already) dematerialised information
The digitisation of already dematerialised information is, in effect, its re-materialisation in a different format. In other words, until recently, dematerialised information was only materialised in the analogue world in a tangible format (e.g. books, films, magnetic means for the reproduction of music, products or buildings following a particular design, insignia (trademarks) affixed on objects), meaning in a format directly processable by humans. Now, through digitisation, already dematerialised information is re-materialised but, importantly, in an intangible format (that is, one not directly processable by humans): the digital copies of books, music and so on cannot be processed as such (as a series of 0s and 1s) by humans, but are reproducible through the intermediary of computers and [[§02.00.18|computer programs], which enable them to be processed by humans. In essence, humanity is now in the process of making (all of its) knowledge processable (accessible, usable) by computer programs, so that it can communicate with them. Once this has been accomplished, the next step will be for computer programs to start communicating with each other (see also §00.02.09). Importantly, the digitisation of already dematerialised information has not, however, stopped at IP-protected immaterial information (see §01.01.09 and §01.01.10), although, of course, it started with it. Although this is an expensive procedure, for efficiency purposes dematerialised information which is not IP-protected (e.g. state records, large repositories of mundane information, such as scientific or military records) is also being digitised. (Of course, if viewed as information that was only materialised (i.e. never copied), then this would fall under the category described in §01.01.09 on the digitisation of material information; in any event, this information is digitised anyway.) In fact, for the first time in the history of humanity, state records have become dematerialised, that is, intangible, in their entirety. State records had been material information ever since the invention of writing (piecemeal exchanges among e.g. state agencies excluded, see also §17.00.09)—only the material on which they were recorded had changed, with paper succeeding clay tablets, engravings on stone or wooden tablets. The digitisation of dematerialised information that is not IP-protected abolished a choice made by humans in ancient times that had been maintained by us until recently: namely, on the worthiness (or not) of protecting dematerialised information through (property) law. From the moment the first book was copied until just a few decades ago, only IP-protected dematerialised information was considered valuable—its protection based on criteria such as originality, distinctiveness, effort of the human intellect and so on. Other dematerialised information did not merit any protection (at best it was protected as materialised property) or special treatment by regulation (for example, access rights to state records). Now, once digitised, new regulations protect (or, regulate control over) it for the first time.
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