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Can the contemporary digital version of patronage provide a solution to copyright? If content spread and/or derivative/meme production can greatly benefit the original creator, if the audience likewise prefers the authenticity/provenance, and if patronage replaces royalties as a source of income beyond direct sale, then would the resulting shift from media to creator (as in a brand) make copyrights obsolete? Tying this back to the thread question, it may be more accurate to define information as a kind of capital, measured differently from physical property or other forms of capital. Related: [https://board.freedomainradio.com/topic/40952-capital-theory-20-work-in-progress/]

If you’re inquiring as to whether or not information should be property, Stephan Kinsella wrote a book on intellectual property that you may find interesting. Free in multiple formats. Against Intellectual Property

Consent cannot be given under duress. Consent is active, not passive. Consent requires an individual who is conscious of giving consent and its consequences. Consent can be withdrawn. These elements are far stronger than a communicated preference.

I don't think theft is (morally) based on consent because consent is a function of preference. If I consent to some action then the consent is the communication of my preference. Consider that I'm unconscious and dying and a passing Dr needs to cut a hole in my neck with a penknife for me to live. I can't give consent, therefore it is assault? But it goes that it is assumed that if I could give consent to the Dr I would, presumably because the consent communicates my preference to live. My point is that the act of taxation, taken in isolation from the frame of reference of someone preferring the end result of said taxation, which is the say the benefits of taxation, can't be called theft because taxation for that person is preferable and theft, by definition, is (universally) not preferable. This is why a lot of people can't accept that tax is theft, because they experience taxation as preferable to non taxation.

Theft: http://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/Theft "A criminal act in which property belonging to another is taken without that person's consent." Did you consent to your money being forcefully taken from you by the government? Did you offer it up voluntarily with your full and express consent? If not, then it's theft. Rational proof provided.