"The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary." ~ H.L. Mencken
Sorry, Wendy and Lew
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Because I send occasional feedback to libertarian-leaning websites, I tend to get added to their lists and solicited for donations. Two such sites are WendyMcElroy.com and LewRockwell.com. To each, when I'm asked to part with hard-earned cash, I write back saying that I cannot in good conscience donate to them because of their opposition to all forms of protection for Intellectual Property (IP). I explain that I support the abolition of patents, which protect ideas that could reasonably be expected to be derived independently by others, but not the abolition of copyrights, which protect completed works for which the chances of accidental duplication by another are astronomically small (I go into much more detail here, here, and here).
In my experience, I'm almost sure to get a response such as, "I'm not changing my position, but it's unreasonable of you to withhold money over one disagreement. Copyright is a small issue compared to others on which we're in accord." Sorry, Wendy and Lew, but I must disagree.
Imagine a world structured as the anti-IP zealots would have it. I have a photo-enhancing program that I offer for sale over the Internet. It has a modest layer of security, requiring that a user enter her name and a code that she gets from me when she purchases a license. If a purchaser is so inclined, he/she can, without my knowledge, pass the license information to friends, allowing each of them to enable the program using the same information, and in practice there's nothing I can do about it. This rankles me, but the reality is that to achieve more bullet-proof protection is not practical. At least in THEORY, however, the law protects me against such duplication. More importantly, the law protects me from wholesale ripoffs from someone who hacks the security and sells copies by the fistful, pocketing every penny himself.
If, however, copyright were abolished, or made "contractual", this is what life would be like: If someone purchased my program, which involves agreeing not to hack its security, and that person did hack the security, I could sue him. But if someone did NOT purchase my program, but got ahold of a copy and hacked its security, then sold copies of the hacked program, that would be fine, even if I knew who that person was and he was doing it right under my nose! In other words, the outright thief would have more "legal rights" than someone who paid for a copy.
I don't understand how anyone can call that justice, or why anyone would want to live in such a society.
The arguments for abolishing copyright that I have seen are laughable. One common tactic, favored by Boldrin and Levine, is to trot out examples of works that have brought their authors significant remuneration in spite of a lack of copyright protection. Someone needs to tell these people that it's a logical fallacy to claim, "A, B, and C got by without protection X; therefore nobody needs it." Success is seen and failure is unseen, especially by those who are determined not to acknowledge it.
Another tactic is to blame the victim. Are record companies losing millions to file sharing? It's their own fault for not changing their business models, claim the anti-IP'ers. From a practical standpoint, this statement has genuine merit, but from a moral standpoint, it is worth exactly nothing.
Yet another tactic is to say, "If you don't want everybody to take a free copy of what you've created, keep it to yourself." What a poor world we'd live in if authors abided by that philosophy!
Let's dispose of the notion, popular with Stephan Kinsella and his hangers-on, that goes like this: Copies of an electronic work are almost effortless to make; therefore they're worth nothing, and nobody need feel bad for taking one and flipping off the original author. What nonsense! The value that a completed work brings to the world can be calculated as the sum of what everyone would be willing to pay, if there were no other way to acquire access. Of course, no author can seriously hope to be compensated by that full amount, since it's impossible to guess how much each individual would bid. But I think it is fair to say that the author deserves to receive the price he sets from those who find the exchange worthwhile. Anyone willing to pay more gets a bargain, and anyone not willing to pay the asking price quite properly does without.
Note that "does without" does not mean the person in question has no options! He may perceive and fill a need by writing a competing program (or other creative work) that sells for less. Or he may sit back and wait for someone else to fill the gap. The world is richer for the competition stimulated by the enforcement of copyrights. When you're willing to pay for what you get, it's wonderful how many options become available.
In this respect, copyrights have the opposite effect of patents, which explicitly inhibit competition. Clearly, patents and copyrights are very different creatures, worthy of separate consideration. Yet, in my experience, anti-IP'ers almost invariably lump them together, for reasons I will leave it to them to explain.
Am I calling for a surveillance society in which every file sharer is hauled into court or threatened by lawyers? No. It is quite true, as the anti-IP'ers claim, that a little illegal copying can be a boon to the originator's sales by spreading the word about his product. And disproportionate responses, such as the ones famously perpetrated by record companies, do an amazing job of pissing off would-be customers with heavy-handed tactics that rightfully earn scorn (and of course, tend to cast a bad light upon the entire copyright-defending movement). It does not follow, however, that copyright ought to be abolished, only that its protection should be applied judiciously.
Also, nothing I've said is meant to disparage those who choose to make their creations available to the world for free. I salute those generous souls! But their existence does not negate the right of a creator to say, I choose to set a price for partaking of my creation.
To advocate a world without copyright is to advocate taking bread off my table, bread I have honestly earned, so that thieves can steal my program or anything else that has been created by another, and profit from selling it with zero creative effort on their part. It is a world which rewards parasites and fleeces the productive.
I can truly say that I'd as soon live under all the tyranny and injustice that our corrupt society endures today, as under the Fantasy Utopia of the anti-IP'ers. Accordingly, I will donate not a single cent to such sites, and will give instead to those which advocate policies that actually promote a just society, or which, like strike-the-root.com, actively promote debate. I would encourage others to consider doing the same.
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The main fallacy that permeates this essay is the claim that creating a new idea gives one the "right" to profit by that idea. That if I sell something based on an idea that you came up with, that I've somehow taken money that you have a "right" to. This is simply a variation of the labor theory of value.
You don't have a right to anything not given to you on a voluntary basis. This is the basis of property rights.
If I am able to provide a good or service based on an idea you had, and people decide to patronize my product rather than yours, in no way can the money paid to me be considered "rightfully" yours. The owner of that money chose to give it to me. That makes it my money.
Copying something does not deprive the original owner of the use of his property...thus it is not stealing.
1) Choosing to throw the baby out with the bathwater because of a single difference in opinion is ridiculous. It puts you in the same totalitarian column as Stalin, Lenin, and Mao. They too did not tolerate dissent from their viewpoints and would never support anyone not in lockstep with their ideals. Balkinization of the movement for freedom dooms the movement to failure and is the antithesis to the anarcho-capitalist or libertarian ideal.
2) Just because there is not government enforced IP, does not mean there is no IP, that is an obvious fallacy. If you sign a contract with someone that if their copy of the software you gave them gets out, that they agree to pay a penalty of (for example) $50,000. I think that's pretty powerful incentive not to distribute your IP, and it doesn't need a state to do it.
3) I program. I know a lot of programmers. I know a lot of programmers that know a lot of programming languages. To state that a program you put together could not be done in a different way, or is not likely to be done in a similar way is horse crapola. If you give a class full of programmers an assignment to make a program to do anything, complex or simple, you find that the similarities in the different programs outnumber the differences by a huge factor. That is ego and exceptionalism talking, not in the least bit empirical or logical. Several of the programmers I know are considered world class hackers and have been on winning teams at Defcon, and they agree heartily with my assessment.
4) You are showing how out of date in the computer business you are. Check the gaming area of the internet and you may come across something called "Steam" or "Games for Windows Live". they provide pretty darn good IP protection for their software and it doesn't require a leviathan government to do so. There are a lot of alternative ways to protect your IP, just because you aren't creative enough to come up with an answer does not necessitate government. If government is needed to cover a lack of competence in all areas that a person may have, I am not sure how you could possibly have this website or believe anything published by it.
The example I like to give to show how absolutely ridiculous IP is, is pretty darn simple.
If we had state enforced IP form the beginning of mans society, you can bet our technology would be about 6000 years behind at this time.
Could you even image the argument over who patented fire? Or the spear? Or the wheel? How about patenting the "Process by which fur is removed from animals". FFS, we would be still living in caves while some guy Krog Ugh Nock was collecting shiny shells form everyone for having knives as tools.
Government enforce IP is an excuse for lazy barely productive individuals to ride the coattails of one good idea that they had one day, that might not have been an original idea at all, and repress the rest of the market doing so.
In response to your second point, I think that calling it property in the same sense as tangible objects seems to me to be a stretch. What you seem to be describing is simply a kind of contractual secrecy, and would have little effect once the cat was out of the bag, so to speak. Say someone broke the contract and made a copy, he might be required to pay the penalty, (if he was caught,) but none of the people he gave it to would. Recipients of second-generation copies could not possibly be bound by any such contract, for the same reason we are not bound by the constitution or the "social contract," we didn't sign it.
"Let's dispose of the notion, popular with Stephan Kinsella and his hangers-on, that goes like this: Copies of an electronic work are almost effortless to make; therefore they're worth nothing, and nobody need feel bad for taking one and flipping off the original author."
If Kinsella has argued this, it's news to me (and I've read most of his writing on "IP"). Kinsella's argument has nothing to do with the fact that it's easy to copy an electronic work; his argument is that property rights are a consequence of scarcity and ideas are not scarce.
"To advocate a world without copyright is to advocate taking bread off my table, bread I have honestly earned, so that thieves can steal my program or anything else that has been created by another, and profit from selling it with zero creative effort on their part. It is a world which rewards parasites and fleeces the productive."
If I "pirate" a program you wrote, what have I stolen from you? You've still got any copies of the program that you possessed before the act of "piracy". You can still run the program or sell copies of it. You haven't been deprived of anything. Trying to conflate copyright infringement with theft = fail.
It sounds to me like you think you're entitled to an income. That's a peculiar idea to be expressing on a libertarian website.
The author of a book, software or music has the choice to either release the material for free or charge for the good. It seems that if the author decides to charge for the good, and they want to restrict further distribution of the material, then it is the author's responsibility to produce or purchase a protection or distribution method that is sufficient with their goal to restrict their product's distribution.
I think one of the main problems is that many in creative fields (i.e. art, writing, programming etc.) are used to the current copyright and patent paradigm. This paradigm has created business models that would not exist without it. What is needed is a new business model. Many in the FLOSS community use a “software as service” model. In this model you would use your talent and would get paid during the actual act of writing or manipulating the software. You may want to look at what Canonical does for an example of my meaning. http://www.canonical.com/services
"Let's dispose of the notion, popular with Stephan Kinsella and his hangers-on, that goes like this: Copies of an electronic work are almost effortless to make; therefore they're worth nothing, and nobody need feel bad for taking one and flipping off the original author."
Interestingly, has claimed protection of his IP on his web site.
http://web.archive.org/web/20061121090001/http://www.no-treason.com/arch...
http://web.archive.org/web/20061121052303/http://www.no-treason.com/arch...
Even more interesting, as a lawyer it appears he has threatened legal violence on behalf of Lew Rockwell to secure Lew's IP rights.
http://web.archive.org/web/20061121073431/http://www.no-treason.com/arch...
Oh and I just took a look at the web site for the Center for the Study of Innovative Freedom, of which Kinsella is the director.
http://c4sif.org/about/
The Center actively opposes IP yet oddly reserves some IP rights under it's Creative Commons license.
For those interested,
Creative Commons license makes sense regarding those who oppose IP: such as at Study of Innovative Freedom at http://c4sif.org/about/
Download with Introduction and explanation is provided here.
http://thepowerofopen.org/
So let us add to the evidence presented by Kevin Carson on IP and the "murder"--if there is malice aforethought--of a division of labor society (which consist of individuals)....
http://www.strike-the-root.com/intellectual-property-is-murder#comment-3359
I could certainly understand Kinsella using the Creative Commons CCO Public Domain Dedication, since it allows the author to ensure that no IP rights for the material can be claimed. But the license used at c4sif reserves attribution rights. According to Kinsella, and I think Carson, there are no legitimate IP rights to reserve.
Maybe I'm missing something. Can you explain why one would claim to reserve rights one did not believe existed and which one believed would be immoral to attempt to enforce?
Re: "I [John] could certainly understand Kinsella using the Creative Commons CCO Public Domain Dedication, since it allows the author to ensure that no IP rights for the material can be claimed".
That would appear to be at odds with John's prior post: "Oh and I just took a look at the web site for the Center for the Study of Innovative Freedom, of which Kinsella is the director. http://c4sif.org/about/ The Center actively opposes IP yet *oddly* reserves some IP rights under it's Creative Commons license".
But more specifically why not ask Kinsella? Regarding these issues?
"Re: "I [John] could certainly understand Kinsella using the Creative Commons CCO Public Domain Dedication, since it allows the author to ensure that no IP rights for the material can be claimed".
That would appear to be at odds with John's prior post: "Oh and I just took a look at the web site for the Center for the Study of Innovative Freedom, of which Kinsella is the director. http://c4sif.org/about/ The Center actively opposes IP yet *oddly* reserves some IP rights under it's Creative Commons license"."
It's not at odds all: The Public Domain Dedication insures that no rights are reserved for anyone, which is what I would naturally expect someone would want if they believe there are no IP rights. Instead c4sif *reserves* IP rights Kinsella claims he believes doesn't exist.
"But more specifically why not ask Kinsella? Regarding these issues?"
In fact I've already posted a link to a thread where I asked Kinsella that same question about his own site, and he responded:
http://web.archive.org/web/20061121090001/http://www.no-treason.com/arch...
I make clear, in the other two threads I posted, why his answer is unsatisfactory. Since you seem to thing the choice made sense I thought perhaps you had a reason for thinking so. Do you?
Wonderful that Kinsella provides you some hints as to one size does not fit all in the remnants of a division of labor society...
I read Kinsella's response and it seemed reasonable--In my words--Just because Ayn Rand did not pay for her taxi ride with silver coins does not mean she was a hippocrit. Kinsella is telling you there is a context and it is? The elephant in the room is the State...
Well yeah!!
Perhaps you should pursue Part II of your questions. Which is a repeat of Part I with Kinsella's replies excerpted. What are you doing in that arena that's different if at all? And how is it working for you? I missed that in Part II.
I am on several projects right now. But by all means press Kinsella if you are unsatisfied. I for one think you should [might want to] apply such questions to your own issues... such as your take on mini-archy. I don't have the link handy. Perhaps I recollect incorrectly but I do not remember if you were merely playing devils advocate or embracing a defense for mini-archy but here is what I would add to that...
Here an author who makes another appeal for Truth in Labeling (as called for in the original post of a discussion). And again, he is is NOT disputing your view of government, only what you are or appear to be (mis)calling it.
Statism exists on a continuum ranging from TOTAL STATE (Totalitarianism) thru Communism, Fascism, Democracy, "Limited" Republic, mini-statism, micro-statism, nano-statism...but there is no MINARCHY. It is a made-up word that is devoid of sensible meaning! You either have NO government (Anarchy) or you have some government of varying degrees of severity as described above.
The general usage of the made-up word "minarchy" refers to some unspecified, presumably small, amount of government. If it means "a few rulers", it means statism of some measure.
You cannot have "degrees" of anarchy (min-archy, max-archy, total-archy) because you cannot have degrees of NO GOVERMENT!! Anarchy means NO RULERS! ZERO, ZIP ZILCH.There is no "mini-zero" or "minzero" and there cannot be such.
"I read Kinsella's response and it seemed reasonable"
How is it reasonable for an IP lawyer to reserve IP "rights" he claims do not exist? How is it reasonable for such a lawyer to threaten state violence on behalf of clients to secure rights he claims don't exist?
"I am on several projects right now. But by all means press Kinsella if you are unsatisfied. I for one think you should [might want to] apply such questions to your own issues... such as your take on mini-archy."
Kinsella is an an anarchist, as am I. He has not wanted converse with me since I caught him spamming my blog with anonymous (he thought) comments:
http://web.archive.org/web/20070104221959/http://www.no-treason.com/arch...
Just perusing this thread I came across this "2) Just because there is *not government* enforced IP, does not mean there is no IP, that is an obvious fallacy. If you sign a contract with someone that if their copy of the software you gave them gets out, that they agree to pay a penalty of (for example) $50,000. I think that's pretty powerful incentive not to distribute your IP, and it doesn't need a state to do it".
I am not having a problem with this are you? But I am not in this position. Personally I could care less. I would just find sellers that meet my needs.
More specifically how does this truck with Kinsella an IP lawyer reserv[ing] IP "rights" he claims do not exist? If he wants an attribution perhaps he has good reason in a division of labor society remnant but embedded in a rat race?
Again the context (and I have no idea what his client issues are!) *I live in an unfree world*. Do I tell the truth to the wolf at the door? Does that make me a liar? (Rhetorically speaking, not trying to put myself on the spot) LOL
But regarding mind fucks which seems to come to mind--gee I wonder where from? And those too preoccupied with such as evidenced here in the blogsphere link you provided. It is entirely too hard to follow. Looks like those looking for flak and then getting plenty of it thrown around...The nym thing and who is what and so forth on another level is hilarious and true irony of not hacking at the root on a root site no less.
http://web.archive.org/web/20070104221959/http://www.no-treason.com/arch...
I think you stirred up a hornet's nest and lost credibility with Kinsella. Hmm....
Again perhaps you should pursue Part II of your questions. Which is a repeat of Part I with Kinsella's replies excerpted. Again what are you doing in that arena that's different if at all? And how is it working for you? I missed that in Part II and I am missing that here.
"More specifically how does this truck with Kinsella an IP lawyer reserv[ing] IP "rights" he claims do not exist? If he wants an attribution perhaps he has good reason in a division of labor society remnant but embedded in a rat race? "
Of course he has a good reason to want his writing attributed to him, but how can you claim rights that you say don't exist?
"Do I tell the truth to the wolf at the door?"
That was a bogus argument from Kinsella - that he was only notifying people of the law - since under the law he can easily waive all IP rights and put all his blogging in the public domain, which is where he claims is where it belongs.
Fifteen Minutes that Changed Libertarian Publishing....
http://mises.org/daily/4028
We already saw that the journal would have a unique citation format; that authors would love having their works online; that the time from submission to publication could be significantly lower than that of standard journals; that we had no need to have consecutive page numbering from article to article, or even a need to publish articles in artificial and pointless "issue" groupings; that each article would simply receive an article number and a volume number to uniquely identify it; that we would release not only a PDF but also a Word version, to make it easier for the ideas to be republished; and finally, that everything would be published open and free to the world under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License *(we would make it completely public domain if we were confident that would work; alas, copyright is sticky, and Creative Commons is the best we can do)*.
Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/
Copyright is sticky
http://blog.mises.org/9240/copyright-is-very-sticky/
Search Mises: Kinsella Attribution:.....
MisesWiki talk:Copyrights - Mises Wiki - Ludwig von Mises Institute
May 11, 2011 ... Kinsella explains his position here, and the key quote is "the 'Attribution Share Alike' seeks to use one's copyright threat to force others ...
wiki.mises.org
wiki.mises.org/wiki/MisesWiki_talk:Copyrights
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Recursive free information licenses - CC ShareAlike & Copyleft ...
The Mises Institute uses Creative Commons Attribution, but without ShareAlike. .... However, as Kinsella points out, in our IP world, ...
mises.org
mises.org/Community/forums/t/24973.aspx
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Copyright is very sticky!
January 14, 2009 by Stephan Kinsella ... I tend to think the CC 3.0 Attribution license is the most libertarian–it only requires you to say who wrote it–but most ...
blog.mises.org
blog.mises.org/9240/copyright-is-very-sticky/
LabeledBlog
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Fifteen Minutes that Changed Libertarian Publishing - Stephan ...
Mises Daily: Tuesday, January 12, 2010 by Stephan Kinsella ... open and free to the world under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License (we would make ...
mises.org
mises.org/daily/4028
LabeledDaily Articles
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Proeprty, Freedom, and Society: Essays in Honor of Hans-Hermann ...
File Format: PDF/Adobe Acrobat
... Institute and published under the Creative Commons Attribution License 3.0. ... Jörg Guido Hülsmann and Stephan Kinsella. PART ONE: GRATO ANIMO ...
mises.org
mises.org/books/hulsmann-kinsella_property-freedom-society-2009.pdf
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The Creator-Endorsed Mark as an Alternative to Copyright
Jul 15, 2010 ... July 15, 2010 by Stephan Kinsella .... Volynets's “Authoright” idea (seem to be similar to Creative Commons-Attribution); Two by IP law professor Eric E. Johnson: ...
blog.mises.org
blog.mises.org/.../the-creator-endorsed-mark-as-an-alternative-to-copyright/
LabeledBlog
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Intellectual Property Rights as Negative Servitudes
Jun 23, 2011 ... Needless to say, Kinsella is not likely a fan or Reagan. ...... It has to do with the limited right of attribution to authors. ...
Etc etc...