[p2p-research] Fwd: arguments against applying open/free to other content

Wed Feb 20 04:54:02 CET 2008

Marco, please see below.  It is a short and concise refutation of the basis
of your argument.  A few comments first.  I think some of your "myths" are
themselves myths.  Also, I see mention of donation.  Donation is the weakest
service model, but it's not the only one.  In fact, morals and laws aside,
when someone can copy a work, yet pays the artist anyway, they're actually
using a donation model.  What works for Sam may no work for someone else,
and that's fine.  That doesn't mean information is property.  The need,
then, is to create additional service models--not product/goods models
(copyright).  "Killing" copyright will happen as these models are created
within a network that allows optimal value exchange between users and
creators, assuming the users and creators have control of the information
and transmission commons to they can keep it fair and open.  In this way,
copyright will be made obsolete.

There are at least two other nitpicks from your email, though:
1. Controlling use of nonrival goods is not natural in any sense of the
word.  They are nonrival goods, controlling them is artificial and should
only be done with good reason (that reason is the basis of the incentive
argument).  That laws have to be made to enforce a monopoly, and that those
laws can't be enforced without major restrictions of freedom, is a sign the
concept of information as property of the owner is bogus.

2. You say "But if this is the _only_ way to survive for an artist, if an
artist
cannot be just an artist full time, with as little powerful patrons
and intermediaries as possible... it isn't a good thing for society as
a whole, we haven't progressed all that much since the middle ages"

This assumes the artists are all of sufficient value to society to earn a
livelihood.  The "dream" of everyone who wants to be an artist being one
full time IS a dream, as it is not grounded in reality.  You address this as
"Myth #3" but then answer it with your own myth.  An artist must create
value for others, not just him or herself, to be a value to society.  For
the occupation to be a livelihood, the value must be significant to everyone
else.  Otherwise, they are not carrying their weight; you cannot
legitimately dismiss that concept as being like the "middle ages."  The
problem we have today is that value taken is not proportionate to value
compensated for, but copyright law does little for that, it mostly feeds the
middlemen who are not creating value at all.  Nonrival creation is a
service.  Service markets have rules that are different from markets of
goods.  The compensation models we use right now are very poor, and that's
the main problem.  The deeper we muddy ourselves with trying to make
"intellectual property" work, the more time and public good is wasted.  We
need to build networks that are "lean middlemen" instead.  This has to be
done by peers, and cannot not be done by laws and regulations; Lawrence
Lessig himself could tell you this, and that's why he switched from fighting
with copyright to going after corruption.  Laws and regulations favor the
middlemen who add no value, not the artists or users.  One of those three
has the most influence over law, and it's not the users or the artists.

Analysis of the Socioeconomic Argument for Restriction: Invaliding the
Incentive Argument

The restriction of information is at best inefficient, and at worst, a form
of coercive power. In all cases such restriction negatively impacts the
public good. The only good reason to create a restriction, legally, would be
because of some other factor affecting the public good. In this case, the
concern of creator incentive. The origin of copyright and patent, Article I,
Section 8, Clause 8 of the US Constitution, addresses this economic concern,
attempting to maximize public good by balancing the benefit of creator
incentive and the resulting higher output (quantity and/or quality) of works
with the detriment of restricting distribution among the public.

Today we can question, and I believe invalidate, the very basis of the
incentive argument, for three main reasons:

   1. Distribution of information--nonrival goods--is continually
   approaching zero cost. Attempting to raise the cost of distribution
   (artificially, particularly through the fallacy of "property") fights
   against this technological reality, requiring restriction of technology
   through stifling technological innovation and restricting individual
   freedom. *This is the "losing battle" reason.*
   2. The benefit of the the works created by the incentive must be
   greater than the societal detriment the restrictions cause. As distribution
   costs become trivial, the amount of detriment caused by reducing cumulative
   knowledge production increases rapidly. The benefit cannot outweigh the
   stunting of growth. *This is the "stifles progress (of science and the
   useful arts)" reason.*
   3. Technology currently provides, and will continue to provide and
   improve upon, methods of direct compensation, means of creation,
   decentralized risk-sharing. Technology enables direct exchange of value
   between parties. Technology increases availability of means of production
   (from digital media to fabrication using design information). Technology
   enables a near-zero middlemen cost (distribution and risk cost) between
   users and creators, enabling risk to be efficiently spread widely and in
   small amounts. *This is the "service model" reason.*

-- Stan

On Feb 19, 2008 7:02 PM, Michel Bauwens <michelsub2004 at gmail.com> wrote:

> Hi Marco,
>
> perhaps you would be interested to join the p2p research list, which is
> mostly, but not exclusively, academics and research oriented people?
>
> please feel free to use Sam's comments on your own site as well.
>
> I will engage with the arguments myself, but not now,
>
> Michel
>
> On Feb 20, 2008 6:32 AM, M. Fioretti <marco.fioretti at eleutheros.it> wrote:
>
> > On Tue, Feb 19, 2008 20:52:21 PM +0700, Michel Bauwens wrote:
> > > a response to the ip article,
> >
> > thanks for passing it around and for defining it "a good set of
> > arguments". If you want, I can post the comments below directly to
> > that list, to discuss them.
> >
> > > On Feb 19, 2008 7:01 AM, Michel Bauwens <michelsub2004 at gmail.com>
> > wrote:
> > >
> > >     http://digifreedom.net/node/58
> > >
> > >     This is a good set of arguments, actually written by a free
> > >     software advocate, against applying those principles to other
> > >     areas of content creation
> >
> > I'm not against applying those principles to other creative works than
> > live music. I'm just pointing out that what can work great with live
> > music is not an absolute, universal truth, but something which is much
> > less valid, or much less often, in other creative fields. With respect
> > to Samuel's comments:
> >
> > > Without actually addressing his arguments one-by-one, I have to say
> > > that his understanding of how people can possibly earn a living from
> > > art, music, and creative works, is limited. I think that time will
> > > prove him wrong.
> >
> > I'd like to hear from Samuel more on this, so if I'm wrong I can
> > correct myself earlier :-) I'd also like him to note that I haven't
> > said at all anything like "All rights reserved, all the time, all the
> > way is the only sustainable way". That is Disney and Sony, not me. I
> > have said that the usual copyright-complete-abolition arguments are
> > much, much weaker than those who I call "freeloaders" usually care to
> > admit.
> >
> > > I do agree with him that it's useful to declare a license of some
> > > form up front, as the creator of a work.
> >
> > As far as I can see and recall, I have not really written in that
> > piece that it is "useful to declare a license". Of course it _is_
> > useful. It is even _necessary_ given the current legislation, as
> > Samuel himself points out.
> >
> > But what I have written is that a right of authors to control the use
> > of their creations (within limits, especially in time, much stricter
> > than the current ones, see http://digifreedom.net/node/59) is a
> > natural and good thing, not some artificial, out-of-the-blue,
> > inherently unethical violence as implied in what I call "copyright
> > myths". Regardless of, and before, if and how the author freely
> > decides to exercise it, that is to explicitly declare a license.
> >
> > > With creative works, like art and music, I understand the author's
> > > point about donation based models, and needing build up fan
> > > bases. Yet, the need to build up demand in order to make a profit
> > > exists no matter what, whether or not they are donation based, or
> > > whether music materials are totally copyrighted, for instance.
> >
> > Is this a critic to my positions? If yes, I confess I don't see it.
> >
> > > I can tell you from experience as a professional touring musician,
> > > our group made more money by offering recordings and other products
> > > for a donation, than just trying to sell them outright. And, these
> > > products we're all fully copyrighted. But the way that we sold them
> > > was by asking for people who took a CD to donate whatever they
> > > could. This also happens to be a good way to attract more fans, by
> > > making your recording more widely available.
> >
> > This just confirms my initial point, doesn't it? "What can work great
> > with live music is not an absolute, universal truth, but something
> > which is much less valid, or much less often, in other creative
> > fields". That is, in the context of my piece, "be very, very, very
> > carefull to yell "death to copyright!" just because several musicians
> > may make a living without it".
> >
> > See last paragraph of Myth #3:
> >
> > > Live performances? What should writers do, read a whole 400 pages
> > > book in a pub or theater every night, to an audience which would
> > > enjoy it much more reading it where they feel like it, probably
> > > alone, one chapter at a time? Even staying with music, what about
> > > lyricists?
> >
> > I'll just add to this that side jobs don't count in discussing these
> > issues. Sure, one can survive with a clerk or farming job, or even
> > teaching guitar, literature or mathematics and play or write at
> > night.
> >
> > But if this is the _only_ way to survive for an artist, if an artist
> > cannot be just an artist full time, with as little powerful patrons
> > and intermediaries as possible... it isn't a good thing for society as
> > a whole, we haven't progressed all that much since the middle ages and
> > a reformed copyright continues to seem to me the most natural,
> > effective and intrinsically right way to avoid these errors.
> >
> >   Marco
> > --
> > Eleutheros:  www.eleutheros.it
> >             A Catholic approach to Information Technology
> >             Un approccio Cattolico all'Informatica
> >
> >
>
>
> --
> The P2P Foundation researches, documents and promotes peer to peer
> alternatives.
>
> Wiki and Encyclopedia, at http://p2pfoundation.net; Blog, at
> http://blog.p2pfoundation.net; Newsletter, at
> http://integralvisioning.org/index.php?topic=p2p
>
> Basic essay at http://www.ctheory.net/articles.aspx?id=499; interview at
> http://poynder.blogspot.com/2006/09/p2p-very-core-of-world-to-come.html
> BEST VIDEO ON P2P:
> http://video.google.com.au/videoplay?docid=4549818267592301968&hl=en-AU
>
> KEEP UP TO DATE through our Delicious tags at http://del.icio.us/mbauwens
>
> The work of the P2P Foundation is supported by SHIFTN,
> http://www.shiftn.com/
>
> _______________________________________________
> p2presearch mailing list
> p2presearch at listcultures.org
> http://listcultures.org/mailman/listinfo/p2presearch_listcultures.org
>
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://listcultures.org/pipermail/p2presearch_listcultures.org/attachments/20080219/64b26a02/attachment.html 