[p2p-research] Repurposing Profit for User Freedom

[Ryan Lanham]

On Sat, Feb 6, 2010 at 10:11 PM, Michel Bauwens <michelsub2004 at gmail.com>wrote:

> Hi Ryan,
>
> again I am baffled that you can define away artificial scarcity, while you
> support IP which is exactly that, a state-enforced  prohibition of sharing
> material that would represent no loss to its purported owner. I have not met
> any lawyer myself who denies that IP is a socially accepted form of articial
> scarcity, for the sake of a greater good, it is providing an income for
> creators.
>

Hi Michel,

I don't get to set the rules for the world, so I don't try to have  a
personal system of justice--a more deontological or fundamentalist view in
my scheme of things.  I don't have clear rights goods and wrongs.  I do
believe in "public good" but it is a thing that can only be determined
through democratic or representative means.  I don't much care for court
imposed justice as with the US Supreme Court.  My own view is that the
Supreme Court and the Senate are flaws in the US constitutional approach.

I can advocate systems for the poor, but one of them won't be wide scale
criminality.  It seems obvious to me that if someone brands something, that
the investment in the branding is value creating and scarce. To take that
brand, for instance, is clearly taking a scarce item.  I just can't imagine
seeing it any other way.  Again, I've discussed it with now at least half a
dozen lawyers, law professors and left-leaning former IP business leaders.
Not only do they agree, they also cannot fathom the alternative and find the
very discussion of it disturbing and potentially cataclysmic.



>
> and as for identifying socialism with IP violation, this is historically
> just not so.
>
> Historically, emergent states, and the U.S. figures prominently in that,
> refused to recognize IP from other countries such as the UK, this is a
> matter of well-known historical fact. For the same reason, poor and
> developing countries today chose not to enforce IP, because of its huge
> social cost. The reason is that the overwhelming majority of people in such
> countries cannot afford the extra cost of the IP rent, and seek to avoid it,
> and that enforcing such massive violations is very poltically costly for
> these governments, especially because the only ones to benefit from it are
> multinational corporations, and it creates an income stream that is sucked
> out of the host country. However, as soon as these countries develop more,
> and have their own industry which wishes to export IP-based material, they
> start slowly to join the IP bandwagon. This for example is what is happening
> in China right now, where they are starting to repress IP violations. The
> reasons countries like the US are for enforcing and perpetuating it, is
> similarly based on self-interest, since it is the major stream of income for
> them. IP rent seeking, and financial rent extraction have become the primary
> drivers of the western economy, while direct industrial profit has become
> secondary. But as you know and agreed, despite the fact that you find this
> legimate, technology makes it harder and harder to enforce.
>
>

This is certainly true 100 years ago.  I think in the last 40 years, China,
the Soviet Union and other socialist countries are far more associated with
violations of IP.  But you would know better than me.



> It is strange though that while you obviously sympathize with p2p dynamics,
> you refute and disagree with the primary driver of the open and social
> movements emerging everywhere, which is precisely the fight against the
> artificial scarcity in the domain of intellectual, cultural and scientific
> exchange. If you take those social and political struggles away, as well as
> the practical implementations of these principles by open software and
> hardware movements, there is really nothing left at all. Peer to peer is
> <only> possible is the material of cooperation is available, no peer
> production and peer communities would be possible without renouncing
> proprietary IP.
>
>

Maybe that makes me fringe to the P2P movement.  But I don't believe the
term "artificial scarcity" is useful or meaningful.  It is, to my mind,
intentionally deceptive in that it assumes away very important rights issues
that must be handled dialogically and democratically to be erased
legitimately.  It is true that I refuse to do that.  Where I am on board is
that I think technology (a la Cory Doctorow's comments) are making the
discussion moot.  But I never discount capitalism and
innovation...especially innovation.  DRM may yet be designed so it works.  I
understand the next generation of the Internet makes phishing impossible,
but it also makes anonymity impossible.  Personally, I am for that.  If
states take people's rights, we should change the states.  I admire Smari's
efforts in Iceland to create open and fair systems.  Bravo.




> But to become back to the earlier point: 'socialist' countries do in fact
> respect IP and author rights. I am not aware of any country that
> systematically rejects it.
>
> I am curious though as what you could characterize as socialist in China.
> There is no central planning anymore, hardly any welfare and worker rights,
> but on the other hand, hyper-capitalist development under a repressive
> state. So, where is the socialism that you identify there? I'm just curious.
> And in Venezuela, yes there are social measures, but as far as I know, under
> your definition of socialism, there is no central planning and negligeable
> state property. It is still a capitalist economy operating under private
> property. Political repression exists but on a very minor level.
>

The state owns most means of production and holds a stake in nearly all of
them.  I know of no political scientist who does not think China is
socialist.  They call themselves socialist.  It is hardly a fringe
position.  I think socialist theorists do not like the trends of China
(strangely enough since they have been good for most people.)   But they
call themselves socialist.  The political scientists from there say they are
socialist. To me, that must be "socialist."  Not sure who would otherwise
get to decide.


Ryan
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://listcultures.org/pipermail/p2presearch_listcultures.org/attachments/20100207/e734a183/attachment.html>