[p2p-research] Repurposing Profit for User Freedom

Mon Feb 8 04:02:26 CET 2010

Hi Ryan,

concerning China, they are obviously vestiges of the state socialist system,
i.e. state ownership, the one party state, and more ..

however, I think the primary factor should be the logic of accumulation,

the state owned enterprises are no longer in the game of central planning,
but are capitalist enterprises following market rules (however distorted, as
they are everywhere), so the logic of accumulation is no longer 'state
capitalist' (as some would argue really existing socialism was in effect,
since it was about accumulation of state assets, with privileged
distribution to the nomemclatura, and without overriding 'market capitalist
logic), but 'capitalist' in the traditional sense.

It is in my view important to distinguish the core logic of accumulation,
from the surrounding formal characteristics ...

Again, we must be talking to very different people, because for the
progressive ip lawyers I talk too, and mainstream people like Lessig,
diminishing the  artificial scarcity in digital distribution is not
controversial ... they are all fighting for lessing copyright, patents, and
abolishing DRM and software patents, and creating tools for people to escape
it, such as the creative commons licensing ... They were quite a few lawyers
in the barcelona meeting I attended some months ago, and they were all on
board on opening up IP and abolishing limits to sharing knowledge, code, and
designs.

Being for p2p and at the same time wanting to criminalize sharing are in my
view incompatible and contradictory views,

but who ever said peope were coherent <g> (including me)

I may be wrong about IP in 'socialist' countries, but I can only tell you
that in staunchly capitalist but poor and developing countries, IP
violations are massive, they are the rule, not the exception, and the
transgression, i.e. commercial piracy, is mostly capitalist; and most of
filesharing is probably similarly inspired not by altruism but by the
self-interest so cherished by neoliberalism.

As for China, again we are reading different sources, I can only see
continuous happy writings of how capitalism has saved china and lead to
great progress ... we definitely operate in different worlds

Michel

On Sun, Feb 7, 2010 at 10:28 PM, Ryan Lanham <rlanham1963 at gmail.com> wrote:

> 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
>
>
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