[p2p-research] Repurposing Profit for User Freedom

[Ryan Lanham]

On 2/7/10, Michel Bauwens <michelsub2004 at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> 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.


Michel, exactly!  Fighting to reduce it and creating tools to avoid it--a
side I freely and willingly join.  *Not* dismissing its existence and
ignoring it.  Everyone I know of...even the most hardened capitalists, are
staunchly in favor of open systems existing.  Where is the argument against
open and free?  IBM has built a business model on it...so did SUN
Micro.  Many other firms do as well.  It doesn't mean they deny the
existence of IP...far from it.

Creative Commons (and nearly everything else) is predicated on strong IP
laws...protections.  It is also predicated on voluntary participation.  I
would argue (as I have all along) that you conflate the desire of people to
have an open and free set of alternatives with the idea of doing away with
IP.  Nothing could be further from accurate.  Of course open and free
alternatives are good.  They simply cannot be unilaterally ASSUMED.

I too (as I have said numerous times) am for reduced copyright burdens of
time, against patents used as weapons (submarine patents) etc.  These are
abuses.  But there is a wide difference between that and disregarding law
where people want protections.


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)


Michel, I am grateful for the civility.  I hope it is perceived as
returned.  I mean it to be and if it appears not so, I apologize for my poor
communications.

Again, this isn't about criminalizing sharing and never has been.  This is
about criminalization of taking without permission--counterfeiting.  I am
entirely for sharing.  It is a push AND then a pull...not a pull-on-demand
technology against the will of an owner and against the democratically
enacted laws of a jurisdiction.  The "puller" simply cannot decide what is
shared unilaterally.  That is what everyone I have talked to...now into the
tens of people, clearly recognize and agree to.  If someone thinks
differently (outside the realm of anarchists) I'd surely love to hear it.
Corey Doctorow, from my readings of his statements, clearly agrees with me.

This failure to acknowledge a difference between push and pull is our
difference.  I call it coercive and I associate it with states that refuse
to enforce market rules.  Those have almost universally been state socialist
nations.  It is clear that massive counterfeit operations are busted in Hong
Kong, Thailand, etc. regularly.  In China and the Soviet Union, North Korea,
Cuba, etc. they are state policy.

If you believe people may simply take what they want when they can take it
and no one loses a physical item, you ought to say that.  That means any
item is simply free for all that can be copied.  All trademarks, copyrights,
patents, etc. are entirely meaningless.  To me it seems clear that such a
world is not feasible and would quickly lead to collapse...and not social
justice.  That, to my mind, is pure capitalism...not socialism.  It is the
idea that people can act completely without regulation to do whatever they
want.


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


Treaty IP violations are as massive in the Cayman Islands as anywhere.  I
can walk three blocks and buy any tape or movie for 3 dollars that costs 25
in the US.  I choose not to do that even though it is completely within the
law here.  Few care about such things...even the DRM executives get bad
press almost universally when they press such things.

What I am talking about is a nation copying an aircraft...or a mode of
building a refinery, or making a drug, when clear patents exist.  Or China
or Cuba taking a US textbook, copying it, and then printing it industrially
for their engineers.  Or Soviet Russia copying the Vax computer down to its
name engraved on circuit boards for their own defense systems.

If some lady with a sowing machine in Chiang Mai thinks she can make a Dior
scarf, I care little...frankly Dior cares little.  Everyone knows the
differences except the lady with the sowing machine.  It is the guy in Hong
Kong who runs a factory making Dior scarves with the same boxes, etc. that
is a criminal and plainly so because it is against Hong Kong law, against
French law and against numerous international treaties.  To defend that
person is very odd to me...even bizarre.  To say he is "removing artificial
scarcity" is simply counter-factual.  If that were the case, he would never
produce the item in the first place...he is clearly free riding on someone
else's brand and quality and design investment--which is entirely scarce.
That's the whole point of his copy.  If it weren't scarce, he wouldn't do
it.  No one mixes salt with water to make sea water.  It isn't scarce.  It
is the "artificial" term which is clearly meant to distort facts and
circumstances.

I completely agree with your characterization of who is doing the
copying...capitalists...not free marketers.  Free marketers want regulated
protections.  The marketplace is a series of institutions...mostly legal
institutions...like enforceable contracts.  It isn't a free for all.  Free
for all is exactly (and exclusively) what I am arguing against.

As to Neoliberal, if you define it coherently, I may well accept the
epithet.  If it means believing in human rights, fair access to make a
living (and equal protection), fair access to markets and trade under the
democratically enacted laws of a jurisdiction, then, yep, I am one.  Nothing
in that line that isn't in the declaration of human rights.  Just as soon as
IP is made illegal in a just society, I'll be on board with universal
copying at will.  For now, I guess I am a neo-liberal and not an
anarchist...if those be the choices when one supports the idea that
counterfeiting is wrong.  Again, I return to Article 17, no one shall be
ARBITRARILY deprived of his property.  If the law says we should have
property rights, then a person deserves due process...not a arbitrary
taking.  The idea of artificial scarcity intends to obfuscate this
distinction not elucidate it.

If the law of a place says that someone has the right to IP protection, to
say they cannot defend that right, and that the state should not enforce
that right or privilege, it is, in my opinion, a very clear violation of the
UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights.  Again, I cannot begin to see how
it can be argued otherwise.  Piracy and counterfeiting, when done against
the laws of the governing jurisdiction, are simply wrong.

Regarding theft...this from Wikipedia:

The key distinction generally drawn, as indicated above, is that while
copyright infringement may (or may not) cause *economic loss* to the
copyright holder, as theft does, it does not *appropriate a physical object,
* nor deprive the copyright holder of the use of the copyright. That
information can be replicated without destroying an original is an old
observation,[55]<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_infringement#cite_note-54>and
a cornerstone of intellectual
property <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intellectual_property> law. In
economic terms, information is not a *rival
good<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rival_good>
;* this has led some to argue that it is very different in character, and
that laws for physical property and intellectual property should be very
different.[56]<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_infringement#cite_note-55>

A British Government's report, Digital
Britain<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_Britain>,
characterizes online piracy as a form of theft: "Unlawful downloading or
uploading, whether via peer-to-peer sites or other means, is effectively a
civil form of theft."[57]<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_infringement#cite_note-56>
___

As someone in a British law jurisdiction, I'll call it what it is...theft.

Ryan
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