[p2p-research] Repurposing Profit for User Freedom

[Ryan Lanham]

Hi Michel,

If I were advocating the argument you make, I'd put it in these terms: Does
a person have the right to be rich when someone else is poor?

It seems you would say, no.  They don't have such a moral right.  I would
classify that as a strong economic socialist.  I would say such a right
clearly exists though it is morally undesirable.  You would call that
"neo-liberal."

The question would then typically move on to one of how to make the poor
richer.  A strong economic socialist would tend to say that should be done
through some form of redistribution of wealth so as to alleviate suffering
and enhance fairness.  A neo-liberal would say...enable people to have the
capacities to produce things the world wants.

Here is the strong concession you will get from me:  My world of enabling
people to have capacities is dying.  I cannot stop that death.  It will be
complete in a matter of decades.  There are three possible answers to that
decline/death as I see it:

1. Depopulate either by force or voluntarily.
2. Implement strong economic socialism.
3. Do something else.

I hope for 3 knowing 1 is brutal and 2 has failed repeatedly.  The trouble
is, no one is yet articulating a coherent and workable view of 3.  My
answers tend to be technological.  Yours tend to be
institutional/political.  There is some mixture to both.  I think the real
value of the Foundation is in generally exploring and attempting to
articulate point 3.  Little is gained by rehashing that the continued
creation of economic value by individuals is dying.  We concur on that.
John Robb is a smart guy I've read a long time, but he keeps pointing out
the obvious...that what you call neo-liberal capitalism (and what I call a
credit-based demand-driven economy with full employment) is dying.  I know
of no strong capitalist/libertarian here who is saying otherwise...I know
many outside of P2PF.

I would even say J. Andrew was far from that point.  The question is, now
what?  Rehashing the death is irrelevant unless it leads to futurism that is
compelling.  So, I guess I am agree with Sam Rose on resilience.  Overall, I
find the points on current IP law fairly irrelevant.  I was diverted by
anarchist arguments I have been in before (never productively for me so
far)...once again; it is religion...not a philosophy in that it answers all
questions and allows no compromises.


Ryan


On 2/8/10, Ryan Lanham <rlanham1963 at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> 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
>



-- 
Ryan Lanham
rlanham1963 at gmail.com
Facebook: Ryan_Lanham
P.O. Box 633
Grand Cayman, KY1-1303
Cayman Islands
(345) 916-1712
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