[p2p-research] Fwd: [fcforum] Fw: iPad DRM is a dangerous step backward. Sign the petition!

[Ryan Lanham]

On Sat, Jan 30, 2010 at 1:42 PM, Kevin Carson <
free.market.anticapitalist at gmail.com> wrote:

> On 1/29/10, Ryan Lanham <rlanham1963 at gmail.com> wrote:
> Truth
> And as I understand it, the whole postscarcity/abundance movement is
> about eliminating artificial scarcity, and the portion of the
> monetized GDP and commodity price that result from artificial
> scarcity.  The implosion of the part of commodity price that results
> from rents on artificial property reduces the number of hours we have
> to work to obtain stuff that was formerly proprietary.  Reduced prices
> in every aspect of life reduce the hours we have to work to live.
>
>
I'm not sure there is a "movement."  It isn't political.  It's just a
phenomenon of social technologies.  I used to think about P2P as a movement,
etc.  But Michel actually convinced me that historical forces were the
point...not politics.  If something isn't "ripe," it is altogether better
for humanity if it doesn't emerge.  True emergeance isn't political.  It is
social.  We don't need leaders.



> As Chris Anderson described it, Encarta badly hurt the hard copy
> encyclopedia industry.  And then Wikipedia hurt it far more--along
> with also destroying Encarta as a proprietary alternative to the
> traditional encyclopedia.  This eliminated many, many billions of
> dollars of previously monetized value that previously supported some
> content generators.  If Steve Jobs figured out some way to "save the
> encyclopedia industry" against the Wikiipedia threat, would you
> consider that a good thing?


Yes, if the net employment was positive and that was what consumers wanted.
To me, it is all about what is compelling. If consumers want it, it's
better.  If post-scarcity cannot be compelling, it's crap.


> How about if somebody had managed to save
> the buggy whip makers against Henry Ford?  If somebody comes up with a
> Star Trek replicator that can produce any food or consumer good at
> zero marginal cost, will it be a good thing if somebody figures out a
> way to "save the food/clothing/appliance industries" by enabling
> manufacturers to keep charging for them?
>

Same answer.  If people want something, it is better.  Apple can't force
people to buy DRM.  People choose it.




>
> That's what Eric Reasons was arguing a few months back on the
> implosion of artificial scarcity rents.
>
> People
> > who don't believe in intellectual property had a bad day.  That's true.
>  To
> > my mind, P2P and the open movement have never been about doing away with
> > IP...in fact, just the opposite.  It is about free/open being a
> competitive
> > model where post-scarcity is more compelling both politically and
> > economically than market restrictions.
>
> Speaking for myself, P2P is very much about opposition to
> "intellectual property."  I was drawn to the open movement for the
> same reason people who considered slavery illegitimate were drawn to
> the abolitionist movement.  I think Stallman also considers IP
> illegitimate in principle.
>
>
There will always be heterodox views.  Stallman often represents those
views.  Sometimes he is visionary. Other times absurd.  That's the price of
being nearly constantly heterodox.

To me, opposition to intellectual property is a death knell for progress.
People need to control their own outputs.  If they cannot, there is no hope
of having a gift/free economy.  That is the ultimate slavery.



> For me, open-source is a way of recreating, within the belly of the
> beast, the state of affairs that would exist if copyrights and patents
> didn't exist at all.
>

Not for me.  Open source is a technology.  It is a means of creating a
compelling environment. It isn't about doing away with other political
modes.  It is about surpassing them.


>
> And again, as I understand it the open movement is about the ultimate
> value of eliminating artificial scarcity.  So while some accommodation
> to IP as an interim measure may be consistent with this, it is still
> in some way a compromise of the fundamental culture of the movement.
>
>
Artificial scarcity is the politicized term for abundance.  Abundance is
about capacity. Raise capacity and the reasons for scarcity go away.  The
answer isn't so much to attack scarcity as it is to find mechanisms to raise
the capacity for abundance.



> > It isn't a great day for the free/open movement, but it is a great day
> for
> > societies.  Sadly, many will not be able to see past their own view of
> the
> > politics of that statement.  Capitalism simply won again.  I think that
> is a
> > good thing.  If free/open wants to compete for the first place in
> society,
> > it needs to deliver top goods and services.  Here's to the guys who can
> > match Apple for 100 Euros and something I can tinker with, change and add
> > media that's either expensive or free.  I will never sign a petition
> against
> > massive technical improvements that are disruptive and consumer friendly.
>
> The problem is they're "competing" in an artificial ecosystem defined
> by "intellectual property."  Capitalism won because the playing field
> was tilted.  If I lived in Virginia in 1850, I wouldn't say that slave
> cotton plantations must be better than free ones because they
> outcompeted in the market.  I'd question the basic structural
> preconditions of the market.
>
>
Playing fields are set by what is ultimately compelling.  Power works only
so long if it is not advantageous.  That's the lesson of the Soviet Union,
of China, increasingly of the Arab World, Persia, Africa and South America.
What kills this capacity is people who fight democratic institutions,
markets, and human rights.  It is all about capacity.

If open systems and P2P cannot find a way to be compelling for human
capacity, they will die off. I see nothing blocking them now in most free
systems.  To call counter models cheaters is probably not going to help the
cause much.  In fact, slavery was well known to be dying under its own
weight--even in the South.  There are numerous economic and historic studies
of it.  It couldn't compete with machinery, etc. in the same way slave labor
today doesn't compete for very long in attractive markets--like those that
require skills.  Skills always win.  China is the proving ground for that
now as labor gets more and more skilled by the decade.

The answer is to push advancement and skils, not to attack other systems qua
systems.  That is outmoded politics that simply leads to stalemates.   The
"right" answer is technical achievement, abundance, innovation and change.
The wrong answer is planned outputs, political fights against status quo's,
and "movements."  At least that is my view.

Ryan
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://listcultures.org/pipermail/p2presearch_listcultures.org/attachments/20100131/37c1c19e/attachment.html>