 Legalise IT
Current lawsThe laws of many countries sanction private ownership of some kinds of information - in the form of laws against copying information.Other laws prevent certain types of use of information - in the form of laws restricting inventors, laws restricting the use of certain words for marketing purposes, and laws against counterfitting, impersonation and the use of cryptography. These laws are all destructive and harmful, and need to be taken off the books. The government should legalise Information Technology.
The underlying issueThe fundamental issue is whether individual agents should be permitted to own and control patterns of information.
Information ownershipPromoters of the idea that information should be owned claim that substantial progress has been caused by the finincial incentives offered to information creators by laws promoting such ownership.They claim much literature and artistic work owes its existence to the government-granted monopolies given to their creators. They also claim that many useful inventions owe their existence to financial incentives provided to the inventors by the government-granted monopolies awarded to them.
What can be ownedSome types of information cannot be owned, even under existing law. Mathematical ideas cannot be owned. Plot lines of fictional works cannot be owned.Other things can currently be owned - under existing laws. Among them are physical objects, money, literary works and inventions.
Adverse effectsOn the negative side, the laws criminalise the manipulation of information. Whenever anyone copies anything they have to check its ownership, and then possibly apply for a license - or abort their copy operation.It becomes possible to break the law in your basement, if you have a network connection there. Since communications can be obfuscated, in order to detect such unlawful activities, the government needs to gain entrance to your property, install surveillance cameras, and monitor your daily activtiy. Similarly inventors need to perform lengthy patent searches whenever they come up with an idea. Worse, patent ideas are often deliberately disguised by legal jargon - since the fewer people who actually find your inveantion, the more money there is to be made suing them. This, and the sheer number of existing patents makes it difficult to find things in the patent database.
Other effectsLaws restricting the use of information change the economic landscape.For one thing they create jobs for armies of lawyers, eager to get rich off the efforts of the world's technologists. The laws exist because it was historially believed that their net effect in distorting the landscape was actually beneficial. Copyright and patent law provide emergency shelter to creations that, but for such special statutory protection, would have been left wandering unprotected through the market economy - and would have probably perished in the process. They have almost certainly resulted in lots of literature, music and movies being produced, which would otherwise not have found funding without government sponsorship. However, it remains highly questionable whether much of this activity is actually beneficial. The fact that people are prepared to pay for some of the resulting products proves nothing - people pay for all kinds of drugs and addictions that are bad for their health, and that of the community in which they live. What would happen under an alternative system - where literature, music and films are paid for out of public taxes, and made publicly available? Would we still see 300 million dollars spent on Spiderman 3? I believe not - a utilitarian analysis would conclude that expenditure on mere entertainment on such a scale was a frivolous waste of public funds - and that projects such as irrigation, agriculture, shelter and development should take priority. To some observers, the scale of the literature, music and movie industry represents a damning indictment of the existing laws. It appears that much of the resulting material is worthless garbage funded by idiots. Who put these people in charge of the country's national budget? The answer seems to be that the people who came up with the copyright laws did. I expand on this theme in another essay, entitled Destroy the Entertainment Industry.
ProhibitionThe resulting situation closely resembles the prohibition era - where the law was widely treated with contempt by the population. Today, in addition to the war on drugs we have a war on sharing. As with the war on drugs a small minority benefit at the expense of a large majority. Lobbying by the special interest groups involved sustains the situation against the interests of the majority of voters.
Contempt for the lawWidespread use of digital computers and the rise of the internet has made copying information quicker and easier than ever before.As a direct consequence, the laws on intellectual property have been violated on a mass scale - by consumers who want their MP3s.
Political reformHaving laws which are so regularly violated on the books is a sign that something is wrong.Intellectual property owners represent a powerful minority, eager to continue their exploitation of the masses. They can afford to contribute to political campaigns and lobby groups that promise to protect their interests. Individual consumers are far more numerous. Paying monopoly prices is inconvenient for them - but it usually doesn't threaten their entire vocation. Plus in the case of copyright, they can often simply break the law. However in democratic nations, eventually honest politicians will come to recognise that the majority of voters do not like being branded as criminals - and will rectify the situation.
Progress and ownershipProgress in mathematics still seems to take place despite the fact that mathematical discoveries cannot be patented.Many inventions took place before the patent laws were on the books. Patents can have substantial negative effects on inventors as well as positive ones - e.g.:
- http://righttocreate.blogspot.com/2005/11/patents-chilling-science.html The case in favour of the patent system is worsening as time passes - as more and more inventors are born, as the rate of progress increases, and as more of the world gets on the internet.
AccelerationOne thing that has become evident is that the pace of technological change seems to be accelerating. The phrase ' internet time' is one way of expressing of this.Accelerating change should logically result in decreased patent and copyright terms - if these are measured in years. Such a change has yet to happen - despite increasing protests against the laws involved.
Number of peopleGlobalisation and international conventions increase the number of people who can be exploited by intellectual property laws, increasing the returns that accrue to information controllers.Simultaneously, a larger number of people means a greater number of potential inventors, reducing the chance that an invention by one individual will remain undiscovered by others for very long. A look at the history of technology shows many cases of near simultaneous invention. Inventions often happen because their time is ripe.
SynergyThe existing roadblocks on the information superhighway are damaging in part because they prevent synergy from taking place.The situation is closely analogous to how the road system used to be when it was privately owned - and was covered by toll booths. In my opinion, the government needs to wake up and sort out the information highway system - and turn it into a place where you can move around in an unrestricted fashion, without being constantly hassled by the information landowners.
LinksAnti-Copyright Resources - a nice page of linksHow the Music Industry's War on Sharing Destroys Markets and Erodes Civil Liberties by Aram Sinnreich Against Intellectual Monopoly - by Michele Boldrin and David K. Levine praxeology.net (Roderick T. Long)
- Richard Stallman
Patents Are An Economic Absurdity
Copying Is Not Theft - Nina Paley
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