[free-sklyarov] Libertarian anti-DMCA is fantasy

Declan McCullagh declan at well.com
Wed Jul 25 22:30:24 PDT 2001


This could become an all-encompassing discussion that has little to do
with the purpose of this list. But Finkelstein makes some allegations
that are simply weird if not incomprehensible, and so I'll try to
correct them and simultaneously bring it back to Dmitry.

Simple language may work:

1. Libertarian and conservative groups (not the same) are
newly-influential because of a new guy in the White House. Many think
tank types have gone to work for the Bush administration. There is a
close relationship, particularly with conservatives.

2. Libertarian groups (don't know about conservatives, haven't
interviewed them) unanimously say it should not be a crime to
circumvent and this prosecution is a bad idea. But they have a lot of
other topics they're active on and this is not a top priority.

3. Heck, a CSE guy showed up at the DC rally and was quoted in the
Chronicle of Higher Ed article. This is a group founded by a former
Reagan White House attorney. They're sympathetic, and probably just
need to learn more.

4. To get them more active, it makes sense to reach out to them and
not make nutty propagandistic statements like "DMCA is Libertarianism
in Action" that are better relegated to bumper stickers for the
deranged.

5. If they are active, they have a better chance of persuading
Congress to amend the DMCA than merely the usual lefty coalition of
EPIC-ACLU-EFF. (Not saying that this would be the entirety of it, of
course.) And head off similar and more far-reaching laws along the
way.  CSE has half a million grassroots activists and their support
for Free Dmitry rallys might even come in handy.

This is Politics and Coalition Building 101, folks. Obviously not
everyone here gets it, but I suspect most of you do.

-Declan

PS: I agree that what is property and the future of intellectual
property are interesting questions, but I'm not sure this list is the
best place to have extended debates over the answers. Try cypherpunks.




On Wed, Jul 25, 2001 at 09:22:36PM -0400, Seth Finkelstein wrote:
> On Wed, Jul 25, 2001 at 08:03:29PM -0400, Declan McCullagh wrote:
> > I've spoken with and interviewed representatives of the Competitive
> > Intelligence Institute and the Cato Institute and the Pacific Research
> > Institute (libertarian think tanks) and not one believes that what
> > Dmitry did should be a crime.
> 
> 	Not a one of them has to raise a ton of money to run for
> office either. It is very, very, easy to say what you think your
> audience wants to hear, especially when those PR people know exactly
> what that interviewer would like to have presented as their stance.
> 
> 	It is quite another to vote on a law knowing that a large
> amount of campaign contribution money is riding on that vote. And
> perhaps that leads to a re-thinking of one's convictions. Especially
> when there are plausible ways of coming to an ideological view that
> is in harmony with the money. It's happened many a time.
> 
> > These groups are your natural allies, and frothing here against "those
> > evil libertarians" or whatever won't help them move from criticizing
> > the DMCA and Dmitry's arrest to participating in an active repeal/
> > rewrite effort.
> 
> 	I don't recall using the words you put in quotes. I do recall,
> however, one poster saying "Yes, this is a shameless plug for the
> Libertarian party". And then someone else who once was defended by
> the Cato Institute as a "libertarian journalist" under attack
> (http://www.cato.org/pubs/policy_report/v22n4/crosshairs.pdf)
> chimed in. And this was at the same time as another person ranting
> "Feinstein is a socialist".
> 
> 	Trying to use the DMCA and Dmitry's arrest as plugs for
> this sort of politicing doesn't help anyone. It's just attempting
> to hijack the efforts in the service of annoying proselytizing.
> 
> 	Why? Because it does not solve the problem. The core is
> "What Is Property", and why. I was accused in trolling for asking how
> Declan can justify making his living from a government-granted
> monopoly on speech. But that's a true question. It's a deep issue.
> Copyright is a restriction on speech. It declares punishments
> for people who say things, merely on the basis that those things have
> been said by someone else. It says this speech is *owned*. It's a kind
> of property in itself. That's a very weird thing at heart.
> 
> 	However, it's been in the Constitution from day 1, as a
> specific power of Congress. Once you accept speech can be
> a kind of property (even if an odd type of property), how far
> once goes to enforce those *property* *rights* is a question
> that has to deal with the implications of this type of property.
> 
> 	In fact, the DMCA is Libertarianism in action. It's the
> government enforcing (intellectual) property rights on behalf
> of the owners of that property. No smiley. That's what it is.
> 
> 	I'm not trying to argue against copyright _per se_. But once
> you've taken the step that people can be punished at all for what they
> say, just to support this property-right, increasing and extending
> those punishments follows the same path.
> 
> 	Libertarians and similar, at least the ones posting here, do
> not seem to grasp this problem. Their replies boil down to "No, the
> line is *here*!" Why is it there? Do you have an explanation that
> works for copyright in the first place? Government-bad doesn't cut
> it. That's just demagoguery.
> 
> 	I'll try to put it another way: If, as a purely ideological
> matter, you can swallow a restriction on a right to say the speech
> (i.e. to copy it), then it's not a big jump to an ideological
> justification to restricting speech about enabling people to copy that
> speech. If there ever were a lot of real Libertarian Party politicians
> trying to get a lot of money to seriously win a high office, I suspect
> they'd find proclaiming the property aspects very appealing.
> 
> 	I believe the proselytizing that we saw today is at best
> extremely distracting noise, and worse, downright intellectually
> harmful to understanding and thinking about this issue. Hence
> my writing in opposition to it.
> 
> 	But as always, feel free to consider this "typically,
> nonsense or otherwise not worth the time it takes to reply."
> 
> -- 
> Seth Finkelstein  Consulting Programmer  sethf at sethf.com  http://sethf.com
> http://www10.nytimes.com/2001/07/19/technology/circuits/19HACK.html
> 
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