[free-sklyarov] Libertarian anti-DMCA is fantasy

[Seth Finkelstein]

On Thu, Jul 26, 2001 at 01:30:24AM -0400, Declan McCullagh wrote:
> 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.

	Too bad you couldn't be troubled to quote them, so I have
no idea what you mean. Not a promising start. Anyway ...

> 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.

	None of this mattered to the passage of the DMCA in the first place.
As you have complained, the DMCA was bipartisan. Despite what you may
believe (see below), the DMCA was not a liberal/Democratic cause. So
whatever the influence of think-tanks, even if Libertarians and
conservatives had lesser influence, it seems to have mattered not
at all. Zero. I've argued that the imperatives of campaign funding
likely would have placed any Libertarian Senators in that 99-0 group too.
This argument undercuts the irritating recruiting for the Libertarian Party.

	Now, I'm sure you will do a fine job of reaching out to those
libertarian think-tanks. However, given the genesis of this thread
in the promotion of the Libertarian Party, I think you have little
basis to complain about "nutty propagandistic statements" which are
"simply weird if not incomprehensible" (e.g. conjecturing the behavior
of fantasy Senators based on "interviews" with some party officials).

	A serious issue you raise though, is if think-tanks of any
political group have *any* chance of persuading Congress to amend the
DMCA. I suspect the problem is that you are analyzing this in terms of
ideology, and I am thinking about it mostly in terms of money and
perhaps how to counter that huge war-chest on the other side.
Arguments about "Why The DMCA Is Bad" are not exactly rare (even from
conservatives). I believe it is a serious analysis error to put too
much faith in a supposed killer philosophical argument. It makes for
good column-filler and editorializing, but is severely limited in
effectiveness (of course, after it fails, it can then be recycled all
over again in that same column-filler and editorializing, as to how the
world is going to hell in handbasket because the killer philosophical
argument didn't work).

	If your argument is that activists need to have as wide as
umbrella as possible, there's pros and cons. I don't think this
list is the right place to discuss that.

	By the way Declan, in terms of politics and coalition building,
there is a certain irony regarding the impetus of my developing
the aphorism "The DMCA Is Libertarianism In Action". It was pushed
by your out-and-out trolling the dvd-discuss list a few weeks back
regarding how the DMCA was the "inevitable result of the last 100 years"
where "This is what liberals wanted, and this is the inevitable consequence."
Perhaps you could set a better example for me?

-- 
Seth Finkelstein  Consulting Programmer  sethf at sethf.com  http://sethf.com
http://www10.nytimes.com/2001/07/19/technology/circuits/19HACK.html