A friend linked me to this post over the holidays, and the similarities stunned me. I highly recommend reading the article, but the gist of it is that we’ve essentially been through the whole “property” debate before, with slavery (Ah! The S-word). People are saying some of the exact same things to defend and protect intellectual property that others once used in support of slavery.
From the article:
Redefining property undermines social stability and can lead to widespread violence. Most people will tolerate certain unpalatable definitions of property (that human beings can be property in the case of slavery, or that culture and ideas can be property in the case of IP) in exchange for social stability, because social stability underlies everyone’s security.
Nina Paley, “Redefining Property: Lessons from American History“
It goes on to make comparisons between the moral arguments, technological change, political movements, and government involvement that have surrounded both periods. While there are some obvious differences, namely that cultural works aren’t people, and don’t have human feelings or rights, the similarities are startling. What especially interests me is that the antebellum United States was already moving away from slavery as a result of economic changes, so it seems that even with the government jumping to protect slaveholder’s “property rights,” the need (and therefore the practice) would have died out on its own.
Today, the economic need for copyrights and patents is greatly diminished if not altogether irrelevant. Once again, the government continues to jump to protect the imagined “rights” of the few. I wonder if we’ll be able to let the old ways die out on their own peacefully, or if the current skirmishes between “rightsholders” and “pirates” will further escalate in the coming years.