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 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.
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 significant 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.
4 responses to “The Misunderstanding of IP Isn’t New”
You say “Cultural works aren’t people”, but this misses the point. Copyright and patent don’t constrain cultural works, those privileges constrain people. Copyright suspends the liberty of people to make copies. It doesn’t by some magic make a song uncopyable (you may be thinking of DRM).
So, copyright and patent are 18th century proprietary constraints on individuals’ cultural liberty, constraints that were trivial in that age when individuals could suffer proprietary constraints on their physical liberty.
When people say software should be free they mean that people should be free to copy it. They aren’t saying “Software should be free” in the same sense as “Nelson Mandela should be free”. You can lock the software in a cellar and throw away the key. The software is just ones and zeroes. It’s the people who write it and buy it who should be free to do what they want with it.
There is a good deal of similarity between slavery and the privileges of copyright and patent. They all concern proprietary constraints over people. That is why they are all unethical and should be abolished.
I think your analysis here is spot on. In my post I used that line to try and minimize the “Oh no, you brought up slavery!” reaction. Your statement that both are constraints on individual liberties succinctly draws the correct parallel, and I’ll probably borrow that in the future. 😉
Crosbie:
Astute as usual, dude. 🙂
Thanks Henry. 🙂