Copyright & Licensing: Should we even bother?

[toban]

Jeff Tucker just wrote an article on why authors should use a Creative Commons license rather than copyright. The problem is, as Stephan Kinsella has shown (Against IP), information is not property. So using CC is still a form of IP. So why not just publish without any licensing whatsoever??

One possible answer is that we should use it defensively, to prevent someone from taking our work out of public domain and copyrighting it as their own. Tucker alludes to this: “You have to copyright your work if only to prevent others from claiming copyright and thereby binding all other living persons, including you, from publishing it.”

Is this a legitimate concern? If not, why not do away will all forms of licensing and go public domain?

[kiba]

@toban

Is this a legitimate concern? If not, why not do away will all forms of licensing and go public domain?

Some country don’t allow you to wavier your copyright, like Japan.

[Nitroadict]

I think the nature of information gathering (or information aggregation) is being ignored within the IP debate, in favor of semi-collectivist impulses over who should get to own which information & why (not exclusivley here, however, but amid the general Internet & those who’ve I’ve talked about IP offline).

I mean information aggregation by that of a person amassing information and/or ideas that he didn’t actually create (of which, many if not all of that information is not literally unique, and borrows from previous information), to present it in what one hopes to be a different presentation of information, in an effort to be unique.

That is a bit wordy in of itself, but a good example is blogging. Very little of what people have written on blogs, aside from personal accounts of their day (but even that uses information such as phrases etc. that are not unique to themselves) is of their own creation. Hell, most people don’t even create their own method of blogging (i.e. the software), and even with those that do attempt to create their own system of blogging utilize code that either is influence by previous code, or in some cases is directly borrowed code (i.e. templates, or a CMS).

The concept of exclusive, private rights (i.e. exclusive use) over a non-physical creation would give way to a general concept of the right to utilize information to create non-physical creations. This would involve the admission that no one truly owns information in of itself, as it’s been proven time & time again that you cannot enforce or control the use of information (i.e. the failure of intellectual property).

I admit however, I will probably need to do more work on whatever I’m grasping at in the above, although I’m sure I’m not the first to suggest abolishing the concept of owning information, & instead admitting to the concept of the use of information, where liscensing would merley be a stamp that one has generated information, but neither implicitly owns nor created it.

(I’ll have to do much more research though, concerning the above. It’s sloppy, but I’ll keep it posted regardless)

[liberty_student]

I thought Mr. Tucker’s article was more about how existing copyright law, combined with bad contracts can leave an author not able to control his own works.

In an anarchist society, bad contracts will be an issue as well.

But under the state, copyright is granted upon creation, regardless of whether it is desired or not. And once granted, it is something to be managed. Not unlike fiat money, the government artificially creates a market for IP and IP contracts.

[Nitroadict]

@liberty student

I thought Mr. Tucker’s article was more about how existing copyright law, combined with bad contracts can leave an author not able to control his own works.

In an anarchist society, bad contracts will be an issue as well.

But under the state, copyright is granted upon creation, regardless of whether it is desired or not. And once granted, it is something to be managed. Not unlike fiat money, the government artificially creates a market for IP and IP contracts.

Indeed, I’ve felt (my own IP ruminations aside) that the stateless society would be better equipped at handling this debacle, and if anything, there would be far more incentive to solve it. At this point, even so early on, it’s forseeable that the State will attempt to regulate virtual reality into a counterpart of reality, to the point of silly rules & laws regarding property.

One huge step towards this will be the Obama’s Administration’s agenda of going “open-source”, methinks.

[liberty_student]

@Nitroadict

One huge step towards this will be the Obama’s Administration’s agenda of going “open-source”, methinks.

I never heard about this. Interesting. Do you have any links for more info on this agenda?

[Nitroadict]

@liberty student

@Nitroadict

One huge step towards this will be the Obama’s Administration’s agenda of going “open-source”, methinks.

I never heard about this. Interesting. Do you have any links for more info on this agenda?

Yeah, there hasn’t been anything terribly official regarding this, but recent articles & announcements have clarified it a bit:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7841486.stm

“The secret to a more secure and cost effective government is through open source technologies and products.”

The claim comes from one of Silicon Valley’s most respected business leaders Scott McNealy, a co-founder of Sun Microsystems.He revealed he has been asked to prepare a paper on the subject for the new administration.“It’s intuitively obvious open source is more cost effective and productive than proprietary software,” he said. “Open source does not require you to pay a penny to Microsoft or IBM or Oracle or any proprietary vendor any money.”

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7844280.stm

White House plans open government

Mr Obama’s new media team is letting search engines index almost everything on the site.

By contrast, after eight years of government the Bush administration was stopping huge swathes of data from being searchable.

The move is part of President Obama’s larger push to make the US government more open and transparent.

http://www.linuxinsider.com/rsstory/65213.html

By the People: Citizen Involvement the Open Source Way

Everything’s going open source nowadays. Why not government?

That’s precisely the question that some analysts and consultants are asking, along with citizens themselves.

President-Elect Barack Obama has begun to implement a bit of open source thinking with his Presidential Transition Project Web site, which allows citizens to send in comments, ideas and suggestions for public policy, as well as apply for jobs within the Obama administration. And others in and around government are likely to follow his lead in enacting what might be called “Legislation 2.0.”

and of course, the slashdot entry:

http://news.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09%2F01%2F21%2F1319238&from=rss

[Nitroadict]

I also just found the latest regarding “open-source government” via the new administration via slashdot as well:

http://news.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/01/22/1525258

Obama Edicts Boost FOIA and .gov Websites

Ian Lamont writes "The Electronic Frontier Foundation and the National Security Archive are praising President Obama’s executive orders to make the federal government more open. Yesterday, Obama issued two memos and one executive order instructing government agencies to err on the side of making information public and not to look for reasons to legally withhold it. The moves are expected to make it easier for people to file Freedom of Information Act requests, and should also boost the amount of information that agencies place on their websites.

The general counsel for the National Security Archive (an NGO that publishes declassified documents obtained through the Freedom of Information Act) even predicts that agencies will use blogs to share information. Obama’s directives reverse a 2001 memo from former U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft instructing federal agencies to generally withhold information from citizens filing FOIA requests."

[toban]

I know that copyright is automatic even if you don’t specify, but you could specify that your work is public domain. So, if it is illegitimate and morally wrong to use the state to enforce any kind of IP, why don’t libertarians publish in the public domain? Why bother with licensing, such as Creative Commons, at all?

[ivanfoofoo]

As far as I’m concerned, CC does not give you any sort of monopolizing privileges to the author.

[liberty_student]

Thanks Nitro. Sounds like Obama’s media team plans to allow more interactivity, and a little more transparency. I was curious to know if they were going to get away from bespoke software solutions, and use open source software itself. I’m sure their costs to maintain proprietary systems is enormous.

It’s kinda funny, but what should have always been transparent (the operation and details of governance) is now hailed as progress. It would be like claiming that rain is a scientific advancement geared towards farmers. lol

[toban]

CC means you can freely use it but are (legally) bound to give credit. This is just another (weaker) form of IP. So, using a CC license to enforce attribution is immoral. It would be the moral equivalent to me calling the cops on you because I saw you smoking cannabis in your house. In both cases, the issue is using the state to vicariously commit crimes.

[toban]

I emailed Kinsella, and he provided me a link to his discussion of this issue: http://blog.mises.org/archives/009240.asp

Basically, CC Attribution is the best we can do… there is no way to publish to the public domain.