Yaron Brook on Dennis Miller
Yaron Brook is going to be on the Dennis Miller show tomorrow (5/22) around 11:15 a.m. central time. I don’t think any radio stations in the Kansas City area carry the show, but luckily the show’s podcast is available for free. According to the show’s website, the show should be available for download here around 1:30.
Tags: [ari, dennis miller, yaron brook]GPL depends on copyright?
There are a lot of things that I want to write about the open-source movement, and the favorite software license of its advocates: the GPL. I don’t have a lot of time to write right now, so I’ll try to sum it up in a few sentences.
There is a movement of people who are against the concept of copyright, patents, and other intellectual property. They believe that the creator of a work does not have the right to tell another individual not to copy his music, writing, software, or any other creation that is not physical property. Their favorite software license is the GPL, which allows users to copy and distribute code freely with only one stipulation: Any works you create that are derived from the GPL’d code must have the same GPL “protections.” What type of protections? Protections from distributing the code in any form that does not allow full copying and editing. Applying the GPL to software essentially protects that software from being owned by any individual. (And when I say “owned,” I mean the ability of an individual to control what is done with that software.)
So why am I bringing this up? Well, there was a recent debate that started on Slashdot between two individuals on the question of whether the GPL depends on copyright in order to oppose copyright. The debate started with with a post arguing that the GPL depends on copyright. Someone wrote a response disagreeing with that position, and the original poster responded to that. The debate is interesting, mostly because it’s one issue that I actually find myself in agreement with the GPL advocate!
The basic argument of copyright abolitionists is that people should be free to share when sharing does not result in any diminution of supply. The GPL simply uses copyright law in a jiujitsu-like manner to enforce this principle, in a legal environment where sharing is prohibited by default and must be explicitly permitted to be legal. All the GPL does is create a space where permission to share is enforced.
I agree that the GPL does not depend on copyright law. Those who don’t believe in copyright think that everybody should be able to copy and distribute other people’s works without permission. Of course, they can’t make anybody do that because it goes contrary to current law. So, in a clever move, they convince people to give up their rights to their intellectual property voluntarily, and then use copyright law to enforce that decision. What’s important to note here is not that they are using copyright law to enforce the GPL, but that they want the government to enforce the GPL. They would be even happier if they could achieve their goals with laws that specifically forbid copyright, but they haven’t gotten the government to go along with that. Yet.
I think that most people tend to dismiss or ignore the ideas behind the GPL and the open-source movement, and the GPL-uses-copyright argument is one of the reasons. They look at the GPL text and say, “Nothing here violates anybody’s rights.” And they’re right, so long as developers have the choice to use the GPL or not. If you look at the ideas behind the GPL, especially on the GNU’s philosophy page, you’ll see that GPL advocates are not fighting for the rights of developers to make that choice. The GPL is not just another software license.
Tags: [GPL, intellectual property]Net neutrality will result in $69 million loss?
Last week, an organization that calls itself the “American Consumer Institute” released a study that claims that net neutrality will cost consumers $69 billion. Naturally, net neutrality advocates quickly jumped out to challenge the facts and conclusions in the study and to prove that net neutrality would have no cost on consumers.
Hmm… no? Wait, I think I got that wrong. I mean: Net neutrality advocates quickly found that an ACI employee that had worked for the telecom industry. Conflict of interest! Sock puppet for big corporations! That fact alone is enough for them to dismiss the entire study without addressing any of the facts at all. Whew, that was close!
From savetheinternet.com
Elsewhere, a group calling itself the American Consumer Institute emerged from obscurity touting a new report which claims that a federal Net Neutrality law would cost consumers billions of dollars in higher Internet connection fees.
The problem is the American Consumer Institute is nothing but a front for a former chief economist of the phone company now known as Verizon — who also moonlights as a consultant for the telecom industry.
If you go to the ACI Website, however, nowhere does it mention this obvious conflict of interest.
For the record, I don’t agree or disagree with the study. I haven’t even read it. I don’t need to read it to know that taking away people’s property and their right to make voluntary agreements between one another will hurt the economy and cost people money. Will it come out to $69 million? My guess is that it will cost more if you factor in the loss of control that telecoms and cable companies will lose over their networks, but I’m not really sure. But if net neutrality costs a total of $1.00 I still think it’s too much. This is America, and we should not be using our government to take away money and property from other individuals without their consent.
You can view the press release here (pdf) and the entire study here (pdf).
Tags: [net neutrality]More on Canadian camcording
I’m surprised that there are people who are against Canada passing a law that outlaws camcording in movie theaters. Has the idea of “fair use” and the desire to create “backups” extended to where some people think an individual is within his rights to record what he sees in a movie theater?
From michaelgeist.ca
The question demonstrates the impact of the media blitz on camcording - there has been no independent evidence put forward about Canadian industry or government losses (nor any reference to India that I can recall) yet that is how the question is framed.
I don’t think there is any “independent evidence” about losses taken on by the movie industry that would stop movie pirates from copying movies. I also don’t know how the movie industry determines what is a “loss,” but I wouldn’t be surprised if the movie industry loses more than it claims. When movies are copied and distributed online without permission, the movie industry loses more than the just price of the tickets they would have sold had a viewer saw the movie in the theater. They lose their right to the movie itself. People who want to see the movie no longer have to deal with the movie industry to watch a movie; they can instead just go online and get a copy from a pirate. The movie is, in essence, taken out of the free market.
Sure, the percentage of people who would watch a movie online illegal is pretty low. The vast majority of people are still going to meet the movie industry’s terms if they want to see a movie. However, if governments do not protect intellectual property, I think it’s only going to get worse.
And by the way, what “media blitz?”
A question that needs answering is not whether camcording is a good thing - it obviously is not (particularly in the way that it degrades the quality of the film) - but rather whether there is an impact on the Canadian film industry such that this issue should leap to the front on the line for the Minister of Canadian Heritage.
Note how the main objection the author raises about the illegal copy is its quality.
I think it is valid to question whether a law against movie camcording should be enacted, but only on the grounds that camcording in theaters is already made illegal by existing copyright law. And, most importantly, that the government of Canada enforces that law.
Tags: [intellectual property, movie industry, piracy]Canadian movie recording
The Canadian government is considering a law to ban camcording movies shows in theaters. Not surprisingly, piracy advocates are unhappy. The first sentence I read about this is the funniest:
From p2pnet.com:
Can you castigate an entire nation for the ill deeds of a few? Hollywood says you can and so, apparently, does the current Canadian government.
Castigate? How will a law that criminalizes the recording of illegal copies of movies “castigate” the entire nation? How many people use a camcorder in movie theaters for legal reasons? How many people use a camcorder in a movie theater at all?
But wait, the author of the above quote states how it will:
I’d also suggest the techniques being used to apprehend the alleged criminals are likely to cause more trouble for the audience than the bad guys.
Sending ushers equipped with night vision goggles creeping down corridors trying to spot camcording criminals is far more likely to interfere with the audience viewing pleasures than to result in the capture of illicit copiers.
I’d say that the cause of the night-vision-equipped ushers were the illegal recorders. But this example of his is not a real, and piracy advocates are not trying to save movie-goers from Rainbow Six ushers. They want to prevent the passage of laws that will explicitely forbid this obvious method of violating the property rights of movie makers.
Tags: [movies, piracy, property rights]Net Neutrality joke
I thought of a variant to the “screw in the lightbulb” joke.
Question: How many net neutrality advocates does it take to build a fast, reliable internet?
Answer: It’s a trick question, they can’t do it.
The internet wasn’t built by people clicking “I Agree” on petitions or government decrees. It was built by private companies. Now that the internet has grown into something that we all enjoy and even depend on, some people feel that it has become “community” property. The property rights of individuals and organizations now have to be given up because people want control over their property.
To those that think they have a say in the way ISPs run their business, I have some questions: What have you done to make the internet what it is? And I don’t mean websites you’ve built or great blog posts you’ve written, but the actual architecture of the internet. Did you buy the computers that store your email and favorite websites? Did you lay the wires that connect all the computers in this vast network? Did you even lay the wire that connects this network to your house? The answer to these questions for the majority of people is “nothing.” Other organizations did all the work to build the internet, using their own money and resources. Everything they built is their property, regardless of the fact that it is part of the internet.
I felt the need to write this after reading the following quote from Senator Byron Dorgan (emphasis mine):
Sen. Dorgan said, “The Internet became a robust engine of economic development by enabling anyone with a good idea to connect to consumers and compete on a level playing field. The marketplace picked winners and losers, not some central gatekeeper. That freedom - the very core of what makes the Internet what it is today - must be preserved.”
Companies that provide us with internet access are not “gatekeepers,” they are bridge-builders. They built the connections we use to access the internet, and if they hadn’t built them we wouldn’t have them. I don’t understand the “ISPs are the problem” attitude that seems to pervade the net neutrality movement. Companies like Comcast deserve our appreciation for their role in giving us access to the internet. If they didn’t provide you access to the internet, who else would have? Senator Dorgan? SaveTheInternet.com? Net neutrality advocates?
Tags: [net neutrality]Bodyguard
I was talking to my brother about a concert I was going to attend this evening. Here’s his comment:
[10:48] Darren: yeah, ashley is the one that bought the tickets…. she wanted to go. i’m just serving as protection
[10:48] Caleb: protection from what? software glitches?
Spiderman 3
I saw Spiderman 3 this weekend and posted my opinion on the Forum. In line with what is becoming my policy of writing on someone else’s site and then copying my post on my own site, here is my short review:
I thought Spiderman 3 was absolutely horrible. This movie ruined every good plot line set up from the previous two movies, turned the “black suit” story-line into a bunch of nonsense, and made the hero out to be a wimp who can’t tell right from wrong. This movie turned the Spiderman trilogy into one that that’s a lot like the Matrix trilogy: A series that starts off well, but declines so fast that by the end of the third movie you wish you (and the makers of the movie) hadn’t wasted your time.
It’s almost frustrating how bad this movie was because it didn’t have to be. I probably shouldn’t go into many details here, so I’ll just say that I think there are many scenes that could have been cut, scenes that could have been expanded, or small edits in the story line that would have made the movie make more sense. I’m not a huge Spiderman fan, but the black suit story I remember made much more sense. It’s almost like the makers of the movie deliberately made changes that could only make the story more confusing.
I wish the movie makers would have taken the movie seriously. The Saturday Night Fever scene, the scene where he combs his hair differently, the piano bar, the local news broadcast, the message the bad guy leaves for Spiderman, the butler’s speech, the meteor, the bridge scene… give me a break. What was he point in any of that?
I thought the funniest part of the movie was when it ended and people started to get out of their seats, only for the acutal scene to come up. Most didn’t bother to sit back down.
I think there are some real problems with the ideas this movie pushes. It’s hard to make too big of a deal out of the movie when it’s obvious that the movie makers didn’t take it seriously, but I think there is some real confusion between the concept of “vengeance” and “justice.” Also, the movie seems to also talk about the importance of the choices you make, but then the movie ends with the bad guy…. argh, I can’t say without spoiling it.
I was really looking forward to seeing this movie, and I was let down. I will never see this one again.
Tags: [movie, spiderman]Facts in MCLU press release?
I saw an article about a net neutrality law being proposed in Maine, I came across a press release by the Maine Civil Liberties Union. I came across two whoppers that deserve to be pointed out:
Computer professionals, free speech advocates and Maine business representatives have joined forces to call on the Maine State Legislature to restore Network Neutrality principles in this state.
Restore? If there is a “principle” to be found behind net neutrality, it’s “government regulation.” Net neutrality advocates are not just arguing for a neutral internet, they are arguing for the government force to enforce a neutral internet. Federal and state government have yet to pass a net neutrality law, so how can they restore something that never existed?
Already, Network providers have begun to engage in content and user discrimination Last year, BellSouth denied access to Myspace.com in Tennessee and Florida. That same year, Cox Cable blocked its customers from accessing the online classified site Craigslist.com.
I hadn’t heard of these examples of ISP’s blocking content, especially because of a business conflict with the content providers, so I looked into it. And sure enough, these weren’t examples of ISP’s blocking content for any reason other than incompetence and incorrect filtering settings (try reading here, here, here, and here). Technically, the MCLU isn’t lying when they say that content was blocked by an ISP in those cases, but they don’t explain why and just leave it to the reader to assume it was for some nefarious reason.
But would net neutrality even stop problems like the examples the MCLU gave? No. With or without net neutrality, companies are still run by people and people are still capable of error.
Update 5/14/2007:
To their credit, the MCLU has contacted me to let me know they are looking into some of the questions I raised about their post.
Update 6/20/2007:
Nevermind! I haven’t read any word related to the facs they said they were looking into, or any edits to the release.
Net Neutrality
I threw out a brief comment on some blog I found while reading random blogs, and there I found a link to a neat video on YouTube from the Fiber to the Home Council. I love the first sentence, “The internet is not a cloud.” It can be seen here.
I also recommend reading “Net Neutrality vs. Internet Freedom” from Alex Epstein at Capitalism Magazine (Epstein also writes for the Ayn Rand Institute). Here’s a great quote from the article:
Because the Internet is based on voluntary association, no one can properly compel others for their ad space, bandwidth, publicity–or data prioritization. Those who create these values have the right to use and profit from them as they see fit. Google has no more right to demand that Verizon be “neutral” with its network than Verizon has a right to demand that Google be “neutral” with its coveted advertising space.
Most of the net neutrality criticism I read does not go much deeper into the issue than saying that government regulation doesn’t work or saying that there have to be “incentives” if we want to make the internet better. Those statements are correct, but people eventually have to explain why government regulation doesn’t work and why people are more productive when they can keep what they earn. That’s why I think that freedom and individual rights is so essential to the net neutrality debate, and Epstein’s article addresses those issues.
Tags: [net neutrality]