In the course of a C|Net interview on Microsoft's plans last week, Bill Gates dropped the observation: "There are some new modern-day sort of communists who want to get rid of the incentive for musicians and moviemakers and software makers under various guises. They don't think that those incentives should exist."

The reaction in some circles -- such as Lessig.com/blog -- has been volcanic, including one comment that pairs me with Bill G.: "Like DeLong, Mr. Gates is simply stuck in the past, about twenty years or so ago, when the chicago school was having its heyday. We need a new word for these free culture luddites."

Actually, though, I do not think of the "content should be open and free" advocates as communists; I look on them as a contemporary version of a cargo cult.

During WWII, Melanasian islanders noted that the Americans built airports and that thereafter large planes filled with fantastic cargoes arrived, undoubtedly sent by the gods. This tapped into an existing belief system, and after the Americans left the inhabitants built their own airports, where they patiently waited for the gods to respond. Some wait still.

Or perhaps they simply moved to the U.S., because the inhabitants of Lessig's world seem to have an amazing faith that music and movies will continue to be showered upon them even if they do nothing in return (such as pay).

Take a recent example. According to MIT's Technology Review, the MPAA has sued LokiTorrent, source of free downloads of movies, and the user community is raising money to defend it. It has collected $40,000 in 10 days.

Most striking is the self-righteous language used, as the movie industry is excoriated for not wanting to give away its product for free, and users are urged to "Help us fight back and ensure your right to share doesn't end here."

Right to share what? Do they think that if they build a software program the gods will load their servers with movies? In a basic way, these people are as remote from the 21st century as the Melanasians, unable to comprehend the reciprocity of economic relationships and confident that they are somehow entitled to the unstinting beneficence of the movie gods.

BTW - After the war, Vanuatu (formerly called the New Hebrides) was a center of cargo cultism. It still is; Kazaa is incorporated in Vanuatu.

posted by James DeLong @ 6:37 PM | Free Culture Movement

Link to this Entry | Printer-Friendly | Email a Comment | Post a Comment(0)