Radical egalitarianism? No one must excel, be known to excel and - horrors! - make money because he excels lest the self-esteem of others should suffer.

LTM

The idea that those who promote free culture somehow 'hate' those who oppose it is very wrong. I have seen many more examples on these pages (and pages to which IP Central links) of hatred by those advocating so-called 'property-based' IP regimes directed towards those who advocate free culture.

I would direct you to almost all of the posts by Noel Le, and many of those by Patrick Ross, where slanders are made on a regular basis of the advocates of Free Culture Movement. Examples of such posts abound, see: Wikipedia & Originality, Messiah Complex. Especially noteworthy is the comments found under the post ”A Stirring Defense of IP Rights . . .” in which Noel Le tells many lies and slanders Prof. Lawrence Lessig. For example, Noel Le states that Lessig “advocates IP infringing activities” which is just plain untrue, and which, of course, Noel Le was unable to substantiate.

On the other hand those advocating strong IP regime have caused Dmitry Skylarov to be jailed, Prof. Ed Felten to be threatened with jail by an industry association, and caused the DMCA, an act which infringes on my First Amendment Rights, to be passed. So, those actions, which profoundly threaten the rights that I have been granted by the Bill of Rights, are morally wrong, in my view. However, it is wrong to say that my disagreement is evidence of 'hatred.'

With regard to the program of the Free Culture movement (inasmuch as there is a program, as it is a very diverse group, with many different opinions) those advocates of Free Culture just want to be left alone to write good code, publish their songs, photos, or write for wikipedia without living in fear of legal harassment. Sounds like a pretty benign desire to me.

Those advocating free culture very rarely (if ever) advocate any infringing activities of any kind. I certainly don't. I do however use P2P networks regularly to distribute my favorite Linux distributions, using bandwidth that I pay for. Free Culture advocates do, however, often oppose giving special legal rights to those pursuing infringers, like the mass issuance of subpoenas against those using P2P networks, or the derailment of First Amendment rights through legal mechanisms such as the DMCA.

It is an entirely coherent position to advocate free culture, not advocate breaking the law, use distribution networks to share free culture content, and stand for all of the traditional rights of the accused that have been a part of American jurisprudence since its founding. That is my position, which is both intellectually and morally coherent.

My analysis of those who oppose free culture is simply this: They realize that the action of free culture will eventually de-monetize certain assets that they presently hold, and the business models based on monopolizing certain business spaces, such as that of selling shrink-wrapped software and operating systems, are threatened because of successful competition from free culture movements. While I can sympathize with their predicament (I can say that I would be entirely unable to compete with someone who offered a superior product for free) I will simply say this: It is the responsibility for ethical businesses to adapt their business plans to the free societies in which they operate, and not to attempt to adapt the freedoms of a society to their business plans.

Those who oppose free culture have not offered a platform that is either morally appealing or intellectually consistent, and because the free culture advocates are strongly persuasive on both counts, I am proud to count myself as an advocate of free culture, and a supporter of such groups as the Electronic Freedom Foundation, and the Free Software Foundation.

Here is the link to the exchange I had on Professor Lessig (http://weblog.ipcentral.info/archives/2006/09/a_stirring_defe.html#comments) so readers can decide whether or not my claims the he supports IP infringing activities are substantiated.

Personally, I find Professor Lessig a bit misleading. His argument is that unless legal policies are changed, then innovation is at risk, that culture might be lost, are simply ridiculous. Next, Professor Lessig will argue that society might lose its future viability as carbon based beings unless IP laws are weakened, or entirely jettisoned.

I'm curious Enigma. Is your argument that the govt, by passing laws such as the DMCA, indirectly or directly curbs your freedoms under the Bill of Rights; or are you claiming that private companies deprive you of these freedoms by the privileges they gain under the DMCA. I'm still not clear about your Constitutional arguments.

Also, some comments on your feedback Enigma:

***With regard to the program of the Free Culture movement (inasmuch as there is a program, as it is a very diverse group, with many different opinions) those advocates of Free Culture just want to be left alone to write good code, publish their songs, photos, or write for wikipedia without living in fear of legal harassment. Sounds like a pretty benign desire to me.***

Why can't this be done legally. The argument I hear from the Free Culture Movement is that they're too busy and have too little capital to comply with existing legal rules. EFF even makes the absurd statement in an amicus to the Supreme court that b/c FOSS developers are busy that they can't do a little due diligence and properly record prior art in their projects.

***It is an entirely coherent position to advocate free culture, not advocate breaking the law, use distribution networks to share free culture content...***

You see Engima, you say this, and it makes sense; but then you (and other Free Culture supporters) go off about how its better to rip off corporations than individual artists, how overthrowing market incumbants is fun (despite offering no alternatives to the services/ products they currently provide), etc.

The Free Culture Movement isn't as "special" as it thinks. Legal frameworks shape the evolution, legitimization and maturity of many things in life. I gather, though, that by challenging established entities and current law, the Free Culture Movement somehow identifies itself as a "revolution", or as some kind of "romantic rebellion" as Professor Merges suggests.

Of course nobody hates the "free culture movement," but its mind-boggling when: you have the CEO from Red Hat and MySQL claiming such things as the non-importance of capital in innovation, that all code will soon be "open," and policy changes are based on absurd statements such as these from (all things considered) moderately successful companies in small markets); when you have a Stanford professor who says such things as innovation and culture will be lost unless infringing activities are allowed; when something like Wikipedia is called a revolution just b/c it shares attributes that most sites have on the WWW.

***My analysis of those who oppose free culture is simply this: They realize that the action of free culture will eventually de-monetize certain assets that they presently hold, and the business models based on monopolizing certain business spaces, such as that of selling shrink-wrapped software and operating systems, are threatened because of successful competition from free culture movements. While I can sympathize with their predicament (I can say that I would be entirely unable to compete with someone who offered a superior product for free) ***

Ahh, yes again, the argument that FOSS offers "superior" products for free, and this challenges market incumbants that rely on IP for their business models.

Well, the notion of superiority is funny. How is FOSS superior. Think about that. How many desktop and productivity apps are available on FOSS platforms. The value of a technology doesn't reside within its code, but how well it attracts and interacts with peripherals, and how responsive it is to market and consumer demand.

Will FOSS replace proprietary technologies (of course not, nor will proprietary technology drive out FOSS). Will FOSS push proprietary companies to compete, build better products and find new means of reaching consumers- yes, and thats the primary value I see in FOSS. There is not, however, any remote reason why existing laws should be modified to accomodate FOSS.

EFF even makes the absurd statement in an amicus to the Supreme court that b/c FOSS developers are busy that they can't do a little due diligence and properly record prior art in their projects.

Noel, that's hogwash. Challenging the validity of a patent isn't something an open source developer can do in his free time. It can require hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal fees. And that's assuming they even know what "inventions" their open source project might encompass. Many software patents are so broad that a single program can encompass dozens of them. It would take weeks to document all the "prior art" that someone might conceivably claim as an invention at some point in the future.

Tim, the EFF excerpt I'm taking about pertains to FOSS developers documenting their work so that it can constitute prior art in challenges against software patents. Maybe that prior art will never work its way into someone's patent claim. Your comment says that this possibility alone makes FOSS documentation non-efficient, but I argue that its basic business due diligence undertaken every single day in the industry. Everyone else can do it, why can't FOSS developers.

***...because time is of the essence and their dialogue is informal and ongoing, they (open source and free software developers) fail to explicit suggest all the various and obvious ways the solution could be used to solve other problems. (pg 4 of amicus http://weblog.ipcentral.info/archives/2006/08/shaping_america_3.html)***

OK, I see what you're talking about. That's still absurd, though. This is akin to asking a painter to write out a length document describing every technique he used in making the painting, just in case some other painter subsequently tries to patent one of the brush strokes used in the painting.

People largely write open source software for the love of the craft of programming. Requiring them to fill out a lot of legal paperwork every time they write a line of code would turn a labor of love into a chore, and a lot of people just wouldn't do it at all.

The point of the obviousness standard is to determine which inventions are obvious, not to impose a lot of pointless busywork on programmers. Don't you think a change in the CAFC's suggestion test is a good way of accomplishing that?

"Here is the link to the exchange I had on Professor Lessig (http://weblog.ipcentral.
info/archives/2006/09/a_stirring_defe.html#comments) so readers can decide whether or not my claims the he supports IP infringing activities are substantiated."

Well, call me old fashionned, but Ibelieve that those who make an accusation such as "Prof. Lessig advocates illegal behavior" to provide evidence of that advocacy.

"I'm curious Enigma. Is your argument that the govt, by passing laws such as the DMCA, indirectly or directly curbs your freedoms under the Bill of Rights; or are you claiming that private companies deprive you of these freedoms by the privileges they gain under the DMCA."

Both. In particular, I hold that source code is pure speech, and unless it is compiled I grant no right of the US government to restrict my freedom to use, write and distribute source code. My right to compile source code I would hold as protected under my rights of privacy. (Yes, there exists certain special case national security exceptions to the above)

No corporation can be given rights over me unless I consent in a legal contract. And in any case, those rights would extend only to rights which could be enforced in a civil suit. In no case should disclosure of trade secrets become a criminal matter, as it has become in California recently, and as it has been in several European countries for sometime. This is part of the pernicious tend towards corporate fascism.

"..but then you (and other Free Culture supporters) go off about how its better to rip off corporations than individual artists,"

Again this is something that I had never said nor do I agree with! What I had said was that in general people feel different about stealing from a large corporation than they do about stealing from an individual artist. This is an observation of fact, not a moral judgment on my part. It was said in the context of your arguing that a particular method of distribution would encourage infringement. Tim Lee and I both held that the method of distribution would be at least neutral in terms of contributing to infringement.

" how overthrowing market incumbants is fun"

Yes it actually is fun, and I have had the good fortune of working a two companies that had has their core mission overturning the incumbants, and it was, in fact fun. So guilty as charged!

" (despite offering no alternatives to the services/ products they currently provide), etc."

Unsure what you mean by this. If you mean services to consumers, than absolutely not. I belive desktop linux, for example has arrived, and has the critical mass necessary to function. (writing this on a SuSE 10.0 machine that hasn't had any version of windows on it for about a year, and nothing is missed) If you mean the current producers won't be able to extract the present revenue stream from the markets they presently are exploiting, then you are absolutely right.

"Requiring them to fill out a lot of legal paperwork every time they write a line of code would turn a labor of love into a chore, and a lot of people just wouldn't do it at all."

Which is exactly the effect that the sponsors of IP Central hope to do--to discourage co-operation in the voluntary sector. And they wonder why we at times disagree with them?

"Tim, the EFF excerpt I'm taking about pertains to FOSS developers documenting their work so that it can constitute prior art in challenges against software patents"

Very interesting post that RMS has made pertaining to this issue over at News Forge. He suggests FOSS developers not participate, because they are doing the homework for the patnet lobby. I agree with his take on that.

FOSS can set up specialist entities to document projects once they reach a stage of maturity, or FOSS companies do a documentation scrub as a way of gold-plating key projects. My point is that there are numerous possibilities before resorting to changing the suggestion standard in a way that would effectively put casual aimless tinkering on par w/ carefully crafted academic publications. And what ramifications would other industries have w/ a change in patent law made just to suit FOSS. You already know my position to raise the obviousness standard...

Too bad no one here actually addressed the substance of my post. I met a great number of songwriters last week, and their general belief (not prompted by me) was that there was a movement out there that wanted to take away their rights and force them to make even less money than they're making now. They feel put-upon and defensive, and don't know what they've done to deserve such animosity.

If the Free Culture Movement is as benign as its members say it is, perhaps it should recognize that many artists don't believe it has their best interests at heart, and it should do some educational work with them instead of conducting name-calling on blogs. There's nothing wrong with wishing to give away software, but that doesn't mean one should force a songwriter to give up his song. If the Free Culture Movement agrees with that, it needs to communicate that to artists, and quickly.