Тег: Intellectual Property

Consumer Serfdom

Currently, many companies, such as Apple, Tesla, and John Deere, design their products so that in the event of a breakdown, the user cannot repair them, even if they know how. For example, a farmer could buy a certain part for a John Deere tractor for $100 and would have no trouble replacing it. However, the software installed on the tractor will prevent such a procedure, and the farmer will either have to pay $5,000 for the manufacturer’s service or install pirated software. In essence, the farmer does not own the tractor but merely takes it on an indefinite lease.
How does libertarianism view such a policy?

themouse1_ from Bulbaland

The examples provided are particular cases of the platform economy. Similarly, an app developer is forced to adapt to the requirements of the company producing the operating system for which the app is developed. Likewise, a hired worker on a plantation in Brazil a century ago was obliged to buy groceries only from the shop run by the plantation owner, and in Soviet Russia, a collective farmer could only redeem his work-days, again, at a specific village store.

In short, these are not entirely market cases. Can such quasi-monopolistic situations arise in a completely free economy? Yes, but they are unstable. The emergence of a profit source significantly higher than the market average leads to others wanting to imitate such success, and soon competition levels the margin: platform owners, competing for the customer, begin to spend more on maintaining their loyalty.

Libertarianism proposes removing politics from the economy. Will this make John Deere more reasonable? Not immediately. Simply put, they will no longer have the ability to sue the farmer for installing pirated software. Therefore, wanting their authorized service to not go completely under, they will lower repair prices. Moreover, some Japanese or Belarusian tractors will start being imported duty-free, so the consumer will have a real choice and will be able to acquire the solution that maximizes their profit from operating the tractor.

Similarly, without the ability to force a worker to eat expensive slop in the factory canteen, without the ability to forbid installing apps from outside the app store on a smartphone, without the ability to punish a kiosk owner for moving under the protection of another security firm—the owners of all these platforms will find that racketeering practices work worse and worse, and they must get used to acting within the framework of fair competition. It’s fine, they’ll get used to it.

A good tractor, what else

Rodion Belkovich. Blood of Patriots

Some time ago, Rodion Belkovich visited Novosibirsk to present his book “Blood of Patriots.” When I asked if there were plans to publish the text in electronic form, he replied that there weren’t, because “I know you libertarians—you’ll buy one copy and put it in the public domain.” Well, if that’s how it is, so be it. I had to get a paper copy, scan it, format it—and now I am putting it in the public domain. Considering how many footnotes are in the book, it was quite an adventure. The text contains my donation link, in case you decide to thank me for the publication. A link to the author himself could have been included, but he does not keep his details in the public domain, and that is his choice.

Кровь патриотов: введение в интеллектуальную историю американского радикализма

Once more about intellectual property law

Suppose I am a writer. I live in Ancapistan. I wrote a book. I posted it on my website, free for readers. At the top, I put a banner that rotates with every view and brings me a little bit of money. At the bottom, I put a donation button.

A malicious pirate copied my book to his own site. He threw out a couple of chapters he didn’t like. He put his own banner at the top. He put his own donation button at the bottom.

If I take a little shotgun and go to kill him, will the jury acquit me?

анонимный вопрос

This is a supplement to the question proposed by the King of Sex and Tea Bags, but this time without a signature.

Oddly enough, I quite often do exactly what you described. Some Bitarch or Vitaly Tizun posts an article. I take the text, correct the commas, remove paragraphs I don’t like, accompany it with some comment of my own, and post it on my own site, not forgetting to place a “donations” button under the post. As it happened, none of them have come at me with a little shotgun for this; in fact, some even praise me, saying the edited text is easier to read. Perhaps it’s because I credit the author and provide a link to the original post. Therefore, the authors see their own benefit in my behavior and do not object.

But what if I ignored the norms of netiquette, took anyone’s texts, edited them however I liked according to my taste, and posted them in a channel under my own name? One thing would be obvious in this situation: it would also be unnecessary for others to observe the norms of netiquette in their attitude toward me. Perhaps the slandered authors would rain attacks on me in social networks and tediously explain to the public that they are the actual authors of the text, that the originals should be obtained from them, and that they are the ones who should be donated to if the work was liked. And I would continue my strange approach to content creation, focusing on exactly what and how I change in the posted texts. For example, I might post the text of the Iliad, leaving only the first half of the second song, and refer all those who are outraged to Mandelstam. Over time, I would gain a community of connoisseurs of my specific edits. Or perhaps the readers would quickly get bored. That’s the market.

Now, if I focused not on self-assertion through edits, but on simply posting as many “tasty” texts as possible, I would end up with a very ordinary electronic library. In this case, it would be redundant for me to cut out even the author’s name and substitute my own; I would post it as is, but I would take care of fast servers, providing the text in all popular e-reader formats, and other things valued by users. I would try to ensure that I have everything people are interested in, in the most convenient form for reading. I would develop a reader community, interview authors, and so on. And the authors would come to me themselves, suggesting, “Look, I have a fresh book here, take it, and give me a percentage of the donations.” I would say: ok. I would allocate a personal section for the author in my library, make them a moderator there, let them answer readers’ questions and entertain them in every way, and we would split the income in an agreed proportion.

Of course, if I behaved like a textbook “mudesa,” treating authors with disdain—saying, “be grateful that you talentless hacks are published anywhere at all, you should actually be paying me for this”—or, say, inserted scenes into someone’s books that made the author look like an idiot—well, then perhaps I would drive someone to the point of coming at me with a little shotgun. But I could just as easily drive anyone to that for any other reason; here, the activity of posting other people’s texts is no longer the principal issue. And the more vilely I behaved, the more people wondered how I hadn’t been shot yet—the more satisfaction they would feel upon the occurrence of that fact. Of course, those who demand compensation from the killer for my murder would find it difficult to find a sufficiently impartial court, but not everyone in the world is a fan of literature. So, they’d hardly be acquitted, but they probably wouldn’t be judged strictly either.

A Question about Intellectual Property Law

For example, say I live in Ancapistan and I am a writer. I sign a contract with a publisher for (let’s say) a percentage of every book sold. The book is published. But competitors copy the book and sell it at a significantly lower price, because they don’t need to kick back a percentage to the writer. Does this mean that writers in Ancapistan will be left sucking wind?

The King of Sex and Tea Bags

Well, first of all, who am I to forbid anyone from sucking anything, as long as they aren’t aiming to suck my property? And secondly, I don’t understand why all the authors of questions about ancap are convinced that it’s some kind of fairy tale where a magic market arrives and solves any problem.

The market doesn’t solve all problems, only those for which there is a voluntary, solvent demand. A writer wishing to earn a living through their talent must understand that for this to happen, people must be found who are willing to voluntarily reward that talent with money. They can search for these people personally or hire intermediaries, but the wider the search, the more opportunities a devotee of the talent has to pay the writer in one form or another—and the more brilliant the talent, of course—the greater the profit.

I provide admirers of my talent with several diverse ways to reward me with money—from direct transfers in bits to various indirect routes, such as subscribing to a live channel, donations for a guaranteed quick answer to a question, or even indirect ones, like referral links to various useful services. I could earn more if it weren’t for the self-limitation of maintaining anonymity (for example, by selling the right to have dinner with me or hosting streams) and my reluctance to bother with complex business models (for example, selling merch). I could earn nothing at all if I refused donations, even when they are literally shoved into my hands.

Hard copies of texts in the form of paper books are a kind of merch today. What share of sales the merch producer allocates to the writer depends solely on the merch producer’s desire to donate to the writer. But even if they don’t pay the writer a single satoshi, they still contribute to the writer’s promotion, because that is the primary function of merch. And then the promoted writer can earn more from a single stream than they could have received from a print run of books.

P.S. Of course, an answer to a similar question has already been published in this channel, and the answer was also similar, so I apologize to the early readers of the channel for the repetition—but now they can choose which of the versions they liked more.

Look at how stylish this merch is, not like those pocketbooks of yours! Whoever decides to publish my quote book, do it at this level, and my heart will be glad!

Blitz

Last time, I enjoyed responding not with one large text to a single question, but with short answers to a series of questions. A number of such topics that do not require detailed answers have accumulated in the queue.

Ancap-chi, it seems to me that it is better to promote the term “polystate” rather than “panarchy,” because the latter sounds too much like “anarchy,” and ordinary folks, as I think you know, are very triggered by that word.

It’s a matter of habit. Legend has it that the first libertarians in Russia were often mistaken for vegetarians. Minarchists, naturally, are mistakenly read by many as monarchists. As for the possibility of confusing panarchists with anarchists, at least that is not offensive, because panarchy is one of the paths to anarchy. It seems to me that terms like polystate make sense to be used as auxiliary for now. For example, “I am a panarchist, meaning I advocate for a polystate, or more accurately, for multiple governments within one country” (as Alexey Shustov correctly notes in one of his interviews, in the Russian language, the state is a subject, not a system, which creates inconvenience in political discussions, and it is better to use “country,” “government,” or “regime” depending on the context instead of the overly vague “state”).

I saw an ad for agorists here; they have an article about obtaining an anonymous debit card by forging appearance and a passport. Apparently, there is only administrative liability and a fine of up to 80 thousand for this, but perhaps you know better ways to remain anonymous when making purchases in fiat?

This refers to this post, where at the end I referred to an article from the Cryptoagora channel. By the way, in the post, describing crypto-ATMs, I wrote that they work only in one direction: buying bitcoins with fiat. Later, in Georgia, I verified that the reverse is also possible; there, I actually had to sell bitcoins. I just want to note that for greater anonymity, when approaching a crypto-ATM, you should wear dark glasses, pull something with a wide brim over your head, raise your collar—in short, hide your face as much as possible to shield yourself from cameras. Cameras can be located both in the crypto-ATM itself and around it. Also, of course, when you go to a crypto-ATM, it makes sense to take a phone with a “left” SIM card. All these paranoid measures are intended to complicate operational-investigative actions if you suddenly become their target for some reason.

Is it true that under anarcho-capitalism, intellectual property is not provided for?

Maxim

Any person has the right to monetize any of their intangible assets by any non-violent means. They have the right to use violence only in the case when they are attempted to be deprived of this asset entirely, but not when some information they possess is copied. Even if someone copies the private key to their bitcoin wallet, that is not yet theft. Theft is the use of the key to move bitcoins out of that wallet.

I just cannot understand who will act as the guarantor of compliance with the rules? What happens if some hypothetical Ramzan Akhmatovich in the role of a night watchman decides not just to guard the peace, but to start explaining a bit how people should live?

Noob

Any gatekeeper is inclined to increase their significance at the expense of those they are supposed to serve, i.e., the residents of the guarded facility. The only argument that can bring them to reason is the threat of monetary sanctions, and ultimately, dismissal. For the threat of dismissal to be real, there must be Ivan Petrovich, Ravshan Jamshutovich, Jet Li, and Sigurd Olafson standing behind the gates waiting to be hired. That is exactly why panarchism looks like a more sane idea than minarchism in terms of the possibilities of limiting power.

How authors and inventors can earn a living without privileges from the stationary bandit (so-called “copyright and patent law”)?

Bitarch’s Column

1) Crowdfunding;

2) Volunteering by individual authors and voluntary gratuitous development by commercial companies to “pay back society”;

3) A non-disclosure agreement, where compliance ensures continued cooperation and violations lead to a refusal to provide new content (for example, a cinema enters into such an agreement with a film studio and undertakes not to release the film during the first week of screening; in exchange, the studio provides the newest films, and if the agreement is violated, cooperation is terminated);

4) Network effect — a pharmaceutical company develops and tests a new drug, other companies naturally begin to produce generics, but the first company has already gained sufficient recognition for the safety and effectiveness of the drug; accordingly, people are more likely to trust their health to it than to an unknown (and potentially dangerous or useless) generic. The network effect applies to almost all inventions.

5) A desire to change the world for the better. For example, Elon Musk fundamentally decided not to patent his developments in the field of electric vehicles so that they would become mass-market faster due to competition.

6) Cross-subsidization — a company may fund the development of an intellectual product through the sale of a physical good, since this intangible product may indirectly increase the value or create advertising for the physical good. For example, a CNC machine manufacturer may release a free CAD, thereby increasing interest in themselves and the chance of machine purchases.

7) Advertising, product placement — do you think actors in movies accidentally open a can of Coca-Cola or Pepsi?!

Addition from Ancap-chan

Of course, the list of monetization methods is not exhaustive, and people are constantly inventing new opportunities. For instance, selling achievements like “dinner with the author” is not exactly crowdfunding, but the creation of a rare resource out of thin air for which people are willing to pay, while they are not willing to pay for text, video, or music.

The most brilliant monetization method, in my opinion, is selling merch. People pay for the high honor of wearing advertisements for their favorite author or, say, a company — is that not a miracle?

I wouldn’t want to look like a cobbler without shoes, so I hope to eventually implement something more interesting within my own project than simply publishing a bitcoin wallet for donations. Here, everything is complicated by such a fundamental condition as maintaining anonymity, which is why I haven’t bothered much with all these things until now.

I will be glad if you share your thoughts on project monetization with me. The easiest way, perhaps, is to do it through the same form that you use to ask questions. And, of course, send bitcoins. This is especially important if you’ve never had any — buy some to donate to me, and you’ll have some left for yourself. The downward trend seems to have ended, which means a price increase awaits us; don’t miss this opportunity.

Donation wallet: 1A7Wu2enQNRETLXDNpQEufcbJybtM1VHZ8

Sealand and its oddities

Since I’ve started reviewing recent articles, I’ll mention one more. Some bands are one-hit wonders, and for a long time, Evgeny Kvasov was the author of only one hit article for me — “Explaining the Roads”. But today he revealed a new unexpected side of himself by participating in the release of the article about Sealand.

The article, in particular, includes an interview with Prince Michael I, and I have a few questions regarding it. The Prince cites the production of souvenirs as the principality’s main source of income, complains about the large number of counterfeits, and even claims that copyright is a blessing, although he positions himself as a libertarian. How copyright helped him remains completely unclear.

The interview also states that despite numerous requests to visit Sealand, the principality is closed to tourists, although anyone can admire it from the sea. The only justification provided for this is a small team. A very strange excuse, a very strange business model. To suffer from counterfeit merchandise, yet not utilize the one resource that cannot be counterfeited — the sovereign territory of Sealand itself…

There are many things in the world that I don’t understand, and now, after reading the article, one more has been added. A principality that managed to defend itself in a direct military clash with Great Britain leads a pitiful existence instead of being a flagship of freedom on the seas. Well, anyway. I can’t answer every question; sometimes, on the contrary, I have to ask them.