RedStateEclectic

Copyright Troll Righthaven Sues Bloggers Over Content It Does Not Own

Righthaven, a litigation factory outfit targeting bloggers for publishing excerpts from Las Vegas Review-Journal, apparently does not have the legal standing to sue for infringement as they do not even own the copyright to the content they are suing bloggers over.

From Wired's Threat Level:

Copyright troll Righthaven told a federal judge Thursday that it has revised its contract with the Las Vegas Review-Journal to give it full copyright ownership over some of the newspapers’ content. It’s a bid to squelch a legal controversy over whether it has the right to sue bloggers who’ve quoted from the articles without permission.

Three decisions in the past week found that Righthaven, which has lodged more than 200 suits, never had standing to sue over content produced by Stephens Media publications, including the Review-Journal. In one ruling, U.S. District Judge Roger Hunt dismissed Righthaven’s well-publicized case against the Democratic Underground blog, finding that Righthaven attempted to “manufacture” standing to sue. In that case, Democratic Underground was targeted for posting four paragraphs from a 34-paragraph story published by the paper.

Righthaven seems to have built a business model around suing bloggers in a bid to force them to settle. And for the most part, they have been successful. In light of this new development, however, the bloggers that had settled with Righthaven are now mulling legal action against the company.

Cross-posted to Jayel Aheram.

Capitalism in One Lesson

Thought-provoking in different ways to many of us, I am still not convinced of the Rothbardian idealism conveyed in the below excellent video: Capitalism in One Lesson. Like von Mises and Hayek, I consider a central coercive power indispensable. While its absence may be desirable, like pleasurable satiation by the mere inhalation of air, it is not feasible. Liberty, the best possible control and inhibition of illegitimate coercion among men, is akin to the efficiency of a capitalist economy - it is asymptotic, and never attainable in full and for good. In the course of improving efficiency, a free economy eliminates prior levels of efficiency that are being made obsolete by improvement. In this way, capitalism (i.e. the economy of a free society) is marvellous, but not perfect. However, capitalism is a whole lot better than attempts to substitute it by politics.

Liberty is a process of adaptation that changes the terms of adaptation under which it operates, so that conditions always prevail that require renewed adaptation rather than delivering a non-perfectible final outcome. Liberty is the precondition of the most advanced level of civilisation, precisely because it ensures the highest possible adaptability of humankind. Its economy is an open, self-metamorphosing system, i.e. ever open to new outcomes/forms of adaptation, like true science.

Liberty is perfectible but never perfect. This seems to hold true for one of its most fundamental desiderata: avoidance of coercion.

See also the motto of this blog.

From the below superb video outline of the economy of a free society:

Democracy [in it's present totalitarian form, G.T.] is not peaceful trading and sharing under property rights, but a forceful grab of security and arbitration in a certain area by a central power. Public voting then determines who makes and interprets the rules. So what happens is that everyone tries to use the rule making power of the state in their own advantage. It will be a constant push toward the erosion of the freedom to produce, own, trade, and act; and very little in way of holding it back.

Quote of text starting at time mark 7:26, and ending at 8:00.

Make sure to watch the 14 minute video in its entirety:

 

The Real Reason for Germany's Industrial Expansion

German newspaper Der Spiegel asks, "Did Germany experience rapid industrial expansion in the 19th century due to an absence of copyright law?"

German authors during this period wrote ceaselessly. Around 14,000 new publications appeared in a single year in 1843. Measured against population numbers at the time, this reaches nearly today's level. And although novels were published as well, the majority of the works were academic papers.

The situation in England was very different. "For the period of the Enlightenment and bourgeois emancipation, we see deplorable progress in Great Britain," Höffner states.

Equally Developed Industrial Nation

Indeed, only 1,000 new works appeared annually in England at that time -- 10 times fewer than in Germany -- and this was not without consequences. Höffner believes it was the chronically weak book market that caused England, the colonial power, to fritter away its head start within the span of a century, while the underdeveloped agrarian state of Germany caught up rapidly, becoming an equally developed industrial nation by 1900.

Even more startling is the factor Höffner believes caused this development -- in his view, it was none other than copyright law, which was established early in Great Britain, in 1710, that crippled the world of knowledge in the United Kingdom.

Ludwig von Mises - Telling It Like It Is

In his short article Ludwig von Mises: Setting the Record Straight, Mark W. Hendrickson not only accomplishes an admirable summary of large parts of von Mises work, he also aptly defends the Austrian thinker against the Etikettenschwindel (false labeling) that sadly is being committed by some of his most superb supporters.

... the strangest misconception today involves anarchism. One of my colleagues now avoids labeling himself an Austrian economist because his interlocutors then assume that he is an anarchist.

Mises, the definitive Austrian economist, rejected anarchism.

But today, Austrian economics and anarcho-capitalism are often regarded as two sides of the same coin. 

Here is Mises on anarchism:

Society cannot do without a social apparatus of coercion and compulsion, i.e. without state and government. The Anti-Capitalist Mentality, p. 90.

There are people who call government an evil, although a necessary evil.  However, what is needed in order to attain a definite end must not be called an evil ... Government may even be called the most beneficial of all earthly institutions as without it no peaceful human cooperation, no civilization and no moral life would be possible. Economic Freedom and Interventionism, p. 57.

Anarchism misunderstands the real nature of man. Liberalism, pp. 36-7.

Liberalism [in the European sense-the philosophy of free markets and limited government] differs radically from anarchism.  It has nothing in common with the absurd illusions of the anarchists... Liberalism is not so foolish as to aim at the abolition of the state. Omnipotent Government, p. 48

[Anarchists are] shallow-minded, dull, [and suffer from] illusions and self-deception. The Ultimate Foundation of Economic Science, pp. 98-9.

How, then, did Austrian economics — and by extension, Ludwig von Mises — come to be painted with an anarchist brush? Ironically, from the success of the Ludwig von Mises Institute. Lew Rockwell founded The Mises Institute in 1983. (I attended its inaugural dinner.) As the Institute evolved, it came to be dominated by Murray Rothbard. Rothbard's economic thought was derived from Mises, but his anarcho-capitalist political philosophy was drawn from other sources. The Mises Institute is doing a lot of excellent work in exposing the counterproductive nature of government intervention into economic matters. Indeed, I wish them continued success in their fight against economic illiberalism. In retrospect, though, it seems that there would be less confusion about Austrian/Misesian economics today if Rockwell had named his think-tank "The Rothbard Institute."  I think Mises would be disappointed that the institute named after him would be known as a center of anarchist thought, but what's done is done. I am sure that if Mises were here today, his energies would be focused on the fight for economic rationality — i.e., free markets — rather than defending his personal reputation. 

The source. 

Personally, I consider the anarchist deviation in libertarians a form of (largely unconscious) cowardice born from a hankering for an implied perfection that liberty will never be able to achieve. Liberty will always be a struggle for liberty, a very precarious struggle.

See also the motto of RedStateEclectic, which Laura, our wonderful hostess, has chosen so felicitously.

Copying Is Not Theft

A fun, remixed version of Nina Paley's song (and video) is on YouTube.

The video actually does a decent job explaining in layman's terms the concept of real property and how wrong-headed it is to apply it to intangible things like information.

The catchy lyrics somehow gets the point across that acquiring another person's scarce resources in form of tangible goods through coercion or fraud (the definition of theft) is not the same as making a copy of someone's photos of kittens and sunsets.

More

1. www.youtube.com/watch?v=H8JDEsfK6Qs&feature=response_...
2. www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fw-MFeR8Frw&feature=response_...

Bootleggers and Baptists

“Baptists” point to the moral high ground and give vital and vocal endorsement of laudable public benefits promised by a desired regulation. Baptists flourish when their moral message forms a visible foundation for political action.

“Bootleggers” are much less visible but no less vital. Bootleggers, who expect to profit from the very regulatory restrictions desired by Baptists, grease the political machinery with some of their expected proceeds. They are simply in it for the money.

The theory’s name draws on colorful tales of states’ efforts to regulate alcoholic beverages by banning Sunday sales at legal outlets. Baptists fervently endorsed such actions on moral grounds.

Bootleggers tolerated the actions gleefully because their effect was to limit competition.

It is worth noting that it is the details of a regulation that usually win the endorsement of bootleggers, not just the broader principle that may matter most to Baptists.

Thus, for instance, bootleggers would not support restrictions on the Sunday consumption of alcoholic beverages, although Baptists might. Bootleggers want to limit competition, not intake. Important to the theory is the notion that bootleggers can rely on Baptists to monitor enforcement of the restrictions that benefit bootleggers. [...]

B&B theory helps to explain how leaders of consumer groups help major pharmaceutical companies — the ones with approved chemical entities — by valiantly supporting a cautious FDA approval process.

The theory explains why holders of permits to produce and market EPA-approved insecticides value the efforts of environmental groups who oppose rule changes that facilitate the entry of new, and sometimes less risky, substitutes. Indeed, once the theory is explained, bootleggers and Baptists seem to come out of the woodwork. They are every where.

Perhaps we should expect no less. Political action, which by definition always serves some interest groups, requires politicians to appeal to popular icons. By making a “Baptist” appeal, the canny politician enables voters to feel better by endorsing socially accepted values in the voting booth.
 
The same politician, if he is adroit, also can enjoy the support of appreciative bootleggers in the costly struggle to hold office. Bootleggers and Baptists are part of the glue that binds the body politic.

The source.

Science a Public Good? Myths of Government Funding of Science

The British Libertarian Terence Kealey, Vice Chancellor of the University of Buckingham, on the myth of science being a public good and the concomitant "need" of government funding of science, as well as a number of related issues - with quite a lot of references to America and American history. Very stimulating. For those with a little time at hand and an interest in the subject-matter, it is well-worth watching the entire video - a lengthy piece of a little over 90 minutes, the lecture taking up the first 25 minutes, roughly.

Terence Kealey - 'The Myth of Science as a Public Good' from oxford libertarian on Vimeo.

The Stardust Transformation

Sometimes, when we ponder government involvement, it's interesting to wonder how the state could have affected things in areas where conception and innovation remain relatively unscathed by their intervening hands. Take songwriting, for example. What if every song ever composed needed the passage of two houses of government along with the approval of one person in the executive before you were allowed to listen to it? Then imagine that, once codified, it would take the efforts of a majority of the country to change any song's arrangement in any way. For our example we will use the beautiful and popular song, Stardust, known by many due to its inclusion in the movie Sleepless in Seattle.

When first conceived by Hoagy Carmichael in 1927, Stardust began as an instrumental only; a swingy - almost ragtime - piano piece. STOP. Pass it into law. Would anyone want to hear it? Take a listen: Original Stardust. Not bad but hardly something that we wouldn't quickly label as dated to that particular period.

Then, in 1929, Mitchell Parish added the wonderful lyrics while Victor Young arranged the song to a slower tempo. STOP! Pass it into law. Now would anyone want to hear it? It sounds better but, by 1931, even Bing Crosby could only barely make it sound good. Listen again: Stardust; Bing Crosby - 1931. Personally, I think I liked the original better.

Yet another nine years pass and the big bands are slowing things down to a  linger for the pleasure of the listener. The great Artie Shaw takes Stardust and performs an instrumental that sounds very appealing. STOP!! Pass it into law. Would you wish to have this as part of your record ensemble? Tilt your ear and give a listen: Stardust; Artie Shaw - 1940. Not bad at all. Let's continue, shall we?

Finally in 1957, after the number of variations on just this one song were so numerous that every lawmaker in the land would have spent his entire career just keeping up with them (if only it were the case), the incredible arranging talent of Gordon Jenkins combined with the silky-smooth voice of Nat King Cole to bring us an arrangement that touches the very soul:

Wow. Where's the box of Kleenex? Of course, at any point along the way in our little experiment, the government could have stopped the process of all of those talented individuals and their attempts at improving Hoagy's music. And maybe some people would have liked whatever arrangement the politicians might have chosen. It would have been ... "fine".

From a subjective standpoint, I must confess that I like Nat's version so far. That, dear reader, is the whole point in a nutshell.

Liberty, "Vertical," and "Horizontal" Knowledge

Some of the issues relating to the necessity of liberty are tricky, and, generally, far removed from most peoples' purview. For the most part, academia is equally ignorant, though it is the duty and the privilege of academics to pay more attention to issues that we must consider arcane so long as we have not found a way to bring them into the range of "general education."

People are wedded to irresponsible forms of government because of an unfortunate bias in the way they look at the role that knowledge plays in society.

The concept  of government, as the leader and thinker, as the Management Board of society, is so popular because politicians and the public share the same one-sided view of knowledge.

In many ways, order is created by the human mind, making use of and producing explicit knowledge. 1 + 1 = 2. If I do x, then y follows.

Therefore, it is presumed, societal order can only be created by using this capacity of the human mind.

What is overlooked is the fact that this capacity of the mind is not what is creating societal order, but its product. The values and manifold other presuppositions on which the human mind works are predicated by the way in which society develops.

And society, to a large extent, develops behind the back of our mind, unnoticed by human reason.

Necessarily so, for something as complex as the human mind and other institutions of human civilisation could only achieve the degree of powerfulness and complexity that characterises them (think of the coordination of billions of views, decisions and signals through prices) because something grander than the abilities of thinking human beings was at work in finding, proposing, testing, sieving, rejecting or accepting them.

Evolutionary selection on the level of groups - not on the level of the individual (mind), but on the level of groups. The difference is important, because group selection has a far broader scope than individual choice, as far as matters are concerned that are required to make a society - initially small hordes, later larger communities, and finally societies comprising millions of people - better adapted to their ever changing, ever challenging environment than another.

In fact, the central problem of modern societies consists in the unfortunate fact that people think they can decide what a good society is - on the level of the individual mind (of a president, politicians or other (opinion) leaders or even voters). Contrary to this assumption, it is complex evolutionary processes such as those going on in markets that produce superior selections of practices and products conducive to a sufficiently adaptive society.

The human mind has developed together with human culture, and it has been only one of the manifold tools the selection process filtered in as viable and useful. Without the help of forms of knowledge (storage and utilisation) quite different from, independent of, and formative to human reasoning, man and his reason could not have survived, let alone developed.

Of these additional, extra-human epistemic types, two are essential for understanding liberty: I call them non-explicit horizontal knowledge and non-explicit vertical knowledge.

Vertical I call the knowledge that has accumulated in the historical "depth" of human experience, the experience of thousands of generations, which we cannot access in a way that makes it amenable to deductive reconstruction - it is only available in coded form, namely in the form of habits, conventions, traditions, principles that we have learned to heed and/or take for granted. Their genesis cannot be reconstructed accurately and in authentic detail. At best, we can account for these with theoretical models of their main features. For instance: how foreign trade authentically began to develop and bring about - by trial and error - practices that would eventually prevail owing to their superior success, is something we can think about in general terms but never replay as they truly unfolded. At any rate, we have the benefit of those billions of experiments that produced great skill and experience of trade in men.

If we ignore vertical knowledge (general rules, principles) or throw it carelessly out of the window, we lose experience, we abandon vital means of orientation in the world - epistemic help that is not the result of the achievement of any single mind.

This is why a free society is a principle-driven society - it respects extremely dense nodes of wisdom that cannot be replaced by explicit reasoning. The libertarian understands that there is such a thing as vertical knowledge.

Now, let's turn to horizontal knowledge, which cannot bring to bear its benefits, unless vertical knowledge is understood, or at least respected.

Horizontal knowledge consists, to begin with, of widely dispersed islands, particles of knowledge, largely directly available to individuals, but only to the respective individual, and no other individual but specifically him or her. However, the full fruit of horizontal knowledge blossoms only if the particles of knowledge of which it consists are related to each other by adequate rules, i.e. vertical knowledge. The result is a game of interaction between the particles of individual knowledge - and only the outcome of this game establishes the final product of horizontal knowledge, which is a "knowledge without a subject," no one has it, but all can use and act on it to their great advantage.

The price system is an example of such horizontal knowledge, whose benefits will not be available to us, unless we respect vertical knowledge, i.e. adhere strictly to certain principles, like the principles that make for free price formation.

So, we have two types of "knowledge without a subject," that is, knowledge that cannot be found in or generated by any human mind, though millions of human minds are or have been involved in contributing to this "knowledge without a subject."

If we ignore this knowledge which is constitutive of a free society, if we glorify explicit knowledge and rely on human reasoning alone, that is if we invite and put into power arbitrariness (the hubris of a human mind or a collective of human minds, such as at work in a government or parliament) we condemn society to a regime of inferior knowledge. We make society a lot dumber than it could and ought to be.

Understanding "knowledge without a subject" as explained here, gives us insight into society as a self-generating order. It helps us appreciate why the individual should be allowed to act on his own knowledge rather than on the knowledge of others, that she should be left alone by an overbearing government, and that government should be confined to protecting the principles and rules that facilitate the game of freedom.

Plagiarize, Please

With a hat tip to the Mises blog, here's a video from  an interview with Leo Melamed in 2006, when Milton Friedman died.  There are many tidbits there, but the most fascinating, of course, is the bit about plagiarism, and the recognition that Friedman apparently had well into his 90's that the internet could be a powerful tool for promoting liberty, and that the "rules" regarding intellectual property rights needed to change.