In The Irrational Atheist in transit, Vox Day tries to convince us that he’s living by his so-called libertarian mantra that intellectual property rights are a sham.
He says,
In the interest of putting my royalties where my mouth and my position on IP are, I’m very pleased to inform you that Glenn, my very open-minded and forward-thinking publisher at BenBella Books, graciously worded the book contract in such a way as to give me the right to release the complete electronic text of The Irrational Atheistin multiple formats on the book’s official launch date. This will be done in a Radiohead-style pay-what-you-want format, which includes the ability to pay nothing if you like. There is absolutely no obligation to pay anything, so critics and fans alike may download the ebook for free in good conscience if they so choose.
First, I’d like to remind us of the standard that Vox has set in regards to IP. In Illustrating the fundamental absurdity, Vox writes,
Information not only wants to be free, information WILL be free.
From this statement and his confessed position on intellectual property rights, he’s saying,
- Information wants to be free,
- therefore it should be free,
- therefore people should make it free,
- therefore I should make it free.
I’ll use his standard, and the books that’s he’s published, to determine whether he’s walking his talk when it comes to IP.
First, though, I need to highlight how Vox only considers part of the “information equation” as it relates to people’s wants and needs, a fact that’s related to his general tendency to engage in buffoon-libertarianism; that is, his attempt to present libertarianism as a political philosophy that can result in more liberty than it can provide.
I’m for liberty and limited government, but realism trumps all. If I’m going to get or give liberty, then I want to know the hidden and long-term costs of any liberty that I get or give.
Making sense of what “information” wants
Vox’s statement, “Information not only wants to be free, information WILL be free,” is partly nonsensical. That’s because information doesn’t want anything; information is inanimate, so I’ll clean his statement up.
To make sense of his claim we need to say, “People want information to be free.”
One of several of his inconsiderations about the economics of liberty
In the context of what Vox has written about IP, Vox only considers the end-user of information. And who are the others?
I can think of four groups of people in the information equation:
- the creators of information,
- third-party creators of information who want to use information others have created,
- third-party distributors of information who want to distribute what others have created,
- and the end-users of information who merely want the information.
To keep things simple, I don’t want to consider people in the 2nd and 3rd groups who have an interest in having exclusive rights to information generated by the 1st group. For all practical purposes, we can consider those type of people to be a part of the 1st group.
Okay, so it’s safe to say that Vox’s reinterpreted claim, “People want information to be free,” is definitely true for all but the creators of information, and it’s only based on the information wants of these people, that I’m going to judge Vox.
As far as the first group, I’ve already made the argument in a previous post, Marxist-type Vox Day is incapable of understanding that the intangible can represent tangible labor-product, that because the needs of the creators of information take precedence, that certain types of IP are legitimate, and I’ve said that this legitimacy is related to the following:
- The production of information is a product of labor.
- Some information produced is totally dependent on particular individuals.
- Some information produced is not a universal idea that should belong to the public.
- People deserve to be allowed to control and own what they have uniquely created with common tools that are available to the public.
- People deserve to be allowed the chance to benefit from the fruit of their labor.
Therefore, in this post, since I’ve already argued from the perspective of the creator, I’d like to see how Vox measures up to his standard even if we ignore the creators of information.
Can Vox live up to his claim even if we ignore the desires of the creators?
Essentially, Vox ignores the desires of the creators of information, and he puts all the emphasis on the desires of the end-users. But he wants us to know that he does this even though he’s “been an enthusiastic pirate all [his] life, …despite being a content creator…
So is it enough for him to make his books available for free to readers? Here’s what he has to live up to:
- Information wants to be free,
- therefore it should be free,
- therefore people should make it free,
- therefore I will make it free.
Does he make his books free? He wants us to think he does.
If we only consider two groups of people, creators and end-users, and we only consider his books, he comes out with flying colors; he’s the creator of his books, so he doesn’t need what he has, and he gives his books away to any interested reader.
(I say “only his books” because he created some valuable information which he didn’t give away. I’ve been contemplating that he made his personal riches off of producing legally protected information related to 3D graphics, which he sold, which obviously means he didn’t give it away, but since I don’t know the details, I’ll limit this discussion to his published books.)
As I said, if we only consider his books and the end-users (the readers of his books), based on the first quote of his above, he comes out as practicing what he preaches.
However, I’m not merely considering his readers; I’m also considering third-party creators and third-party distributors, so with these additions, he’s not so righteous when it comes to making his information free to the public.
Information that’s controlled by a few cannot be free to all
In addition to not considering the wants and desires of the four of the groups I’ve listed above, Vox totally disregards the fundamental connection between control of information and freedom of information.
It may be that he’s making his information free to end-users, but he isn’t guaranteeing that it’s free in a grand way. He said, “Information not only wants to be free, information WILL be free.” But he’s coming up short in regards to “therefore, I will make it free.”
The fact is, third-party creators or distributors have no guarantee that they can use, for free, the information that Vox has created. It may be that they could use it, and that he wouldn’t care, but it could be that if they did use it and made money using it, that he would take the money from them through legal means.
His books are free to read, but his books aren’t free to be used to make money. That’s because he or his publisher has the copyright to all of his books. His information is free to whom he wants it to be free. That’s certainly not in the spirit of “information wants to be free.”
If information is free, then it’s free to be used independent of the control of the creator. If information isn’t independent from the control of the creator, then it’s not free.
Examples of why control is important even if information is made “free”
Of course, you might say that my points about the control of information don’t matter because, practically speaking, no one will probably want to try and make money off of Vox’s books. If his publisher doesn’t make much money off of his books, then why should anyone else want to try?
Yet, because it’s the Wild World Web, there’s always the possibility of Vox becoming big time, and because every content creator dreams of making it big, we shouldn’t be surprised to see Vox act accordingly; it shouldn’t surprise us that he released his book under copryright instead of in the public domain.
If Vox makes it big, the possibilities change. If he dies and then makes if big, then the possibilities change for his descendents. Was the value of the Chronicles of Narniaby C.S. Lewis the same when it was published as it is today? Like I said, every content creator thinks big, and a good business man like Vox is going to consider the financial implications of the possibility of making it big time.
As another example of the importance of an author retaining control over information, consider a more marketable form of entertainment, music, and why a person might want to retain control over his or her music even if it’s made available for free.
Suppose I make some music and put it in the public domain, and suppose that it’s good music and of “the right type.” Do you think there are 3rd-party content creators, such as game creators, who would like to have some good, free music to use for their games? The possibility is real.
And because I’ve put the music in the public domain, I now have no control over it. It can be used for good, or it can be used for evil. So even if I don’t care if someone makes money using it, I do care about the good and evil aspect of what they use it for, so it could be that I shouldn’t have put it in the public domain.
Also, consider software licenses such as GPL. Why don’t these programmers put their programs in the public domain? It’s because they want to control “something.”
Loosening the criteria for judging Vox even more, but getting the same result
Vox or his publisher has retained control of Vox’s information, in particular, his soon-to-be-published book. But to make it easier for Vox to pass his walk-the-talk test, I’ll disregard his most current book.
Life is full of compromise, and many times people work within the system even though their goal is to change the system. There are many benefits to being published. It only makes sense that if someone is willing to market his books, he lets them market his books, so I’ll only consider the books prior to his most recent book.
The question is this: Why does Vox retain the copyright to his older books? Why doesn’t he place them in the public domain? In The Wrath of Angles, a book that he self-published, it shows that he owns the copyright.
As I’ve said, a copyrighted book can’t be free, even if it’s free to the end-user.
There are a number of possibilities why retains the copyright:
- Vox believes that all IP law should be struck down, and he believes that no information published should be able to be controlled in any way, but he believes he should follow current practice while IP laws exist.
- Because there’s always the possibility that the financial value of his books will increase, he retains control of them because of the possible financial benefit to himself or to his descendants.
- He retains control over his books so he has some ability to prevent others from using his books in a way not to his liking.
The bottom line is that he’s retained control over his books, and at this time, there’s no financial reason for him to do so.
He fails the test. His talk about IP is empty. He’s like a politician. There are rules for others, and there are different rules for himself.
“Content creator,” an indictment of his socialist habits rather than an acquittal
And his attempt to portray himself as a giver because he’s a content creator isn’t valid. That’s because as a content creator, he falls in the second group: third-party content creators who need other people’s information. It may be that he’s giving end-users free access to his books, but for anything he’s given, he’s taken much more.
And his taking is of a socialist nature. With socialism, the government takes what you produce, and they give back to you what they say you need, which is usually a one-size-fits-all product.
Vox says to the programmer, “I’m gonna take your $2000 program for free, and I’m gonna give you my five books, which are worth about $50.”
The programmer replies, “Why don’t you just give me the two thousand dollars? I prefer to decide what I want to buy, and I don’t really want your books in exchange for my program, seeing that I don’t read many novels, and seeing that your books aren’t worth what my program is worth.”
Vox says to the musician, “I’m gonna take your CD for free, and I’m gonna give you my books in return.”
The musician replies, “Thanks, Vox, but no thanks. I’d prefer that you pay money to my record label so that they give me another contract. Plus, like most people, I don’t read many books.”
Vox is willing to give, but because he’s the one who’s acting as the decision maker for both the buyer of information and the seller of information, it’s not a win-win situation.
A final note about his shallow analysis of what “information wants”
From what I’ve read, Vox’s arguments about the value of IP have totally been related to the financial value of information. He can only think “money” when it comes to IP. And in relation to money, he can only think “free,” but there’s more to the picture.
To show how shallow and simplistic his claims are, I’ll make a fill-in-the-blank sentence out of his “Information wants to be free” sentence, and then I’ll improvise on it with a few related comments. Well, okay, I have to modify it to make sense of it, so I’ll vary on this template: “People want information…”
People want information that meets their needs.
This is a generalization which covers his claim that people want information to be free. His claim merely specifies a subcategory of information that people want.
People want information that costs money if it meets their needs.
His shallow assumption is that free information is the best information. Even if no IP law existed, people would come up with ways to sell information; they would find ways to add value to free information. Red Hat Software sold distributions of Linux.
People don’t want information that’s free if it’s of much lower value than non-free information.
Again, free is not the holy grail Vox makes it out to be.
People want information that’s not free even if a comparable product exists that is free.
Linux exists,which is a high quality operating system, but people buy Windows.
People with no money motive want to control their information-creations.
There are people who refuse to sell their house to corporations, or refuse to sell it to the government even when they’re offered more money than what the house is worth. Money, though one of the main motivators, is not the only motivator.
Vox’s arguments against IP, as it relates to books, are totally related to the financial value of books. It’s a simplistic view that should only be considered legitimate by other buffoon-libertarians.
Why is all this important?
It’s important because there are currently lots of people who unjustifiably rationalize that they deserve information that others have created. It’s one thing to do wrong. It’s another to try and justify wrong.
I don’t care if the music industry and movie industry are driven out of business because of pirates. The entertainment industry is almost pure sleaze.
But the principles of IP are bigger than sleaze. The principles undergirding some of IP are fundamental.
Filed under: Morality
