Creation and Labor as Sources of Property Rights and the Danger of Metaphors

(Austrian) Economics, IP Law, Libertarian Theory
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Canadian libertarian Michael McConkey has an interesting fictional exchange between himself and Socrates up at My Dinner with Socrates:

The other day I met this sandal-wearing, hipster dude who thought he had all the answers (and questions), but I set him straight when it came to the morality of the state. I thought you might enjoy reading a transcript of our dinner conversation.

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Here is an edited version of a note I sent him about this piece.

Not bad, but I think you go astray by saying creation is a source of ownership. It’s not. This is the mistake people make that leads them to support intellectual property. In fact the only source of ownership is homesteading or original appropriation: finding some unowned thing and appropriating it. And, this implies that there is a second way to own something: by contractual transfer of title from a previous owner. That is it.

It is true that you can create wealth or value by production. But this just means to transform (with creativity and labor) something you already own. To produce you have to already own the thing you rearrange.

Creation is a source of wealth. Not of ownership or property rights.

Likewise, your comment here:

We don’t just use up our life – perhaps we do that when we go for a hike, say – but property is an enduring embodiment of our life. The tomato I grow in my back yard, the book I write, the money I am paid by an employer for the productive work I provide, are all embodiments of my life. My finite time, energy and attention are literally embodied in these things and stuff: tomatoes, books, money, etc.

is imprecise and overly metaphorical. The use of “literally” is wrong. I know what you are getting at but this is not rigorous argument. If I steal from you the loaf of bread you have baked, it is wrong becuase it is your property (or more precisely, you have a property right in the loaf of bread). It’s only a metaphorical way of looking at it to say that I have stolen your “labor”. It’s just literally not true. You don’t own your labor; it is not “in” the bread. Labor is just a type of action. You don’t own your labor any more than you own your actions or your memories or your tendency to procrastinate.

For more on the creation stuff, see my Against Intellectual Property; also Locke on IP; Mises, Rothbard, and Rand on Creation, Production, and “Rearranging”; Libertarian Creationism; Rand on IP, Owning “Values”, and “Rearrangement Rights”; Locke, Smith, Marx and the Labor Theory of Value; this comment to “Trademark and Fraud”; Elaborations on Randian IP; Objectivists on IP.

For the danger of misuse of metaphors, see Thoughts on Intellectual Property, Scarcity, Labor-ownership, Metaphors, and Lockean Homesteading and On the Danger of Metaphors in Scientific Discourse.

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Carrier IQ’s attempt to employ copyright censorship backfires

Business, IP Law, Podcasts, Technology
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As discussed in the Techcrunch post Android Researcher Hit With C&D After Dissecting Monitoring Software, Android security researcher Trevor Eckhart posted about the mobile tracking software from a company called Carrier IQ. As explained in the Techcrunch post:

Carrier IQ pitches themselves as the “leading provider of mobile service intelligence solutions,” and provides their services to a number of players in the mobile space. The company’s main U.S. carrier partner is Sprint, and Eckhart claims that their tracking software appears on Android devices from HTC and Samsung among others.

According to Eckhart’s research, Carrier IQ is capable of monitoring everything from where the phone is to what apps are installed, and even which keys are being pressed. Carrier IQ says that the information is collected to give carriers insight into how the mobile use experience can be improved. It sounds like a noble enough goal, except Eckhart found that the software could run without the user’s knowledge or consent as was the case with the HTC phones he tested.

Carrier IQ’s general counsel then fired off a vicious cease-and-desist letter [PDF] against Eckhart, “claiming that he committed copyright infringement by reproducing some of the company’s training materials in his post and that he made ‘false allegations’ about the nature of their software.” In other words, Carrier IQ was trying to squelch criticism of it by using copyright law to censor its critic. These tactics are one reason I not only despise copyright, but that I have begun to really detest what the legal profession has become: a bunch of arrogant bullies. The C&D letter is outrageous: it gave Eckhart two days to commit to all kinds of groveling, making a public apology, replacing his original blog post with one written by Carrier IQ, and so on. While threatening him with tens of thousands of dollars of damages, if not more, with some dubious claims, as discussed in a recent episode of This Week in Law. For example, according to some of the legal pundits on TWiL, the statutory damages and attorneys’ fees threatened are available only for a registered copyright work, and the material in question did not appear to have been registered. Further, Ekhard would probably have a fair use defense (as the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) argues as well).

In any case, after its threats was noticed and blogged and tweeted about on the Internet, and after Eckhart bravely contacted the EFF for help instead of backing down, Carrier IQ realized what a PR disaster its threats had created, and their CEO retracted their C&D and publicly apologized to the developer. (See Techcrunch’s post Carrier IQ Retracts Their C&D, Apologizes To The Android Researcher They Hassled.) From the release:

As, of today, we are withdrawing our cease and desist letter to Mr. Trevor Eckhart. We have reached out to Mr. Eckhart and the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) to apologize. Our action was misguided and we are deeply sorry for any concern or trouble that our letter may have caused Mr. Eckhart. We sincerely appreciate and respect EFF’s work on his behalf, and share their commitment to protecting free speech in a rapidly changing technological world.

The full text of the release is below. The EFF was truly heroic here (see Eckhart’s post Why I love the EFF; and EFF’s post Carrier IQ Tries to Censor Research With Baseless Legal Threat).

[c4sif]

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Down with Gatekeepers: Hillary Clinton and the Obama Administration vs. Internet Freedom

Anti-Statism, Corporatism, Education, IP Law, Police Statism, Technology, Totalitarianism
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Last year, in Hillary Clinton’s Historic Speech on Global Internet Freedom, Adam Thierer praised Hillary Clinton for a speech drawing

a bold line in the cyber-sand regarding exactly where the United States stands on global online freedom. Clinton’s answer was unequivocal: “Both the American people and nations that censor the Internet should understand that our government is committed to helping promote Internet freedom.” “The Internet can serve as a great equalizer,” she argued. “By providing people with access to knowledge and potential markets, networks can create opportunities where none exist.”

But of course this is a complete sham. The fedgov and the Obama administration may not like it when other oppressive regimes restrict their own subjects’ access to technology, when this is contrary the American state’s geopolitical “interests,” but the cekatS1 is not at all in favor of Internet freedom. Witness the relentless push to keep increasing copyright law and its insidious effect on Internet freedom. Thus, Obama signed the horrible ACTA (probably unconstitutionally),2 and his administration is also: using other trade agreements to export the draconian DMCA-type copyright provisions to other countries;3 and has proposed to expand “tough” enforcement of copyright, including wiretaps4 and other legislation to curb “piracy” on the Internet.5 And it’s why

U.S. Copyright Czar and Obama administration officials secretly cooperate with Hollywood, recording industry and ISPs to disrupt internet access for users suspected of violating copyright law … Obama administration’s cozy relationship with Hollywood and the music industry’s lobbying arms and its early support for the copyright-violation crackdown system publicly announced in July.6

And it’s why we have the looming threat of SOPA,7 which endangers Internet freedom, which, as I’ve noted before, is one of the most important tools available in the fight against the state.8  And it’s why the cekatS wants to control and restrict it. And it’s doing so, cleverly if perversely, in the name of (intellectual) “property rights” and fighting “piracy”. And who can doubt Obama will sign SOPA if Congress puts it on his desk? (Even though Vice-Thug and IP Poobah Biden hypocritcally spoke out against SOPA type provisions recently.)

And it’s why the Obama administration has seized websites to censor Wikileaks. And ICE has seized hundreds of domains in the name of stopping piracy and at the behest of the MPAA, in addition to other ICE domain seizures in the name of stopping child pornography (“Operation Protect Our Children“–What do you mean “our,” kemosabe?).

No one can seriously think that the central state, or the Obama administration, is in favor of Internet freedom.

As for Hillary Clinton’s lies and claims to be for global Internet freedom despite being part of an administration hell bent on destroying it, her true views were revealed long ago, in 1998 in the wake of the Drudge Report breaking the Bill Clinton-Monica Lewinsky scandal, in response to a question by reporters  Hillary Clinton was asked by reporters whether she favored curbs on the Internet. Her response:
“We’re all going to have to rethink how we deal with the Internet. As exciting as these new developments are, there are a number of serious issues without any kind of editing function or gatekeeping function…”9 And, as Thierer notes in his piece, Hillary Clinton also said “We are all going to have to rethink how we deal with [the Internet], because there are all these competing values. Without any kind of editing function or gatekeeping function, what does it mean to have the right to defend your reputation?” Note here how IP (reputation rights are a type of IP) is once more at the root of the threat to the Internet (one reason I have concluded that copyright is even worse than patent). Of course the political elites–the real 1%–and the Big Media they are in cahoots with, hate the lack of the official “gatekeeper” function. They hate the Internet, social media, talk radio, podcasting, cell phones, twitter, and video cameras.

Update: see Democrats and “Internet Freedom”.

  1. Bill Stepp’s acronymous term for the state: cekatS = “criminal entity known as the State.” Other funny ones are “conjob” for Constitution, and “crookopolies” for monopolies. ↩

  2. ACTA, Executive Agreements, and the Bricker Amendment. ↩

  3. Free-trade pacts export U.S. copyright controls. ↩

  4. Copyright Enforcement, Now Featuring Wiretaps! ↩

  5. White House will propose new digital copyright laws. ↩

  6. Wired article, U.S. Copyright Czar Cozied Up to Content Industry, E-Mails Show. ↩

  7. Die, SOPA, Die. ↩

  8. The Ominous PROTECT IP Act and the End of Internet Freedom; Patent vs. Copyright: Which is Worse?; Internet Access as a Human Right. ↩

  9. Quoted in Government Gatekeepers Come After the Internet; see also No Gatekeepers; Hillary Clinton Doesn’t Understand The Constitution. ↩

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TLS Podcast Picks: Aaron Burr vs. Jefferson, Lew Rockwell vs. Parasite

(Austrian) Economics, Anti-Statism, History, Podcast Picks, Police Statism, Taxation, Totalitarianism, War
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Recommended podcasts:

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Living a Life of Excellence and Liberty

Anti-Statism, Education, The Basics
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My fellow TLS blogger Norman Horn’s recent speech, What you can do to promote liberty, called to mind some things I’ve blogged about before. In Nock and Leonard Read on “One Improved Unit” and the Power of Attraction, blogged previously here, I discussed the idea advocated by Albert Jay Nock and Leonard Read, that your primary task is to improve yourself–to strive for excellence in yourself. Then you become a bright light that attracts people; they see you are good, and successful, and worth emlating or listening to–so you win people over by the power of attraction. They come to you, and then you have more success spreading the ideas of liberty than if you go around being a boor. More detail, including excerpts from Nock and Read, are in that post.

[The Golden Age of America is Now]

The other post, previousyl blogged elsewhere, is reproduced in full here:

 Career Advice by North

Gary North delivered a wonderful lecture last month during Mises University 2009 (the same day I gave my own speech), “Calling and Career as an Austrian School Scholar” (a shorter version of this was in the LRC podcast 127. Gary North: Making a Difference, Making a Living, which is also excellent).  North talks calling and occupation. Calling is “the most important thing you can do with your life in which you are most difficult to replace.” Occupation is “how you put food on the table.” Occasionally they are the same, but often not; but there is no reason not to arrange your life so as to have both. He talks about how to combine them or at least have both in your life, and centers his talk around some examples, notably Burt Blumert and William Volker.

Also see Paul Graham’s “What You’ll Wish You’d Known (“I wrote this talk for a high school. I never actually gave it, because the school authorities vetoed the plan to invite me.”)

Update: See also Bastiat, from The Law:

“Ah, you miserable creatures! You who think that you are so great! You who judge humanity to be so small! You who wish to reform everything! Why don’t you reform yourselves? That task would be sufficient enough.”

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