Good Guys and Bad Guys in the Media Biz

Business, IP Law, Pop Culture
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I and some friends are trying to compile a list of various notable musicians, artists, and the like who are more or less good on copyright, and those who are particularly bad. For “good” we mean they explicitly oppose copyright or at least fight for their fans and against some of the excesses of draconian copyright. For the bad, we mean those who use the power of the state to attack their fans and/or hypocrites who pretend to be for peace and love and condemn capitalism and commercialism while greedily condoning the use of state copyright law to persecute innocent people. I’ll list a few on both sides below; other suggestions or comments are welcome as are any links documenting the good/bad IP status of individuals listed below; I’ll update this list from time to time.

Good

Bad

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Legalize It _\|/_ But Don’t Tax Or Regulate It, Bro

Drug Policy, Humor, Police Statism, Pop Culture, Taxation, Victimless Crimes
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“Should Be Legalized” is a a great, high quality parody of Eminem’s “Love The Way You Lie.” The video reminds us of the dangers of prohibition and urges Congress to legalize marijuana. I must, however, object to the video’s desire for pot to be regulated or taxed.

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Aphoristic Observation: (Statist) politics is the continuation of war by other means.

Democracy, Pop Culture, Vulgar Politics, War
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A while back, I was watching the movie Crimson Tide and made the following observation.

There was mention of the famous dictum by the Prussian general, military historian, and theorist Carl von Clausewitz: “War is the continuation of politics by other means.”

There is a profound truth in that dictum. It identifies shared characteristics of statist politics and war: anti-social conflict, some imposing their will on others, destruction and redistribution of wealth, and so on. When statist political means fail to have the desired result and recourse is made to naked war, the true character of both the aggressors and the statist political process is revealed.

But I think that von Clausewitz got it backwards; the observation would have been more profound and true had he written instead: “(Statist) politics is the continuation of war by other means.”

Ballots replace bullets within the democratic state but conflict persists with special interest groups vying for the reins of power so that they can use the perceived legitimacy of the state to impose their will on each other. Beneath the sophisms that grant the state legitimacy there lies the same threat or use of initiatory violence that is present in war. Open war is traded for the illusion of peace.

Might this quip from Ronald Reagan touch upon a similar insight? “Politics is supposed to be the second-oldest profession. I have come to realize that it bears a very close resemblance to the first.” Is he referring to war? Or prostitution? Both analogies would be apt. War is often a boon to both prostitutes and politicians, though prostitutes at least are usually more honest about what they do and can conduct their business peacefully.

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Nina Paley on Property, Copyleft, Copyright at HOPE 2010

Anti-Statism, IP Law, Pop Culture, Technology
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Artist and anti-copyright innovator Nina Paley, creator of Sita Sings the Blues1 , has posted an edited video with excerpts of her talk “Sita Sings the Blues: a Free Culture Success Story” at The Next H.O.P.E. (Hackers On Planet Earth) conference, July 16 2010 in New York City. The talk includes:

why I insisted on authentic songs, what is and is not property, software is culture, the difference between Share Alike (copyleft) and other Creative Commons licenses, why I paid to legally license the old songs, how noncommercial copyright infringement is still illegal, legal costs, benefits of audience sharing & decentralized distribution, the Sita Sings the Blues Merchandise Empire (sitasingstheblues.com/store), open-licensed merch, audience goodwill, how fans support artists, rivalrous vs. non-rivalrous goods, the Creator Endorsed Mark, migrating Flash files to open formats, gift income, commerce without monopolies, why I encourage legal sharing, and more!

It is quite impressive to see an artist like this in front of this audience explaining how rivalrous goods are property and nonrivalrous goods are not, and how free distribution of the latter can be used to sell the former.

As my TLS co-blogger Dick Clark observed to me,

HOPE is a pretty big deal. That was the same con where Adrian Lamo got booed for ratting out Bradley Manning.

But don’t think this is just filtering in. I was talking in 2001 with Eric Corley, aka “Emmanuel Goldstein,” the organizer of HOPE and founder/editor of 2600 Magazine about your article, Against Intellectual Property. There are a lot of anti-IP hackers (and libertarian hackers too, if the Jargon file observations on hacker politics are correct). Information Longs to Be Free, baby.

  1. See also The Creator-Endorsed Mark as an Alternative to Copyright; Interview: Nina Paley on Copyright; Nina Paley’s “All Creative Work is Derivative”; Power to the Pixel 2009: Nina Paley. ↩

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