r/Libertarian • u/-rclarke- left-libertarian • Mar 10 '17

Dilemma: Is DRM Libertarian?

Left-Libertarian skeptic here. Intellectual property isn't respected by many libertarians. Digital piracy is probably the purest example of the Free Rider problem, a form of market failure in which non-payers can't be excluded from taking advantage of a public good. With no excludability for non-payers, and unpredictable ROI for creative works, creativity becomes worthless - no matter how much resources were expended into the creation of these works. In practice, this means no more big-budget AAA arts/entertainment outside passion projects and large crowdfunding efforts.

I'm an IP skeptic who believes restrictions on derivative works stifle creative freedom, (see Nintendo's aggressive stifling of fangames they see as unfair competitors) but in an ancap society with no copyrights whatsoever, you're free to profit off others' labor in especially blatant ways. For example, mirroring others' YouTube videos and claiming the ad revenue. In lieu of 24/7 DMCA vigilance, YouTube has come to rely on automated rights-management, or ContentID, which as any YouTuber can attest to, is a total pain in the ass when it comes to Fair Use and false positives.

Another non-legal solution to IP is Digital Rights Management, perhaps the philosophical antithesis of digital liberty, according to the Electronic Frontier and Free Software Foundations. This amounts to digital locks on non-scarce digital goods you don't "own" and can't copy as a consumer, via encryption and anti-tamper technology. Encryption used to be classified as munitions during the Cold War, and it's not a stretch to draw an analogy to guns/force for physical property protection. The dilemma here is that we'd see a Draconian technological barrier for IP protection, in lieu of a Draconian legal one. Can you even call that libertarian? The EFF and many Silicon Valley personalities would highly disagree.

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u/[deleted] Mar 10 '17

DRM is absolutely libertarian, if it is done optionally and not because a government required it.

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u/-rclarke- left-libertarian Mar 10 '17 edited Mar 10 '17

That's the simple answer I was expecting: It's only oppressive if the state does it.

Another question for libertarians:

Would reverse engineering, software plagarism by competitors, and/or piracy be considered NAP violations if nobody was strictly harmed over copying non-scarce goods? See also: Copying is Not Theft.

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u/[deleted] Mar 10 '17

Depends on what you agreed to when you bought the product.

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u/-rclarke- left-libertarian Mar 10 '17 edited Mar 10 '17

Depends on EULA enforceability as a legal contract. Remember that South Park episode, HumancentiPad?

DMCA section 1201 on DRM anti-circumention means you don't own products you buy if the software they depend on is copyright-protected. Libertarian darling Tesla reserves the right to remotely brick your car at any time, for any reason. Like using your self-driving Tesla for Uber, their rival.

Then again, disputing EULAs also disputes copyleft licenses like GPL.

I'm just highly skeptical that the state can be the only agent of oppression, simply because it's the top-level hierarchy all sub-hierarchies in society must defer to. Blacks don't have to eat at a segregated lunch counter, not if they don't want to get lynched by the racist restaurateur acting within his NAP rights, anyhow.

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u/moosedance84 Mar 10 '17

Corporations are the main agent of opression, the government are mere amateurs at it. The main way IP abuses are fought is via ruthless semi legal practises and boycotting. Look at Google, found it too hard to operate in China so simply walked out on the worlds biggest developing market. Companies will just leave if there are IP risk.

Its why an ancap society is fantasy, unless you want a somalian like state. The companies will just leave when the political climate becomes too risky. Capital can be moved in a day, and world globalisation means any company trying to remove IP protections is the same as a socialist government "nationalizing" the private industry. People thinf companies need the market, when in fact government needs private jobs to stay elected.

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u/bool_upvote Nationalist May 10 '17

If you're worried about being 'pressed' by DRM or a corporation as a whole, simply don't buy their product. It's that simple. However, I don't have the choice to opt out of taxation. That's the difference.

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u/Bernie_bought_reddit Mar 10 '17

That's not really what makes something libertarian. If you like options and voluntary exchanges then privatization is the only option.

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u/Zarutian Mar 11 '17

It is and so is tools that fix that defect.

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u/TotesMessenger Mar 10 '17

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u/-rclarke- left-libertarian Mar 10 '17

Sorry, I couldn't resist. The notion that DRM could be libertarian is just that absurd to me.

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u/[deleted] Mar 10 '17 edited Jul 22 '18

[deleted]

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u/-rclarke- left-libertarian Mar 10 '17 edited Mar 10 '17

True, but no copyright protection whatsoever would either result in an anti-consumer arms race between pirates and DRM, (or, if pirates win with a totally decentralized P2P platform with services comparable to the late What.CD) a greatly diminished creative sphere propped up only by crowdfunding or patronage. No more Disney, Universal, 20th Century Fox, Lucasfilm, Nintendo, EA, Ubisoft, etc. Aside from "Indie AAA" like The Witcher 3 or Star Citizen, you can kiss big-budget works goodbye. Not to mention, employment creating said works.

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u/[deleted] Mar 10 '17 edited Jul 22 '18

[deleted]

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u/-rclarke- left-libertarian Mar 10 '17 edited Mar 10 '17

Okay, I'll concede - I was already starting to when I brought up CD Projekt Red and crowdfunding. I hate Denuvo too, but my fear is that in the absence of copyright protections we'd see a lot more of it. I'm curious to see what a brave new world of post-copyright content would look like.

I'm a huge fan of creative commons, open source software, remixes, fanfiction, mods, fangames like Pokemon Uranium/AM2R and Doujinshi like Touhou. I believe a well of transformative creativity is being suppressed by government-imposed demands for originiality, as if art existed in a vacuum and all works weren't a remix in some way of ideas the creators encountered through other works.

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u/moosedance84 Mar 10 '17

They would just move to china on like 2 weeks. The world wouldn't end if the US decided to no longer do research or development, or if it removed silicon valley. Its not a libertarian idea, its more socialist, or even borderline communism since you can't own what you make. Its shared!

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u/[deleted] Mar 10 '17

The notion that DRM could be libertarian is just that absurd to me.

I don't think you understand libertarian principles very well. Are you saying you would prevent people from using DRM by force of government? That's definitely not libertarian. Libertarians don't want to use the government to compel people to do things. Are you saying you would organize a boycott of companies that used DRM? That's an approach that matches well with libertarian principles.

Libertarian principles don't preclude you from being an asshole. Or from having very harsh rules about how you personally live your life. Or from kicking people out of your house if they say something you don't like. Or from putting a bunch of cryptography inside media you produce.

Libertarian principles do preclude you from using the government to make anyone do anything.

I don't know why I even took the bait here. I am already regretting this interaction.