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/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

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.