bleak_fire_
2014-10-22 12:39:25 UTC
http://c4sif.org/2014/10/falkvinge-illegal-copying-has-always-created-jobs-growth-and-prosperity/
Throughout history, those who have copied the most have also always been
the most prosperous, and for that reason. Bans on copying, like the
copyright and patent monopolies, are just plain industrial protectionism.
It often helps to understand present time by looking at history, and seeing
how history keeps repeating itself over and over.
In the late 1700s, the United Kingdom was the empire that established laws
on the globe. The United States was still largely a colony – even if not
formally so, it was referred to as such in the civilized world, meaning
France and the United Kingdom.
The UK had a strictly protectionist view of trade: all raw materials must
come to England, and all luxury goods must be made from those materials
while in the UK, to be exported to the rest of the world. Long story short,
the UK was where the value was to be created.
Laws were written to lock in this effect. Bringing the ability to refine
materials somewhere else, the mere knowledge, was illegal. “Illegal
copying”, more precisely.
Let’s look at a particularly horrible criminal from that time, Samuel
Slater. In the UK, he was even known as “Slater the Traitor”. His crime was
to memorize the drawings of a British textile mill, move to New York, and
copy the whole of the British textile mill from memory – something very
illegal. For this criminal act, building the so-called Slater Mill, he was
hailed as “the father of the American Industrial Revolution” by those who
would later displace the dominance of the UK – namely the United States.
This copy-criminal also has a whole town named after him.
Copying brings jobs and prosperity. Copying has always brought jobs and
prosperity. It is those who don’t want to compete who try to legislate a
right to rest on their laurels and outlaw copying. It never works.
We can take a look at the early film industry as well. That industry was
bogged down with patent monopolies from one of the worst monopolists
through industrial history, Thomas Edison and his Western Electric. He
essentially killed off any film company that started in or at New York,
where the film industry was based at the time. A few of the nascent film
companies – Warner Brothers, Universal Pictures, MGM – therefore chose to
settle as far from this monopolist as possible, and went across the entire
country, to a small unexploited suburb outside of Los Angeles, California,
which was known as “Hollywoodland” and had a huge sign to that effect.
There, they would be safe from Edison’s patent enforcement, merely through
taking out enough distance between themselves and him.
Yes, you read that right – the entire modern film industry was founded on
piracy. Which, again, lead to jobs and prosperity.
The heart of the problem is this: those who decide what is “illegal” to
copy do so from a basis of not wanting to get outcompeted, and never from
any kind of moral high ground. It’s just pure industrial protectionism.
Neo-mercantilism, if you prefer. Copying always brings jobs and prosperity.
Therefore, voluntarily agreeing to the terms of the incumbent industries,
terms which are specifically written to keep everybody else unprosperous,
is astoundingly bad business and policy.
I’d happily go as far as to say there is a moral imperative to disobey any
laws against copying. History will always put you in the right, as was the
case with Samuel Slater, for example.
For a more modern example, you have Japan. When I grew up in the 1980s,
Japanese industry was known for cheap knock-off goods. They copied
everything shamelessly, and never got quality right. But they knew
something that the West didn’t: copying brings prosperity. When you copy
well enough, you learn at a staggering pace, and you eventually come out as
the R&D leader, the innovation leader, building on that incremental
innovation you initially copied. Today, Japan builds the best quality stuff
available in any category.
The Japanese knew and understand that it takes three generations of copying
and an enormous work discipline to become the best in the world in any
industry. Recently, to my huge astonishment, they even overtook the
Scottish as masters of whisky. (As I am a very avid fan of Scottish whisky,
this was a personal source of confusion for me, even though I know things
work this way on a rational level.)
At the personal level, pretty much every good software developer I know
learned their craft by copying other people’s code. Copying brings
prosperity at the national and the individual levels. Those who would seek
to outlaw it, or obey such unjust bans against copying, have no moral high
ground whatsoever – and frankly, I think people who voluntarily choose to
obey such unjust laws deserve to stay unprosperous, and fall with their
incumbent master when that time comes.
Nobody ever took the lead by voluntarily walking behind somebody else,
after all. The rest of us copy, share, and innovate, and we wait for nobody
who tries to legislate their way to competitiveness.
Throughout history, those who have copied the most have also always been
the most prosperous, and for that reason. Bans on copying, like the
copyright and patent monopolies, are just plain industrial protectionism.
It often helps to understand present time by looking at history, and seeing
how history keeps repeating itself over and over.
In the late 1700s, the United Kingdom was the empire that established laws
on the globe. The United States was still largely a colony – even if not
formally so, it was referred to as such in the civilized world, meaning
France and the United Kingdom.
The UK had a strictly protectionist view of trade: all raw materials must
come to England, and all luxury goods must be made from those materials
while in the UK, to be exported to the rest of the world. Long story short,
the UK was where the value was to be created.
Laws were written to lock in this effect. Bringing the ability to refine
materials somewhere else, the mere knowledge, was illegal. “Illegal
copying”, more precisely.
Let’s look at a particularly horrible criminal from that time, Samuel
Slater. In the UK, he was even known as “Slater the Traitor”. His crime was
to memorize the drawings of a British textile mill, move to New York, and
copy the whole of the British textile mill from memory – something very
illegal. For this criminal act, building the so-called Slater Mill, he was
hailed as “the father of the American Industrial Revolution” by those who
would later displace the dominance of the UK – namely the United States.
This copy-criminal also has a whole town named after him.
Copying brings jobs and prosperity. Copying has always brought jobs and
prosperity. It is those who don’t want to compete who try to legislate a
right to rest on their laurels and outlaw copying. It never works.
We can take a look at the early film industry as well. That industry was
bogged down with patent monopolies from one of the worst monopolists
through industrial history, Thomas Edison and his Western Electric. He
essentially killed off any film company that started in or at New York,
where the film industry was based at the time. A few of the nascent film
companies – Warner Brothers, Universal Pictures, MGM – therefore chose to
settle as far from this monopolist as possible, and went across the entire
country, to a small unexploited suburb outside of Los Angeles, California,
which was known as “Hollywoodland” and had a huge sign to that effect.
There, they would be safe from Edison’s patent enforcement, merely through
taking out enough distance between themselves and him.
Yes, you read that right – the entire modern film industry was founded on
piracy. Which, again, lead to jobs and prosperity.
The heart of the problem is this: those who decide what is “illegal” to
copy do so from a basis of not wanting to get outcompeted, and never from
any kind of moral high ground. It’s just pure industrial protectionism.
Neo-mercantilism, if you prefer. Copying always brings jobs and prosperity.
Therefore, voluntarily agreeing to the terms of the incumbent industries,
terms which are specifically written to keep everybody else unprosperous,
is astoundingly bad business and policy.
I’d happily go as far as to say there is a moral imperative to disobey any
laws against copying. History will always put you in the right, as was the
case with Samuel Slater, for example.
For a more modern example, you have Japan. When I grew up in the 1980s,
Japanese industry was known for cheap knock-off goods. They copied
everything shamelessly, and never got quality right. But they knew
something that the West didn’t: copying brings prosperity. When you copy
well enough, you learn at a staggering pace, and you eventually come out as
the R&D leader, the innovation leader, building on that incremental
innovation you initially copied. Today, Japan builds the best quality stuff
available in any category.
The Japanese knew and understand that it takes three generations of copying
and an enormous work discipline to become the best in the world in any
industry. Recently, to my huge astonishment, they even overtook the
Scottish as masters of whisky. (As I am a very avid fan of Scottish whisky,
this was a personal source of confusion for me, even though I know things
work this way on a rational level.)
At the personal level, pretty much every good software developer I know
learned their craft by copying other people’s code. Copying brings
prosperity at the national and the individual levels. Those who would seek
to outlaw it, or obey such unjust bans against copying, have no moral high
ground whatsoever – and frankly, I think people who voluntarily choose to
obey such unjust laws deserve to stay unprosperous, and fall with their
incumbent master when that time comes.
Nobody ever took the lead by voluntarily walking behind somebody else,
after all. The rest of us copy, share, and innovate, and we wait for nobody
who tries to legislate their way to competitiveness.
--
b.f.
b.f.