Do You Live In A Protected Freedom Zone?

http://www.1729.com/blog/DoYouLiveInAProtectedFreedomZone.html

by talonx • 15 years ago

75 15 15 years ago

Related to the idea of a "freedom zone" is that of a university "bubble," where the institution's endowment and funding allows the needs and interests of research to ignore what's beyond its walls. But while scientists may want to publish in Nature so they can get offered good faculty positions, and while the bubble may make it easy for them to exercise freedom in research, I think a lot of them are seeing and believing in the benefits of open publications, if not yet open data. The success of the arxiv and PLoS as well as the NIH's new rule of delayed public paper release are exemplary of the trend toward open academic publications.

stretchwithme4• 15 years ago

If there were no intellectual property, companies producing software, music and the like could enforce their rights with contracts and laws against the receiving of stolen property. You still would not have the right to distribute someone else's work.

Well, it would work that way in a world that respects contracts. Not sure about 21st century America where people don't even read them.

Patents are another matter though. Would I not have the right to make a thing and sell it without your consent, especially if I've never signed any contract with you restricting such rights? I think I would. We would have to use bounties like the X Prize and I see no reason why that wouldn't work.

There have to be mechanisms where by innovators are paid for innovating. If we don't have them in the US, innovators will go to they exist. Innovation would still happen, but not the really expensive, inherently non-protectable kind. And no, I do not mean one-click ordering!

cturner4• 15 years ago

Your first paragraph is incorrect. Ideas are not property, except through "intellectual property" law. There's a similar but separate issue - you wouldn't have the right to sell someone else's work and claim it as your own - this would be misleading and deceptive trade.

    There have to be mechanisms where by innovators are
    paid for innovating

There are already. I build software because it helps my company function in a way that allows them to make money.

    Innovation would still happen, but not the really
    expensive, inherently non-protectable kind.

It totally would. Further, you need to consider the opportunity cost we suffer at the moment: the things we're stifling in the name of protecting operations that dependend on the government crimping everyone else's rights for their gain.

Ironically, the freedom zones these days are often in third world countries that turn a blind eye to indiscresions by the sort of smart foreigners they want to attract - the likes of China and Indochina. Those countries don't care if you're breaking copyright or patents, and probably won't act to retrict your personal liberty much either so long as you're helping them towards their economic goals.

A fallen city like Detroit or Buffalo could look to give themselves edge by making themselves into a freedom zone - seeking to get an exemption from the laws as a reserach exercise.

Of you could do one in Mexico or Canada, and try to benefit to proximity to the labour you want to attract.

Update: I've been looking at maps. That region of southern Canada around Detroit, London and Buffalo is screaming out for someone to put in a special economic zone. It's surrounded by rustbelt, has amazing infrastructure, good connectivity to the east coast and Toronto. English speaking, cheap labour, good infrastructure, connectivity.

stretchwithme4• 15 years ago

I don't claim that ideas are property.

Claiming Madonna's work as my own wouldn't be necessary for me to sell her music, so not sure fraud is the crime.

I wasn't saying mechanisms for payment need to be created. I'm saying they are essential. And not just for one kind of innovation.

And I know about opportunity cost. That's one reason why I am NOT arguing for the continuation of the current system.

JoachimSchipper• 15 years ago

"Open Access" - all academic papers available for free on the web - is very hot right now. To the point that many national funding agencies require it as a precondition for funding research.

Additionally, researchers in some fields did already make (most of) their papers available, either centralized (arXiv, eprint.iacr.org - math, physics, cryptography) or on their own web pages.

walrus• 15 years ago

Things do seem to be going in the right direction, but older papers are still hard to get a copy of without access to a university network.

hxa7241• 15 years ago

This is a way of expressing what Kant said about lying and morality. A liar presumes the existence and practice of a moral rule against lying, but makes an exception of themself -- that is the only way their action makes sense and is profitable.

IP is a priori immoral because it fails moral universalisation. If we all shared what we produced freely, we would all gain (a thousandfold, a millionfold ...), and at no cost to each other. If we all had to be equally bound by restrictions and payments and legal action, we would all lose.

The only way IP, as a principle rather than pragmatically, can make sense is as an immoral intention.

(This is the funny thing about 'natural rights' arguments for IP: they all fail universalisation, trivially and obviously. It is odd they get much respect at all.)

And the actual practice does seem to follow the morality. Just as the article describes, where groups have power to choose, they tend to waive the rules for themselves, and just enforce them for everyone else.

cturner4• 15 years ago

I'd guess you've been voted you down because you're talking in philosophy and not connecting it to practical matters.

For what it's worth, I'd recommend you do this: find a way to make your case in a practical way. Then explain that this situation is an analogy to what Kant said and give people clear links to that. Then explain the philosophical issue.

LaGrange• 15 years ago

Food — enjoying foodstuffs grown in less developed places with lower wages, driving up prices of food and farmland in those places.

Cheap electronics — enjoying access to devices assembled in places with less worker rights, creating pressure to keep workforce prices down, thus limiting the access of said workforce to gadgets you yourself enjoy.

Crude oil and cars. Quality fabrics. And so on.

CJefferson• 15 years ago

I see so many articles like this, particularly ones about academia. No-one ever seems to suggest a better system.

intellection• 15 years ago

Go there.

A more psychological safe zone.

To breath and talk without excess authorizations in a safe space.

In reality, in our world, in your mind. I think you should go there.

Do You Live In A Protected Freedom Zone?

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