by Matt Barr

Carnival of Liberty XXI

Carnival of Liberty XXI is up at Left Brain Female. Lots of good stuff! Among the contributions, Armed and Dangerous says, "We need a propertarian case for the Internet as agora."

There is a war of metaphors going on right now: the Internet as place versus the Internet as pipes. Is it an agora (that handy Greek word that hovers somewhere between “marketplace” and “public square”) or a “content-delivery system”?

How people think about this matters. As Doc points out, if the net-as-pipes metaphor prevails, then issues like free-speech rights and open access become subordinated to property rights over the pipes. If the net-as-agora metaphor prevails, free speech trumps property rights — even when the “agora” space is privately owned, our mental framework about it is that it’s a place where public expression is subject to minimum control.

In Eghad, I've Been Googled, The MaryHunter examines the potential loss of financial incentives for creativity resulting from the Google Print Library Project. He laments

Google's disregard for one of the most sacred icons of creativity, capitalism, and free society: the copyright. Copyright laws vary among countries, but the principle is simple: you own what you write or think or create. You can sign over your copyright — sign over ownership — of your creation to other agents (e.g., publishers), but that is done with a clear commitment that said publisher/new owner will protect and maintain and distribute that work under a copyright agreement. In this way, authors can be credited for their work at very least — and in many cases, receive royalties from distribution of said work.

Read the whole thing, but I wonder if the next line reveals a facet worth considering: "Google, however, is scanning libraries full of books, storing them, and planning to give copyrighted content for free to anyone, on a global scale that only Google can offer." Libraries are where we can already read copyrighted material for free, or, free plus the cost of travel and time spent in the library, which Google Print makes almost zero. I'm involved in copyright issues (on the good guys' -- creators' -- side) in my day job and take the issues very seriously, but my position on Google Print isn't fully formed because access to printed material isn't revolutionary, we've been getting it for years at libraries. Yes, libraries pay for their books, and Google should likewise pay something, but the issue of what or how much is part of what makes the issue complicated enough that I haven't formed an opinion for or against the model yet.

Generally, I'm both for rewarding creativity and the greatest amount of access to information possible. As a consumer, I buy books -- four this month already -- but also frequent the Kent Free Library, where I pay almost nothing (travel plus time plus taxes equals something negligible enough that I consider it free). My library card has not kept me from buying books, and I'm therefore (initially) resistant to predictions that Google will stifle the incentive to write them.

And Coyote Blog has an excellent examination of the immigration issue in Immigration, Individual Rights, and the New Deal.

In the 1930's, and continuing to this day, something changed radically in the theory of government in this country that would cause immigration to be severely limited and that would lead to much of the current immigration debate. With the New Deal, and later with the Great Society and many other intervening pieces of legislation, we began creating what I call non-right rights. These newly described "rights" were different from the ones I enumerated above. Rather than existing prior to government, and requiring at most the protection of government, these new rights sprang forth from the government itself and could only exist in the context of having a government. These non-right rights have multiplied throughout the years, and include things like the "right" to a minimum wage, to health care, to a pension, to education, to leisure time, to paid family leave, to affordable housing, to public transportation, to cheap gasoline, etc. etc. ad infinitum.

Here is a great test to see if something is really a right, vs. one of these fake rights. Ask yourself, "can I have this right on a desert island". Speech? Have at it. Assembly? Sure, if there is anyone or things to assemble with? Property? Absolutely -- if you convert some palm trees with your mind and labor into a shelter, that's your home. Health care? Uh, how? Who is going to provide it?

Great point. How much would anti-free marketeers complain about illegal immigration (indeed, how much "illegal" immigration would there be) if the justice of having to "pay for" education, health care, benefits etc. for people who didn't equally "pay in" didn't enter into the equation?

Only samples, go to LBF's site and see more great posts.

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