Do I Hate Markets?

by on March 23, 2006 · 12 comments

Jim will have to stop needling PFF for ignoring my paper, as Patrick Ross has posted a truly epic three part critique.

I found his responses disappointing for several reasons.

First, he engages in a fair bit of name-calling, insinuating that anyone who agrees with EFF can’t possibly be a libertarian. (I wonder if Ross has actually bothered to peruse their site? While I don’t agree with every position they’ve taken, I would imagine that he, as a libertarian, would find a lot to like.) The entire critique is suffused with this kind of black and white, “us versus them” attitude. For example, he faults me for both criticizing and praising Apple, as though there’s something inconsistent about praising one aspect of a company and criticizing another. He also, bizarrely, argues that my comparison of DRM to a Maginot Line means that my “friends who like to breach DRM” are the Nazis.

Second, it doesn’t appear that he really engaged my central arguments. For example, he doesn’t make any effort to address the point that DRM hasn’t been an effective piracy deterrent. He doesn’t seem to have grasped my specific criticism of OpenCable–that the DMCA has put consumer electronics companies like TiVo at the mercy of the cable industry, thereby stifling the development of any devices that might be a competitive threat to cable companies. The analogy to the IBM BIOS case (a case in which a platform was opened against the will of its originator) seems to have made no impression on him. And most generally, the distinction between inter-platform and intra-platform competition appears to be completely lost on him.

Finally, throughout the paper, he makes statements like this:

The author also freely admits that some court decisions have not been in accord with his belief in this “balance,” yet we are told that we shouldn’t trust Congress or markets but rather unaccountable judges.

Note the question-begging use of the word “markets.” In point of fact, that’s precisely where we disagree: whether the DMCA is an interference with the free market. A free market is an economic system in which individual rights are protected, contracts are enforced, but people are otherwise left alone by the government. While a circumvention ban might be compatible with market principles, it certainly isn’t required by them. Yet whenever I point out problems that have been caused by the DMCA, he responds by accusing me of being hostile to markets. That’s a non-sequitur.

Mr. Ross and I have some serious policy disagreements about the real-world consequences of the DMCA, and we have some different opinions about whether some of those consequences are good or bad. I plan to address a couple of his specific criticisms in a subsequent blog post. But I wish he’d focus a bit more on engaging on those policy disagreements instead of constantly insinuating that I should have my libertarian card revoked.

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About Tim Lee

Timothy B. Lee (Contributor, 2004-2009) is an adjunct scholar at the Cato Institute. He is currently a PhD student and a member of the Center for Information Technology Policy at Princeton University. He contributes regularly to a variety of online publications, including Ars Technica, Techdirt, Cato @ Liberty, and The Angry Blog. He has been a Mac bigot since 1984, a Unix, vi, and Perl bigot since 1998, and a sworn enemy of HTML-formatted email for as long as certain companies have thought that was a good idea. You can reach him by email at leex1008@umn.edu.

Read more articles by Tim Lee.

  • http://www.blindmindseye.com MikeT

    Sometimes I don’t even know why the PFF even bothers. The only time that I have seen them, Solveig Singleton aside, address their opponents is when they are addressing those who are juvenile such as a commenter on a blog who called DeLong an idiot. DeLong proceeded to misconstrue the thing as an official opinion on the part of the blog. I emailed him that evening pointing out to him that he had made an error, that it was the commenter, but never once did he correct his post or post a small notice saying that he understood that it was just a commenter. To expect them to admit that they are wrong, or that there might be other valid opinions is like expecting the North Koreans to wake up and say… “you know, maybe that ‘Juche idea’ was a load of crap.”

  • http://www.blindmindseye.com MikeT

    Sometimes I don’t even know why the PFF even bothers. The only time that I have seen them, Solveig Singleton aside, address their opponents is when they are addressing those who are juvenile such as a commenter on a blog who called DeLong an idiot. DeLong proceeded to misconstrue the thing as an official opinion on the part of the blog. I emailed him that evening pointing out to him that he had made an error, that it was the commenter, but never once did he correct his post or post a small notice saying that he understood that it was just a commenter. To expect them to admit that they are wrong, or that there might be other valid opinions is like expecting the North Koreans to wake up and say… “you know, maybe that ‘Juche idea’ was a load of crap.”

  • Doug Lay

    I recommend invoking Godwin’s Law and ignoring Patrick Ross until he can wipe the spittle off his lips and engage in civilized discussion. The fact that Net intellectuals as diverse as Glenn Reynolds and Mathew Yglesias have praised your paper speaks for itself, I think. Great work.

  • Doug Lay

    I recommend invoking Godwin’s Law and ignoring Patrick Ross until he can wipe the spittle off his lips and engage in civilized discussion. The fact that Net intellectuals as diverse as Glenn Reynolds and Mathew Yglesias have praised your paper speaks for itself, I think. Great work.

  • http://weblog.ipcentral.info Patrick Ross

    Okay, no need to invoke Godwin’s Law. I said I found it amusing that Lee cited the Maginot Line, because by inference that meant he was comparing file-sharers to Nazis. Again, he was invoking Nazis. I found that amusing, and said so. The humor, and the oddity of Lee’s own evocation of Nazis, is lost on Lee, and he reveals his confusion in the blog above. I chose to ignore that. Then, Doug Lay apparently chooses not to read my blog entries but rather prefers to jump to conclusions and accuse me of having spittle on my lips (I think it’s hardly nice to pick on a man for a congenital drooling condition, I’m offended and demand an apology). Please, read my blog posts — I think I was nothing if not civil. Disagree with my conclusions if you want, but you must read them first in order to do so. You also might want to read Lee’s paper so you can see what I’m responding to — your post suggests the endorsements of two bloggers has led you not to feel the need to.

  • http://weblog.ipcentral.info Patrick Ross

    Okay, no need to invoke Godwin’s Law. I said I found it amusing that Lee cited the Maginot Line, because by inference that meant he was comparing file-sharers to Nazis. Again, he was invoking Nazis. I found that amusing, and said so. The humor, and the oddity of Lee’s own evocation of Nazis, is lost on Lee, and he reveals his confusion in the blog above. I chose to ignore that. Then, Doug Lay apparently chooses not to read my blog entries but rather prefers to jump to conclusions and accuse me of having spittle on my lips (I think it’s hardly nice to pick on a man for a congenital drooling condition, I’m offended and demand an apology). Please, read my blog posts — I think I was nothing if not civil. Disagree with my conclusions if you want, but you must read them first in order to do so. You also might want to read Lee’s paper so you can see what I’m responding to — your post suggests the endorsements of two bloggers has led you not to feel the need to.

  • http://crescatsententia.org PLN

    Re: Maginot Line. We’d have to do a large survey to get reliable data here, but I for one interpret allusions to the Maginot Line as being entirely about the futility of the thing being compared (and the folly of those who support it) rather than implying anything about those who are trying to defeat it. Who on earth takes the Maginot Line to be about anything except French silliness? Again, this IS an empirical question, perhaps I’m in the minority, although clearly Tim Lee is with me.

  • http://crescatsententia.org PLN

    Re: Maginot Line. We’d have to do a large survey to get reliable data here, but I for one interpret allusions to the Maginot Line as being entirely about the futility of the thing being compared (and the folly of those who support it) rather than implying anything about those who are trying to defeat it. Who on earth takes the Maginot Line to be about anything except French silliness? Again, this IS an empirical question, perhaps I’m in the minority, although clearly Tim Lee is with me.

  • Ned Ulbricht

    Libertarian card? A libertarian shouldn’t need to have their card revoked—just burn their stinking card in the street.

  • Ned Ulbricht

    Libertarian card? A libertarian shouldn’t need to have their card revoked—just burn their stinking card in the street.

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