James DeLong laments young libertarians’ anti-IP tendencies, quoting my former colleague Adam Theirer:
Almost every young libertarian I come in contact with these days is equally opposed not just to the sort of new copyright protections that the content providers seek, but even to traditional copyright laws and rules that pre-date the 76 Act. And not all of these people are wacko libertarian-anarchist types. Many respected young libertarian minds are turning against copyright. I don’t believe that the best strategy is to ignore them. You guys should engage them in debate and defend your views before this extreme anti-IP position becomes more mainstream.
Since I might be one of the young libertarians he’s referring to, I thought I’d briefly comment on this. I agree with Adam that young libertarians tend to be more skeptical of intellectual property law than older ones, and I appreciate his urging his colleagues to engage our arguments. However, I respectfully disagree with the contention that most of us are “equally opposed” to all intellectual property laws. To the contrary, most of the young libertarian professionals I know are supporters of intellectual property, but are critical of the way that the powers of the copyright industry have been expanded in recent years. I made such a critique a few months ago.
To make sure this wasn’t just me, I conducted a quick poll on a mailing list I’m on, which is dominated by libertarian professionals under 35. Of the nine who responded, seven identified themselves with this school of thought, whereas only 2 identified themselves as favoring the abolition of intellectual property. (None of them expressed support for the status quo or for further strengthening) I’m not going to claim that my friends are representative of young libertarians generally, but clearly there are a lot of us who aren’t IP anarchists.
So why are we critical of the content industry? DeLong seems to think it’s because of our unsophisticated view of property rights. Apparently, we’re fixated on the notion that property has to be a physical object, and so we can’t wrap our brains around the complexities of intangible property. I’ll just say I don’t think that’s right. I think every one of the people who responded to my little poll would enthusiastically endorse strong protections of other “intangible” rights, such as contract enforcement.
So it doesn’t appaer to me that DeLong took Adam’s suggestion that he engage his critics very seriously. He’s very good at taking potshots at the anti-IP fringe, but I’ve hardly ever seen him seriously engage his mainstream opponents. Their goal isn’t to abolish intellectual property, but to re-assert the principles that grounded America’s intellectual property system for the first 200 years of our nation’s existence.
On the off chance that Mr. DeLong is unfamiliar with this critique, allow me to pose four questions that could serve as a useful starting point for discussion. They’re about my pet issue, the Digital Millenium Copyright Act, which I think is at the center of a lot of copyright-related disputes. They’re questions that, despite the DeLong’s voluminous writings on high-tech copyright in general and the DMCA in particular, I’ve never seen him address directly:
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