Leonard E. Read, the founder of the Foundation for Economic Education in 1946, is often heralded for his role in kick-starting the libertarian movement after World War II. The sons of FEE went on to do great good for the world, and FEE is often called the father of all libertarian think tanks–institutions that work outside of official academia to advance radical ideas.
He did more than merely sponsor lectures and publish. As a matter of fact, others were doing the same. So far as I know, no one has yet noticed that he used a secret weapon in his struggle, something that made him truly different and unusually effect. He eschewed the use of exclusive copyright.
Pick up any book or publication from FEE before the 1990s. You will see a remarkable and visionary sentence on the copyright page: “Permission to reprint granted without special request.” This one sentence is what made it happen. Any newspaper could print a column. Any publisher could include an essay. Indeed, he invited any publisher to take FEE book and publish it and sell it, owing no royalties and asking no permissions.
The publisher was not even asked to acknowledge its source! So in this sense, he was even more radical than Creative Commons attribution license. It was copyrighted solely so that someone else couldn’t copyright it, and then maximum permissions were granted. In effect, Read was putting all of the scholarship of FEE in the public domain as soon as it was published.
This saved on the grueling bureaucratic struggle involved with granting permissions, and keeping up with the permissions they granted. Asking no fees or royalties meant saving on accounting bureaucracy as well.
Read was not an anarchist but rather a believer in “limited government,” but regardless, this much is true: he hated the state. He saw it as the great enemy of freedom, creativity, and social progress. In fact, he was even more radical: he loathed all restrictions on information. He must have seen that restricting the flow of information through conventional copyright relies upon state interference to make a non-scarce thing–information–artificially scarce. This went against his entire temperament.
As he wrote: “Freedom works its wonders simply because the generative capacity of countless millions has no external force standing against its release!”
But there is a more important point that Read understood. He understood that the critical problem faced by what he called the “freedom philosophy” was not piracy. From his point of view, the ideas of liberty were not “stolen” nearly enough. The problem that he sought to overcome was not too much copying, it was not enough copying. He saw that his number one goal had to be busting up the obscurity of these ideas and getting them out to the public. Conventional copyright was not a help in this respect; it was a hindrance.
Never forget that Read had a background in business. He was head of the Chamber of Commerce in Los Angeles before founding FEE. He must have seen countless business start and fail, not because they didn’t have a good product, but because people didn’t know about the product enough to go and buy it. The critical problem that every innovator faces, after coming up with the innovation, is getting the word out.
Think of a new hamburger stand in Los Angeles. It doesn’t matter how great the burgers are, if people don’t know about it, it will not succeed. Imagine if some huge fan wanted to print up t-shirts about the hamburgers. Why in the world would the owner of the joint want to use the government to extract money from the t-shirt printer? That would be nuts.
And let’s say that another burger company in town started up that used the same recipe. What then? The answer is to regard the imitation as flattery, and compete in the most aggressive possible way. It keeps you on your toes, keep you innovating, and the excitement of the competition itself can attract imitation. And who is going to benefit the most from this struggle, the original institution or its copy? The answer is shown to us every day. Originators who keep innovating benefit.
In the same way, Read saw himself in the idea business. Why, then, would he turn to the state to restrict the flow of ideas? That would cut into everything he ever wanted to do. Indeed, rather than restricting access to FEE texts, he begged the world to take them and print them and distribute them. He wanted this more than anything else.
You will note that he was very prolific, but why? Because he had a lifetime burning passion to get the world out in every possible way. He stated the freedom philosophy again and again in every way he could imagine and encouraged others to do the same. He was an evangelist spreading the news. He wanted to be pirated so that he could see that he was making a difference.
Thank goodness for his vision here. But please note what this means. The modern freedom movement depended heavily on open source materials. It had an effect on the world because it eschewed restriction, state-means of imposing artificial scarcities, and sought above all else to get the word out. The modern libertarian movement was born in Creative Commons and grew through that means.
Indeed it was true: FEE material was everywhere! It was in newspapers, magazines, monographs, books, and printed by all existing technologies. People in those days report that you couldn’t help bumping into it. I’m telling you that this gentlemen Read knew what he was doing. He went against the pack. Everyone else was availing themselves to copyright. He said no. And he stuck to it.
Did this harm FEE? Quite the contrary! IT was the best thing that ever happened to the institution and to the ideas it represented. Just as Read said, freedom worked. The implications are profound.
What about the Mises Institute? Lew Rockwell adopted this model in the early days of the Institute, particularly for newsletter. The default permissions were the same as Read’s own! We never had the money to print too much in the way of books. And reprinting in those days involved terrible copyright struggles. The issue went off the radar screen. But as Creative Commons appeared, Mises.org adopted it as its own, and it has been a wild success. We are nowadays taking the radical step of putting our books into this status as well.
This is all about practicing what you preach but there is more to it than that: it is about developing an effective tactic for spreading truth. It’s a glorious thing what Read did, if only by instinct. Would that we all had his instinct for how to rise from obscurity into prominence.
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to sasha radeta:
have you never been lent a book by a friend, or borrowed from a public library? if no, you’re a very singular individual; if yes, how do you rationalize the “trespass”? why shouldn’t you be purchasing the item?
Newson,
If I buy a personal, non-commercial use of someone else’s book — i have a right to borrow this “use” that now belongs to me (if there was no contractual clause that would prevent me in this).
Trespass only occurs when there is a violation in allowed use of someone’s property. You question: “why shouldn’t you be purchasing the item” really makes no sense…
Honestly, if I get a sudden urge to replicate some best-seller into millions of copies and flood the market with it, I will first try to purchase co-ownership or full-ownership rights over that book. Since these ownership rights are rather expensive, I will probably be satisfied just with purchase of their limited use. Violating these terms would be nothing but a theft… And even if I borrow the use of that book from someone else — that does give me the right to assume the full ownership and to do whatever the heck I want with it.
Best regards,
Sasha Radeta,
IP prevents third parties from independent and or simultaneous creation of substantially similar works, not to mention the extension and elaboration of IP protected concepts. This restraint of trade is tantamount to right to profit for the first to obtain IP protection. Your narrow viewpoint apparently prevents you from seeing the wide ranging and negative repercussions of IP.
Stanly,
You are now trying to get on the utilitarian bandwagon, where you try to prove that by violating property rights and by taking away economic incentives for creative people, you would create a communal system superior to private property.
In the absence of copyright (contract and tort enforcement), majority of authors would never be able to yield any significant economic benefit from their work of authorship, since not many publishers would be foolish enough to purchase an input for a free good (price comes to zero when market is flooded with virtually unlimited supply of unauthorized copies). Authors would depend on charity and they would be forced to perform some other services to survive — yet, these options exist today and best-selling authors are generally not keen to embrace the “open source” (proving that such business models are not superior to copyright from the authors’ viewpoint). By taking economic incentive away from authorship, IP communists think they would see more of it…
My viewpoint never sidetracked from private property rights (these are indeed strict and rigid views, call them narrow if you will). If you argue that some property rights should be abolished when it comes to works of ownership — just based on the alleged benefits of free unlimited access to someone’s property — you are on slippery slope of socialism.
Stanly’s false argument can be applied to all property rights: why have any restrictions to access of common folk to some valuable property held by few… why not allow any poor person who rents a car to assume its full ownership — so that he can sell it, or rent it, to someone else. Companies like Hertz are restricting such “trade” in the same way copyright holder restricts “trade” and commercial use of his own property…
Heck, why not abolish all private property rights and we would all have these marvelous benefits that IP-communists offer to owners of works of authorship…
to sasha radeta:
“If I buy a personal, non-commercial use of someone else’s book — i have a right to borrow this “use” that now belongs to me (if there was no contractual clause that would prevent me in this).”
i don’t understand what you’re trying to say. perhaps it would be more intelligible if you use the example of borrowing a harry potter novel from a friend to read – is this trespass in your view? what about if you read your friend’s harry potter and then lend it to your flatmate to read as well. is all this kosher?
and what about libraries? do they not steal opportunity profits from authors? i’m not aware of authors being permitted to bar their works from libraries.
@ktibuk
“I am an anarchist.”
No, you are not.
You are either simply a liar. Or stupid.
Nobody can be an anarchist and defend monopolies on the same time.
Intellectual “property” is a monopoly on ideas. It has to be enforced by the state (or likewise organisations). It is against the NAP.
Therefore you either don’t understand this dilemma or you are lying.
Choose for yourself!
Newson,
I already answered your silly questions… Going to your examples: both library and your friend only purchased LIMITED USE of Harry Potter’s book. They can loan that limited use to anyone (including you) — but the library is not a legal owner of that book. That means that by borrowing LIMITED USE of someone else’s property you don’t miraculously obtain full ownership rights to do whatever you want with it.
Or to put it in simpler terms for you: library cannot legally transfer ownership title over something it does not own — and just because you don’t have a capacity to understand ownership rights, it doesn’t excuse you if you violate them.
Best regards,
to sasha radeta:
so i can loan harry potter to ten thousand of my closest friends rather than one, is that what you’re saying? and the public library can do likewise to its one hundred thousand members?
is that within the spirit of your LIMITED USE?
Newson,
absolutely. Libraries are no violating any copyright by loaning their limited use of copyright holders’ property (no contract prevented them to do this). Persons borrowing this limited use from libraries are not trespassing, as long as they stick with the type of use authorized by rightful owners of these books.
What’s the controversy here?
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