StephanKinsella.com

‘Nuff said.

This is an amazing animation by Nina Paley, “America’s Best-Loved Unknown Cartoonist” (and creator of the amazing animated (and free online) film Sita Sings the Blues, given rave reviews including 4 stars by Roger Ebert). Entitled “All Creative Work Is Derivative” (and blogged here on her blog), and concluding “All creative work builds on what came before,” the video is built from images of of statues and paintings at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. As she explains on All Creative Work Is Derivative (Minute Meme #2),

Copyright control extends not just to verbatim copies, but to “derivative works.” This has led to censorship on a grand scale. For example, the seminal German silent film “Nosferatu” was deemed a derivative work of “Dracula” and courts ordered all copies destroyed. Shortly before his death, author J.D. Salinger convinced U.S. courts to censor another author who transformed his characters. And so on.

The whole history of human culture evolves through copying, making tiny transformations (sometimes called “errors”) with each replication. Copying is the engine of cultural progress. It is not “stealing.” It is, in fact, quite beautiful, and leads to a cultural diversity that inspires awe.

I learned of Nina’s work when she sent me a nice email, an edited version of which follows:

Hello Stephan,

I recently read “Against Intellectual Property” and liked it very much. It reminded me of some things I’ve written: Intellectual Property is Slavery and Redefining Property: Lessons from American History; also My Official Position on Copyright.

I especially enjoyed your unique twist on Trademark, that trademark suits should be brought by consumers against frauds, rather than by trademark “owners.” I haven’t thought it all through to form my own solid opinion yet, but I like the novel approach.

Last year I released my feature film, Sita Sings the Blues, under a copyleft license (CC-BY-SA).

I’m now artist-in-residence at QuestionCopyright.org, and do what I can to promote alternatives to copyright. (Actually I’m a copyright abolitionist, but many find that identification unpalatable.)

Anyway, thanks for the good book, I’m recommending it to my Free Culture buddies.

Update: See also this amazing, fascinating short documentary with Nina Paley, The Revolution Will Be Animated:

The Revolution Will Be Animated from Marine Lormant Sebag on Vimeo.

See also her Copying Is Not Theft “Minute Meme”:

[Mises; AM]

see

KOL 035 | Antiwar Interview: Federalism, Bill of Rights, Constitutional Sentimentalism, IP (2010)

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Interesting when people are hoisted by their own petard–it’s terrible when those who oppose the leviathan are accused of being motivated by bigotry, ain’t it?

FEBRUARY 12, 2010

Will Wilkinson and Brink Lindsey Get the Finger
Arnold Kling

from Ed Kilgore, of the Progressive Policy Institute.

Certainly, few self-conscious libertarians have much tolerance for racism, but they are encouraging a point of view about “welfare” that has long been catnip to racists. And that’s a problem for liberals. How can an alliance last in a climate where a progressive think tanker has to look down the rostrum at that nice Cato Institute colleague and wonder if he or she privately thinks the poor are “looter scum”;

People like Wilkinson, Lindsey, and myself have indeed spoken out against “welfare” of the auto bailout and the “looter scum” of the bailed-out financial industry. On the other hand, when people criticize my pro-immigration stance on the grounds that we will be adding to the welfare burden and thereby enlarging the state, my reply is that welfare is not the state enlargement that I fear. What I fear is the state’s control of education, health care, the financial industry, and so on.Ed Kilgore exemplifies what Thomas Sowell calls “using the poor as mascots.” That is, when a libertarian opposes a statist agenda, Kilgore comes back and accuses us of being racists and hurting the poor.

I am disappointed but not at all surprised to see this attitude expressed. In fact, I am glad to see this rhetoric out in the open. If the rest of the Progressive movement wants to rally to this flag, it helps clarify the situation for libertarians.

Somin’s overall take on secession is reasonable, but notice how he doesn’t consider the 600,000 people killed in the Civil War, or the option of not fighting that war, when he says that Northern victory was a “far better outcome” than Southern victory would have been. Anyway, no offense, preening anti-secessionist, pro-Lincoln “libertarians” such as Tim Sandefur.

5. “Two Concepts of Rationality”, by Danny Frederick

6. “Is There an ‘Anomalous’ Section of the Laffer Curve?”, by Walter E. Block

7. “How Anticommonism ‘Cemented’ the American Conservative Movement in a Liberal Age of Conformity, 1945–64″, by Lee Haddigan

and my Cajun heritage, and apropos nothing in particular, here is the joke “Illegal Cock Fight”:

Jeff Tucker was interviewed yesterday by Mark Edge, as part of his “Edgington Post Interview Series,” for his Free Talk Live radio show, about the Mises Institute’s “open information” approach (see Jeff Tucker, A Theory of Open, B.K. Marcus, Mises.org on iTunes U, Doug French, The Intellectual Revolution Is in Process). The interview is lasts about 24 minutes, and starts at 2:52:07 in the Feb. 8, 2010 show. Tucker makes some great points, such as his idea that perhaps the antitrust law prevented movie studios from owning the theaters and thus may have made them less likely to be willing to consider online distribution models; and his example of how the Cantor-Cox book, which was released for free online months before the paper version, helped to create a ready-made audience for the paper book.

[Mises; AM]

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As I’ve noted elsewhere (see posts appended below), the left-libertarian (and other) critics of corporate limited liability are off the mark. As far as limited liability for contractual obligations and debts, this is a contractual matter. As for limited liability (of shareholders) for torts (committed by employees of the corporation), there is simply no reason for the shareholder to be vicariously liable for acts committed by the employees merely by virtue of owning stock in the company. As Hessen argues:

The proper principle of liability should be that whoever controls a business, regardless of its legal form, should be personally liable for the torts of agents and employees. Thus, in partnerships, vicarious liability would fall upon the general partners only, while in corporations, the officers would be liable.

It should be no surprise that Rothbard was good on this issue as well. In Making Economic Sense, ch. 19, he writes:

None of this means that tort law itself is in no need of reform. The problem is not really quantitative but qualitative: who should be liable for what damages? In particular, we must put an end to the theory of”vicarious liability,” i.e., that people or groups are liable, not because their actions incurred damages, but simply because they happened to be nearby and are conveniently wealthy, i.e., in the apt if inelegant legal phrase, they happily possess “deep pockets.”

Thus, if we bought a product from a retailer and the product is defective, it is the retailer that should be liable and not the manufacturer, since we did not make a contract with the manufacturer (unless he placed an explicit warranty upon the product). It is the retailer’s business to sue the wholesaler, the latter the manufacturer, etc., provided the latter really did break his contract by providing a defective product.

Similarly, if a corporate manager committed a wrong and damaged the person or property of others, there is no reason but “deep pockets” to make the stockholders pay, provided that the latter were innocent and did not order the manager to engage in these tortious actions.

To the extent, then, that cries about an insurance crisis reflect an increased propensity by juries to sock it to “soul-less corporations,” i.e., to the stockholders, then the remedy is to take that right away from them by changing tort law to make liable only those actually committing wrongful acts.

Let liability, in short, be full and complete; but let it rest only upon those at fault, i.e., those actually damaging the persons and property of others.

For more, see: extensive quotes from Hessen and Rothbard in Block and Huebert’s article. Sheldon Richman also, at least as recently as 2005, seems to hold similar views.

See also: Corporate Personhood, Limited Liability, and Double Taxation; Legitimizing the Corporation and Other Posts; Defending Corporations: Block and Huebert; Pilon on Corporations: A Discussion with Kevin Carson; Corporations and Limited Liability for Torts; In Defense of the Corporation.

Four new articles published today in Libertarian Papers, vol. 2 (2010):

1. “Moundsville Penitentiary Reconsidered: Second Thoughts on Hyperreality at a Small Town Prison Tour”, by Allen Mendenhall

Abstract: In 2007, I toured Moundsville Penitentiary, a tourist spectacle that was once—and fairly recently—a working prison. I wrote about the experience as would a journalist, except that my working paradigm was the postmodern theory of hyperreality, which Jean Baudrillard used to describe the complex tensions between reality and illusion. A term of semiotics, hyperreality refers to the disappearance of the referent and its subsequent, oft-replicated simulation. It almost always involves strategically controlled images that distort and conceal true meaning. The International Journal of Baudrillard Studies published my essay in January 2009. Shortly thereafter, many of my libertarian friends and colleagues wrote to ask for clarification or to express their disagreements. In what follows, whether I’m describing hyperreality or speculating about the horror-themed attractions at Moundsville Penitentiary, my principal concern is laying the libertarian foundation for my argument. I do not mean to defend my theories so much as explain them; nor do I insist that my cultural criticism is somehow “the” right way. I simply hope to fill a critical vacuum and to generate conversation not only about the condition of the American prison system writ large, but also about state-run tourist attractions that glorify the history of the sovereign at the expense of real knowledge about human suffering.

2. “Austrian Business Cycle Theory: Are 100 Percent Reserves Sufficient to Prevent a Business Cycle?”, by Philipp Bagus

Abstract: Authors in the Austrian tradition have made the credit expansion of a fractional reserve banking system as the prime cause of business cycles. Authors such as Selgin (1988) and White (1999) have argued that a solution to this problem would be a free banking system. They maintain that the competition between banks would limit the credit expansion effectively. Other authors such as Rothbard (1991) and Huerta de Soto (2006) have gone further and advocated a 100 percent reserve banking system ruling out credit expansion altogether. In this article it is argued that a 100 percent reserve system can still bring about business cycles through excessive maturity mismatching between deposits and loans.

3. “Rejoinder to Carnis on Private Roads”, by Walter E. Block

Abstract: Carnis (2009) is a commentary on a debate I (Block and Block, 1976; Block, 1978c) have been having with Tullock (1976) on the privatization of roads. The present paper is a rejoinder to Carnis (2009) who is highly critical of Tullock’s share of the debate, and offers some luke-warm support of my side of this issue, plus some criticisms of it.

4. “Van Dun on Freedom and Property: A Critique”, by Walter E. Block

Abstract: Van Dun rejects private road ownership on the ground that owners will trap homeowners whose property abuts their thoroughfares. The present paper rejects this claim, and demonstrates that a free enterprise system of private ownership will maximize the welfare of householders, not minimize it.

[Mises]

In his post OK, So What Have I Been Up to These Last Four Years?, Gene Callahan notes he has almost finished his PhD dissertation, so one assumes his PhD is imminent. The dissertation also looks very interesting, in particular this part:

Chapter VIII examines some post-founding American history in light of Oakeshott’s contention that the rationalist can never really proceed as he purports to do. This chapter presents evidence suggesting that the ‘failure to follow the letter of the Constitution’ is not, as some contemporary, ‘strict constructionists’ contend, a peculiarly modern phenomenon, beginning, depending on which strict constructionist to which one is attending, with Lincoln and the American Civil War, with Roosevelt and the New Deal, with the Cold War, or with George W. Bush and the ‘War on Terror’, but is, instead, something that began almost as soon as the U. S. Constitution was adopted, and is not (primarily) a symptom of bad faith, but, rather, an inevitable consequence of the fact that no such rationalist design can ever dictate subsequent practice in the way that it is meant to do.

Congrats to Gene.