Tucker vs. Tucker: The Brain at War

Jeffrey Tucker is well-known for his views on intellectual property laws. He believes they should be abolished. Open source everything, he says. But what would happen if Tucker launched a business? Would he actually, in his own business, stick to his open source everything beliefs? This is no longer a theoretical question. Tucker has opened a business, Liberty.me. We can now see what Tucker would do, when money is important. I present you with Tucker vs.Tucker:The Brain at War.

Let's start by looking at Tucker's views before his attempt at running his own business (All bold is mine)

On July 5, 2007 in Is Intellectual Property the Key to Success?, he wrote

let's say that the company creates a flavor called Peach Pizzazz, which is a great success, so it copyrights the recipe such that no one can publish it without the company's permission....

If you suggest to the founder and CEO that we should get rid of intellectual property law, you will elicit a sense of panic. "That would completely destroy my business!" How so? "Anyone could just come along and claim to be Georgia Cream, steal our recipe for Peach Pizzazz, duplicate our mixing technique, and then we'd be sunk."

Do you see what is happening here? A small change that would threaten the very life of the business is indirectly being credited, by implication, for being the very life of the business. If that were true, then it would not be business prowess that made this company, but government privilege, and that is emphatically not true in this case. The repeal of intellectual property legislation would do nothing to remove from the business its capacity to create, innovate, advertise, market, and distribute.

In a review of Against Intellectual Monopoly, he wrote:

IP is like a dam in the river of development, or perhaps very large boulders that impede the flow

During an interview of Stephan Kinsella, the debater, Tucker says:

 Of course, if you consistently enforced IP across the board, you could literally bring the whole world to a standstill, couldn't you?

And then we have this gem from Tucker in his article, If You Believe in IP, How Do You Teach Others?

Some Harvard professors are taking very seriously their "intellectual property rights" and have claimed copyright to the ideas that they spread in their classrooms. What prompted this was a website in which students posted their notes to help other students.

The professors have cracked down. It might have been enough to legislate against this behavior in particular. Instead, they wrapped their objection in the great fallacy of our age: the professor owns his ideas and they may not be spread without his permission...

There are two possible ways out of this problem in a digital age: open source or IP. The open-source model has been adopted by MIT, on the one hand, which has made its entire curriculum open source and freely available online. This is a fairly straightforward approach, which finally gets down to the reality that what MIT is charging for is not so much the education but the degree itself. Clarity at last.

Another approach is the one taken by Harvard and, most explicitly, by the University of Texas, which has suggested that professors make the following contract with students:

My lectures are protected by state common law and federal copyright law. They are my own original expression and I record them at the same time that I deliver them in order to secure protection. Whereas you are authorized to take notes in class thereby creating a derivative work from my lecture, the authorization extends only to making one set of notes for your own personal use and no other use. You are not authorized to record my lectures, to provide your notes to anyone else or to make any commercial use of them without express prior permission from me.

 You can make "no other use" of what you learn? Really? That sort of smashes the whole point of education, doesn't it?

The goal of the university is to spread knowledge, not to grant a one-time use for what you learn in the classroom. The aim of an individual student is to gain knowledge that is used in every possible way for a lifetime — and to pass the ideas on to others.

In fact, what the contract requires is impossible. It is not as if our bodies are equipped with hard drives that can be wiped clean after the semester is over. In any case, even if we were so equipped, that would defeat the whole point of taking classes and paying universities for offering them.

Now let us take a look at the new Tucker, as operator of Liberty.me. The below comes from the Terms of Use agreement on the web site (My bold)

TERMS OF USE AGREEMENT

This Terms of Use Agreement (“Terms Agreement”) sets forth the terms of service that governs our relationship with all individuals and organizations who interact with Liberty.me. By using or accessing Liberty.me, you agree to this Terms Agreement.....

 You agree to not repost or otherwise distribute content that is made exclusively available to Liberty.me members (such as Liberty Guides) to other third parties.

What? What exclusivity? What happened to open source? What happened to "the great fallacy of our age: the professor owns his ideas and they may not be spread without his permission....?"

How can Tucker hold a view that everything should be open sourced, yet he puts up a paywall at his site that prevents access to some material AND also prohibits redistribution?

What is going on here? Was Tucker ever serious about his anti-IP position? Has he changed his opinion? Shouldn't the bowtied Tucker followers be screaming at Tucker, "Tear down that wall, Jeff!"? Why are they silent? Why aren't his subscribers questioning this contradiction in Tucker's stance? Will anyone stand on principle at Liberty.me and what should that principle be? Why is there no debate about this in the Liberty.me chat rooms? Is there no one concerned about principle on this issue, which Tucker, in the past, has been so vocal about? Or are those who attempt to raise such questions being banned, by this supposed-advocate of open source and freedom?

I look forward to any Tucker response that provides insights into this seeming quandaries. If he doesn't IP protect any response, I will post it here at EPJ.