Saturday, February 9, 2013

A Further Analysis of the LFB Email

Earlier I commented on an email sent out by Laissez Faire Books, which announced a new program whereby Jeffrey Tucker, in 12 minutes, will tell all about what is important in books. It will free up your time, says the email. Note this is not a program to provide you with insights as to what a book is about, so that you can decide whether to buy it. Those type write ups have been around for a long time and they are called book reviews. This is Tucker reading the book for you.

But upon further review the new program does a number of other things.

The new program changes the value of an LFB membership subscription.  The subscription was cut by 50% in value (according to the number of free books members receive)....which is what, one would think, most members pay for.

They're trying to sweeten the 50% cut by adding Tucker videos....of which there are surely hundreds already on YouTube.

And, further, since Tucker is anti-IP protection, I'm wondering if he would have any problem with someone downloading what he is now selling and putting it up on the internet for free.

Certainly you tubes videos and 12 minute summaries would be fairly easy to pirate and repost. Jeff would you have a problem with this?

12 comments:

  1. I don't think he'd have a problem with that.

    Also, can't wait for the Kinsella debate. Any update on when this will happen?

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  2. I'm pretty sure Jeffrey wouldn't have a problem with it. And even if piracy were available, people would still buy subscriptions. Many people don't want to depend on the humor of the pirate to access the content they want.

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    1. Why should he care if people pirate his work? He didn't actually do anything. It took no time, no planning, no effort, and no talent to create those videos. And of course people would still subscribe to his web site with no value added even if the videos were pirated for free without any recourse for the pirates or the pirate-users. People will just spend their money out of the goodness of their hearts -- just like the left-wing progressives say it should be.

      People would also invest millions of dollars in creating movies that were immediately free to the public because they are kind and benevolent, and the money doesn't mean anything -- just like the left-wing progressives say it should be.

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    2. Kickstarter projects actually work exactly that way - millions of dollars funded completely voluntarily for a product that is available for free via piracy upon completion. So it's not a case of "will" people do it, they already do. Some video game projects get multi-million dollar funding there.

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    3. Thousands of people may chip in a few bucks for a project they believe benefits them in some way (I have friends in the oil business who donated to the FrackNation, but that was a couple hundred thousand cumulatively -- not millions. As far as I can tell, only a few projects have surpassed $1 million). Some people also voluntarily pay extra income tax. Lots of people also donated to Ron Paul's campaign (me included), however that well seems to have dried up. A few exceptions do not make the rule. People who get no benefit from projects will not keep digging in their pockets to finance them. Rational people running businesses will not generally take tens or hundreds of millions out of their personal wealth or their business to fund movies that will be given away. Libertarian fantasies notwithstanding.

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  3. "Those type write ups have been around for a long time and they are called book reviews."

    Yes I read those anonymous comments in the original post.

    But Wenzel and his Anonymous comments must be using different dictionaries than the rest of the world:

    book review
    noun
    1. a critical description, evaluation, or analysis of a book

    executive summary
    noun
    an overview of the main points of a business plan or proposal

    Yes, granted, the most common usage of the term "executive summary" is for business plans or academic papers, but the concept is the same in all examples.

    An executive summary is NOT a book review.

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  4. I think Wenzel is still clueless about Tucker's support for private means of protecting content such as encryption, contracts, etc.

    If you cannot figure out how to protect your revenue sources without the help of mommy Govt, you're in the wrong business, Wenzel. Why do you hate free markets, Wenzel?

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  5. Looking forward to the Kinsella debate. I'd like to hear Bob's rationale for intellectual monopoly.

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  6. When the State monopolizes the idea protection service by force and violence (patent and copyright laws enforced by gun violence), it is difficult for us to perceive how ideas could be monetized in the absence of that monopoly violence. Likewise, I suppose people wondered how the cotton would be picked if slavery were abolished. But if slavery, or State IP laws, violate the non-aggression principle, it really does not matter whether we can say in advance how the system will work without that aggression.

    Nor will it be sufficent, in rebuttal, to say that because IP is property, people have a natural right of self-defense to defend their own property against theft by others, because at one time slaves were also considered property. Also, even if IP really is property, and people have a right to defend that property, most libertarians would still oppose a State monopoly on such defense, but would prefer private arrangements to defend such property.

    Mr Wenzel provides this website blog for free, as well as his podcast, both of which I highly recommend. I suppose he could put these behind a pay wall, but he is following some other path for reasons that I assume make sense to him, although I cannot spell them out. Likewise, I suppose Mr Tucker is doing the same with his executive summaries and is not very concerned about their free propagation.

    I have read Kinsella and so far am convinced by his anti IP law arguments, but I look forward to Mr Wenzel's rebuttal, for which I will gladly pay, with or without a copyright on it.

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  7. I don't believe Wenzel is promoting government enforced IP. From reading his previous comments, I believe he is referring to voluntary market contracts. So then the question becomes, what is the penalty for breaking these contracts? We shall all be enlightened on 4/7/13.

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  8. Mr.Wenzel is going to get taken apart by Mr. Kinsella. Kinsella and Hoppe have blown IP to pieces.

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  9. I think Mr. Wenzel may surprise some of you idea thieves. He gets it. Kinsella is a fraud.

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