Mises.org Is Going Open Source

A commenter, Stewart, has brought to my attention that Mises.org is going Open Source.

Congratulations must be offered to the Institute for following through in a principled manner on the beliefs they hold.

Further, Stewart asked if it has changed my mind on hypocrisy of the Institute. Actually, from these actions, one must say that there has been no hypocrisy on their part at all.

Webster's dictionary defines hypocrisy as, "a feigning to be what one is not." It's clear that the Mises Institute, after the contradiction between their beliefs and their actions was brought to their attention, acted with utmost speed to align their practices with their beliefs.

Stewart also asks, "Do you plan on following through with your promise to publish an edition of Last Knight?" The short answer is yes. However, as it appears that Mises is opening the " complete copy of Mises.org. This includes all the books, all the media, all the journals, all the source code, and the complete database behind mises.org" I can see some other properties that I may want to do something with first.

I hasten to add that I continue to see Open Source as a valid marketing strategy versus the basis for a universal intellectual property theory. I continue work on my book which will address this issue and others in detail. I'm sure the debate will liven up at that point again. In the meantime, let's enjoy this new gift the Mises Institute has given us.

The Real Leonard Read

Jeffrey Tucker is out with a column today hailing Leonard Read as an Open Source adovocate. Ah, well, sort of.

Read ranks right up there with Lew Rockwell as a genius entrepreneur of free market ideas. I can see why Read would give away material or "pull" copyrights to bring more attention to his ideas. But Read was ALWAYS thinking about marketing his Foundation for Economic Education, ALWAYS. I heard him give a speech once, about how he struck up conversations about FEE, with those sitting next to him in first class on plane rides. It was a practiced and detailed approach, for the person sittng next to him on a plane!

But, don't think for a minute that Read in his open-source marketing philosophy didn't think there weren't rights attached to the a person's writings. Here's Gary North on the decidedly non-open way Read handled outside writing of his employees:

I could see that FEE was an appendage of Read, and he was not going to let FEE grow beyond what it already was: a place for him to schmooze and for Poirot to edit The Freeman. The week that I arrived in Irvington, Read informed me of his policy that FEE would receive every dime I would ever earn in my off-hours, such as fees for writing and lecturing, which were what I did best. I saw that this would hurt my career in the long run. At $18,000 a year, I had counted on outside income to enable me to compete with stockbrokers in the local real estate market, which was merely high priced then, rather than astronomical, which it is today – the main reason why FEE has not been able to hire full-time young scholars since 1973.

If Read had allowed a 50-50 split, I might have stayed, but FEE was too bureaucratic for my tastes.

Read's marketing abilities were pure genius, but his failure to allow true freedom for his employees cost him great talents such as North. Read may have not got this, or had a different agenda, but Mises clearly understood this when he wrote:

"It is unlikely that people would undertake the laborious task of writing such publications if everyone were free to reproduce them."--Human Action, chapter XXIII, part 6.

Much less, if you had to hand over all your initial earnings from a creation!

That was Leonard Read.

A Response from Mr. Tucker

UPDATE: Jeffrey Tucker has responded to my "Open" email. As part of his response, he has specifically stated that he is giving me no right to reproduce the email he sent me, so all I can do is explain my view of the tone. And in that sense all I can say is that it surpasses the "bullshit" email, in terms of being rude and crude. The current response makes the "bullshit" email look downright angelic.

I really love hard punching intellectual debate, and don't get what is going on here at all. I am moving on. I will continue writing my book on intellectual property and will post a notice here at the blog when it is complete.

An Open Letter to Jeffrey A. Tucker

Dear Mr. Tucker,

Please know that I am writing this letter to you as an "Open" letter and will be publishing a copy of it at EPJ. Likewise, should you choose to respond, and unless you stipulate otherwise, I may publish all or portions of your reply, at EPJ.

I note that you have now granted permission to everyone to republish one article you have written. You write:

One last note: do not write me with some smarty pants remark about how, if we are serious, the Mises Institute should allow anyone to publish our books. All our new works, insofar as it is possible, will be published with a Creative Commons license as a matter of signed contract with authors. As for this article, please "steal" it. That goes for anything I write. If you can sell it and make a buck, good for you. If you become a millionaire, shame on me for not thinking of it first.

Given your views on intellectual property, could you please extend this permission to all of your writings at LRC.

Further, I am interested in publishing, from time to time, in various formats, selected articles identified at Mises.org as "Daily Articles". Could you please verify that given your beliefs on intellectual property that I have irrevocable permission to do so.

Further, if there is some reason that this permission can not be granted, could you be so kind to provide the reasoning behind the failure by Mises.org to meet your own standards of belief in this matter.

Thank you.

Sincerely yours,

Robert Wenzel

Now If We Could Only Get Danielle Steele and J.K. Rowling To Think Like This

Jeffrey Tucker has "pulled" the copyright on all his present and future writings. In an article at LRC today, he writes:

As for this article, please "steal" it. That goes for anything I write. If you can sell it and make a buck, good for you. If you become a millionaire, shame on me for not thinking of it first.

Unfortunately, Tucker's writings are about as popular and in demand as would be a self help book written by George W. Bush.

In reviewing Tucker's writings, for my upcoming book, I have discovered logical errors and factual errors across his writings on intellectual property, all of which I will detail in the book. However, I can't resist this gem in Tucker's pulling of his copyright. He writes,"If you become a millionaire, shame on me for not thinking of it first."

What does "thinking about it first" have anything to do with it?

Let's suspend disbelief for a moment and assume that Tucker writes a book that the masses will crave. In this case, does it mean that Tucker under his copyrightless world will benefit? Absolutely not. The beneficiaries will be the companies that have the most efficient printing equipment and who have the best distribution systems.

Since Tucker has pulled the copyright on his works, they have no incentive to negotiate with him. Zero. They will just print his book. Tucker will bring up the 9-11 Commission Report as an example of why the book will be published with only one publisher. But Tucker forgets one critical point, there were no royalties paid to anyone on the 9-11 book. For Tucker, to mimic the results of the 9-11 book he would not only have to pull the copyright, but cancel any royalties or other payments for his book, otherwise any other publisher (other than Tucker's initial publisher) will have an advantage over Tucker's chosen publisher because they won't have to pay Tucker a royalty. Thus, they can always undercut the price of Tucker's chosen publisher and still make more money than Tucker's publisher.

It isn't always the person who is first to market with a product, as Tucker claims, (See my long list in my book), sometimes it is those that find ways to cut costs. And in Tucker's world of no copyright, the most obvious cost to eliminate would be royalty payments to Tucker.

On another point in this mornings musings from Tucker, Tucker tells us that, at "the Mises Institute... All our new works, insofar as it is possible, will be published with a Creative Commons license as a matter of signed contract with authors."

But, why stop there, why not allow authors of previous Mises published writings to publish copies of their own books? I'm sure Gene Callahan would be perfectly willing to accept such an offer, as would any other Mises authors (if there are any others) that initially published under a fixed fee that Tucker has written is an evil way for a publisher to act:

So I say to all authors: please look at your contracts. Don't sign your life away. Publish on the condition of Creative Commons. Claim your rights back as a creator and an author.

Now is your chance to really repent (based on your thinkng on copyright), Mises Institute, FREE GENE CALLAHAN's writings from what you claim are evil ways to snag an author.

Oh, and I am still waiting on the go ahead to publish Mises: Last Knight of Liberalism, for which the Mises Institute holds the copyright. If you are going to be consistent, be consistent.

Jeffrey Tucker, Again

A couple of you have emailed me to point out that Jeffrey Tucker is out with another attack on the rights of individuals and corporations to do as they please with what they produce. (Except, of course for Mises Institute books, specifically Mises: The Last Knight of Liberalism, where Tucker refuses to even discuss why I shouldn't be granted the right to publish the book under his anti-copyright view of the world.)

I didn't miss his piece. The errors in his thinking continue to pile up. In fact, there are so many that only a book will do justice to covering all of them.

I have been thinking about the relationship between the nature of property, property rights and government and have been planning to write a book on the subject, a few years down the road. However, Tucker's aggressive promotion of totalitarian anti-copyright and anti-patent thinking is a subset of property, property rights and government that needs to be addressed now.

Thus, I have decided to put aside a number of other projects to specifically address , in book form, the Kinsella-Tucker fallacies.

I believe the proper libertarian understanding of property rights solves the problem of "intellectual property" protection for, say, even the tough situations, such as, rights for those that first discovered how to start a fire or were the first to use the wheel. And the solution is not open source marketing. I'll cover all this and more.

The book is, for the most part, already "in my head" so it shouldn't take long to put it to paper, just a little bit of additional research. When it is in print, you will be the first to know.

The Crusader Against Intellectual Property....

...continues to split his life between reality and play theories.

He is out today with another screed against intellectual property, but continues to refuse to grant me rights to print the MI copyrighted book, Mises: Last Knight of Liberalism by Guido Jorg Hulsmann.

Jeff Tucker's confusion today is multiple. He seems to believe that there is only one option to all marketing and that is open source. And that somehow, open source is the only free market way.

Of course, in reality, there are many methods to market. You can have open source, licensing and sales of a product. Some methods work better for some products than others. The best way to find out what is the best for each market is to leave everyone in every market to proceed on their own in developing their own products and marketing methods.

A movie theatre owner may believe you have to charge for providing beverages. He may argue in faulty fashion, "This is the only free market way. Let me charge what I want and so must everyone else." He is wrong, it is just one way. On a free market he should be allowed to charge whatever he wants, but it s not the only way. At art gallery owner who chooses to sell art works versus charging for viewing may do the exact opposite of the theatre owner and give away expensive beverage, wine and champagne! The art owner might say "This is the only free market way. To charge for beverage is silly." He is wrong, it is one marketing method.

Jeff Tucker is wrong if he believes open market is the only method to marketing, production and sales, and he continues to prove this in his other world of reality, when he refuses to give me permission to publish Last Knight.

Free markets are about choice, any product that I develop I should have the right to bring it to market in any fashion I choose, on an exclusive basis, on an open source basis, or some method in the middle. Tucker's demand that I publish my work as open source is totalitarian. And, typical of totalitarians, somehow in his mind he has found a loophole where it doesn't apply to projects he is involved with, i.e., The Last Knight.

A "Bullshit" Response from Jeffrey Tucker

This is the toughest post I have ever had to sit down to write. It involves top personnel at an institute that, overall, I respect very much, the Mises Institute. In an email, I was warned by a friend:

So anyway, just letting you know that you will forever be "that freaking guy who was trying to embarrass us on copyrights when we lose money on that side of the business and put the books online for free?!"

So let me set things straight from the start, my intentions in this post are purely academic in nature, outside of very specific comments directed at Jeffrey Tucker for his extremely rude and crude comment to me, I am continuing this debate for academic purposes.

I consider the Mises Institute to be the number one, bar none, economic educational institute in the world. No other organization has ever done as much to correct falsehoods in the world of economics. I would imagine that from time to time they have had to stand up against powerful forces when they have taken stands on principle. Because of them a large body of Austrian and libertarian scholars are beginning to infiltrate academia and business. The institute overall is doing heroic things. It is in my will.

I consider the founder of MI, Lew Rockwell, to be an entrepreneurial genius when it comes to understanding how to market Austrian economic and libertarian ideas. When I observe others who have launched various projects that have not reached their original goals and contrast this with the success of everything Rockwell launches, e.g. the Mises Institute, LewRockwell.com, his involvement with the Ron Paul campaign and his latest venture, podcasts, it is obvious to me that Austrian economics and liberty have a much, much greater worldwide audience because of the talents of Rockwell. I urge some biographer to chronicle the life of Rockwell so that future generations of Austrians and libertarians in general have an understanding of the superior marketing, management, wisdom and skills of this great man.

Murray Rothbard has left us with many remarkable writings from which we can learn many things. But as great as his writings are, he did not leave this earth before he clearly hooked up his star with Rockwell and for that we should be as truly grateful as we are for his writings.

All this said, I have a bone to pick with one theory coming out of the Mises Institute. I consider the theory absurd and dangerous, and I have, indeed, started picking at that bone. The theory seems to have been launched by Stephan Kinsella and is clearly being advanced by Mises Institute editorial vice president of www.mises.org, Jeffrey Tucker. The core of the theory is that "intellectual property" is not property and thus no one has the right to exclusive use of it, not even the original creator of the work. My initial public drive-by sniper shot at the theory occurred in my post, Stephan Kinsella versus Barack Obama On Copyright Protection. Just having a little fun at the expense of the anti-intellectual property crusader who bars anyone from profiting from his work.

I believe the relationship between property and government is greatly misunderstood, even by libertarians, and I am in the very early stages of putting a book together on the topic. I believe a number of errors Kinsella makes are based on this misunderstanding of property and government, but a full treatment of this will have to wait for the book. However, I have been carefully observing Kinsella's commentary, and indeed had planned to, over-time, turn up the heat a bit and highlight, here at EPJ, some of my disagreements with Kinsella.

This brings us to this past week when an article by Kinsella water carrier, Tucker, appeared at LRC in the top slot, Authors: Beware of Copyright. The article appeared under perfect storm conditions for me. It was a slow news day as far as I was concerned, and I was having trouble finding anything in the news to comment about for EPJ. Plus, I had some time on my hands, and there, seemingly growing in size, was the Tucker article which I found quite amusing, given that some of Mises publishing tactics had been made public and seemed to be the types that Tucker, I thought incorrectly, was warning about. Thus, I wrote my piece, Mises Institute: Do As They Say, Not As They Do?

Now since writing this piece, I have learned that some believe that I was charging MI with being hypocritical, by saying one thing and doing another. I can see how this interpretation can occur given the title to my post, but please be assured that I was not making such a charge.Under Rockwell at MI that doesn't happen. My view was simply that Tucker was blind to what was going on around him, and, again, I found it amusing. It was very easy for me to believe that Tucker was clueless on what he was saying since he seems to be as clueless on the entire topic of intellectual property.

So what is Tucker's stance on IP? Let's see what he has to say. In a review of against intellectual property, he writes (my emphasis):

...if you are like most people, you figure that copyrights and patents are consistent with the justice that comes from giving the innovator his due. In principle they seem fine, even if the law might be in need of reform...

That changed in 2001 with the publication of Stephan Kinsella's article and now monograph "Against Intellectual Property." He made a strongly theoretical argument that ideas are not scarce, do not require rationing, are not diminished by their dissemination, and so cannot really be called property. All IP is unjust, he wrote. It is inconsistent with libertarian ethics and contrary to a free market. He favors the complete repeal of all intellectual-property laws...

Kinsella's article continued to haunt me personally. It took about six years or so, but I finally worked through all the theoretical problems and came to embrace his view...

It is not just a matter of deciding what you believe from a theoretical or political perspective. It is not just a matter of thinking that "pirates" are not really violating moral law...To fully absorb what these authors say changes the way you look at technology....IP is a form of exploitation and expropriation that is gravely dangerous for civilization itself.

Thus, among other absurdities, Tucker now appears to believe that it is not morally wrong to illegally download music! and that:

...people like James Watt, Eli Whitney, and the Wright Brothers are not heroes of innovation, as legend has it, but rent-seeking mercantilists who dramatically set back the cause of technological development. These people spent vast resources prohibiting third parties from improving "their" product and making it available at a cheaper price. Instead of promoting innovation and profitability, they actually stopped it, even at the cost of their own business dreams.

Note his quotes around "their". Eli Whitney invents the cotton gin and sets back technology? The Wright brothers invent the plane and set back flying?

Tucker confuses monopoly here, which again is too much to get into in this post, other than to note it that if I create something and hide it in a closet, and agree to let you see it, only if you agree not to tell anyone what you see,to me this is a contract between two people and fine. Apparently not for Tucker. To him it is being a "rent-seeking mercantilist". He wants you, once you see it, to, if you so choose, open it to the world. Tucker doesn't realize it but he is attacking the sacredness of contract,and replacing it with a commie "for the common good" view , i.e., how it will benefit society.

You can apply this thinking to any product, work etc. and you do indeed have communism.

But, the fact of the matter, is Tucker, aside from his theoretical musings, doesn't really believe in what he is expounding. I sent him this email to put him to the test:

from Robert Wenzel
to jatucker@mindspring.com
date Thu, Jan 22, 2009 at 6:54 PM
subject Publication Permissions

Dear Mr. Tucker,

I continue to be fascinated by your views on copyright. After reviewing a number of your writings, I get the sense that, like Stephan Kinsella, you believe that writings should not be classified as "intellectual property" and others should not be prevented from copying works in full.

You write, for example,

So I say to all authors: please look at your contracts. Don't sign your life away. Publish on the condition of Creative Commons. Claim your rights back as a creator and an author.

How does this work? You have to copyright your work if only to prevent others from claiming copyright and thereby binding all other living persons, including you, from publishing it. Once you claim copyright, add that it is published under the Creative Common License 3.0. This rids your manuscript or song or painting of copyright's provision of doom: the requirement that only one institution can control it.

In other words, it makes your creation part of the free market. It can be posted, recorded, shown, photographed, celebrated by one and all forever. Isn't this why you create in the first place? Isn't this what drove you to write, paint, photograph, sing, or whatever? You want to make a difference. You want credit for your work. This permits it.

Old-fashioned copyright is nothing but a form of modern tyranny in the digital age. It has no future. Bail out of this wicked institution and make sure that your work has a future too.

I would like to test just how much you and the Mises Institute believe this. I note for example that MI hold rights to Mises: The Last Knight of Liberalism. I hereby respectfully request that you grant me the publishing rights to this book that you believe I would have if there were no copyright laws.

Sincerely,

Robert Wenzel

Tucker responded:

from Jeffrey Tucker
to Robert Wenzel
date Thu, Jan 22, 2009 at 8:27 PM
subject Re: Publication Permissions


you want to publish Last Knight? Seriously?

My response:

from Robert Wenzel
to Jeffrey Tucker
date Thu, Jan 22, 2009 at 8:53 PM
subject Re: Publication Permissions


Yes.

Tucker, back to me:

from Jeffrey Tucker
to Robert Wenzel
date Thu, Jan 22, 2009 at 11:22 PM
subject Re: Publication Permissions

bullshit

Ah, so much for free use of intellectual property by everyone.

I hereby publicly request Jeffrey Tucker apologize for his rude, crude response to my attempt to further intellectual debate.

And, I further request that Tucker and the Mises Institute immediately either:

A. grant me publishing rights to Mises: The Last Knight of Liberalism or

B. stop promoting the idiotic nonsense that there is no such thing as intellectual property rights.

To refuse to grant me rights (and please know, I am researching what other books MI may hold copyrights to and will be requesting that publishing rights for these also be granted me, e.g. Rothbard writings, Rockwell writings) and to continue to publish that there is no such thing as intellectual property rights is, as of the time of this post, hypocritical, and not just the misguided thinking of the very rude Tucker.

Mises Institute: Do As They Say, Not As They Do?

I'm a bit confused by the Mises Institute stand on copyrights and book publishing.

Lew Rockwell has given the top billing at LRC this morning to a screed, Authors: Beware of Copyright, by Jeffrey Tucker.

In the piece, Tucker warns of evil publishers who take advantage of copyright to lockdown authors. He writes:

Your creation, which copyright is designed to protect, is now the possession of someone else...

Yes, it is done by contract – contract backed by the power of the state...

So I say to all authors: please look at your contracts. Don't sign your life away. Publish on the condition of Creative Commons. Claim your rights back as a creator and an author.

Interesting stand by Tucker since according to Gene Callahan (see the first comment to this link), this is what the Mises Institute has done to him, in relation to his book Economics for Real People:

...they do promote it still, as well they might -- every penny of sales goes to LVMI, not to me. (And I'm not saying they're stealing from me or anything -- I voluntarily signed a contract calling for one up front payment for writing the book.)

Perhaps now that Tucker has supposedly seen the light of the evils of copyright, he will give Callahan the right to print his own edition of Economics for Real People?

But this double standard on copyright seems to be a consistent stand by the Kinsella-Tucker wing at LVMI. Stephan Kinsella, the creator of the "intellectual creations aren't property" stand, recently wrote:

Often we opponents of socialistic, legislatively-created, utilitarian-based,property-redistributing, artificial, arbitrary, inconsistent, irrational, innovation-hampering, monopolistic, anti-competitive, and wealth-destroying intellectual property laws are accused of hypocrisy when we "copyright" our articles and books.

The sly Kinsella explains why he is not hypocritical by arguing that he is trapped by copyright law:

I've pointed out to such people innumerable times, to little avail, that copyright is a noun, not a verb--that you don't "copyright" something--you have a copyright in your original works of authorship as soon as you write them, automatically, courtesy of federal law. No copyright notice is required. No copyright registration is required. You have the right, whether you like it or not.

Well, then, why don't you just "make it public domain," some then, a bit unreflectively, retort. The problem is, there is no clear and good way to do this.

Bull. There is a clear way to do it. "Pull" the copyright. Gary North does it frequently, and has apparently for a long time. He writes of one instance:

In August of 1979, I published the essay by my anonymous Washington analyst, “The Danger Is Defeat, Not Destruction.” By pulling the copyright, I helped get about half a million copies into print. It was widely printed.

By "pulling" the copyright, I take it to mean that North is saying he will not sue anyone for damages who copies the work, even though the state has granted hm the right to do so. Why can't Kinsella do this for all his works. In fact, why can't Kinsella be even more explicit, about his thinking and write:

Although I wrote the following and I am automatically afforded copyright protection, I hold that my written creations are not my property and thus please know that it would be hypocrtical of me to sue you for damages under copyright law, so please print, and broadcast this work in any manner you choose and know that I will not seek damages. In the manner of Gary North, I have "pulled" the copyright. If you would like written permission as to this matter, please send along your name and address and I will send you written permsssion to do as you please with my writings.

If he really believed in his position, I see no reason why he wouldn't do this, and, further, only deal with publishers in the future that will allow him to publish under such conditions. Given his belief that written creations are not property (which by the way I think is an absurd notion), for him to hide behind the "I am trapped into copyright and there is nothing I can do." is nonsense.

F.A. Hayek on Meet The Press

Jeffrey Tucker has somehow discovered an audio tape of a 1975 appearance by Hayek on Meet The Press.

The recording is fascinating as the panelists ask Hayek a series of questions regarding the problems of unemployment and inflation brewing at that time.

Ultimately, in the late 1970's and early 1980's, Paul Volcker appeared on the scene to slow inflation in the United States and Margaret Thatcher took control in Great Britain as Ronald Reagan did in the U.S. Thatcher and Reagan slowed the encroachment of Big Brother.

Now, however, with the current financial crisis, a return to serious inflation may be just around the corner and Hayek's comment are as relevant today as they were 30 years ago.

As Tucker puts it: You must hear this.