- Apr 2018
-
themorningsidemuckraker.com themorningsidemuckraker.com
-
the right to exclude is not a necessary incentive – it is but one way to secure money in exchange for the fruits of one’s labor
Agreed. Then again, pointing this out does little for the creative professionals for whom we expressed great concern at the opening of this piece.
-
Once the public accepts that a more expansive fiscal role for the government is necessary
And once they decide completely to ignore the moral hazard any political process is subject to (which is to say, not bloody likely).
-
sovereign governments create currency through keystrokes
I'll have to read the other article, but I'll note that a great deal of money creation--even before the advent of cryptocurrencies--has long been in private, not public, hands. Extending credit or making loans creates money. This is basic macroeconomics.
-
an effective marginal cost of zero
This aspect of information goods is oft quoted as a distinguishing feature whose existence supports a radically different approach from previous publishing methods.
It's true that the marginal cost is dramatically decreased with digital publishing. But there's a big difference between "closer to zero than before" and actually zero. The marginal cost of digital information goods is not actually zero. That people are willing to trade their privacy in exchange for someone else bearing the costs of managing information is one piece of evidence of this.
-
We believe these responses are insufficient and miss the deeper point: no matter how feasible commons-based production may appear to those who are familiar with it, for those suffering from the paralyzing effects of systemic money scarcity – unemployment, poverty, overwhelming consumer debt – the free culture response is incomplete at best, and callous at worst.
This is the heart of the article.
-
For creative professionals, however, particularly those burdened by economic hardship, the risks associated with transitioning to a non-proprietary business model can feel (rightly or wrongly) prohibitive.
Opposition from these groups killed the Eldred Act. Failure of what became Eldred v. Ashcroft gave rise both to the attempt to have this act passed and to the formation of Creative Commons.
-