Comment by tzs | Hacker News Reader

Comment by tzs | Hacker News Reader

    All complex systems contain parasites. In any system of cooperative
    behavior, an uncooperative strategy will be effective -- and the system
    will tolerate the uncooperatives -- as long as they're not too numerous
    or too effective. Thus, as a species evolves cooperative behavior, it
    also evolves a dishonest minority that takes advantage of the honest
    majority. If individuals within a species have the ability to switch
    strategies, the dishonest minority will never be reduced to zero. As a
    result, the species simultaneously evolves two things: 1) security
    systems to protect itself from this dishonest minority, and 2) deception
    systems to successfully be parasitic.

That would be a pretty good description of IP. IP is in economic terms non-rival and non-excludable. It turns out that a free market does not work for goods that are non-rival and non-excludable (by "work" I mean reach a theoretical optimal allocation of resources to production). We developed a cooperative behavior in order to make it so a free market would work for such goods--basically by PRETENDING that IP is rival and excludable.

Some chose not to cooperate, and ignore that. As long as they are not too numerous, the system as a whole does not break down. The majority pretends that IP is rival and excludable, so pay creators for their creations, and creators get paid roughly in proportion to the demand for their works, and thus creators tend to create the works that the consumers want.

DRM has been developed to attempt to limit the effects of the uncooperative, and the uncooperative have developed systems to try to make it harder to detect piracy.

I would argue that it's a subset of the IP holders who are the parasites here, using their wealth to increase their rights beyond what is reasonable and in the interests of those with whom they are supposed to be cooperating. Piracy is the reaction Schneier mentions to the noncooperatives becoming too numerous and too effective. DRM is yet another strategy to limit the rights of those who continue to cooperate.

There is more than one kind of parasite.

Copyright and other intellectual exclusion (IE) laws were introduced in good faith to ensure that (1) it is rational to undertake intellectual endeavours and (2) the number of people who benefit from intellectual endeavours but don't support its development is limited.

Then the background against which IE had been written changed; now, some IE holders began to abuse their monopoly (a form of parasitic behaviour), and they came to informal understandings with lawmakers (who also put their own personal interests ahead of the collective interest, which is again parasitic) to strengthen the IE laws.

The real problem with IE laws is that as more people use intellectual works, the value to society increases, but due to the exclusionary nature of IE laws, they discourage widespread dissemination. The best solution would be a separate parallel economy for intellectual works where all consumers pay an amount from the primary economy that doesn't depend on how many intellectual works they consume, but producers receive an amount that depends on how much utility consumers directly or indirectly extract from their work (in proportion to all other intellectual works). That would open a number of difficult issues, and current parasites under the IE scheme have amassed enough power to resist it strongly, so I doubt we would see it any time soon even though it would be collectively beneficial.

It is also a little more complicated than that. The corporations are themselves uncooperative. They have broken the system by extending it beyond its basic intent for increased profit. They further seek to use the spectre of piracy to give them greater profit levels. Such as the establishment of taxes on CDRs in some nations which is given to the supposed losers.

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