SIVACRACY.NET

... At the heart of Anarchist are two arguments, both compelling. The first is an economic one. With attempts like the Digital Millenium Copyright Act, which Siva tears a new one and joins me in thinking that it is one of the most freedom-hating pieces of legislation ever, types of innovation and technology are being crushed in the name of invasive, illegitimate, and ham-handed attempts to protect content. Intellectual property sacrifices all other types of innovation in order to protect itself. Devices to restrict and control access, limit use, and limit ownership of content place burdens on everyone and don't achieve their end goals very well. They just create a whole lot of inconvenience. The chief villains are the MPAA and RIAA, and those they crucify everyone from technology manufacturers to software writers to the most obvious martyr, Napster.

The second argument is a sociological and cultural one. Namely, that intellectual property law has gotten so out of hand it has commodified a public and collective good: culture. This is obviously true, because with the DMCA, works don't enter the public domain until 75 years after the author's death, or 95 in case of public works. That has effectively killed the public domain. In both cases, Siva trots out horrific examples of legal battles fought over artistic works, the nightmare and outrageous expense of obtaining a legitimate copy of ANYTHING in the developing world, and nightmarish legislation that has come pretty close to passing in Congress if it weren't for the power of the other corporate lobbies it would burden.

Through it all, Siva shows that the internet is in a deeper crisis than we think, and so is our enjoyment of our own culture. The battles are real, but we don't see them very often. And, most importantly, aside from anarchistic mobs and hackers, no one truly advocates a position for information freedom. Instead the content industry gets to dictate it all, and they're getting very good at it.

While Siva swings far to the left sometimes, his treatment of issues is balanced and sensible. He does not argue on ideological grounds primarily, but on the grounds of consequences. The real consequences of the path we are taking are not so promising, and threaten to undermine our democracy and our culture and give us little in return. From a conservative perspective, he has pointed out a lot of that old-fashioned economic menace: rent-seeking.

The use and manipulation of government by corporations to squeeze advantages for themselves and obtain artificial monopolies. Anarchist is rife with such examples, abuse of power, limitation of competition, and destruction of innovation. I recommend this book for anyone concerned about intellectual property and internet issues, because it serves as a good primer and is full of facts and real examples, not just theoretical bumbling (though he invokes plenty of great writers and theorists in the process). And, most importantly, he does it all in just around 200 pages, depending on the edition you buy.