A new online journal named Libertarian Papers and edited by Stephan Kinsella debuts today. (I’m on the editorial board.)
Note to contributors: it is peer-reviewed (and so gets you a shiny star on your c.v. if you’re an academic) and copylefted (so you never need to ask permission to reprint your own work), plus as an online journal it has a faster publication schedule and no arbitrary length restrictions. So submit! submit!
Speaking of copyright issues, check out Jeff Tucker’s recent series of posts: A Book That Changes Everything, What Is Your Attitude Toward IP?, and Authors: Beware of Copyright.
6 Comments
Hilarious Professor Long! Thank you so much.
Roderick, If I’m not mistaken, “copyleft” is similar to the Creative Commons “share alike” license. Libertarian Papers, however, uses the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License. After thinking about this, it seems to me that the “Attribution” license is more libertarian than “Share-Alike” (or copyleft).
Now the new “CCO“, or “No Rights Reserved,” attempt to make one’s work “public domain” seems the most libertarian of all, but its efficacy looks doubtful to me, and it’s still embryonic as far as I can tell.
Tucker’s latest in LRC was one of the better pieces I’ve read there in a while, and interestingly “thick” and left-libertarian leaning (as I interpret those terms). It reminded me of Bastiat in it’s tone and attitude.
I’ve seen “copyleft” used both broadly and narrowly. If only the term “copyleft” were someone’s intellectual property, then the owner could resolve this ambiguity.
Stephan,
Well, the term has broad and narrow usages. You’re right that the narrow usage (popularized by the Free Software Foundation) only applies to licenses — like the GNU GPL and FDL, or the Creative Commons ShareAlike licenses — that are viral, i.e., which not only free the work itself for redistribution and derivative works, but also require anyone who produces a derivative work to also free it under the same terms.
I don’t have any particular view on what license you ought to use on Libertarian Papers. But I think that the “Attribution-ShareAlike” license would only be “less libertarian” than a plain “Attribution” license if the powers restricted by “ShareAlike” were legitimate powers for an author to exercise. But all ShareAlike requires is that authors distributing a derivative work not try to enforce copyright restrictions with respect to their own derivative work. If enforcing copyright restrictions is illibertarian (as you and I agree), then I reckon that forbidding licensees from enforcing them, isn’t.
Rad, I see the argument, but I think the best policy is just to free it up. It’s a bit too paternalistic, rude, untrusting, to force others to do it like you do, to assume they’ll “abuse” their power. And, it might stop the work from being re-published. We want our libertarian ideas spread far and wide. I want an editor of a book considering reprinting one of our pieces to see no obstacles. A “viral share-alike” provision could be. Let ideas be free.