Extortion Industry

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Extortion Industry
Type	Essay

Extortion Industry is a manifesto published in March 2019, attributed to Charlotte Fang though released anonymously under the XCELA Group umbrella. The text serves as a companion piece to XCELA's January 2019 "Against New Games" manifesto, extending its critique of the video game industry. While "Against New Games" focused on the industry's emphasis on graphical fidelity at the expense of gameplay innovation, "Extortion Industry" offers a more radical critique, characterizing the entire copyright-based business model of the video game industry as a form of extortion through artificial scarcity. Both manifestos were published under the Viral Public License (VPL), a copyleft license created by Fang.

Content and arguments

Central premise

The manifesto's central premise is captured in its opening statement: "Games were never products." It argues that video games, as software, are infinitely reproducible information without inherent scarcity or market value. The text contends that when consumers "purchase" a game, what they are actually buying is not the game itself but a license protecting them from potential copyright infringement lawsuits—a threat manufactured by the game publishers themselves.

This framing positions the video game industry's business model as a "protection racket," where companies create an artificial threat (copyright infringement) and then charge consumers to be protected from this threat. According to the manifesto, this constitutes a form of extortion enabled by distorted applications of copyright law and backed by the state's enforcement mechanisms.

Information economics critique

"Extortion Industry" extends its critique to broader questions about information economics in the digital age. It argues that information's unique property of infinite reproducibility at near-zero cost fundamentally undermines traditional market economics based on scarcity. The manifesto contends that attempts to artificially impose scarcity on infinitely reproducible information through copyright enforcement represent an unethical distortion of natural market dynamics.

The text differentiates between authorship and ownership, arguing that while creating a game gives someone the right to claim they made it, it doesn't grant them control over its distribution, reception, or use once released. This position directly challenges conventional understanding of intellectual property rights.

Alternative models

In place of the copyright-based sales model, the manifesto proposes alternatives like donation-based support for game developers, the abolition of copyright restrictions, and ethical piracy as a form of resistance against the "extortion industry."

The text articulates six core principles as its concluding manifesto points:

1. There is no ethical way to "sell" games
2. Paying money for a freely available game is donation
3. Donation is always a choice
4. Authorship does not control distribution
5. Developer entitlement must end
6. Donation, piracy or nothing

Context and significance

Relation to "Against New Games"

"Extortion Industry" was published in March 2019, shortly after XCELA's January 2019 "Against New Games" manifesto. While the earlier text focused primarily on criticizing the industry's emphasis on graphical fidelity and hardware upgrades over gameplay innovation, "Extortion Industry" takes a more radical stance by questioning the fundamental economic model of the industry.

The two texts share common elements, particularly their critique of exploitative industry practices and their call for players to resist through boycotts, but "Extortion Industry" extends this resistance to include active piracy as a form of ethical protest.

Philosophical lineage

The manifesto's arguments align with several philosophical and political traditions, including:

• Information anarchism and the "information wants to be free" ethos of early internet culture
• Critiques of intellectual property from both libertarian and leftist perspectives
• The free software movement's opposition to proprietary software (though with a more radical stance on attribution requirements)

The text explicitly positions itself as more radical than mainstream copyleft approaches like the GNU Public License, which it characterizes as maintaining too many restrictions despite its viral copyleft nature.

Viral Public License

Both "Extortion Industry" and "Against New Games" were published under the Viral Public License (VPL), a copyleft license created by Fang in early 2019. This license embodied the principles articulated in the manifestos by combining permissiveness (allowing unlimited use and modification) with the viral nature of copyleft (requiring that derivatives maintain the same freedoms).

The use of the VPL for these manifestos represented a practical implementation of the information freedom principles they advocated, demonstrating that content could be both freely accessible and protected from proprietary capture.

Influence and legacy

The direct influence of "Extortion Industry" is difficult to measure precisely, as the text circulated primarily within niche online communities concerned with digital rights, game industry criticism, and information freedom. However, several aspects of its legacy can be identified:

Relation to Remilia Corporation

As a project of XCELA Group, which was later incorporated into Remilia Corporation in March 2022, "Extortion Industry" represents an early articulation of themes that would continue to inform Remilia's approach to digital ownership and distribution. In particular, its critique of artificial scarcity and emphasis on information freedom prefigures Remilia's later experiments with alternative ownership models in the NFT space.

The manifesto's arguments about copyright and ownership would later evolve into Remilia's more developed concept of "post-authorship," which similarly challenges traditional notions of creative attribution and ownership.

Broader relevance

Beyond its direct connection to XCELA and Remilia, "Extortion Industry" contributes to ongoing debates about:

• The sustainability and ethics of copyright in the digital age
• Alternative economic models for creative production
• The tension between free access to information and creator compensation
• The relationship between piracy and consumer resistance

While radical in its conclusions, the manifesto addresses questions that have become increasingly central to discussions about digital economy and culture.

Critical reception

As a niche manifesto circulated primarily in specific online communities, "Extortion Industry" has not received significant mainstream critical attention. However, its arguments intersect with several ongoing debates in game studies, digital rights activism, and creative economies.

Critics of positions similar to those articulated in "Extortion Industry" typically focus on practical concerns about creator compensation, arguing that without copyright protection or sales revenue, fewer games would be created, especially at the high-budget end of the spectrum. Others question the ethical framework that characterizes copyright enforcement as extortion, suggesting this oversimplifies complex legal and economic questions.

Supporters of similar positions often emphasize information freedom as a primary value and point to successful donation-based models like those used by some indie games and open-source software projects as evidence that alternative compensation systems are viable.

See also

• XCELA Group
• Against New Games
• Viral Public License
• Charlotte Fang
• Remilia Corporation
• Post-authorship