This is a fascinating question, well deserving of further investigation.

Given the purpose of copyright in the US, encouraging the creation of two works (the primary and secondary) is clearly better than just encouraging the creation of the primary. So the ideal amount of copyright protection would reward the creator of the primary work just enough that the work does, in fact, get created, while giving the creator of the secondary work broad enough rights to ensure that that work gets created, too.

This is a fascinating question, well deserving of further investigation.


Given the purpose of copyright in the US, encouraging the creation of two works (the primary and secondary) is clearly better than just encouraging the creation of the primary. So the ideal amount of copyright protection would reward the creator of the primary work just enough that the work does, in fact, get created, while giving the creator of the secondary work broad enough rights to ensure that that work gets created, too.

The content producers consistently assert that their so called rights are being diminished. The reality is that the content producers have been able to pass legislation that has given them increasing power over how content is being used by the consumer. This means that the consumer is losing their property right in how they can use content.

Tom Bell has a very good graphic on how copyright has been expanded for the benefit of the copyright holder at the expense of the consumer. He has also has a series of posts on the TLF which add quite a bit of rationality to this discussion. Tom writes “Federal lawmakers have steadily increased copyright’s duration, scope, power, and complexity. The Copyright Act’s few, narrow, and judicially-created limitations have done very little to counteract that trend. Those facts alone, granted, do not suffice to show that copyright policy favors copyright holders’ private interests over others’ private and public ones.”

In conclusion Cotton’s allegation against Wu is fallacious. It is the content industry that is “is changing the test.” It is unfortunate that this grab for power by the content industry has more or less gone unnoticed by the populist media.

Hance: The posts here recognize that government intrusion into our ability to transmit and receive data is by definition wrong. It seems to be considered a violation to our right of privacy. Quite understandable.

What really amazes me here is that corporate intrusion into our right to transmit and receive information is given a free pass. Not only that, but the premises is that corporations can do whatever they want to promote their business without complying with due process.

The consumer? The consumer simply has no rights. Under the rule of law it would seem that corporations and the consumer would stand equally before the law. Since the consumer is being deprived of rights, it seems that we have a case of selective reality.

One of the tenets of Libertarian thought is that of private property. Wu wrote in the NY Times debate “What’s being eroded is our ownership over personal property.”. So why is OK for a business to “protect” a so-called property right, but it is NOT OK for a consumer to protect their property right in copyrighted material that they have acquired? Again a double standard here.

I find much of the anti-government rhetoric to be misplaced. The reality is that government, in many ways, has become a lackey of the corporation. The Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act is an example of this. The DMCA further aggrandizes corporate power by granting corporations the power to unilaterally take action against anyone they choose to designate as a violator. Fingerprinting will be another nail in the growing power of corporations to act a police, to designate one a criminal, and to exact a punishment. All this without due process. And you are afraid of the government?

Therefore you were opposed to the indiscriminate blocking of a protocol, such as Comcast did when they blocked all Bit torrent traffic, whether it was legal or illegal, right?

Hance, you’ve got reality exactly inverted: through democracy, enabled by a free press, the government ultimately answers to the people. Of course the system is far from perfect, but, by fits and starts, it works more often than not, at least in America.

Private Companies, though do not answer to state to the extent they used to, and the ability of any state to control what any private company has been severely eroded due to many factors, primarily: globalisation. See the excellent movie “The Corporation”, for starters.