Keeping politicians' hands off the Net & everything else related to technology
Copyrights and patents differ from tangible property in fundamental ways. Economically speaking, copyrights and patents are not rivalrous in consumption; whereas all the world can sing the same beautiful song, for instance, only one person can swallow a cool gulp of iced tea. Legally speaking, copyrights and patents exist only thanks to the express terms [...]
Toy Story 3 offers many pleasures and not a little wisdom. I absorbed them with a shocking output of tears, both the laughing kind and otherwise. At one point, too, I raised my fist in solidarity, moved by the political philosophy voiced by Barbie (brilliantly played by Barbie). I liked Barbie’s quote so much that [...]
The grandly-named Public Domain Archive, evidently a production of Osaka-based Digirock, Inc., offers a few MP3s of classical music and historical speeches. Thanks to a suggestion from Tyler Cowen, I’m enjoying a 1942 recording of Beethoven’s 9th even as I type. Am I breaking the law in so doing? The copyright notice posted on the [...]
Professor Crim Pro I ain’t, but it seems to me that anybody who has used a computer can pretty easily grasp the holding of Berghuis v. Thompkins, 560 U.S. __, No. 08-1470 (June 1, 2010) [PDF]. In that opinion, handed down just yesterday, the U.S. Supreme Court toggled the default on the Miranda warning. A [...]
While police and prosecutors have encouraged the growth of a surveillance state, they don’t seem so enthusiastic about the growth of a surveillance citizenry. Maryland and other states have recently seen privacy laws invoked to squelch the unauthorized recording of public officers performing public duties in public areas. Until courts put an end to those [...]
From our bulletin board at home: This cartoon takes its inspiration from a conversation—a real gut-buster!—that I had with my kids. April would have foolishness enough, given that dread date smack in its middle, without April Fool’s Day. You can thus take this joke seriously. [Crossposted at Agoraphilia, TechLiberation Front.]
Thanks to comments on my earlier post, Copyright Duration and the Mickey Mouse Curve, I’ve been encouraged to reflect on what would happen if, in fact, Steamboat Willie had fallen into the public domain. Could we then reuse Mickey Mouse, the star of that show, without facing any liability to the Walt Disney Company? I [...]
Herewith another recent addition to my draft book, Intellectual Privilege: A Libertarian View of Copyright, (inspired, in part, by Berin Szoka’s recent claim, “I just don’t know what the right balance [for copyright] is! I’m glad there are others patient enough to try to figure it out. This is why we have economists and… yes, [...]
As part of a revise-and-resubmit process, I’ve been spending much of my summer upgrading my draft book, Intellectual Privilege: A Libertarian View of Copyright. That effort has led me to revisit copyright’s constitutional foundations. I find them very shaky, indeed. This passage (with footnotes excerpted) explains why modern copyright law often fails “to promote the [...]
Theories constitute the technology of academia. They give us eggheads the tools we need to get our work done, just as computers serve programmers and DNA sequencing serves bioengineers. I trust that TLF’s readers won’t think me too far off-topic, then, if I cite a new approach to consent theory, something that should interest anyone [...]
May 22, 2012
The Technology Liberation Front is the tech policy blog dedicated to keeping politicians' hands off the 'net and everything else related to technology.
