Chris Castle and others square off to discuss what’s wrong with the music industry at the Commonwealth Club in San Fransisco.
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Nick Carr’s comments on CCIA’s study of fair use include the following critique:
What the authors have done is to define the “fair-use economy” so broadly that it encompasses any business with even the most tangential relationship to the free use of copyrighted materials. Here’s an example of the tortured logic by which they force-fit vast, multifaceted industries into the “fair use” category: Because “recent advances in processing speed and software functionality are being used to take advantage of the richer multi-media experience now available from the web,” then the entire “computer and peripheral equipment manufacturing industry” qualifies as a “fair-use industry.” As does the entire “audio & video equipment manufacturing” business. And the entire software publishing industry. And the entire telecommunications industry.
Oh dear. I think one could fairly count the Tivo, and a portion of some of the activity described above… anything involving parody, certainly.
Of course, there is a larger conceptual problem. Fair use is always fair use *of* something copyrighted… so do we add fair uses on to the value of copyright uses? There is a case to be made that the copyrighted materials–and the consequent fair use of them–would not exist in such abundance but for copyright. The logical response to that is, yes, but we wish to measure in particular the value of this particular *exception.* Fair enough, so long as one bears in mind the risk of the exception’s swallowing the rule. Also, that a substantial part of the economic activity in question might well occur in similar form even without the exception, due to the growth of markets in snippets and bits and other licensed material for downstream use.
Empirical studes are funny things, aren’t they?
SS
Brian Deagon’s August 6, 2007 article in Investor’s Business Daily, August 6, 2007, “Technology Doomed To Failure, Some Critics Say,” includes some remarks about filtering worth thinking about. The assurance of the quoted critics is convincing, but they seem to be missing a good part of the picture.
Stanley Fish (I won’t bother with the link to the Times, y’all can find it) has recently raised the issue of whether a commitment to tolerance of religion “really” means is that one must be prepared to tolerate even a religious regime doctrinally committed to killing off nonbelievers.
From a classical liberal (morphed into modern libertarian) standpoint, this seems pretty silly. The concept of religious toleration got inspired by people getting tired of killing one another off in the name of religion. Whatever it is in theory, it has this practical goal of preserving civil society as a “reality check.” It *doesn’t* mean that one must tolerate a religious regime doctrinally committed to killing off nonbelievers.
Tyler Cowen’s New York Times piece on health care reform.
Which brings me to the topic of Deer Hunting With Jesus, which in its later chapters touches on the troubles of the health care system. This book has gotten a good bit of attention in liberal circles.
Various toy recalls, particularly those affecting Thomas the Tank Engine, have the parental blogging community alarmed, with the expected calls for more regulation, more testing, more more more. But I wonder if several key factors in product safety having to do with the operation of markets might have been forgotten. And I won’t even mention product liability (except just there).
There’s enormous interplay between the policy landscape and people’s expectations. Easy to forget, because expectations are an awful lot like assumptions… taken for granted.
DRMWatch reports on two new surveys finding that consumers are more accepting of DRM.
Commentary on recent real estate woes in Second Life. I’ve been thinking of opening an office there. Sort of a retreat. An asylum, as it were.
I earlier posted our amicus brief in the Cablevision case, along with most of the others, here.
The brief of Americans for Tax Reform, affiliated with the Property Rights Alliance, is here in two parts:
The WSJ has an article by the FCC’s Robert M. McDowell on July 24, 2007, p. A15, “Broadband Baloney,” critiquing among other things the OECD’s discouraging data on broadband in the United States:
American consumers are poised to reap a windfall of benefits from a new wave of broadband deployment. But you would never know it by the rhetoric of those who would have us believe that the nation is falling behind, indeed in free fall.
Looming over the horizon are heavy-handed government mandates setting arbitrary standards, speeds and build-out requirements that could favor some technologies over others, raise prices and degrade service. This would be a mistaken road to take — although it would hardly be the first time in history that alarmists have ignored cold, hard facts in pursuit of bad policy.
Tyler Cowan has further remarks on the topic, with comments.
The Technology Liberation Front is the tech policy blog dedicated to keeping politicians' hands off the 'net and everything else related to technology.