When you get to the end of your rope,
tie a knot and hang on.
Franklin D. Roosevelt
Obama Sworn in For Second Term:
America Can Survive Even This
Keep the Faith
There Will Be a Time and Place for Us
Come With Me, and I'll Take You There
Somehow
Someday
Somewhere
Intellectual Property Rights, Aaron Schwartz,
the State, and Cronyism
After a recession stalled my academic career as an MIS professor and I was faced with having to reinvent myself, I briefly flirted with the idea of going to law school; anyone who has read this blog regularly knows that I am not a fan of the economic rent-seeking legal profession, beyond protecting individual rights. What would possess me to think about join their ranks? Believe it or not, it had nothing to do with ubiquitous legal dramas, wanting to convict a gangster, becoming my generation's Perry Mason, or getting a SCOTUS nomination.
It was inspired by a couple of prominent cases, a sympathetic view of George Harrison whom recorded one of the biggest hits of the early 70's, "My Sweet Lord"; he was sued based on some melodic similaries by the rights holder to an early 60's hit "He's So Fine". (I don't agree with the judgment, but I was delighted when he subsequently responded with "This Song".)
The second was the case of Paperback Software which published cheaper versions of PC software category leading products on the MS/PC-DOS platform, such as Lotus-1-2-3. In fact I bought and used their products. Paperback Software VP Planner did not copy Lotus code but the program had a similar interface which made it easier for experienced users to get productive sooner with the product.(I advocated such designs from a usability perspective.) Borland also published a competitive product called Quattro Pro; in fact, I still have copies of legacy Quattro Pro spreadsheets. Lotus won the first round against Paperback, and Borland won its case while Lotus had its hands full trying to compete with the new category leader on the Windows platform, Microsoft Excel.
Hence I was interested in intellectual property law, not necessarily from the standpoint of a zealous content publisher. Some may wonder, isn't this hypocritical on my part? Haven't I been preaching about the unalienable right of property?
I don't know if George Will has written on this topic, but if he did, he might well start with the notorious cases of 18th century American publisher Benjamin Franklin and/or Charles Dickens, when Americans had liberally republished English poems, novels, etc., without licensing rights:
The rowdy American press, particularly in New York, soon disabused Dickens of his utopian notions vis a vis copyright. Americans, expecting him to be grateful for their warm reception, were staggered when this young British goodwill ambassador at the beginning of 1842, at a dinner held in his honour in Boston, dared to criticize them as pirates while urging the merits of international copyright, which at that point in American history would have seen vast amounts of Yankee capital heading overseas with little reciprocation. He did not back down. A week later, in Hartford, he argued that a native American literature would flourish only when American publishers were compelled by law to pay all writers their due, rather than being able to publish the works of any foreign author for free, a bad custom which only serve to discourage literary production by American citizens. Although the American people were divided on the question of the United States's joining the international copyright union, book, newspaper, and magazine publishers were utterly opposed, and successfully lobbied against any such move in Congress. The opposition maintained that literature, like all imaginative creations, should not be regulated by law and commerce, that undercapitalized nations, without public libraries, needed inexpensive access to ideas and entertainment that they could not generate themselves or afford to purchase at high rates, and that the free availability to publishers of an author's works did more to advance his reputation and long-term earnings than the restricted circulation created by the higher price of books on which a copyright royalty was paid.I wonder if some might see the current American government enforcement policies hypocritical given the experience of the early years of the republic. I will say that intellectual rights should be mutually respected and double standards in respecting the rights of domestic authors/publishers are unacceptable. Rights holders need to adapt to the markets, and an argument can be that academic publisher paywalls can constitute a barrier of entry to international scholarship. Aaron Schwartz's suicide in response to government bullying is tragic, and Federal prosecutor Carmen Ortiz in my judgment went over the line in her heavy-handed prosecution of Schwartz and should be discharged.
I have made it clear that one reason I rarely cite WSJ content in the hlog is because other than a teaser lead, they hide the bulk of their content, even op-eds, behind a paywall (even IBD and the Gray Lady don't hide op-eds behind paywalls, and they also have digital subscriptions). I feel when I reference an article, I'm providing a plug for the content provider; I'm very meticulous about referencing sources. In fact, I recently flamed a favorite economist for plugging an op-ed he wrote under a paywall; he emailed back a short apology.
This song ain't black or white and as far as I know
Don't infringe on anyone's copyright, so . . .
Horwitz Interview
I've embedded LearnLiberty videos by a couple of contributors to the Bleeding Heart Libertarian blog, Horwitz (yesterday) and Zwolinkski (a 2-video series on social justice); Horwitz also contributes to the free banking blog. (I haven't added these blogs to my blogroll yet, because the posts can be more theoretical than practical from a political standpoint.) Horwitz is from the Austrian School (Mises, Hayek) versus the more established Keynesian and monetarist (Friedman) schools. The Austrian School is particularly influential with libertarians (e.g., Ron Paul). They are highly critical of the fractional reserve banking system and the Fed, fiat currencies without commodity backing (e.g., gold/silver); I particularly like his characterization of "pushing-on-a-string" Fed easy money policy; I've had a similar criticisms with market monetarists whom argue that the Fed's policies have been "too tight".
Follow-Up Odds and Ends
In yesterday's post I embedded a Biden gaffe retrospective. Just last fall at a campaign appearance he called Obama 'Clinton', but he topped himself yesterday at an inauguration ball:
Speaking at the Iowa State Society inauguration ball, the Vice President said, "I'm proud to be President of the United States".After some laughter and a nudge from someone on stage, Biden corrected himself. "I'm proud to be Vice President of the United States," he said, "and I'm prouder to be Barack Obama, President Barack Obama's Vice President."And progressives were worried about Cheney serving under Bush...
Musical Interlude: My Favorite Groups
The Cars, "My Best Friend's Girl".
