

Copyright Lawyer: The Public Domain Goes Against Free Market Capitalism - vabole
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20110603/00214214533/entertainment-industry-lawyer-public-domain-goes-against-free-market-capitalism.shtml

======
billybob
Pure free market capitalism would be if I could buy your book the day it's
released, make photocopies, and sell them outside the bookstore for cheaper.

Pure free market capitalism would let me make a fake Rolex. It would let me
reverse-engineer an iPod and sell it with the label "iPod."

There are downsides to this, and that's why we have IP laws. But those laws
are not free market capitalism; they are restraints on it.

~~~
gburt
I would call the Rolex/iPod examples fraud, wouldn't you? "Free market
capitalism" is only rarely conflated with anarchy. (don't get me wrong, I
agree that Intellectual Property is the opposite of "free market")

~~~
jeffool
More likely it would be trademark violation. After all, who is to decide what
"Rolex" means, anyway?

~~~
barrkel
Trademark is another form of IP.

~~~
derleth
Trademark is primarily consumer protection.

~~~
Jach
That might have been why it was created, but it's not how it's primarily used
today, nor do I think it does that good a job combating "customer confusion".
(Remember, even without Ubuntu calling their OS "Windows", Dell customers
still sent back Ubuntu laptops complaining they thought they were getting
Windows.) Just like copyrights and patents were created to encourage
innovators to innovate and share with society--the goal was improving society
--that original purpose is lost in the primary uses of IP laws today.

------
adulau
The history showed that many works when going into public domain generated a
brand new active market. As an example, the work from Freud has been recently
put in the public domain (in Europe, it means only that the patrimonial rights
are expected but the effect are somehow similar to put the works in the public
domain). The first day you could find in all the book-stores many new
publications from his works included annotated version or commented version.
All the editors knew it was a good opportunity and a brand new market of works
based on previous Freud work. Before the work was closed by the right holders
and no real economic activities... So I still don't get the point of that
lawyer.

~~~
adulau
Sorry, a small typo: s/expected/expired/

------
duke_sam
Isn't the whole idea of the government taking action against people for
marketing goods against free market capitalism?

~~~
bediger
Well, yes, so we can assume that when this guy said "free-market" he meant
more like "polite market, where everyone knows their place, and your place is
to GIVE ME MONEY".

------
tbrownaw
Er, why would this be a problem?

Free markets are one of the better ways of distributing scarce resources in
the majority of situations.

Capitalism is one of the better ways to promote efficient use of scarce
resources.

If something _isn't_ scarce, there's no need for either of these.

------
splat
These ideas are reminiscent of the ideas of Andrew Joseph Galambos, who
believed that one retained intellectual property rights indefinitely.
(Reportedly, he believed that Thomas Paine coined the word "liberty" and put a
nickel in a box every time he used the word so that he could pay Paine's
descendants for royalties.)

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Joseph_Galambos>

------
notevillawyer
I know it's popular to hate lawyers here but enough is enough=> Entertainment
Industry Lawyer: The Public Domain Goes Against Free Market Capitalism

Copyright is not bad. It has gotten out of hand, but the principle is good.
Limited (again, it isn't really anymore, but it should be) protection. Just
like if you built a car, created a drug, or manufactured any other widget and
someone stole it after you expended the time and effort or production (yes, I
know this example has flaws; sweat of the brow etc.)

Lawyers also are not universally bad. Though I agree with you there are many I
cannot stand. There are dirty cops, crooked politicians, cheating mechanics,
lazy doctors and stuck up IT guys and yes, even annoying hackers.

You want to bash copyright, fine. You want to bash lawyers, fine. Just don't
make blanket statements. A lot of us are on your side.

Lawyer for the entertainment industry != copyright lawyer.

In my best Han Solo, "sorry about the mess."

~~~
bediger
You may want to re-examine your position that copyright is not bad. There's
really not a lot of evidence that any "intellectual property" is good, where
"good" is something like pareto efficiency. Any sort of "intellectual
property" at all, when enforced by the government, is probably a drag on the
economic system.

You could start your re-examination with "Against Intellectual Monopoly",
[http://levine.sscnet.ucla.edu/general/intellectual/against.h...](http://levine.sscnet.ucla.edu/general/intellectual/against.htm)
especially chapter 6.

Personally, it appears to me that a combination of regulatory capture and
legislative capture has enabled a few large corporations to define
"intellectual property" in such a way that what used to be accepted as
inalienable rights of US citizens are widely suppressed. And that's going way,
way too far.

------
mukyu
[http://www.copyright.gov/docs/sound/comments/reply/20110224-...](http://www.copyright.gov/docs/sound/comments/reply/20110224-Ivan-
Hoffman.pdf)

This is all I could find from him from the Copyright Office's documents. [1]
He does not appear to be talking about things entering the public domain at
all. I don't think hearsay of hearsay of one of 84 people talking at a meeting
is much to go on.

[1] <http://www.copyright.gov/docs/sound/>

------
dexen
On a lighter note -- somebody's got serious sense of humour there:
<http://www.ivanhoffman.com/awards.html>

(that's part of the website of the lawyer in question, as linked to from
Techdirt)

------
nextparadigms
Is RIAA now trying to outlaw the public domain or something?

------
fleitz
If you think about the internet in terms of democratizing publishing and
making more works available to the public. Add in the increased availability
of consumers to monetize the content along with self-serve advertising such as
AdSense / AdWords. With these advances in place it makes sense that copyright
should be shortened because it allows creators to be compensated more quickly.

If you contrast works like the Dan Brown's 'Davinci Code' compared to Mary
Shelly's 'Frankenstein' it would stand to reason that Dan Brown was able to be
remunerated for his efforts much more quickly than Mary Shelly thus the
purpose of copyright can be full filled much more quickly and should be
shortened in order to make more works available to the public. Which is the
stated goal of copyright.

------
logjam
Can't argue with that. 'Course, geniuses like this particular copyright lawyer
would note that laws prohibiting strip mining Yosemite "go against free market
capitalism" too. More limits on "free market capitalism" will thankfully
continue to elevate us a bit above what amounts to the brainless economics and
political philosophies of cancer cells.

~~~
sp332
Actually, it's just wrong. Copyright is an artificial, state-enforced
restriction on competition. In a free market, people should be able to
compete.

Copyright is the opposite of the free market.

~~~
jules
Property law is an artificial, state-enforced restriction on competition. In a
free market, people should be able to compete.

~~~
pyre
Intellectual Property is a concept that tries to put ownership on
ideas/abstract concepts. How does one 'own' and idea? In the physical sense,
one can 'own' a physical object through possession.

~~~
anonymoushn
It's easy. You write some text, then you own a number representing the text
(probably a number between 10^2400 and 10^240000) and all encodings of that
number (some of which might be as small as 10^120). Now whenever you see
anyone else using that number or any encoding of that number without giving
you money, you tell them to give you money, and if they don't you get the
government to threaten to kidnap them or steal their money if they don't give
you money. However, if you pick a number around 7, I don't think you'll be
able to pull it off.

~~~
jules
In the same way, owning a physical object is ridiculous. Quantum mechanically,
you can't tell the difference between an electron in your object and an
electron somewhere else. So you end up owning an particular _arrangement_ of
electrons and protons, not the electrons and protons themselves. We can then
apply the same reductio ad absurdum by examining somebody who claims to own a
very small object, say a single electron.

The sensible way to define property is defining it by those cases where the
state protects your rights to it. One defines intellectual property in exactly
the same way.

~~~
anonymoushn
Right. What I'm saying is less like an assertion that you can't own an idea
and more like an explanation of how you go about owning ideas (but mostly
ideas that are bigger than 7). I suppose my opinion is pretty easy to guess,
though...

