I wrote the following response to my brother who, as a 2nd year law
student, emailed me to gloat slightly about the Pirate Bay ruling.
I haven't blogged in awhile, Twitter has taken over my creative output
over last three months or so but this topic, copyright in the digital
age, got me fired up enough to write a meaningful response.
And it also got me thinking that I need to spend more time working of
things that fire me up. ------ Begin forwarded message: >
> Thanks for the link, been following this case, especially since
> having been to Sweden now. Read the Economist article, I think it's
> a little more even-handed than the NYT. >
> I was actually at the site last night, which underscores exactly why
> this a hollow victory. I agree that alwas penalities to breaking
> laws, they wouldn't be laws unless there were consequences. >
> But as we all know, the genie is out of the bottle and this is like
> a game of whack-a-mole, as soon as you knock one down another one
> pops up. So PB my have lost this battle (notice how NYT doesn't
> mention that this isn't the end if the case, the Economist points
> out how they're going to appeal), but the war is already over--
> technology won. >
> I'm not advocating the abolition of copyright, quite the contrary, I
> believe there is an important, critical role for copyright but when
> over 50 acclaimed economists (including Nobel lauretes) sign a
> petition againist the most recent U.S. Copyright extension because
> it flouts the Constitution and actually causes economic
> disincentives and astifles innovation (which flies in the face of
> the purpose of copyright), there is something wrong. >
> As the NYT article cited, copyright holders only real, long-term
> viable solution is to combat free with free and develop new business
> models. It happened with the telegraph, the phone, the TV, the VCR,
> and other major disruptive technology in our history. >
> Like the war on drugs or on alcohol, which have both gone rather
> poorly, when a society's mores dictate that a behaivor is reasonable
> they will continue doing so despite the law. And what makes this
> question all the more daunting than these examples is that it's
> technology-enabled and digital, you can't fight 1s and 0s with laws
> and courts. The economics of content in the digital age have changed
> because marginal costs are approaching zero on the production side,
> and this is turning all kinds of industries upside down (see Chris
> Anderson's WIRED article or upcoming book on free). That means that
> at the end of the day, the law of economics and technology will win. >
> Thanks for inspiring me to write, I haven't spent time on a serious
> topic in a couple of months. Let's keep this going. >
> Sent from my iPhone
