Writing in the Washington Post today, Monica Hesse relates that a number of commercial media have taken copyrighted material like amateur photos from social sites like Facebook and used them, for example, in their ads without seeking permission. Some are now being sued or being told to stop link here.

Hesse is able to show that the violations have been frequent and verge on the systematic. The companies doing it offer excuses that it was the fault of a low level employee or a rare and thus exceptional attempt to capture reality, but the frequency suggests it was policy. Hesse quotes Larry Lessig that this sort of behavior will stop and order prevail when the community becomes familiar with the law and the individual prosecutes violations. Hesse suggests instead "total anarchy".

I wonder whether use of "anarchy" here isn't right, given that individuals, particularly the young, feel pretty free about violating copyright, pleading either ignorance or assuming they are too small to go after link here. The law on fair use is often quite unclear, judging from the attempts of various groups to redefine it and the absence of court rulings or clear statute law link here. I feel like throwing up my hands and saying let's get rid of copyright but then I realize it isn't going to happen.

But then I remember that we did get rid of prohibition when violations became overwhelming. Is this comparable?

But it is going to happen, John, and we have to believe that.

Remember, we are the heirs of Cobden and Bright, and of Garrison and Phillips. Just as they believed in their causes, so too must we believe in ours just as deeply.

Regarding Prohibition, Don Boudreaux (see his letter to the editor in the Feb. 2008 issue of Reason magazine--it has a picture of Ron Paul on the cover) and I think a couple other people have pointed out, it ended not because the Federal government got tired of fighting crime, but because Washington needed more money during the Great Depression, when incomes and income taxes fell precipitously. Before the advent of the income tax in 1914, taxes on alcohol were the second largest source of federal government revenue, behind import duties and tariffs. The income tax quickly because the largest source of Uncle Sam's loot, so, as Don puts it, "Congress finally could afford to cave in to the dry lobby."

By 1933 income taxes had declined more than 60 percent from three years earlier, so "[a]ddicted to revenue, Uncle Sam ended Prohibition so that he could again tax alcohol."

As far as I know, copyright garners little to no revenue for the Feds (is it even enough to fund the copyright office?). And it is a source of rent seeking for lobbyists, politicians, and a sliver of voter-creators. I can't imagine Prohibition having been a rent generating source on anything like the same level as copyright, and it was enacted at a time that the revenue from taxing alcohol had been more than replaced by another, more sinister tax, that ultimately enabled the Federal government to grow into the swollen monstrosity it has become.