logo

Against Monopoly

defending the right to innovate

Monopoly corrupts. Absolute monopoly corrupts absolutely.





Copyright Notice: We don't think much of copyright, so you can do what you want with the content on this blog. Of course we are hungry for publicity, so we would be pleased if you avoided plagiarism and gave us credit for what we have written. We encourage you not to impose copyright restrictions on your "derivative" works, but we won't try to stop you. For the legally or statist minded, you can consider yourself subject to a Creative Commons Attribution License.


back

Copyright: The Lobby

A nice piece on BBC by Michael Geist about the U.S. copyright lobby - not only lobbying to force everbody else to comply with whatever we do in the U.S. - but to impose even more draconian restrictions than we do. Why do I think that if they succeed, they will be back lobbying in Congress to change our laws to comply with the "international standard?"

My favorite bit:

In fact, the majority of the world's population finds itself on the list [of countries that don't comply with international standards], with 23 of the world's 30 most populous countries targeted for criticism (the exceptions are the UK, Germany, Ethiopia, Iran, France, Congo, and Myanmar).

Well nice to know that Ethiopia, Congo, and Myanmar are on the "right" side. Obviously their draconian copyright law has led to a great flowering of music, literature, and movies.


Comments


Submit Comment

Blog Post

Name:

Email (optional):

Your Humanity:

Prove you are human by retyping the anti-spam code.
For example if the code is unodosthreefour,
type 1234 in the textbox below.

Anti-spam Code
UnoNineZeroThree:


Post



   

Most Recent Comments

IP is not a joke Bill: Absolutely. Parody and satire are protected under fair use. Mad Magazine (among many

IP is not a joke Couldn't it be used under the fair use

Goldman does in AIG, you, and me Predatory Lending is a major contributor to the economic turmoil we are currently

Common Sense Seth - I'm not sure how your comment @ 5:57pm casts any illumination on your earlier position. If I

Lessig: Congress is broken and Obama has failed Anon, state granted monopolies are effectively licenses for corporations to collect taxes on

Lessig: Congress is broken and Obama has failed It does seem strange to me that when we are faced with the possibility of a 23 trillion dollar

The Patent, Copyright, Trademark, and Trade Secret Horror Files Fred, I recognise that 'natural monopoly' may have a more specialised meaning for economists, and

Lessig: Congress is broken and Obama has failed Fred, I'm doing something immediately. I'm working on the Contingency Market. this is something

The Patent, Copyright, Trademark, and Trade Secret Horror Files @Crosbie: I agree *natural monopolies* do exist, despite any tendency for SK and Bill Stepp to shut

Lessig: Congress is broken and Obama has failed I thank John Bennett for this post, and for the quality of his posts here in general. I've been