Copyright

Copyright Alliance Pretending That Gov't Backed Monopolies Are The Free Market Again

from the up-is-down,-black-is-white dept

A few months back, the big entertainment companies formed yet another
copyright lobbying group -- as if they didn't already have enough -- to
push for more restrictive copyright policies that would limit the
rights of consumers. This was the group that just last week was trying
to spread the myth that fair use was not a right
and copyright holders should be able to lie about what rights copyright
grants them. However, the head of the group, Patrick Ross, really seems
to get into trouble when he tries to trot out free market concepts to
support his positions. You may recall back in January his position that
getting rid of the DMCA would go against the free market because it would represent government intervention.
He seemed to totally ignore the fact that it was the DMCA that was
gov't intervention in the first place. Apparently, Ross hasn't given up
on this "up is down, day is night" type of debate style, as copyright
expert William Patry has taken Patrick Ross to task for claiming that
new laws supporting consumer rights when it comes to copyrighted
content were "government intervention" against the free market. As
Patry points out all copyright is government intervention
-- and supporting stronger copyrights is to be calling for greater
gov't intervention. To then claim that giving more power back to the
consumers on copyright is gov't intervention, is being intellectually
dishonest. You can support copyright by claiming that the market breaks
down and there's a market failure that necessitates such gov't
intervention (and, in fact, many people do). But to claim that stronger
copyrights means a stronger free market is an outright falsehood. Ross
seems to be under the false impression that the "natural" position of
the market is to have the strongest possible copyrights, and therefore,
any weakening of that is gov't intervention. That creates a complete
blindspot to the fact that all copyright is government intervention,
and giving rights back to consumers is less government intervention.