IPcentral Weblog
  The DACA Blog
  Institutions
     
  Tanks
     
  Blogs
     
  Mags
     

Tuesday, September 14, 2010

 
Hubris, Cowardice, File-sharing, and TechDirt
(previous | next)
 

Over at Digital Society, Jim DeLong's Filesharing in Underdeveloped Nations: Let's Take from the Poor and Give to the Rich does a fine job of ripping apart the latest round of nonsense from the economically challenged blog TechDirt. I won't spoil the fun, but suffice it to say that Jim shreds TechDirt "arguments" with casual ease.

Jim's piece also highlights a fundamental problem with TechDirt's childish, copyright-hating worldview: TechDirt brews its venom from an ugly blend of hubris and cowardice.

In a rational world, TechDirt would deem copyrights unobjectionable. Granted, TechDirt's royal "we"—Mike Masnick—has conclusively concluded that he has divined the socially optimal means of producing expressive works: Artists and their investors should give away unprotected copies of their works, and then try to recoup the financial and opportunity costs of the risky long-term investments required to create those works by using them as loss-leaders to sell other things. Put aside—for now—any complaints about the unwarranted arrogance and the many obvious errors that infect this thesis. Let's just pretend, instead, that Masnick really might have discerned the set of socially optimal means to produce and disseminate expressive works.

Fine—but Masnick's preferred "business models" are ones that existing copyright law permits. As a result, if these "Masnick models" are superior means of production, then consumer-driven market competition between artists employing these superior models and artists employing other, inferior models, (like selling copyright-protected copies), should naturally have driven all those inferior models out of the market without resort to either piracy or government retraction of copyrights.

But that has never happened, and that suggests why TechDirt hates copyrights so venomously: Those wretched copyrights just keep on letting artists, (and those who make the risky long-term investments that let artists create), exploit creative works in ways that both artists and consumers insist upon prefering to those means of production decreed to be superior by TechDirt.

That is intellectual cowardice: There is no real problem if the "problem" with copyrights is that they let debates about the relative merits of subsets of the vast array of business models that copyrights permit to be settled by real consumers reacting to real works in real markets—rather than by the fertile imaginings of self-anointed Internet geniuses.

Perhaps that is why copyrights still tend to be strongly supported by both federal policymakers and most policy analysts—or at least those who retain the hint of personal humility required to admit that those who incur the risks inherent in creativity might be better situated than most pundits to decide how to exploit the rewards earned in the rare cases when those risks pay off.

posted by Thomas Sydnor @ 5:11 AM | Antitrust & Competition Policy , Copyright , IP , Internet , Trademark

Share |

Link to this Entry | Printer-Friendly | Email a Comment | Post a Comment(6)

Comments

"There are important people that are Cheap UGGs Classic Mini 5854 in Chestnut outlet and joining the process. Hannah's last turn always would have cheap Uggs Roxy Tall in Chocolate that would burn longer and brighter than any of Susan's because for Susan? Underclothes You have lauren polo shirts this harden most of popular coat!

Posted by: http://www.cheapguccioutletstore.com/ at September 14, 2011 2:35 AM

I think copyright issues are very big ones now. Many original works need to be protected. It is pretty normal that orignial works got copied. This phenomenon became more and more serious. And piracy exists in many fields. Copyright protection shows respect to the originators, doesnot it? And it is also a blow for someone who steels something without hardwork. And I think if we want to stop or reduce the acts like this, we need a new business mode. In addition, I think that a good work should cater to the needs of consumers and the market demands well. The manufacturers should know how to draw some good production methods to improve their own products. I think I learn a lot from you article. It inspires me a lot, and I hope to be able to see such a good blog from you again.

Posted by: Julie Patty at February 18, 2013 11:28 AM

The Submariner first went cheap omega for men
into production in 1953 and officially launched the Rolex Replicas Submariner at the Basel watch

fair. Neither Rolex Submariner models had the distinctive hands which are now associated with the

Rolex watches.

Posted by: replica watches at August 28, 2013 4:50 AM

Sometime in the early 1960s, Rolex discontinued the use of radium paint for the luminous

indices, switching to the safer best omega replica

watches Tritium-infused paint. In 1965-1966, Rolex Replicas discontinued use of gilt/silver

gilt dials on the Submariner watches, switching to white printing. A final important change came

with the introduction of the 1680 model in the late 1960s.

Posted by: replica watches at August 28, 2013 4:55 AM

I'm interested to see how this story is progressing with the proliferation of file sharing

Posted by: Dave at May 14, 2015 9:32 AM

Thanks for a marvelous posting! I seriously enjoyed reading it, you could be a great author.
I will ensure that I bookmark your blog and may come back down the road.
I want to encourage one to continue your great work, have a nice weekend!

Posted by: Cartier repliche at January 10, 2017 9:48 PM

Post a Comment:





 
Blog Main
RSS Feed  
Recent Posts
  EFF-PFF Amicus Brief in Schwarzenegger v. EMA Supreme Court Videogame Violence Case
New OECD Study Finds That Improved IPR Protections Benefit Developing Countries
Hubris, Cowardice, File-sharing, and TechDirt
iPhones, DRM, and Doom-Mongers
"Rogue Archivist" Carl Malamud On How to Fix Gov2.0
Coping with Information Overload: Thoughts on Hamlet's BlackBerry by William Powers
How Many Times Has Michael "Dr. Doom" Copps Forecast an Internet Apocalypse?
Google / Verizon Proposal May Be Important Compromise, But Regulatory Trajectory Concerns Many
Two Schools of Internet Pessimism
GAO: Wireless Prices Plummeting; Public Knowledge: We Must Regulate!
Archives by Month
  September 2010
August 2010
July 2010
June 2010
  - (see all)
Archives by Topic
  - A La Carte
- Add category
- Advertising & Marketing
- Antitrust & Competition Policy
- Appleplectics
- Books & Book Reviews
- Broadband
- Cable
- Campaign Finance Law
- Capitalism
- Capitol Hill
- China
- Commons
- Communications
- Copyright
- Cutting the Video Cord
- Cyber-Security
- DACA
- Digital Americas
- Digital Europe
- Digital Europe 2006
- Digital TV
- E-commerce
- e-Government & Transparency
- Economics
- Education
- Electricity
- Energy
- Events
- Exaflood
- Free Speech
- Gambling
- General
- Generic Rant
- Global Innovation
- Googlephobia
- Googlephobia
- Human Capital
- Innovation
- Intermediary Deputization & Section 230
- Internet
- Internet Governance
- Internet TV
- Interoperability
- IP
- Local Franchising
- Mass Media
- Media Regulation
- Monetary Policy
- Municipal Ownership
- Net Neutrality
- Neutrality
- Non-PFF Podcasts
- Ongoing Series
- Online Safety & Parental Controls
- Open Source
- PFF
- PFF Podcasts
- Philosophy / Cyber-Libertarianism
- Privacy
- Privacy Solutions
- Regulation
- Search
- Security
- Software
- Space
- Spectrum
- Sports
- State Policy
- Supreme Court
- Taxes
- The FCC
- The FTC
- The News Frontier
- Think Tanks
- Trade
- Trademark
- Universal Service
- Video Games & Virtual Worlds
- VoIP
- What We're Reading
- Wireless
- Wireline
Archives by Author
PFF Blogosphere Archives
We welcome comments by email - look for a link to the author's email address in the byline of each post. Please let us know if we may publish your remarks.
 










The Progress & Freedom Foundation