“But the harm is a dynamic loss in allocative efficiency, which is much harder to quantify.” Do I really need to go to the Cato Institute for such semantic gibberish as this and terms like “less-valued?”
You can’t use my stuff without my permission – it’s simple. Cato posits this as my need to negotiate with thieves because they are a lot of them and then lays out economic reasons this may be okay anyway and even good for my health.
And this is not JUST AS “cassettes, CDs, and VCRs”; this is a delivery system for files and not an issue of the files themselves.
I especially like the part “change is hard, particularly when you lack creativity and imagination” because this is much of what is at the false heart of this “revolt”; news aggregators and bloggers who do not produce nearly enough original material to survive without the easy and free means to present copyrighted material and so piggyback themselves onto the creative content of others; take away those others and there is little to nothing left.
For all their bluster about how necessary they are, bloggers, like gay marriage and vegans, are as useless as nostrils on a rock and would be the first thing to go in any reality-based house cleaning. The music and movie industry can easily survive without bloggers but the same is not true the other way around once the freebees end.
It is protecting that revenue stream of something for nothing that is what is at the heart of so much of this “revolt” while hypocritically suggesting the “empire” is doing the same. What I can at least say about an empire is that is has the power to get things done compared to camp followers.
What you really mean at the end is embrace thievery or it will crush you but it already is and the push back has begun. SOPA is perhaps not the way to do it but some way is needed and it will be back.
Stop acting like evil empires actually consist of record and film companies who want to control your thoughts. What they want to control is who distributes their product which they have a perfect right to do. Produce something someday that millions of people want and you too will join the dark side.
This revolt should call itself “Wannabees For Freebees.”
