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Intellectual Property Laws bad for business
mshiltonj writes "The NYTimes has a story called "Report Raises Questions About Fighting Online Piracy" that talks about how the stringent enforcement of current Intellectual Property laws (see: RIAA) may acutally be bad for business. It's the not EFF or FSF saying this, it's professors at Harvard Business School and Cardozo Law School. The professors say, "The ideas of copy-left, or of a more liberal regime of copyright, are receiving wider and wider support, It's no longer a wacky idea cloistered in the ivory tower; it's become a more mainstream idea that we need a different kind of copyright regime to support the wide range of activities in cyberspace." and "Bits are not the same as atoms. We need to reframe the legal discussion to treat the differences of bits and atoms in a more thoughtful way.""
All that realy needs done is to provide value.
If I still had mod points, I'd mod this up. Someone gets it. I have a hard time understanding why the only side of the equation in the "information wants to be free" crowd is the cost of production. As far as I'm concerned, if it allows you to do something cheaper, faster, or something that you simply couldn't do before, compensation is due its owner. If you don't like the terms, do something else. These things are subject to the same market forces as anything else- if its owner wants to make money, he will balance market demand with the price he charges. If you don't want to pay simply because you can copy it, you are engaging in theft- it's no different than any other good in the marketplace.