So says Big Copyright, which adopted the term for copyright infringers because of "its suggestions of theft, destruction, and violence." But now, the "pirates"have "co-opted the term, adopting it with gusto and hoisting the Jolly Roger across the Internet (The Pirate Bay being the most famous example)."

I agree. Copyright infringers should not be called pirates. A pirate is a robber, plunderor, predator. The term much better describes the patent and copyright lobbies, which use state monopoly grants to plunder and rob the masses.

[Mises; SK]

I've always thought that in a copyright free world (and de facto that is our online world now - whatever they law may proclaim) DRM had a role to play. Not the role of permanently putting content under lock and key - that isn't feasible. But it is possible to use DRM on a short-term basis for new releases to give some short-term monopoly power - and this might provide some useful incentive for creation, while being largely self-limiting. By unlocking the content after a brief period of initial sales the incentive to crack the DRM is greatly reduced, while from a revenue point of view, most of the money is from the initial sales anyway.

It seems that the gaming industry - by far the largest and most successful user of DRM - has figured this out. My main thought on this is that they would do themselves a huge favor by making formal commitments to removing DRM after a specified period of time, rather than the current informal "maybe we will, maybe we won't, and who can say exactly when" method. In fact the business model of closed source/DRM for a fixed prespecified period of time followed by unlocked open source rights going to the user would probably be an extremely successful business model. If only creators didn't act like small children: "mine, mine, mine."

The Amazon one-click patent examination is now over - you can read here what our friend igdmlgd who forced the reexamination has to say about it. I think there are a couple of lessons here. First the patent office is hopelessly corrupt. This is an expected consequence of a regulatory system - money talks. Second, it is possible for a determined and principled individual to have an impact - even if igdmlgd didn't get the patent properly overturned, he was able to limit some of the ill-effects. In the end - the system just doesn't do what it is supposed to - which is why it would be best to do away with it.

Two articles in the New York Times today point up the need for financial sector reform and the problems doing it.

The first, by Andrew Ross Sorkin, observes that the regulators must have been aware of Lehman's illegal financial deals to hide its financial weakness, since the company made no effort to hide them even as the feds made no mention of the questionable moves in its reporting link here. It is no great leap of logic to conclude that the regulators had no interest in disclosing what amounts to fraud on Lehman's part in hiding its truly precarious financial condition from its creditors and stockholders. One need not exert too much effort to recall that the regulators at the time were appointees of the Bush administration--and then to also observe that many of the same guardians are still on duty.

The second article, by Sewell Chan, reviews the financial reform bill and provides lots of detail about its new provisions, ostensibly to overcome the shortcomings revealed by recent experience link here. However, the drafts remain a confusing array of agencies and responsibilities among them such that there is plenty of room for regulatory arbitrage and little certainty that provisions will be appreciably strengthened in practice. None of this addresses the question of restructuring the banking system so that the big banks are radically reduced in size and the threat that as a group they are "too big to save" in a catastrophe like the one we have just experienced.

So the opportunities for extreme leverage remain, as do the temptations of excessive risk for hugely overpaid bank executives. The probability? Disaster.

The Washington Post has just given front page coverage to Murray Hill, a PR firm in Maryland that wants to run for public office link here. The article has a tongue-in-cheek character but it also has a serious objective--to make clear the absurdity of the Supreme Court determination in the Citizens United case that corporations have rights normally reserved to citizens, a position that is in fundamental conflict with common sense and precedent.

In quotations, the article says, "After the Supreme Court declared that corporations have the same rights as individuals when it comes to funding political campaigns, the self-described progressive firm took what it considers the next logical step: declaring for office." "It's an opportunity to see this court opinion play out to its logical conclusion.", "...the firm appears to be the first "corporate person" to run for office and is promising a spirited campaign that 'puts people second, or even third.'" "I guess with a corporation, should someone go on vacation, like many of our current members of Congress, you'd have fill-ins to take their place."

The tongue may be in cheek but the edge to its humor also comes through and the Supreme Court looks pretty bad. After President Obama spoke critically of the Court's finding and Chief Justice Roberts fired back, the Court seems to be getting the kind of treatment it deserves.

Simon Johnson writes that unless we shrink the big banks drastically, the banking system will become "Way Too Big To Save" link here. Interesting counterpoint to "Too big to fail." We are at the point where we can't afford to bail the system out again, incredible as that may seem. The issue is that the banking system is no longer just that of the US and if we save one bank, we will have to save all the others as well--and we won't have the resources to do it.

Johnson, who was International Monetary Fund's Economic Counselor (chief economist) and Director of its Research Department and now teaches at the MIT Sloan School of Management, writes a blog and a constant flow of papers, and serves on the Congressional Budget Office's Panel of Economic Advisers and as a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics.

I will not try to repeat his argument. Read the original and the two other references he includes here and here.

Take a look at some the great works of Dave Devries from his "Monster Engine" project.

Given the fact that:

1. There is no doubt that the children's original doodles are protected by copyright for their entire life, plus 70 additional years.

2. There is no doubt that Devries' paintings of the doodles are 'derivative works' stemming from the original creations of the children.

Do you believe that Devries should be forced to get formal copyright releases from each and every one of the kids in question? Do you think he has done so? If so, should they be able to repudiate their copyright agreement when they turn 18 since many jurisdictions allow minors to repudiate contracts signed before they reach 18? If so, should they be able to take Devries's work out of circulation?

Do you think that the children should all share in the royalties from books, art and showcases that Devries produces for the rest of their lives (and beyond - for 7 decades)? Do you think that is in fact the case of what is going on? If Devries hasn't gotten a copyright release and/or isn't paying royalties, do you feel that he is somehow "exploiting" these kids or "stealing" from them?

If you answered 'No' to any of these questions, why not? Given how we know copyright law operates with respect to works created by media corporations, shouldn't it apply similarly here? Or is copyright law only supposed to be for the "benefit" of authors when they are attached to big businesses backed by the legal system?

After all, some commenters on this site have argued that one should not be able to make an entirely new James Bond film without permission due to copyright restrictions. I presume that The Monster Engine should be forced to jump through the same legal hoops, no?

I can't help but suspect that there is some major hypocrisy at work here in how copyright law is selectively applied in order to benefit special interests at the expensive of incentives for maximizing the creation and distribution of new works. (And please spare me the 'fair use' argument. I would completely agree that this should be considered fair use. But if it is, then one must concede that fair use should be applied by the courts far more generously that it currently is - so much so that it would effectively altogether omit the copyright protections which currently prevent the creations of 'derivative works'.)

Farhad Manjoo over at Slate has a great article on the issue.

A sample of it:

With this lawsuit, Apple is standing in the way of [the] future.

It's a dangerous strategy. Patent lawsuits take years to wind through the courts, but when this one is finished, no good will have come from it. Apple's move is terrible for consumers and businesses that rely on smartphones, it's bad for mobile-software developers, and it's obviously not great for Apple's competitors. The suit can't do much to help Apple, either, especially if it sparks an industrywide patent war. Apple's competitors also hold a wide portfolio of mobile-device patents, and I'm sure that they all have their legal departments working overtime to search for any claims that the iPhone and iPad might be violating. Apple's move thus casts a cloud of uncertainty over the entire industry: Should you buy an Android phone or build apps for the Palm OS if a judge might one day declare those systems illegal?

Read the whole thing here:

http://www.slate.com/id/2246902/

Writing in the Washington Post, Kari Lydersen has a short and quite good summary on the pros and cons of gene patents link here. In the case under examination, a woman thinks she might have a gene that predisposes her to breast and ovarian cancer in which case she can decide on preemptive surgery. But, she can't afford the expensive test and it is not covered by her state's Medicaid (other states' Medicaid programs do cover the test). Her story ends up well enough--for her, but probably not for many people.

The article covers the pros and cons of gene patents and the dilemma they present. It doesn't, however, discuss how the applicable patent system might be modified, for example, by having the government pay for the research and development, probably through contracting with the private sector, and then making the test widely available at an affordable price.

This story does make the point, though by inference, that we have a busted health care system as well of a dysfunctional patent system which violates our generally accepted sense of what is right.