Here's the latest column I wrote -- the first one in 8 months! Enjoy.

Joe


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Does Intellectual Property Really Exist?


As a kid, one of my favorite hobbies was recording songs from the
radio. I often enjoyed dubbing commercially-bought cassettes, and
even used a VCR to tape movies from HBO. It was fun to experiment
with the technology and relax to the music and movies at the same
time. I never once thought of myself as a thief.

But today, the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) and
the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) believe that anyone
who uses a computer to download "unauthorized" MP3s, share music or
video files, and copy CDs and DVDs is guilty of stealing, which is
now punishable by three years in prison and/or $250,000 in fines.
This even includes personal-use incidents where no profit or
financial gain is made.

The purpose of all this is to protect people's intellectual property
rights, and to ensure that their ideas aren't pirated. But how
exactly does one define what "intellectual property" is, anyway? If
it is someone's ideas, then anyone who uses language to communicate
is a pirate, since others conceived every English word we speak, and
most of them never officially permitted us to "copy" their creative
expressions.

This begs the following questions: do we really need patent and
copyright laws at all, and does government protection
of "intellectual property" violate our inalienable rights to use our
own physical property in any peaceful and nonfraudulent manner we
choose?

In the absence of these laws; artists, inventors, and manufacturers
could put small labels on their packages or devices, saying, "By
purchasing or using this product, you agree not to duplicate and sell
it without the express written consent of the manufacturer."

In other words, you couldn't be held liable for piracy, but you could
get sued for breaching the contract. Private contractual user
agreements make a million times more sense than the enforcement of
confusing, vague, and excessive government patent and copyright
statutes.

Furthermore, how can so-called "intellectual property" be considered
a real inalienable right? Often times when the government tries to
protect it, people's inalienable physical property rights are
violated. Individuals may get fined simply for making their
own "unauthorized" mixes of favorite tunes. Politicians may enact
Big-Brother types of federal laws, such as the recently-proposed
Consumer Broadband and Digital Television Promotion Act (CBDTPA),
which would require all new computers and electronic devices sold in
the U.S. to contain built-in copy protection, and would carry a five-
year jail sentence and/or $500,000 in fines for anyone who refuses to
comply.

Finally, how can piracy truly be considered theft when someone uses
his own physical property in a peaceful and nonfraudulent manner?

It's time to forget what our beloved politicians and public schools
have taught us: that very few inventions and creative art would take
place without patent and copyright laws. In the absence of
this "intellectual property" enforcement, there probably would be
more creativity than ever.

For example, computer file-sharing programs allow lesser-known
musicians to promote their music and increase their fan base without
selling their souls to a heartless, royalty-robbing, RIAA-
racketeering record company. They may also cause the big-name
artists to sell more albums and concert tickets because of increased
worldwide exposure to their work.

Consumers also benefit. File-sharing programs will persuade artists
and record companies to put out better albums at more reasonable
prices instead of trying to charge us $17 for a one-hit wonder. They
also give us access to the individual songs we like -- so we don't
have to purchase hundreds of expensive, worthless CDs.

Times are changing, and only a free market -- without government
aggression -- will determine if the power of the Internet renders
traditional record companies as obsolete. Only when we respect the
inalienable physical property rights of each and every individual can
technological and artistic progress be made.