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Elegant, and one seems to follow from the other. The only problem is that the analogy is wrong. Copyright seeks to improve customer choices by creating profit

Elegant, and one seems to follow from the other. The only problem is that the analogy is wrong. Copyright seeks to improve customer choices by creating profit incentives. Those who are willing to invest can create, and those who are willing to buy, vote with their wallets. One hand washes the other, and copyright law simply maintains the proper incentives for the system to work. Censorship in China seeks to maintain a central focus of power by suppressing alternative ideas or organizations, which when shown the light of day might be more popular. There is an inherent conflict of interest which leads to depriving citizens of the ability to control how they are governed. So whereas copyright preserves profit incentives but leaves the market to decide the winner, censorship in China puts one product on the table (CPC/PLA), and prevents others from being considered.

jpwagner 17y ago
I don't understand your point(s) at all. "...copyright law simply maintains the proper incentives for the system to work." What? The whole question is whether the system works, you can't just assert that it does. I cannot get any more out of your post than "I think copyright is good, and China is bad."
- mscantland 17y ago
  Disney made money from proprietary content last quarter (they paid $0.35/share dividend), and censorship helped the Chinese Communist government remain in power. So the system "works" in the sense that it performs as designed. I don't think I asserted anything that isn't obvious, and that wasn't Bucheit's point. The question Bucheit raises is whether copyright protection is bad because censorship is bad? Which isn't fair because the ends are always more important than the means when human rights are at stake. For example, if Bucheit wanted to show copyright protection in a different light, perhaps he could have shown its virtue by comparing it to keeping secrets about underground railroad stations? But showing counter-examples is merely proving Godwin's law. Which I think is what Bucheit's analogy showed to begin with.

jpwagner 17y ago

I don't understand your point(s) at all. "...copyright law simply maintains the proper incentives for the system to work." What? The whole question is whether the system works, you can't just assert that it does. I cannot get any more out of your post than "I think copyright is good, and China is bad."

mscantland 17y ago
Disney made money from proprietary content last quarter (they paid $0.35/share dividend), and censorship helped the Chinese Communist government remain in power. So the system "works" in the sense that it performs as designed. I don't think I asserted anything that isn't obvious, and that wasn't Bucheit's point. The question Bucheit raises is whether copyright protection is bad because censorship is bad? Which isn't fair because the ends are always more important than the means when human rights are at stake. For example, if Bucheit wanted to show copyright protection in a different light, perhaps he could have shown its virtue by comparing it to keeping secrets about underground railroad stations? But showing counter-examples is merely proving Godwin's law. Which I think is what Bucheit's analogy showed to begin with.