I'm sympathetic to the argument in this article, but like virtually all such articles it misses the underlying problem. Copyright law isn't the way it is becaus

I'm sympathetic to the argument in this article, but like virtually all such articles it misses the underlying problem. Copyright law isn't the way it is because of misguided lawmakers or greedy corporations, or, rather, those are only the proximate causes. The ultimate cause is that representative government is unstable against the formation of special interest groups. Explaining very clearly to people why they're a bad idea, and even convincing them that you're right, won't solve the fundamental problem. The Mickey Mouse Protection Act and the Digital Millennium Copyright Act passed for the same basic reasons that ethanol and mohair subsidies persist: those who benefit have a concentrated interest to game the system; those who suffer have a greatly diluted interest to resist. By the way, you may be aware that the infamous mohair subsidies ended in 1995. Alas, this was not the equilibrium, and you can see the grinding of the implacable gears in this sad story: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mohair#US_subsidies_for_mohair_production http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mohair#US_subsidies_for_mohair_...