IP: "Free Speech Under Attack"

[Dave Farber <dave@farber.net>]

------ Forwarded Message
From: Virginia Postrel <vpostrel@dynamist.com>
Date: Wed, 06 Mar 2002 12:29:28 -0600
To: Dave Farber <farber@cis.upenn.edu>
Subject: "Free Speech Under Attack"

Free Speech Under Attack
By Glenn Harlan Reynold

When Bjorn Lomborg wrote his book The Skeptical Environmentalist, I imagine
that he expected to be criticized; one doesn't accuse an entrenched
establishment of fraud without encountering some blowback. So when a
critical issue of Scientific American came out, accusing Lomborg of not
knowing what he was talking about, Lomborg didn't get mad: he simply posted
the article, along with a detailed response, on his website.

What happened next, however, may have come as a surprise: Scientific
American sent him a letter threatening to sue him if he didn't remove the
critical article that he was responding to. With the air of bemused
politeness that has marked Lomborg's response to his often-overheated
critics, Lomborg took the article down.

Lomborg's situation, however, serves to underscore a new and unwholesome
trend: the use of copyright law to silence critics.

more

http://www.techcentralstation.com/1051/envirowrapper.jsp?PID=1051-450&CID=10
51-030602B




-- 
Virginia Postrel (vpostrel@dynamist.com)
Author, The Future and Its Enemies
"Economic Scene" columnist, The New York Times
Contributing editor and "Spaces" columnist, D Magazine
http://www.dynamist.com | http://vpostrel.com (The Scene)
(214) 219-5725 | (214) 219-1188 (fax)
--
Read about my book-in-progress at http://www.dynamist.com/lookandfeel.html



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