[IP] Re: Music industry proposes a piracy surcharge on ISPs

[David Farber <dave@farber.net>]

________________________________________
From: David P. Reed [dpreed@reed.com]
Sent: Friday, March 14, 2008 1:09 PM
To: David Farber
Cc: ip
Subject: Re: [IP] Re:   Music industry proposes a piracy surcharge on ISPs

Music guys (Griffin), ISP's (Glass) ... all want to get the government
to apply a tax to feed their coffers.   What ever happened to
competition and free markets?

Reminds me of pre-Elizabethan (Queen Elizabeth I) England, when a patent
was not based on an invention - a "patent" in those days was a monopoly
on any trade or business granted by the King to his deserving buddies
and courtiers. In 1624, England outlawed  all such "letters patent" by
the King to his courtiers.  But we love to bring them back in modern
America - viz. ASCAP/BMI, the "piracy tax" applied to videotape, etc.

(Elizabeth initiated the modern patent concept that requires an
invention as a way to break the power of the guilds and fix the balance
of trade - not for any particularly good reason like encouraging
invention - that framing of / rationale for gov't patent and copyright
handouts was first crystallized in the US Constituion).



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