OpEd by Lawrence Lessig, Via U.S. News & World Report: Prosecuting Online File Sharing Turns a Generation Criminal:
"It is time we recall what the nation learned 75 years ago: The remedy to a failed war is not to wage an ever more violent war; it is to sue for peace. Rather than continuing to sue to stop what no lawyer could ever stop, Congress needs to consider the scores of proposals that have been advanced by some of the best scholars in the nation to legalize this sharing while enabling other ways to compensate artists.
These include a voluntary collective license, allowing individuals to file share for a low, fixed rate; a more expansive "noncommercial use levy" that would be imposed on commercial entities benefiting from peer-to-peer file sharing, to help compensate artists; or most expansive of all, that copyright give up regulating the distribution of copies and instead compensate artists based upon the estimated frequency by which their works are consumed. These and a host of other ideas all raise different advantages and disadvantages—but are better than criminalizing a generation.
The failure of Prohibition taught social reformers something important about regulatory humility: Too often liberals and conservatives alike simply assume that a law will achieve what the law seeks to achieve. Too rarely do they work out just how. Humility teaches us to rein in the law where it is doing no good, if only to protect it where it does good or where it is necessary.
Copyright law's extremism is not necessary. We can achieve the objectives of copyright law—compensating artists—without criminalizing a generation. We need to start doing that, now."
http://www.usnews.com/articles/opinion/2008/12/22/prosecuting-online-file-sharing-turns-a-generation-criminal.html
Showing posts with label Prohibition. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Prohibition. Show all posts
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