Chapter Captain MKG: In this segment, I think the main target for updating is the third paragraph that discusses how things could be in a future world with DRM applied if one were trying to read the Times - price differentials for reading, copying or saving it to one's harddisk - and also lack of compatability between 'trusted systems'.  To some extent we are in this world.  Can people identify examples of products/services where this is the case?  Viewing a DVD on a Linux platform may be one prominent example.  Are there others?

Additional thoughts/comments welcome.

The Privatization of Intellectual Property - Ridgway

The issues surrounding the privatization of public law fascinate me; isn't it shocking how irrelevant private parties can render the substantive law we spend three years learning? And yet, while I understand the sentiments of the "inherent rights" folks, it doesn't seem to withstand the tug of that dismal science: economics. In general, I think the chapter's comparisons with real world distract more than help. For example, it's not technically "free" for me to walk into a book store and glance through a book; rather, my "looking fee" is simply integrated in the price of the books I actually buy. If more people merely looked, prices would go up. Online prices that vary according to the amount read simply constitute a different pricing scheme (via the one monopoly rent theorem). The central question is what aspects of copyright (and trademark) we think should be alienable. Again, I think economist's response is helpful: all of these rights should be alienable except those that provide externalities which private parties would not integrate into their bargaining (or the "public value" that Lessig refers to). With this understanding, charging for the number of readings is unproblematic, whereas licensing restrictions against parodying are not. To credibly protect the inalienability of certain rights, we must be discriminating. We should admit that most aspects of perfect control benefit the consumer, but clearly define those that do so at the cost of the public good.