Conservative Judge Joins Attack on Expanding Intellectual Property Rights

November 21, 2002 7:26 PM

Left Gets Nod from Right on Copyright Law - A darling of the conservative movement, federal Judge Richard Posner criticizes the Sonny Bono Act and attacks the Patent and Trademark Office for granting "very questionable" business method patents at a lecture organized by the American Enterprise Institute and the Brookings Institution. (via How Appealing)
posted by ajr (11 comments total)

It's about time, I say......maybe Posner is the cutting edge of the new wave of ideological collapse when people of all stripes, colors, and persuasions realize they can't just keep mouthing the same old flabby cliches, idiotic neologisms and bloodless party line positions ..."Imagine there's no heaven, it's easy if you try - no Hell below, and above us"...
posted by troutfishing at 8:09 PM on November 21, 2002

Well said.
posted by blamb at 8:18 PM on November 21, 2002

Keep your laws off my body of work!
posted by thirteen at 8:37 PM on November 21, 2002

I wouldn't quite call Posner a darling of the conservative movement. His law and economics can be a little creepy, but he is really more of a pragmatist than an ideologue. He has no problem ruling against big business if he thinks that it would promote economic efficiency to do so. He has advocated selling babies on the open market and analyzed sex and marriage as economic choices, neither of which has exactly endeared him to conservative movement. It doesn't surprise me at all that he's taking this position, but don't expect the rest of conservative America to follow along.
posted by boltman at 8:37 PM on November 21, 2002

trout...while I too would like that to happen, Barney Frank, one of Massachusetts' most important politicans, said yesterday that independents are "airheads" and "any rational person votes a party line". No joke.
posted by Kevs at 9:13 PM on November 21, 2002

Weird. I almost posted that exact comment, boltman. I typed it all up, accidentally closed the browser, and then was too lazy to write it out again. In fact I wasn't sure that I hadn't actually posted it until I got to the end and saw your name. Creepy.
posted by singmesomething at 9:18 PM on November 21, 2002

"At the same time that regulations are diminishing, intellectual-property rights are blossoming--(two) opposite trends bucking each other."


Huh? Intellectual property rights aren't regulation?
posted by electro at 10:24 PM on November 21, 2002

Kevs - yup. A gay congressman from an (originally) blue collar Boston area district (?!) - Frank's no fool, and I concur with his approach. I would have voted green the last election...I didn't, because I sense that having even a little input into the power process is better than cross-eyed political marginalization. But consider Mexico's recent political history: the UNIPARTY (the PRI). There are many possible models of stagnant political "traps". Uniparty, two party, multiparty. The interesting question concerns the boundary zone, when old political schemes start to oscillate, to fibrillate, and then to break down altogether. Are we there? I doubt it. But, as I was prompted by an insistence like that before the breaking of wind - much like the fabled daemon from Dantes' Inferno - I was called to "make a trumpet of my ass" and to spout some malodorous, gassy hope in the form of that Lennon quote. But, in the immortal words of Frank Zappa (who died of colon cancer, from too much meat and dietary fat, I'd guess), "Americans choose cheese" and so: hope is forever reborn...
posted by troutfishing at 10:29 PM on November 21, 2002

Obviously not a sentiment shared by most of his colleagues. Had me going for a moment though.
I was fairly certain Disney Corp. hadn't neglected their share of "campaign contributions," or what we know as bribes and that Ms. Bono was still wearing her husband's mouse ears last time I saw her.

Amazing that a company which made it's fortune off public works would deny the same opportunity to others with legislative bribery.
posted by nofundy at 5:10 AM on November 22, 2002

Wish there was more meat to the CNET story. A transcript does not appear to be available yet, but it looks like it should be posted here (Brookings Institution) at some point.
posted by pitchblende at 9:24 AM on November 22, 2002

Electro- Regulations, one has to follow, that's the stuff of governmental administrative agencies and the legislature. You violate the regulations, and the government clamps down on you.

However, redress for violations of rights is sought by private individuals (or firms, corporations, etc.) whose rights have been violated. To have standing to sue someone for violation of rights, your rights have to have been violated.
posted by smithnine at 2:35 PM on November 22, 2002