Reason Magazine

Confused Reason writer Cathy Young Anti-SOPA but still pro-copyright

by on January 26, 2012 @ 12:20 pm · 0 comments

in IP Law

I noted previously that Reason author Cathy Young had written in favor of a fifty-year copyright term. Now, in a recent Reason article,”The Trouble with the Copyright Debate” (subtitle: Does every illegal download represent a lost sale?), she joins the anti-SOPA bandwagon, but is still pro-copyright:

A few days ago, I committed an illegal act.

Instead of watching the latest episode of the British fantasy show Merlin on the SyFy channel and suffer through a hundred commercials and pop-up ads that sometimes deface the screen during the show itself, I got online and watched an illicitly streamed video. What’s more, I intend to continue my crime spree and download the three-episode second season of Sherlock, which aired on the BBC earlier this month, rather than wait until May when it finally gets to PBS.

The point of this true confession is that the current debate about copyright enforcement and piracy on the Web largely misses the boat. Yes, creators and copyright holders have important rights and legitimate interests. And yes, some Internet users display an obnoxious sense of entitlement to “free” intellectual content.

So: Young is anti-SOPA. But she is still pro-copyright: “creators and copyright holders have important rights and legitimate interests”. And yet she admits she herself engages in piracy (while bizarrely taking a superior tone in condemning others who pirate). Say what? If she thinks copyright should last 50 years, and that it is legitimate, then … when she pirates she is violating people’s rights, and should be penalized–perhaps even by imprisonment. Right?

Young is confused and hypocritical. She favors copyright, and bashes other people who pirate, all the while engaging in piracy herself and then condemning efforts to enforce copyright. She’s trying to have her copyright and eat it, too.

As I argued earlier this week SOPA is the Symptom, Copyright is the Disease. The only solution is to abolish copyright. Wake up and smell the libertarian principles, Young.

[C4sIF]

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On Rand Paul and Slavery

by on May 13, 2011 @ 8:48 pm · 1 comment

in Health Care, Nanny Statism, Political Correctness, Racism, Totalitarianism

Reason’s Matt Welch criticizes Rand Paul for Paul’s assertion that the right to healthcare implies slavery. While it is true that in minds of many, the term “slavery” specifically refers to chattel slavery as practiced in the United States prior to the end of the American Civil War, the term itself is not so limited. And this is not the first time that a prominent person has used the term in regard to employment restrictions: Curt Flood was well known for saying “A well paid slave is nonetheless, a slave.” The same applies here. Indeed, I have compared modern attitudes and events to slavery myself, more than once. Of course, there are critical differences between Rand and Flood and myself, with melanin levels likely being the most important one. But just as Flood’s comparison in the past was apt, so to is Paul’s comparison in the present an accurate description. It is easy to see that there have been far worse tortures in the past than waterboarding, or even beatings, but I would certainly still call the latter “torture.” So, too, would I call forced labor of any sort “slavery.” Wearing a smock rather than rags does not change the name.

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Back to Basics: Self-Ownership and Organ Donations

by on August 7, 2010 @ 2:27 pm · 0 comments

in Health Care, Libertarian Theory, The Basics, Victimless Crimes

Ronald Bailey, over at Hit & Run, asks, “Should a person who is dying of an incurable illness be allowed to donate his organs before the disease kills him?” This strikes me as a very odd question to ask, especially given who is doing the asking. Hit & Run is the blog for Reason Magazine, a publication I have been led to believe has some libertarian bent. Yet, oddly, it seems they are still mulling over the most fundamental principle of libertarianism: self-ownership.

Once it is recognized that the fellow from the story, Gary Phebus, is a self-owner, the answer to Bailey’s initial question becomes blindingly obvious – a resounding yes. What would it mean to be a self-owner but be unable to use one’s body and its parts as one wished? Surely, any libertarian must recognize the right to commit suicide and the right to donate one’s organs after death, which is all this amounts to. Why the struggle?

[Keep reading…]

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Behind the Scenes of Atlas Shrugged

by July 31, 2010

About a month and a half ago, in Atlas Shrugged movie finally filming?!, my co-blogger Jacob Huebert updated us on the Atlas Shrugged movie. Now, thanks to Reason Magazine and Reason.tv, we are privileged to see behind-the-scenes footage and interviews. I’ll admit I was leery of the current iteration of the project, but I am [...]

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