ORLY?

Missed this the first time through; fortunately, Jerry Pournelle (and one of his readers) were on the ball...

One of the reasons why we live in such an innovative society is that we've (for the most part) enabled a permissionless innovation society -- one in which innovators no longer have to go through gatekeepers in order to bring innovation to market. This is a hugely valuable thing, and it's why we get concerned about laws that further extend permission culture. However, according to the former Register of Copyrights, Ralph Oman, under copyright law, any new technology should have to apply to Congress for approval and a review to make sure they don't upset the apple cart of copyright, before they're allowed to exist. I'm not joking.
 As Mr. Pournelle commented, "The United States was formed to protect liberty. It now has a major party that is afraid that someone, somewhere, is doing something without permission."

Rope.

1 comment:

lelnet said...

Mr. Pournelle is, I fear, in error. The United States has TWO major parties "afraid that someone, somewhere, is doing something without permission".

Leave aside the often more-for-PR-than-for-real differences of opinion on culture-war issues between the two major parties...on the question of whether to protect the business models of legacy industries at the expense of both the natural evolution of technology and the liberty of the population at large, they're _both_ pretty consistently on the wrong side.