Friday, October 04, 2002
The Supreme Courtmeister, Makin' Copies
I'm no constitutional scholar, but I think the petitioners' claim in Eldred v. Ashcroft makes eminent sense on economic grounds. The purpose of copyright (and other forms of intellectual property) is to "promote the progress of science and useful arts," as the Constitution puts it in Article I, section 8. This is consistent with the standard justification on grounds of economic efficiency, which is that the production of ideas is subject to a public good problem: once an idea is produced, anyone can use it without charge, meaning that the creator can't reap the full benefits of his creation (because others can copy the idea repeatedly, dissipating most or all of the profits). Copyrights create a temporary monopoly that allows the creator to claim some of those benefits after all, thus giving a greater incentive to create new ideas. Of course, monopolies have their own efficiency problems -- specifically, producing too little of the associated goods at too high a price -- which is why the term needs to be limited in time. Now, there can be a useful debate about the appropriate length of the copyright term, and there's no simple answer to that question. But what is clearly inefficient about the Sonny Bono Copyright Extension Act of 1998 (challenged in this case) and similar extension laws is the *retroactive* extension of copyrights on existing works. Retroactive extensions do nothing to encourage the creation of new works; they merely increase the monopoly inefficiency in their reproduction. In short, retroactive extensions are all cost, no benefit.But I recently encountered an argument to the effect that retroactive extensions might serve some legitimate economic purpose after all. From an article (available at here if you have a subscription) by David Streitfeld in the L.A. Times Magazine of 22 September:
"Peermusic had acquired the catalog of Hoagy Carmichael and was working to 'rejuvenate it," as they say in the business. The studios were reacquainted with songs such as 'Stardust' and 'Georgia on My Mind'; negotiations were underway with a store chain to sell a line of products based on Carmichael's romantic allure; a musical is in the works. [paragraph] But if Bono falls, 'Stardust' goes in the public domain immediately, and 'Georgia' follows in three years. 'There's no incentive for us to do what we're doing if we don't have the opportunity to earn renumeration [sic]," says chief executive Ralph Peer II."
This argument sounds right at first but doesn't withstand scrutiny. If Peermusic creates new works of art based on Carmichael, such as a new musical or new artwork for T-shirts, that material is (unless I'm quite mistaken about the operation of copyright law) copyrightable. The retroactive extension of the copyright on Carmichael's work would only assure that Peermusic and other who wish to use it for new creative works would have to pay for it. That might be good from Peermusic's standpoint because it keeps out some of their competitors -- but it's bad for the consumers, who will be better served by many companies instead of just one providing them with reproductions and derivatives of Carmichael's work. Any reduction in Peermusic's incentives is more than balanced by the reduced cost to other companies that might wish to engage in similar activity.
An analogy: What if Whitney Houston were the only pop singer currently producing Christmas albums with old (public domain) Christmas songs on it? Her profits would probably be higher if she could exclude other pop singers from making similar albums, so naturally she would favor a law that makes it more expensive for them to do so. Allowing other singers to use old Christmas songs would reduce Houston's profits and hence her incentive to record those songs -- but the overall effect would be more pop singers doing more Christmas albums, to the benefit of consumers. The only justification for copyrights in this case is to encourage the creation of *new* Christmas songs --but retroactive copyright extensions do nothing of the sort.
Thursday, October 03, 2002
Bilingual Education and Other Non-Debates
I ran across this article in favor of school choice on the School Reformers website. It would be more persuasive if its chosen target were something other than an uncited article in Money magazine printed "some years ago." Still, the author makes a point not repeated often enough: "But, even if, to quote a former Pennsylvania Secretary of Education, 'every school a good school' were the norm, individuals should still be able to select one rather than another. Schools may be good without being identical or equally able to serve diverse interests."Yes, school choice would help contain costs. Yes, school choice would tend to improve performance according to the usual measures (e.g., standardized testing). But the point here is that school choice allows … how can I put this … choice! Competition among schools offers the opportunity to escape the one-size-fits-all solutions offered by the public school monopoly. Consider the panoply of educational issues that currently masquerade as policy debates: bilingual education, single-sex education, mandatory uniforms, teaching of Black English (a.k.a. Ebonics), etc. Why should such matters as these be decided by the state legislature? In a system of school choice, parents could choose among the alternatives, selecting the school with the combination of rules and pedagogy that suits them best.
As just one example, take the case of bilingual education versus linguistic immersion. The real issue, I think most people on both sides would agree, is which method of instruction actually works better at educating non-English speakers. I don't claim to know which method is superior, but my strong suspicion is that it depends crucially on the individual student. So why the rancorous debate? Because everyone involved knows that the public schools will adopt a single policy for everyone. But it doesn't have to be that way. Allow school choice, and see which methods of language instruction pass the market test. Maybe only one method would survive, because schools that adopt it produce superior results and thereby attract more students (and imitators). Or maybe -- and this is my prediction -- there would be an equilibrium in which the market provides both types of language instruction, just as some colleges focus on liberal arts while other focus on professional and technical education. Take the same line of argument, replace bilingual education with any of the other issues above, wash, rinse, and repeat.
Wednesday, October 02, 2002
The Apologia
So I might as well start by explaining the title. I notice that others have used the word agoraphilia to mean a variety of things, including arousal from having sex in public places. Can't say I'm opposed to that, but the origin of the title is different. In 1994, when Clinton was pushing his plan to nationalize healthcare, I read an article (can't remember the source) about various Congressional healthcare proposals. The author observed that what all the plans, including Clinton's, suffered from was "agoraphobia." He didn't mean fear of open places -- the usual definition of that word -- but fear of the marketplace. The Agora was, after all, where the ancient Greeks engaged in commerce (while fending off gadflies like Socrates). Well, if someone who fears the market is an agoraphobe, it stands to reason that an avid free marketeer like myself must be an agoraphile.An added bonus: philosopher of science Karl Popper often referred to modern, liberal (in the broader sense of that term) civilization as "the open society." So even if one interprets agoraphilia to mean the love of open places -- not just the marketplace -- there's still a sense in which the term is appropriate.
And as long as we're having fun with ancient Greek, I've always been amused that the original meaning of the word "apology," as in Plato's "Apologia," was a defense or explanation -- not an admission of fault or regret. Thus the name of the current post.
Welcome to the Agora
This is my very first post on my spankin' new blog, Agoraphilia. I had another blog for less than 24 hours, which I had named "Blogging a Dead Horse" in the vain hope that no one had yet claimed that especially obvious blog title. Then I did a quick Google search, which generated an ungodly number of hits, including at least one blogger complaining about other bloggers who feel the need to make blog puns all the time. I had to agree, hence the new title. I'm not the first to use the term "agoraphilia," as yet another Google search shows, but it has special meaning to me. And at least it's not another blog pun.
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