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Disney CEO Thinks Private Property is a Good Idea
Posted by Ernest Miller on Thursday, March 28 @ 11:17:40 EST Digital Millennium Copyright Act
Michael Eisner, chairman and chief executive of the Walt Disney Company, goes out on a limb and supports the controversial position that private property is a good thing, in this Financial Times article (Abe Lincoln and the internet pirates). The Great Emancipator, Mr. Eisner asserts, would have "disdained those who ... pilfer the intellectual property of others." Well, who wouldn't disdain them? The question is not whether Internet piracy is bad, but what is to be done about it. Alas, Mr. Eisner does not provide any arguments for the solution he favors, the CBDTPA. Instead, Mr. Eisner quotes Czechoslovakia's foremost dissident and champion of human rights Vaclav Havel as favoring the rule of law, including private property. Last time I checked, Mr. Havel was still alive ... would it have been too much trouble to ask what Mr. Havel, a poet and playwright, thought of the CBDTPA? Unfortunately for Mr. Eisner, it is not clear that Mr. Havel would support it. After all, such technologies as mandated by the CBDTPA would have made it even easier for the communist authorities to prevent Mr. Havel from distributing his dissident works in the first place. Or doesn't Mr. Eisner realize that his position is philosophically incoherent? After all, increasing the "property" protections for Disney means decreasing the private property rights of everyone else.

C|Net News has a roundup of their recent articles on the CBDTPA (Targeting piracy). Newsforge's Jack Bryar argues in favor of donating to Sen. Hollings' (D-SC) Democratic politcal opponents (Effectively fighting the Hollings bill). Dan Gillmor draws a line in the sand on SiliconValley.com (Bleak future looms if you don't take a stand).

 
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