Redtube.com is an internet site offering high quality porn for free. But competitor sex sites which were trying to charge for the same service didn’t like the supposedly unfair competition (and California does have an “unfair competition” law). Thus, one competitor sued. Thankfully, however, a California Appeals court dismissed the case, essentially stating that anyone has the freedom to publish whatever one wants on the internet.
I know this observation is ridiculously aggregated, but when you take a coast-to-coast flight it is impossible not notice that the vast amount of land space is the U.S. is completely empty. You would swear that the country was an uninhabited wasteland. Then you reflect on the immigration debate and get the strong impression that we are fighting for room to breath around here. It’s just a strange dichotomy. It’s one thing for Japan to worry about immigration, or Switzerland, or even Austria.
Mises’s notable theory of classes has been curiously neglected. By bringing it back into prominence, we have to abandon the cozy view that all of us, we and our privileged rulers alike, are in a continuing harmony of interest.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office shut down ten internet sites for allegedly live streaming copyrighted sporting events.
“The illegal streaming of professional sporting events over the Internet deals a financial body blow to the leagues and broadcasters who are forced to pass their losses off to fans by raising prices for tickets and pay-per-view events,” Manhattan U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara said.
An intriguing new working paper by IP law professor Eric E. Johnson, “Intellectual Property’s Great Fallacy“. Abstract below:
I am going to be one-half of the lunchtime presentation at the Risk and Insurance Management Society (RIMS) meeting in Atlanta on Thursday February 10th. They have graciously made an option for people who just want to go to the lunch and watch the debate.
Be careful when you go to the link; it looks like it’s saying the date is February 7, but that’s just their cut-off for ticket sales. Also note that if you do sign up for this, you need to print out your payment confirmation to get in the door the day of the event.
At least one reviewer was dismayed that everything had a price in the True Grit story. Indeed, Mattie Ross is constantly making economic calculations while trying to make the best deals she can.
[This article is excerpted from A History of Money and Banking in the United States (2002). An MP3 audio file of this article, read by Matthew Mezinskis, is available for download.]
