Greedy (and Stupid) Bastards

Apple Insider has an article today that the some in the music industry want Congress to pass a law which would pay them for sampling music. To wit "Anyone who sells music, movies or TV shows online would be required to pay a performance fee with that transaction." Some idiot named David Israelite, who is president and CEO of the National Music Publishers Association, claims that the preview feature of iTunes constitutes a performance. What absolute crap. Does this nimrod not understand that previews are not downloaded by the person looking for music, or movies or TV shows? Does he not understand that the preview feature is similar to the feature offered in Borders or other retail stores?

Mr Isrealite recently released a study which claimed that Copyrights were responsible for economic growth. They "Accounted for nearly 23 percent of the U.S. economy’s growth in 2006-2007; Grew at a rate more than twice that of the U.S. economy as a whole in each of the years 2004-2007; Added $889 billion to the U.S. economy in 2007 – approximately 6.4 percent of GDP;
Exceeded $126 billion in foreign sales in 2007; Employed 5.6 million workers in 2007, more than 4 percent of the U.S. workforce. " What his trumped up study does not account for is what the numbers would have been had not the rent seeking burden of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DCMA) did to inhibit economic growth. Is there no cost to inhibiting the kind of creativity that Steamboat Willie's (the Disney classic which does not go out of copyright until a couple of decades from now even though it was a derivative work) extended copyrights had on American innovation? Of course not. Let's hope Mr. Isrealite is unsuccessful.