This Does Not Promote the Progress of Science and Useful Arts

This business will get out of control. It will get out of control and we'll be lucky to live through it.

Or how the capture of our IP regulatory process by rent seekers has f%$#ed us all:

Last night, robots shut down the live broadcast of one of science fiction's most prestigious award ceremonies. No, you're not reading a science fiction story. In the middle of the annual Hugo Awards event at Worldcon, which thousands of people tuned into via video streaming service Ustream, the feed cut off — just as Neil Gaiman was giving an acceptance speech for his Doctor Who script, "The Doctor's Wife." Where Gaiman's face had been were the words, "Worldcon banned due to copyright infringement." What the hell?

Jumping onto Twitter, people who had been watching the livestream began asking what was going on. How could an award ceremony have anything to do with copyright infringement?

………

And then it began to dawn on people what happened. Gaiman had just gotten an award for his Doctor Who script. Before he took the stage, the Hugo Awards showed clips from his winning episode, along with clips from some other Doctor Who episodes that had been nominated, as well as a Community episode.

………

This was, of course, absurd. First of all, the clips had been provided by the studios to be shown during the award ceremony. The Hugo Awards had explicit permission to broadcast them. But even if they hadn't, it is absolutely fair use to broadcast clips of copyrighted material during an award ceremony. Unfortunately, the digital restriction management (DRM) robots on Ustream had not been programmed with these basic contours of copyright law.

I would also note that the use of clips in an award show used to be clearly fair use, but they had the rights anyway, but the zero tolerance of the RIAA, the MPAA, and the BBC (who do you think produces Dr. Who).

Rent seeking is always a source of inefficiency in the economy, and it should be allowed, as in the case of patent and copyright, only to the degree to which we as a society see a benefit.

The current IP regime is an impediment, not an aid to innovation and other productive work.