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A comment on EFF and heavyweight legal team will defend Internet Archive against publishers. Parent comment

Re:EFF and heavyweight legal team will defend Internet Archi... by MereInterest on Tuesday June 30, 2020 @01:39PM (#23692633)
I agree completely on most items, except that copyright is not a natural monopoly. There isn't a high barrier of entry to printing a different book, nor is there a very limited supply of printing presses. Copyright is entirely a government-granted monopoly, intended to serve the public good by promoting good writing. In cases where it doesn't serve the public good, it is reasonable to reduce the strength of copyright.
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Re:EFF and heavyweight legal team will defend Internet Archi... by ocdtrekkie on Tuesday June 30, 2020 @01:41PM (#23692654)
That's fair. It'd be more correct to call it a government-granted monopoly, indeed. My point was mostly that for any given book, the publisher has no competition, so the reputation of the publisher doesn't matter too much to someone who needs to buy that book.
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Re:EFF and heavyweight legal team will defend Internet Archi... by xhkkffbf on Tuesday June 30, 2020 @06:15PM (#23695389)
Exactly. Anti-copyright people love to claim the book author has a "monopoly." But it's only on their own book. Nothing stops someone else from writing a competing book. It's kind of like saying a car owner buys a "monopoly" by purchasing a car. Yeah, only the owner can drive a particular car, but that's not what the word means. Yet people persist with this phony gambit.
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Re:EFF and heavyweight legal team will defend Internet Archi... by MereInterest on Tuesday June 30, 2020 @06:22PM (#23695454)
tilts head You start off by saying "exactly", but then go assuming that I said the opposite of what I said. To state it clearly, copyright is a monopoly. Patents are a monopoly. That these are government-granted monopolies enforced by law, rather than a natural monopoly caused by scarce resources, does not make them any less of a monopoly.

The car analogy does not apply, primarily because cars are fungible. Books are not fungible, unless they are printings of the same book. Cultural ideas are not fungible.

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