Politics Is That Rare Sport Where The

It Might Be Crazy To Expect A High Government Official To Speak The Truth. It Might Be Crazy To Believe That Government Policy Will Be Something More Than The Handmaiden Of The Most Powerful Interests. It Might Be Crazy To Argue That We Should Preserve A Tradition That Has Been Part Of Our Tradition For Most Of Our History -- Free Culture. If This Is Crazy, Then Let There Be More Crazies. Soon.

We Have A Massive System To Regulate Creativity. A Massive System Of Lawyers Regulating Creativity As Copyright Law Has Expanded In Unrecognizable Forms, Going From A Regulation Of Publishing To A Regulation Of Copying.

A Free Culture Supports And Protects Creators And Innovators. It Does This Directly By Granting Intellectual Property Rights. But It Does So Indirectly By Limiting The Reach Of Those Rights, To Guarantee That Follow-on Creators And Innovators Remain As Free As Possible From The Control Of The Past. A Free Culture Is Not A Culture Without Property, Just As A Free Market Is Not A Market In Which Everything Is Free. The Opposite Of A Free Culture Is A "permission Culture" -- A Culture In Which Creators Get To Create Only With The Permission Of The Powerful, Or Of Creators From The Past.

Overregulation Corrupts Citizens And Weakens The Rule Of Law.

Some Blame The Drug Companies. I Don't. They Are Corporations. Their Managers Are Ordered By Law To Make Money For The Corporation. They Push A Certain Patent Policy Not Because Of Ideals,but Because It Is The Policy That Makes Them The Most Money. And It Only Makes Them The Most Money Because Of A Certain Corruption Within Our Political System-a Corruption The Drug Companies Are Certainly Not Responsible For. The Corruption Is Our Own Politicians' Failure Of Integrity.