Thursday, March 31, 2011 People usually say that copyright
protects the incentive of businesses to innovate more and since
their innovation is important their needs to be intellectual
property laws that prohibit other people from using the works of
someone else. However, as with almost everything, this goal (a
benefit) to protect innovation comes at a cost. There is a cost
imposed upon us with intellectual property in place. Not just
the cost of having to pay more, rather than just downloading
stuff, but a much more fundamental cost, a non-monetary cost.
The internet is at the risk of more control whenever there is an
intellectual monopoly created. Because now it means that
websites can be shut down for copyright violations. If a website
is illegally posting content which is copyrighted then it can be
shut down by the state. And I understand that this is not a free
speech violation, because the website is not being shut down for
what it said but for completely different violations. However,
it is still proble