Café Hayek discusses the World Social Forum in Brazil, with particular attention to a news report that: "Grateful Dead lyricist John Barlow said poor nations can't solve their problems unless they stop paying expensive software licensing fees."

If you are in danger of believing this, Café Hayek has a reading list for you: "Read this book -- and this one, and this one, and this one, and this one."

He might have added this one, too.

A follow-up story is here.

And for more on Brazil from the Church of Open Source, go here and here.

In our view, of course, this is a doctrine that can lead only to disaster. As Hernando De Soto has documented eloquently, the problem in the third world is a lack of property rights, not an excess, and sending these nations down the same tragic path in the context of IP rights and in the name of an ideology is a casual cruelty of the rich and safe.

posted by James DeLong @ 11:31 AM | Free Culture Movement

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