My colleague Patrick Ross has stirred up the hornets with his C|Net News piece on "Here's a surefire way to stifle innovation." He provoked 59 comments in direct response, mostly just hostile but with many descending into the category of hate mail. Tech Liberation Front has several posts in response, largely of the same intemperate ilk.

Patrick is out of the country at the moment, so I will jump into the conversation, if such it can be called.

Patrick's thesis was that technological protection measures (TPM) that protect online content will encourage content providers to experiment with different pricing models, which will in turn encourage the production of more content. It will also create possibilities for tailoring prices tightly to the particular desires of consumers (e.g., a single play at price X; multiple plays at price X + 2; unlimited plays at price 2X), thus increasing consumer satisfaction.

Continuing this chain of logic, the article opposes H.R. 1201, which would allow cracking of TPM measures if the purpose is "fair use" on the grounds that it would prevent/undermine the beneficent effects of TPM. The bill would also allow the distribution of code-cracking tools as long as these could be used for fair use purposes.*

H.R.1201 presents four problems (this is my formulation, which adds a bit to Patrick's): (1) It arbitrarily freezes fair uses that were recognized under the existing state of technology, and thus prevents those rights from evolving in response to changing transaction costs; (2) Because the legal codification of fair use is vague and open-ended, H.R. 1201 would offer cover for any code-cracking enterprise; (3) The bill allows the distribution of code-cracking tools as long as they can be linked to some claim of fair use; (4) Once a piece of content has been cracked, even if the original purpose could be regarded as "fair," the in-clear version can readily be dispersed over the Internet; with every consumer applying his own definition of "fair use," this situation would quickly get our of control.

For making these simple and rather obvious points, we are called "hacks," "industry shills," "liars," "morons" and a few other things.

The comments trigger several reactions.

A few are good. We will review these, and deal with them in a separate blog.

Many are wrong about factual points. These also tend to be condescending and arrogantly certain, and free to insult us for taking contrary views. Some rely on tendentious summaries of H.R. 1201 rather than the provisions of the bill itself

Most regard as easy problems that I find quite difficult. I wonder how I could be so lacking in subtlety.

The comments exhibit an overwhelming level of solipsism ("The theory or view that the self is the only reality"). They think the system should be oriented totally toward the immediate gratifications of the writer, not on the hard questions of how to make a complex societal system work.

They love demonization -- the evil record companies or movie industry. It is like walking into a sophomore seminar. The level of vitriol, and the automatic assumption that anyone who has a view other than the commenter is evil, is quite extraordinary. On the whole, it makes one despair for American education.

So I suggest that most of the commenters should go violate U.S. Patent D 440,263.

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* The relevant part of the H.R. 1201 says:
SEC. 5. FAIR USE AMENDMENTS.
(a) Scientific Research- Subsections (a)(2)(A) and (b)(1)(A) of section 1201 of title 17, United States Code, are each amended by inserting after `title' in subsection (a)(2)(A) and after `thereof' in subsection (b)(1)(A) the following: `unless the person is acting solely in furtherance of scientific research into technological measures'.
(b) Fair Use Restoration- Section 1201 (c) of title 17, United States Code, is amended--
(1) in paragraph (1), by inserting before the period at the end the following: `and it is not a violation of this section to circumvent a technological measure in order to obtain access to the work for purposes of making noninfringing use of the work'; and
(2) by adding at the end the following new paragraph:
`(5) Except in instances of direct infringement, it shall not be a violation of the Copyright Act to manufacture or distribute a hardware or software product capable of substantial noninfringing uses.'.