At the Cato conference today, a movie industry attendee kept asking the copyleftists who favor the abolition of copyright the question: "If we cannot protect the product, then how can we invest $200 million in a movie like King Kong?"

The responses he got were, more or less:

+ The open source software industry gives away its product and sells services;
+ The pornography industry functions without real copyright protection;
+ Much of that money goes to overpaid stars;
+ Differentiate the product -- seeing a movie in a theater is a different experience than seeing it on DVD, and DVDs can include extra features [N.B. Both are true, but so what? Without CR protection, anyone can show it in a theater without paying the studio, or can copy the extra features];
+ Perhaps such movies will not be made in the future.
+ Money can be made by ancillary products other than the movie itself. [N.B. $200 million worth?]

What he did not get was an anwer.

posted by James DeLong @ 2:20 PM | General

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