Who's advocating putting the FCC in charge of copyright law? Fair use is a limitation on copyright law that gives individuals greater freedom to repurpose creative works without interference from the legal system. You can certainly argue that this will lead to the under-rewarding of content creators, and a resulting under-production of creative works. But "micro-managing" seems like a bizarre charge to level here.

If anything, the micro-managing is being done by those who want to put the FCC in charge of such technological issues as "broadcast flags," closing the "analog hole," etc. Those proposals *would* involve government bureaucrats deciding on the design of technological devices. In contrast, expanding the scope of creative activities that are not subject to copyright law would mean less, not more, government interference with the creative process.

Hear hear, Tim.

Jim, if you're saying government should stay out of the markets, then you can't have it one way and not the other. Substituting one kind of government interference you don't like (i.e., definitions of fair use) with one you do (forcing electronics manufacturers to implement protection measures) is a bit hypocritical, as both would upset the market and potentially limit development in one way or another.

Tim/Commons,

Jim is being practical rather than idealistic.

Some forms of regulatory policy (such as copyright) are more valuable to productive free markets than an anarchistic free for all. Of course, that assumes that you're looking at the overall market to judge regulatory policies, rather than individual instances where they may or may not reflect free market ideals (aka, missing the forrest for the trees).

Noel:

I do not think government-mandated protection systems are in any sense practical or valuable to the overall market.