cwjuhl
@rr.com
| Re: How do I get into this racket? Conditions of FEDERAL Financial student Aid should not and cannot not be used to benefit a group of PRIVATE businesses by imposing unfunded mandates on funded institutions of learning. When FEDERAL PUBLIC laws are subservient to PRIVATE business concerns, then you no longer have a democracy, you have an oligarchy. That's political science 101. What the RIAA is asking for in this bill is basically socialized access to entertainment.
Under just about any theory of law involving private enterprise, it is the responsibility of the owner of the intellectual property to secure and enforce those property rights. Requiring all of the public (including the higher education system) to pay royalties for intellectual property used by a minority is a perverse kind of corporate entitlement or socialism. IF mandates can be placed for compulsory payments, then mandates need also be placed for fee caps.
But the bottom line is that in a democratic, capitalistic system, it is the property owner's responsibility to protect their property, intellectual or otherwise. If I have a grocery store, the authorities will prosecute a thief. But the authorities will not protect me from thieves by buying me locks or installing an alarm for me at the public expense. Nor will they tax the neighborhood to offset my losses from shoplifting. As a property owner, it is MY responsibility to protect myself. It is the authorities responsibility to prosecute those who violate my property rights. The authorities responsibility is to maintain order for the good of ALL by. as such, their role is primarily reactive and retributive. A property owner has the responsibility of being PROACTIVE.
If the measure is passed, it would probably at some point be ruled an unconstitutional taking.
If the RIAA cannot adequately protect their member's property with their current business model, then they need to find a different business model. That is, after all, the fundamental principle of capitalism and free markets. |
