I am not entirely sure if the “constitutionality” question is an easy one–however, there is no doubt that extensions of this sort are bad policy–the artist has already created the work in question and there is no question of a retrospective incentive!! As Larry decries: this is really a no brainer!! An important lesson for India, as Yash Chopra and others put pressure to increase the terms of old Hindi films–an aspect that Kruttika had blogged on earlier here.
Given the perverse influence of money and the ease with which MPAA and RIAA got what it wanted from Congress, Prof Lessig may have felt the need to go to very source of this “perverse” policy making: the influence of interest groups (and campaign donations) on the Hill.
Anyway, here is a brilliant video/audio of his second annual lecture in constitutional law at Stanford, where he speaks about this new project focussing on anti-corruption. Interestingly, he argues that no scholar should continue with his field of specific expertise for more than 10 years–after 10 years, one has to try something new. I’ve heard that this ideal was more than lived up to by one of India’s most renowned physicists–Subramaniam Chandrasekhar, who shifted his area of research focus every 7 years or so.
This video contains some obvious examples of “corruption” in policy making, notably:
1. The copyright extension case, discussed above
2. The FDA ruling that a diet of 25% sugar was perfectly healthy…
He also references some great websites that track where campaign funds come from and how they influence voting on the Hill. He argues very powerfully on our collective responsibility to ensure that there is no “queering” of policy through cash…
Given the focus of SpicyIP on increasing transparency at the Indian Patent office and other IP institutions in India–and making these offices more accountable and less corruptible, this is a topic of special interest to us. And Larry’s talk provides us with plenty of inspiration. Those of you involved with IP policy making in India will know that policy making in India is more opaque and guarded than it is in the US. Therefore, our task is a much more uphill one. But we’ve made a start–and with your support, we can certainly do much more…
One of our readers comments:
“Dear Shamnad:
Remember that Larry Lessig decided after he lost in the Supreme Court that he had done a poor job of presenting the case. After all he only could get Breyer and one other judge to dissent and Breyer has been anti-IP since he was a professor. As a professor he wrote one of the worst articles ever published in the Harvard Law Review arguing that it was so hard to copy copyrighted materials that copyright was unnecessary. Anyhow I know what corruption is and trying to get Congress to do what you want by making campaign donations is called free speech. I don’t particularly approve of a lot of Congressional legislation, but it is generally not obtained through corruption. Even Bill Clinton who was corrupt and who sold pardons at the end of his administration did so openly and he was elected with everyone knowing that he had no morals. I define corruption as paying people secretly. It has happened with judges in the state systems and rarely in the Federal system. We had a Congressman recently who was found to have ninety thousand dollars in cash in his freezer. Remember Larry Lessig is basically a self-promoter who has had one good idea in his life and that is that there should be a register listing who owns copyrighted material. The rest is essentially bullshit. Now going on to an anti-corruption campaign means that he is out of ideas as everybody knows corruption is not good. How to prevent it is the difficult question.
My Response:
I was very much expecting a reaction from you—as I know he is not one of your favourites. But let’s beg to differ here on whether he’s a good scholar with ideas or not. I’m sure he’ll advance the scholarship and movement around anti-corruption to some substantial extent.
Warm wishes,
Shamnad
His reaction to above:
Dear Shamnad:
In five years you will see that he will have added the same amount to our knowledge of the political science of legislation that he added to our knowledge of copyright. What we can be sure of is that he will feature Larry Lessig as the star attraction.
My response:
I really wouldn’t mind him being a star attraction—if that helps bring about more transparency in the system and advances the scholarship. In some ways, the ends justify the means—so let him get his fair share of the spotlight. As you can appreciate, there are plenty of academics out there who love the limelight—just that some don’t get it, as they are not blessed with charisma. Larry is overdosed with it—and if he exploits it to a good end, I really don’t see a problem with it.
Warm wishes,
Shamnad