Can we clear up the attributions here? This *entire essay* was written by Benjamin Tucker, excerpted and submitted by Kevin Horn -- not just the first paragraph. I woulda thought the style was a dead giveaway.

It is a good argument, and I agree with most of it, but I think that the information age has thrown a curve in it. Since any electronic work is now infinitely reproducible, should, say, id games be prohibited from copyrighting their work? Who would pay for Quake II if it was available everywhere, without fear of punishment -- or if multiple vendors could resell it at their own prices?

On the other hand, certain aspects of information systems automatically punish proprietary standards. TCP/IP is the protocol of the Internet, in part, because anyone can run it or write their own implementation without paying royalties. If MS decided tomorrow that NT servers on the Internet would run *only* on, say, NetBEUI, they'd alienate a huge percentage of the world. And the Internet would collapse like a souffle' topped with bricks.

In short, I think the proper tack here is a situational, utilitarian one, not an inflexible, dogmatic one.