It is remarkably how an outfit that imagines itself so deeply committed to free trade is so incredibly oblivious to protectionism when it has the effect of redistributing income upward. The court order telling Google to hand over the Internet viewing records of tens of millions of people might be a good time to discuss the economics of copyright.
The point is that we incur enormous inefficiencies in the form of monopoly pricing and extraordinary enforcement costs, and now this invasion of individual privacy, all in order to get a relatively small amount of money into the hands of creative workers. We can think of much better ways to finance creative work. It would be difficult to imagine a worse system -- will the NYT ever talk about the issue?
We’re in the final stretch of our spring fundraising campaign and we’re not on pace to hit our goal. The truth is, we can’t keep producing independent journalism like this without support from readers like you. We don’t take ads from corporate giants or money from billionaires. That means we rely entirely on small donations to keep the lights on and the reporting strong. If you value journalism that challenges power, informs the public, and operates free from influence, now is the time to give.
