the Becker - Posner Blog

Richard Posner, one of the key figures in the Law and Economics approach of legal analysis, now has a blog. To call it a blog probably belittles it. Posner is a very very smart man with very particular views on law. Being a member of the Chicago school, he is a passionate neo-liberal, but being a neo-liberal he is very critical of corporatism and moderm political economics. It should be a good read.

Here's an excerpt:

A major theme in the comments is that it is impossible to assign a numerical probability to an adversary's attack, unless the attack is imminent. That is true. No one could have said in 1936 that if Hitler was allowed to reoccupy the Rhineland, there was a .__ probability that he would eventually attack France. However, we frequently have to act under conditions of profound uncertainty. It would be paralyzing to suggest that we should never act unless we can quantify the expected benefits and costs of our acts (there would be very few marriages under this approach).

Also discovered an Australian IP blog which seems promising. Its called Weatherall's Law. LIke most IP scholar, its seems as if Kim Weatherall is being rather critical of the Free Trade Agreement. Thank god for that. Problem is - it past without comment, even though Chapter 7 WAS the most detailed of all the provisions in the FTA. I think the Australian Film Industry did a disservice to the rest of the country by focusing so heavily on the cultural quota issue rather than the general thrust of the FTA to bring our laws in 'harmonisation' (what a fucking euphemism) with the DMCA without giving us the same rights to fair dealing or fair use.

There is no copy-right, there is only use-right.