Cory Doctorow om amerikansk handelspolitikk, opphavsrett og salg av åndsverk

Rådende amerikansk handelspolitikk, å importere billige varer og eksportere åndsverk, er i ferd med å ødelegge amerikansk økonomi i følge Cory Doctorow. Han hevder at denne politikken er feilslått fordi innbyggerne i landene USA handler med heller vil piratkopiere amerikanske åndsverk enn å kjøpe dem: How Hollywood, Congress, And DRM Are Beating Up The American Economy, (InformationWeek, 11. jun. 2007).

There was only one fly in the ointment: Most of the world's economies consist of poor people who have more time than money, and if there's any lesson to learn from American college kids, it's that people with more time than money would rather copy information for free than pay for it.

The futurists were just plain wrong. An "information economy" can't be based on selling information. Information technology makes copying information easier and easier. The more IT you have, the less control you have over the bits you send out into the world. It will never, ever, EVER get any harder to copy information. The information economy is about selling everything except information."

Cory Doctorow snakker om mye av det samme i dette foredraget hos Google: Authors at Google: Cory Doctorow, (YouTube, 24. mai 2007) (Via Applied Abstractions).