Destroying the market place

'Sony Entertainment has shut down Beyonce's official YouTube site. Congrats to Sony Entertainment for wisely spending its legal dollars and working on behalf of its artists. Truly, you deserve many laws and secret treaties passed to protect your "business model" (how else could such a delicate flower survive the harsh realities of the real world?).'

http://www.boingboing.net/2010/03/26/sony-accuses-beyonce.html

I expect this kind of crap from the mushy, right-on lefties over at BoingBoing, but you as well, Professor Reynolds?

As a dedicated and faithful reader of InstaPundit, it pains me to see Prof Reynolds siding with the 'brave' artists against the faceless money-grubbing music corporations.

The last time I checked, the sanctity of the contract was one of the bedrock foundations of our economic prosperity. And if Beyonce has a contract with Sony which precludes her putting her own videos on YouTube, where Sony can't make any money from them, then she shouldn't. Contracts have to be mutually agreed, right? So when did Beyonce decide she could unilaterally break it with no consequences?

The 'laws and secret treaties' which the lefties at BoingBoing despise are what make profitable commerce possible. They allow creators to benefit from their creations. Very often with the enormously useful assistance of some faceless corporation. Or did I miss a memo?

The Pirate Party and the other lefty rabble who promote 'free downloading' contend that if a crime is easy to commit, it can't be a crime. 'See how easy it is to download this MP3? That can't be a criminal act'. Driving drunk is easy too. But there is still a compelling case for it to be illegal.

Many on the right see the intellectual copyright issue through the prism of personal freedom and not from the perspective of the economically essential tradition of inviolate contracts. Which is weird. My freedom to download is curtailed at the point where someone owns the intellectual rights to that music, film or game. Or there is no market for those things.

The left would love that.