To most people, this is plainly absurd. _Gone_with_the_Wind_ is an extraor-
dinarily important part of American culture; at some point, the story should
be free for others to take and criticize in whatever way they want. It should be
free, that is, not only for the academic, who would certainly be allowed to
quote the book in a critical essay; it should be free as well for authors like
Alice Randall as well as film directors or playwrights to adapt or attack as
they wish. That's the meaning of a free society, and whatever compromise
on that freedom copyright law creates, at some point that compro-
mise should end.

The _Gone_with_the_Wind_ case, as well as Eldred's case, is still working its
way through the courts. But both tell a similar story: The freedom to build
upon and create new works is increasingly, and almost perpetually, re-
stricted under existing law. To a degree unimaginable by the Framers of our
Constitution, that control has been concentrated in the hands of the hold-
ers of copyrights -- increasingly, large media companies.

/tab\/tab\CONSEQUENCES OF CONTROL/tab\/tab\

The internet in its nature shocks real-space law. That's often great; it is
sometimes awful. The question policy makers must face is how to respond
to this shock.

Courts are policy makers, and they too must ask how best to respond.
Should they respond by intervening immediately to remedy the "wrong"
said to exist? Or should they wait to allow the system to mature and to see
just what harm there is?

In the context of porn, as I have already argued, the courts' response is to
wait and see. And indeed, this is the response of the government in many
different contexts. Porn, privacy, taxation: in each case, courts and the gov-
ernment have insisted we should wait to see how the network develops.

In the context of copyright, the response has been different. Pushed by an
army of high-powered lawyers, greased with piles of money from PACs,
Congress and the courts have jumped into action to defend the old against
the new. They have legislated, and litigated, quickly to assure that control of
the old is not completely undermined by the new.

Ordinary people might find these priorities a bit odd. After all, the record-
ing industry continues to grow at an astounding rate. Annual CD sales have
tripled in the past ten years.[11-39] Yet the law races to support the recording in-
dustry, without any showing of harm. (Indeed, possibly the opposite: when

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