The dinosaurs are running the asylum?

Courtesy of Michael, this interview with Larry Lessig in BusinessWeek Online. "Think about other platforms in our lives, like the highway system. Imagine if General Motors could build the highway system such that GM trucks ran better on it than Ford trucks. Or think about the electrical grid. Imagine if a Sony TV worked better on it than a Panasonic TV. The highway and electricity grids are all neutral platforms -- a common standard that everyone builds on top of. That's an extraordinarily important feature for networks to have."And..."There are lots of solutions that would promote innovation. For example, Congress could do what it has always done -- establish a flat compulsory licensing fee [such as the one radio stations pay to music publishers for playing their songs] so that any company can compete in the marketplace. That's what Napster [the free-music sharing Web site the recording industry sued out of existence] asked Washington for all along -- a compulsory license. That could deal with 80% of the problem of existing content. But these solutions are never recognized because, while the future under perfect competition would produce an industry with much greater income to artists and greater opportunities to consumers, the fact is that the concentrated players are going to lose. The problem is, we've given control of the future to the people who will lose even under best possible plan. It's like giving the communists control over the future of the new Russia. Congress continues to have them come down and testify. And they step forward and say they want communism to be protected for the next 100 years."