Balkinization: An argument for intellectual piracy?

An argument for intellectual piracy?

Charlie Savage informs me that a website, Lawyer News and Information, lifted the entire text of my Newt Gingrich post and republished it without my permission. As a result, a copy of the post is preserved here, even though Blogger ate the original yesterday due to a malfunction.

For the time being at least, I do not intend to sue. ;-) Unauthorized appropriation of intellectual property has pulled Blogger's chestnuts out of the fire.

But wait, am I violating the copyright laws by deliberately linking to a post that is a willful infringement of copyright and sending my readers there? Probably not-- after all, it is my copyright. But what the hell, I'll just copy the post from the infringing site myself and violate (my own) copyright a second time. And if Lawyer News and Information then wants to send me a demand letter, I think it would be very interesting litigation.

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Newt Gingrich and the activity/inactivity distinction

JB

Newt Gingrich, who is joining the presidential race, has supported individual mandates for health insurance for some time. He has argued, for example, that people over a certain income level should either be forced to buy insurance or post a bond. Interestingly, he also supports the constitutional challenge to the individual mandate for health care.

What gives? Well, let Ed Haislmaier of the Heritage Foundation try to explain it for you:

Ed Haislmaier, a health care policy expert at the Heritage Foundation (the conservative think tank that first championed the mandate), said he did not have enough information to comment on Gingrich’s past approach to health care reform. Haislmaier did, however, note that there is a distinction between taxing individuals for not buying insurance and requiring them to post a bond, as Gingrich proposed. While the former is a penalty for not getting coverage, “what [the latter] is saying is you have to pay your bills if you get care,” he said.

A bond, as Haislmaier noted, is exactly what Romney initially proposed while he was governor of Massachusetts. Romney ended up signing off on a more traditional mandate only after it was passed by the state legislature.

OK, but requiring people to post a bond (rather than pay a tax) if they don’t purchase health insurance is regulating inactivity, too, isn’t it? I mean, as I understand the constitutional challenge to the health care bill, the person who is forced to post a bond because they won’t buy insurance isn’t doing anything, right? And, to quote my friend Randy Barnett, isn’t such a proposal an “unprecedented” expansion of the commerce power?

Posted 3:15 PM by JB [link]