Mineral
rights, mining claims, Oil and gas leases, radio spectrum.
If a given
commodity is truly scarce, nothing works as good as the free market in
encouraging consumers to conserve and make the best use of it.
I think you're dead-on there, but you forget who you're
really trying to convince. It'll happen eventually but in the meantime
the greybeards who were largely responsible for the Internet as we know
it (and who by and large still wield significant influence if not still
stewardship) will be dragged there kicking and screaming from their
academic/pseudo-Marxist ideals, some of whom seem to still resent the
commercialization of the Internet. It's also hard to see the faults in
the system when you are insulated by your position as member of the
politburo.
The flip side of the coin of course is that if you let
the free market reign on IP's, you may price developing countries right off
the Internet which I don't think anyone sees as a desirable outcome.
There's sure to be a happy middle ground that people smarter than I will
figure out, and maybe it takes a silly lawsuit such as this to kick things
off.
Andrew Cruse