Common Tragedy

I think it is more than ironic that my internet connection was shut off by the wonderful folks at Residential Computing for exceeding the bandwidth limit while we are studying the tragedy of the commons in property law. So for the day at least, I consider myself a libertarian. The hell with common property, I want everything to be private, including bandwidth, so that I can turn around and sell it on the market for profit. (If you are a libertarian and are totally aghast that someone can butcher your tenets with such ignorance, don't bother pointing this out.) With that, I'd like to apologize for the long silence.

Anywho, while we're on the subject of property, I wanted to gripe about something I saw in our readings for Tuesday. Judge Alex Kozinski of the 9th Circuit wrote in a dissent from denial for rehearing, "Where would we be if Charles Lindbergh had an exclusive right in the concept of a heroic solo aviator? If Arthur Conan Doyle had gottena copyright in the idea of the detective story, or Albert Einstein had patented the theory of relativity?" 989 F.2d 1512, 1516 (9th Cir. 1993). I almost feel like I'm nitpicking like Eugene, but this is actually a factual error. The detective story was created by Edgar Allan Poe with his Inspector Dupin stories (my personal favorite, Murders in the Rue Morgue because "the orangutan did it.") Once again, more irony in the realm of property rights when a judge gets cute by citing an author who's famous for ripping off another.