Wright on Pasquale on TOTM on DRM
Frank Pasquale has taken the time to respond to my earlier post on the use of antitrust to tax consumers on the grounds of fairness or other vague criteria. I take the basic point of Frank’s post to be that I have engaged in unfair burden shifting by demanding a showing of consumer harm prior to condemning the conduct as has been done in the Norwegian/ French investigations, though he goes on to make the some complaints about consumer rationality, a claim that I “refuse to inquire” as to whether the big four in the music industry are engaged in tacit collusion, and an accusation that I am just another “free marketeer” who glibly ignores how other countries handle these problems.
Frank seems to be ignoring the fact that I was responding to his post, not writing a treatise on DRM or a full economic analysis of DRM markets.
