tl;dr : Johnny Only (the current plaintiff) originally thought it was public domain until PinkFong tried to claim copyright to stop a right-wing South Korean from using the song. That led Johnny Only to step up.
So, ultimately this is another consequence of permission culture: Asking for permission and assuming property, leads to acting like there is a property right ....
Folks who are saying, "Hey, $11.6 million wasted is a drop in the bucket of total federal government waste" are missing the point, which is that:
It is NOT a drop in the bucket of the total Copyright Office budget, which in 2015 was $47.5M (https://www.copyright.gov/reports/annual/2015/ar2015.pdf). If it's a little under $2M per year wasted, then that's about 4% of the CO's annual budget wasted, or one out of every 25 dollars.
"A million here, a million there -- pretty soon you're talking real money."
Be careful what you wish for. Dewey is owned by OCLC, which has over-policed and over-claimed IP in the past.
OCLC sued The Library Hotel in NYC for using Dewey Decimal Classification numbers for room numbers, for instance -- http://librarytechnology.org/news/pr.pl?id=15488 ), and has repeatedly tried to claim ownership of library records that were created by individual libraries in what was intended to be a cooperative system (https://www.techdirt.com/blog.php?company=oclc).
First of all, in answer to your question: "Would It Have Been Better To Let The Indiana Religious Freedom Law Stand And Let The Internet And Free Market Work?" No.
A state is a large sovereign institution that affects the lives and liberties of all denizens. It has duties other than responding to market forces, namely, protecting civil liberties. Even if we were to assume that market forces would ultimately arc towards protecting civil liberties, why would those market forces perfectly influence the state's actions? The "market" (whatever you imagine that to be -- the people? the rich people?) so imperfectly influences governments that it's more accurate to describe this as a form of market failure.
Second, although I don't agree that we (citizens of a sovereign) ought to "let the market work" in response to civil liberties problems -- isn't changing the law in response to immediate consumer pressure, um, an example of "the market" working?
permission culture back-story
Interesting back story in this CBC article: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/q/thursday-january-24-2019-steffi-didomenicantonio-johnny-only-and-more-1.4989911/the-long-complicated-history-of-baby-shark-and-the-artist-fighting-for-credit-1.4989936
tl;dr : Johnny Only (the current plaintiff) originally thought it was public domain until PinkFong tried to claim copyright to stop a right-wing South Korean from using the song. That led Johnny Only to step up.
So, ultimately this is another consequence of permission culture: Asking for permission and assuming property, leads to acting like there is a property right ....
total govt waste not the point
Folks who are saying, "Hey, $11.6 million wasted is a drop in the bucket of total federal government waste" are missing the point, which is that:
It is NOT a drop in the bucket of the total Copyright Office budget, which in 2015 was $47.5M (https://www.copyright.gov/reports/annual/2015/ar2015.pdf). If it's a little under $2M per year wasted, then that's about 4% of the CO's annual budget wasted, or one out of every 25 dollars.
"A million here, a million there -- pretty soon you're talking real money."
Dewey IP
Be careful what you wish for. Dewey is owned by OCLC, which has over-policed and over-claimed IP in the past.
OCLC sued The Library Hotel in NYC for using Dewey Decimal Classification numbers for room numbers, for instance -- http://librarytechnology.org/news/pr.pl?id=15488 ), and has repeatedly tried to claim ownership of library records that were created by individual libraries in what was intended to be a cooperative system (https://www.techdirt.com/blog.php?company=oclc).
(A) No. (B) It already did.
First of all, in answer to your question: "Would It Have Been Better To Let The Indiana Religious Freedom Law Stand And Let The Internet And Free Market Work?" No.
A state is a large sovereign institution that affects the lives and liberties of all denizens. It has duties other than responding to market forces, namely, protecting civil liberties. Even if we were to assume that market forces would ultimately arc towards protecting civil liberties, why would those market forces perfectly influence the state's actions? The "market" (whatever you imagine that to be -- the people? the rich people?) so imperfectly influences governments that it's more accurate to describe this as a form of market failure.
Second, although I don't agree that we (citizens of a sovereign) ought to "let the market work" in response to civil liberties problems -- isn't changing the law in response to immediate consumer pressure, um, an example of "the market" working?
Public figure analysis, baby. By being significant business-people in the community, and injecting themselves into the debate ....