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Issues in the News

1. TECHNOLOGY

A new online music service plans to offer legal downloads from the massive Universal Music Group catalog for free.

CEI Expert Available to Comment: Technology Analyst Peter Suderman on how the system will work:

“Here, downloaders will pay with their eyeballs and then advertisers will pay for the rights to their eyeballs. Artists and labels get paid; advertisers get access to a media-savvy demographic, and we get to fill up our iPods for free. In other words, it’s a transaction that, if it proves financially viable, seems to work in the best interests of everyone.”

2. FINANCE

Recent comments by Securities and Exchange Commission chairman Chris Cox suggest the possibility of making financial regulations like Sarbanes-Oxley accounting rules voluntary for publicly-held companies.

CEI Expert Available to Comment: Economic Policy Fellow John Berlau on why the Sarbanes-Oxley regulations should be repealed:

“…the Sarbanes-Oxley Act goes against a 30-year trend of general economic deregulation under Republican and Democratic presidents. It undermines federalism, by going where the federal government has never gone before in areas of corporation law that had long been provinces of the states; UCLA law professor Stephen Bainbridge wrote in Regulation magazine that the act has ushered in ‘the creeping federalization of corporate law.’”

3. LEGAL

A federal judge overturns a Louisiana law barring the sale of violent video games to minors for violating the First Amendment.

CEI Expert Available to Comment: Technology Analyst Peter Suderman on how a similar California law restricting video game sales creates an incentive for poor parenting:

“Arnold Schwarzenegger acquired fame and fortune playing a slew of bloodthirsty meatheads. Now, as governor of California, he's still trying to play action hero, but this time by restricting the sale of violent video games to minors. This time, though, the hero looks to do more harm than good. In addition to posing a massive threat to free speech, a law signed by the governor Oct. 7 sets a precedent in which government regulation, far from helping parents, gives them an easy way to shirk their obligations by paying less attention to what games their children are playing. Good parents typically will concern themselves with what sorts of media – video games, movies, TV or Web sites – their children see and hear. But now that the government is willing to police content for them, parents may feel they needn't bother.”

Blog feature: For more news and analysis, updated throughout the day, visit CEI Open Market.

FOR MORE INFORMATION

To contact a CEI expert for comment or interviews, please call the CEI communications department at 202-331-2273 or email to [email protected].