The Letter

If you happen to be perusing a bookstore magazine rack in the next few weeks, take a look at that experimental project of Stowe, Longfellow and Emerson - The Atlantic. I hope to get a byline in there someday, but for now I'll settle for the letter I have in the July/August issue. It's in response to Meghan McArdle's previous article on freeloading. You'll notice I was devising my Big Money article at the time I wrote the more bluntly executed letter:

As Megan McArdle notes, it is the abstract nature of digitized intellectual property that makes this debate so confused and confusing. Freeloaders trick themselves into thinking there’s nothing wrong with their actions, simply because they “feel okay.” But if consumers of the digital era eschew their responsibilities and refuse to pay for content, our culture will become more and more beholden to broad corporate branding and sponsorship. Music will no longer be made for fans; it will increasingly be marketed for use in bank commercials. Freeloaders who claim an anti-corporate posture are actually building a future in which desperate artists accept corporate patronage, and this is the tragic irony of the debate.

Chris Ruen

Brooklyn, N.Y.