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Lately your comic strip has chronicled Zonker’s fight against “Liberal Hypocrite” David Geffen. This Hollywood biggy had the nerve to close off his Malibu beach property to surfer types. A legitimate controvery? Yes, given all the overcrowding at public beaches in California and elsewhere. But how about a discussion of another important issue–intellectual property rights?

Thanks to Hollywood’s influence on Washington, the number of free books and other items is the public domain is shrinking. Geffen himself is a major campaign contributor. Political Money Line notes that Geffen “has just about maxed-out to 2002 candidates. In the 1999-00 election cycle he gave $240,000 to the Democratic national committees.”

Care to take on the copyright issue, Garry? It’s no abstraction to your readers, against whom Hollywood is warring with increasingly restrictive copyright legislation that will jack up the costs of education and recreation–and certainly add to the expenses of a well-stocked national digital library system.

What are you doing just writing about Geffen’s beach when Lawrence Lessig is going before the Supreme Court on October 9 to argue against Washington’s recent extension of copyright?

Copyright is a valuable concept; let’s not endanger it by skewing copyright law against the public. Sooner or later, just as with the Wall Street scandals, the corporate world will pay big. Voter anger will force politicians to tilt in the other direction at the expense of Hollywood.

 
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