Been a while since I’ve made a pass by TechCentralStation, but this muddled argument made it worth the trip: Bill Clinton Gets a Taste of His Own Medicine

It’s never nice to wish someone a taste of his own medicine, but since it has already happened to Bill Clinton, here’s hoping some good will come of it.

The subject is his runaway hit memoir, “My Life,” which according to reports in the New York Times has recently become the latest victim of copyright infringement in overseas markets. Despite official distribution of the work in Asia, many of the copies on the street are hastily pirated versions — sold for a fraction of the price and without any of the royalties due its rightful author.

[...] It would be funny if it weren’t so serious — or so redolent of the policies Mr. Clinton himself has supported in another arena of great demand and Western prices. That is, knockoff drugs to fight AIDS.

Since leaving office, Mr. Clinton’s Presidential Foundation has been engaged with a number of international health activists and charity organizations in trying to provide AIDS medicines to the countless suffering from the disease in underdeveloped countries in Africa, Asia and South America.

But while the goal itself is worthy, the Clinton Foundation has been a leading supporter of the use of knock-off pills, produced without permission or supervision by generics manufacturers in countries that do not recognize international patent rights.

So, let’s see. We get the conflation of copyright with patents, continuing the push toward “intellectual property,” without considering the distinctions between the two legal regimes. Then there’s the convenient neglect of the possible ethical and policy distinctions between a life-and-death and the extraction of economic rents. And finally, it’s the interesting celebration of government regulation from a group generally focused upon the idea that the market/profit motive is the answer to all problems — except in the case of IP, apparently. I mean, in this article, profits are downright unethical!

Ah, well. As I said, entertaining.