Sean Reiser

Since the supreme court ruled on Kelso vs. The City of New London allowing the use of eminent domain to transfer real property from one private owner to another to increase tax receipts and jobs, many cities have begun projects to build sports arenas, corporate parks, factories and bus stations. They have taken advantage of eminent domain to assist developers in acquiring the land they require to execute. Gone are the days of pesky home owners holding onto their land until they get a "fair price", now if a developer wants a piece of land the government can intercede and condemn the property and transfer it to the developer. My question is, why doesn't this apply to intellectual property as well?

World famous internet balladeer Jonathan Coulton makes a fair living writing, selling and performing music but let's face it Mr. Coulton is a small operation. If SonyBMG can prove to the City of New York that they could make more money off of Mr. Coulton's music, shouldn't his music be transferred to them? Sony would require more personnel to market, promote, and produce Mr Coulton's music and could produce more tax receipts then Mr. Coulton does out of his Brooklyn apartment. The same can be said for open source projects such as Linux, Firefox, and Drupal. If tax receipts and job creation can be used as rationale for using eminent domain, shouldn't any intellectual property just be transferred to the company who can make the most off of it since that would create income and jobs?

All this satire leads to my real question... Why should real property be less protected intellectual property?