This transcript has been edited for length and clarity.
Carl Szabo is the vice president and general counsel of NetChoice. He is also an adjunct professor of Internet law at the George Mason University Antonin Scalia School of Law.
Federal Newswire
What is your perspective on the secondary ticket marketplace, with companies like Ticketmaster?
Carl Szabo
This is something I've been working on for a number of years. It's the basic question of, do you have a right to freely transfer your ticket to somebody else?...I remember a time when you could go to the airport and sell somebody your ticket to your airplane. You can't do that anymore.
Ticketmaster [and] Live Nation merged about 15 years ago. The idea was that this will increase competition in the ticket seller space. It has been the exact opposite.
An overwhelming majority of ticket sales, more than 80%, are done through Ticketmaster. The quality of service has gone down. The fees keep going up. It is a fundamentally broken market, and what they are also trying to do is prevent resale of tickets on any platform that is not Ticketmaster. They are going to squash competition.
I went to a Cubs game where they were playing the Nationals, a loser team back then, still a loser team today. I walked up to the stadium. The game was in the second inning and I bought tickets for five bucks. It was great for me. The ticket seller made $5 more than they would have otherwise, because the value of those tickets is quickly moving to zero as the game progresses and ultimately hits rock bottom in the ninth inning.
It is a perfectly operating, functioning marketplace that matches demand and supply perfectly, and is free transfer. [Consider] the example of people saying tickets for the most high-profile events have gone through the roof and people are getting gouged. No they're not. They're paying the price that they think is appropriate. Simultaneously, I like to flip it on its head. Imagine going to that Cubs game where the ticket was probably 50 or 60 bucks. I'm saving $55. I'm making a steal, so it works both ways.
Federal Newswire
What does NetChoice do?
Carl Szabo
We fight for free expression and free enterprise on the Internet. We've been doing it for almost 25 years now. I've been there for over 13. We fight at the state, federal and international levels to break down barriers to commerce. We want to limit government because at the end of the day, government red tape is bad for competition.
It locks in incumbents and it's terrible [for keeping] America as the leading tech innovator on the world stage. That's really important to all of us. We need to unleash America's innovation, not lock it down.
Federal Newswire
What is your perspective on the relationship between protecting intellectual property, and economic prosperity and innovation?
Carl Szabo
Copyright is in the US Constitution. The way it's structured is, if you fix anything in a tangible medium, it’s immediately copyrighted. Basically, if you write something down on a piece of paper, it is immediately copyrighted. The ownership rights are clear.
[One] of the big questions is the AI question and copyright law. Does AI fundamentally change the way we do copyright law? If you look at Europe and many other parts of the world, they'll say you cannot use AI, period. Then they'll start allowing you to do it, as opposed to the United States, where we banned the bad action.
If you have a derivative use, like the Lord of the Rings movie is a derivative of the book, just because you make it in a different medium doesn't mean you suddenly are able to escape copyright law. The thing about artificial intelligence is [that] AI itself isn't either of those. It's not copy, nor is it a derivative use.
When it comes to artificial intelligence, it's not the same product. [For example], here's what's called the monkey selfie case. The monkey grabs the zookeeper’s phone, takes a selfie, and the picture goes viral. The zoo [said they wanted to get paid for it], and the court said, no, you can't, because in order to have a copyright, it must be created by a human, not a machine.
Federal Newswire
What are your thoughts on developing technologies like cryptocurrency?
Carl Szabo
When it comes to crypto, I like to think, what is the problem we're trying to solve? Sam Bankman-Fried went to prison, and he didn't go to prison because of crypto. He went to prison because he engaged in a Ponzi scheme, and committed fraud and wire fraud. We have all these laws…we just need to apply them. Whether it's crypto, AI, or the Internet, [if] somebody commits a crime, we probably have a law to cover it.
Federal Newswire
What’s your perspective on information discrimination?
Carl Szabo
Controlling speech is something that terrifies me to my core. Our First Amendment protection is one of the many things that makes us the greatest nation on the planet. It is different from free speech protections.
The First Amendment protection is baked into our Constitution. Right now, Elon Musk is fighting with Australia over a couple of X posts that Australia wants removed–and they don't just want to remove it in Australia, they want it redacted from the entire Internet across the world.
From an American [perspective], that sounds bananas. Over in Europe, they have laws that will actually send you to prison based on what you say. They say it's all in public interest. NetChoice has several lawsuits going on right now to protect those free speech rights.
We need the right to access information, and that's what the intelligentsia are really upset about. Because now, more than ever before, more people have more access to more information, and that scares those who want to control data.
