Copyright and patent laws are government-granted monopolies. As Mark Lemley has noted in his recent piece Property, IP, and Free Riding (in reference to some of Tom Bell’s insights), IP is best thought of, not as a form of property, but as a government subsidy to certain industries.

It is entirely reasonable for conservatives to suspect that, at least in the case of music, an industry cartel has lobbied for special subsidy from the government, and gotten it. (Jessica Litman’s book Digital Copyright traces the relevant legislative history.) If you oppose agricultural subsidies, you might want to think about opposing legislation that grants certain IP industries a privileged position vis a vis others. As for Apple’s “naturally” dominant position: their business strategy is only feasible given government protections of “paracopyright” granted in the DMCA of 1998.

PS: the recording industry has successfully lobbied congress to require composers and lyricists to compulsorily license their works. I don’t see why they don’t apply the same logic to their own recordings, and accept a proposal like Fisher’s.

Have we all forgotten that iTunes is free, has several (also free) competitors, that people can still buy CDs rather than download songs, and that the market dominance of the iPod may have more to do with the iPod itself than with iTunes?