Many public opponents of pornography have come out against the distribution of pornography on the Internet, a worldwide computer network. Examples include Sen. Jim Exon's (D-Neb.) proposals to regulate and censor traffic on the information superhighway. But, such regulatory policies will not achieve their stated goal. Instead, an unregulated Internet is a powerful anti-pornographic tool.

An effective anti-pornography policy would do two things: permits free trade on the Internet and denies the copyright protection of pornographers. The marketplace will do the rest. In response to such a policy, the production of pornography will drop off quickly. The "consumption" or use of pornography will soon follow.

The Internet provides for the extremely cheap reproduction and distribution of "information" in the form of words, graphical images, or movies. An image can be scanned into a computer in a matter of minutes. Once in digital format, that image can be copied thousands of times and distributed through the Internet to thousands of users. Because graphical pornography requires no instruction manual or translation from one language to another, the end users end up with a final product that costs no more than a penny per user. Because, in the absence of copyright protection and government regulation of the Internet, Internet consumers of pornography will quickly obtain pornography at essentially no charge and traditional means of obtaining pornography, such as the purchase of magazines or video tapes, will become unattractive. As more and more consumers of pornography obtain access to the information superhighway, the profits of producers of traditional pornographic media will dry up. And these producers will not have much success collecting revenues on the Internet if they are denied copyright protection. Thus, once access to the information superhighway is as common as the ownership of a telephone or television, we can expect little or no new pornography. We will then see the consumption of pornography fall.

One may argue that, unlike other industries, the pornography industry is insensitive to profits. It is certainly true that some people would produce porn regardless of the profit level, but is this any more true than the claim that some people would still become lawyers or that some people would still create inventions even if there were no financial gain? Production in any market is largely, although not solely, motivated by profits. And pornography profits, as estimated by porn opponent Catharine MacKinnon in her book "Only Words," are in the billions of dollars per year.

Taxpayers will like this policy because it stipulates that the government fail to do things. The government should fail to monitor and regulate the Internet; it should fail to prosecute pirates. As a result, the policy will fail to cost the taxpayers much money.

During the initial phase of this policy, the use of pornography will be high while the making or production of pornography, in terms of the number of women and children "employed," will fall. Because much of the opposition to pornography has to do with the "employment" or "exploitation" of these women and children, even this initial transition will be seen as desirable.

Some porn opponents, including Catharine MacKinnon, have objected to the consumption or use as well as the production of porn. For these others, the desirability of the proposed policy will depend on their willingness to trade high levels of current porn consumption for low future levels. It is tempting to, in the transitional phase, try to regulate to trade of old porn and promise not to regulate the new porn so as to have the best of both worlds--low current consumption and low future consumption. However, today's new porn is tomorrow's old porn so future governments will probably succumb to the same temptation, thereby rendering incredible our current promise not to regulate. It is therefore wise to mirror our copyright and patent policies--which are intended to encourage the production of "goods"--by consistently encouraging the pirating and unauthorized distribution of "bads," such as pornography. Our government extends copyright protection to WordPerfect, Microsoft and other software companies so that piracy does not erode their profits to the point where little or no new software is produced. Does it not make sense for an opponent of porn to refrain from protecting pornographers from pirates? Censorship of the Internet will serve as a protection of pornographers from piracy.

A consideration of the relevant market forces reveals that censorship on the Internet is a pro-porn policy. As a medium that facilitates pirating, an unregulated and uncensored Internet will produce for our granddaughters a world that is relatively free of pornography.