Patry on Copyright

Amazon just delivered Moral Panics and the Copyright Wars, by William Patry, who is Senior Copyright Counsel at Google.

The jacket copy says:

William Patry lays bare how we got to where we are: a bloated, punitive legal regime that has strayed far from its modest but important roots. Patry demonstrates how copyright is a utilitarian government program -- not a property or moral right. As a government program, copyright must be regulated and held accountable to ensure it is serving the public purpose.

On Wall Street, this is called "talking your book" -- forecasting events or advocating policies that will enhance the value of your investment portfolio. Google is not big on other people's property rights.

I expect to read it with dyspeptic interest, since I am considerably more on the side of creators, and of property rights generally, and start from a Lockean view rather than one based on the government as the bestower of all things. See Defending Intellectual Property.

Comments

[William Patry]

I am happy you have the book, but I don't think starting from an ill or irritable frame of reference (or whatever one's definition of dyspeptic) is the best way to start any book. I also encourage you to at least read the disclaimer, which states clearly the book is not Google's book, leaving aside your erroneous statement that "Google is not big on other people's property." Nor is is true that I see the government as the "bestower of all things." The goal of the book is in fact to stop both of such rhetorical nonsense. Copyright is a government creation, as is property. So what? What we need to focus on are effective laws. I am a very big supporter of effective copyright laws, and am a copyright owner myself. I have been a copyright lawyer full-time for 27 years, including being a Policy Planning Advisor to the Register of Copyrights, and copyright counsel to the U.S. House of Representatives, Committee on the Judiciary, and during my time with the committee we passed a number of laws, all of which I would guess would be regarded in today's black and white world as pro-copyright. But to say one is on the side of the creators is a false dichotomy: which creators, and how is one on their side? Many copyright disputes are between two creators, so what does it mean to be pro-creator is that context. Locke by the way, was not a Lockean when it came to copyright.