COPYCENSE

Normally, this post would be something best left to someone like William Patry, whose credentials on copyright are above reproach. Lawrence Lessig has responded to Helprin in a contemporary and ingenious way, but Lessig’s main focus now has moved from intellectual property matters to what he has called “corruption” (and what Harvard Law School, his new employer calls “a major five-year project examining what happens when public institutions depend on money from sources that may be affected by the work of those institutions”).

We are nowhere near the orbit of either Patry or Lessig when it comes to issues of copyright theory and history. We do think, however, we have some reasonable ideas and knowledge about the American copyright system and its increasing imbalance. And consistent with the the expectations the public should have of scholars and journalists, we don’t just spew: we back up our assertions with the best information we have available at the time.

Therefore, since Patry and Lessig are doing other things, we feel obliged to address Mark Helprin’s of editorials on the U.S. copyright system, the most recent of which was published in the May 11 edition of the Wall Street Journal.

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