#william patry

[ifnotyouwhoelse]

Long run profitability is the result of satisfying consumer demand, not satisfying legal commands.

William Patry - How to fix copyright (P.143)

[melissamudd-blog]

Metaphors, moral panics, folk devils, Jack Valenti, Joseph Schumpeter, John Maynard Keynes, predictable irrationality, and free market fundamentalism are a few of the topics covered in this lively, unflinching examination of the Copyright Wars: the pitched battles over new technology, business models, and most of all, consumers. In Moral Panics and the Copyright Wars, 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 its public purpose. Just as Wall Street must serve Main Street, neither can copyright be left to a Reaganite "magic of the market." The way we have come to talk about copyright--metaphoric language demonizing everyone involved--has led to bad business and bad policy decisions. Unless we recognize that the debates over copyright are debates over business models, we will never be able to make the correct business and policy decisions. A centrist and believer in appropriately balanced copyright laws, Patry concludes that calls for strong copyright laws, just like calls for weak copyright laws, miss the point entirely: the only laws we need are effective laws, laws that further the purpose of encouraging the creation of new works and learning. Our current regime, unfortunately, creates too many bad incentives, leading to bad conduct. Just as President Obama has called for re-tooling and re-imagining the auto industry, Patry calls for a remaking of our copyright laws so that they may once again be respected.

[melissamudd-blog]

Do copyright laws directly cause people to create works they otherwise wouldn't create? Do those laws directly put substantial amounts of money into authors' pockets? Does culture depend on copyright? Are copyright laws a key driver of competitiveness and of the knowledge economy? These are the key questions William Patry addresses in How to Fix Copyright. We all share the goals of increasing creative works, ensuring authors can make a decent living, furthering culture and competitiveness and ensuring that knowledge is widely shared, but what role does copyright law actually play in making these things come true in the real world? Simply believing in lofty goals isn't enough. If we want our goals to come true, we must go beyond believing in them; we must ensure they come true, through empirical testing and adjustment. Patry argues that laws must be consistent with prevailing markets and technologies because technologies play a large (although not exclusive) role in creating consumer demand; markets then satisfy that demand. Patry discusses how copyright laws arose out of eighteenth-century markets and technology, the most important characteristic of which was artificial scarcity. Artificial scarcity was created by the existence of a small number gatekeepers, by relatively high barriers to entry, and by analog limitations on copying.  Markets and technologies change, in a symbiotic way, Patry asserts. New technologies create new demand, requiring new business models. The new markets created by the Internet and digital tools are the greatest ever: Barriers to entry are low, costs of production and distribution are low, the reach is global, and large sums of money can be made off of a multitude of small transactions. Along with these new technologies and markets comes the democratization of creation; digital abundance is replacing analog artificial scarcity. The task of policymakers is to remake our copyright laws to fit our times: our copyright laws, based on the eighteenth century concept of physical copies, gatekeepers, and artificial scarcity, must be replaced with laws based on access not ownership of physical goods, creation by the masses and not by the few, and global rather than regional markets. Patry's view is that of a traditionalist who believes in the goals of copyright but insists that laws must match the times rather than fight against the present and the future.

[gaaf]

The most damaging consequence of the movement to turn culture into private property is the largely successful change in attitude toward creativity and copying. Creative people are supposedly those who do not copy or imitate others. As we just saw, this is false; creative people must copy and must imitate others. Treating transformative copying as theft, as laziness, or as being non-creative is counter to human nature. All learning is social; copying is an essential form of social learning. Our copyright laws must be changed to reflect this fact.

- dice William Patry en How to fix copyright.

[stephenfrancoeur]

Pull quote from p. 193-194: "The decision to switch to a term of life of the author plus fifty years in 1978 (now life plus seventy years) and to abandon the notice and renewal requirements were bad decisions that destroyed the ability of copyright to function effectively. Short of contacting each author about each work, there is no longer a way to determine which works the author desires to protect and which works he, she, or it (in the case of companies) doesn't wish to protect: All works must be treated as under protection, requiring permission before use. While there have been calls for a compulsory license or limitations on remedies after a diligent but unsuccessful search is undertaken for the owner of an orphan work, the suggestions so far are ridiculously limited in scope. they are nibbling at the edges without solving the real problem: There is no way to fix the orphan works problem, or the larger system of copyright, without reversing the unduly long term of protection and without restoring formalities that prevent the creation of orphan works in the first place. An overly long term of copyright and the lack of formalities are the real problem, and unless we deal with them, we are doing nothing of consequence."

[austinkleon]

The idea that people copy because they lack creativity is powerfully harmful...To deny people the right to copy, intimately, from others, is to deny the essence of what it is to be a creative person....Creative people are supposedly those who do not copy or imitate others; copying is supposedly theft. In truth, creative people must copy and must imitate others. Our copyright laws should be changed to reflect this reality.

William Patry, senior copyright counsel at Google Inc, in an excerpt from his new book, [_How To Fix Copyright_](http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0199760098/wwwaustinkleo-20/ref=nosim/)