Ficlets

Mark Helprin is one of my favorite authors – his book Winter’s Tale may in fact be my favorite book ever – but he and I have varying opinions about copyright, particularly its length. In an article in the New York Times, Helprin makes the argument that copyrights should last forever, assigned to an author’s heirs after their death (and then, one assumes, to their heirs, and so on). This conclusion is based on what I find to be a fundamentally erroneous premise of Helprin’s, which is that intellectual property largely has the same properties and dynamics as physical property. It doesn’t – and the Founding Fathers knew that, apparently better than Helprin.

Personally speaking, I’m a champion of copyrights lasting for something along the lines of 75 years for corporations, and the life of the creator (plus 25 years) for individuals, so the individuals in question receive a full benefit for their creations, and the heirs receive a somewhat more limited benefit. After that limited time, I don’t mind making my heirs get, you know, jobs, and more importantly I don’t mind letting the American public have the benefit of the work of my brain. Really, I will be dead. What should I care?

Incidentally, some folks who hold opinions counter to Mr. Helprin’s are putting together a wiki-fied response here. That’s an interesting thing, not only in outlook of the response, but in its formation.