Patry calls himself a centrist on copyrights, and indeed his views are so reasonable that if the law of the land reflected his reasonable arguments then we would unlikely be subject to the extremism that gets people to so dread government. That an Amish farmer, who people encouraged to sell them raw milk, should be punished for doing so, is crazy extremism. And that is precisely what any American experiences form the state on any given day. That 12 year old girls can be sued for downloading a song is madness, but state-enabled madness.
Patry nails the malevolent pro-IPR technique of claiming "IPR as property rights" to establish freedom from state intervention, which is a hallmark of property rights. And truly, government interference in your property is anathema to a free market and a free people. There is an internal contradiction in claiming a freedom from state intervention in something the state created for you. Free marketers could not agree more with Patry on this point. All hail William Patry for elucidating this wicked abuse of the law.
What Patry shows is there is no warrant in law or history for these extreme reactions to human action in relation to laws that are legal constructs made for the benefit of all. It is only by metaphors of piracy (case of copyrights) and The Plague (in regards to fresh milk) that laws calling for draconian punishments can be written for violations of doubtful statutory law. Like an enemy, the anti-freedom crowd so demonizes a negligible problem that it is beneficial for a grandstanding politicians to "do something" (beneficial in the sense of financial incentives to the legislator).
Patry does very well to note that copyrights and patents are not natural law rights, and never recognized so in courts. He does well to demonstrate they are purely the function of legislatures, and theoretically tuned to the greatest benefit for the greatest number, a utilitarian construct. He does very well to demonstrate the madness of harsh penalties for immaterial violations.
He notes if and when we find the laws concerning copyright and patents contrary to the common good, we can and do change the copyright and patent laws. As I said yesterday, these laws do not belong to Monsanto or Disney. The benefits of copyright and patent are not a kind of property right, but a provision by the community for the community. Very good work, Bill.
But in chapter five give Patry starts going off the rails. I don't know if he is is confused, uninformed, or being disingenuous. His argument is so bad I think it must be out of ignorance, because I don't think someone this smart would make an argument this bad.
So Patry demonstrates in law there is no property rights in copyright and patent. Very good, any free marketer would agree, and tell him that. In chapter five he begins to weave an argument with diverse threads to assert that there is a strain of "free market fundamentalism" that is the heart of copyrights gone bad problem.
Indeed, he cites wikipedia for the definition of free market fundamentalism and reproduces this snippet:
1. This is a fair definition of free markets, although most devotees of the free market simply say "free to contract, free from force or fraud (or both). So there is a slight straw man argument being built here.
2. The wikipedia entry Patry cites STARTS by saying the term "free market fundamentalism" is pejorative. Now, is this not precisely the gambit he accuses the bad guys of employing? Fundamentalism is a bad word in American politics. This is an ad hominem argument.
3. The wikipedia entry is mostly about the tendentious arguments from both sides over the term. So he appealed to false authority.
How come?
Next he begins to make assertions such as
Patry tells us even Keynes denigrated the idea of a property right on patents and copyrights. Well OK, so he got one right. Perhaps the point is the god of moderate socialism, the man who recommended his work to Adolf Hitler in the German version of his magnus opus, would not care for a construct of rights where there is none. Well, so what? Keynes and free marketers agree there is no property right in copyrights and patents. They probably both agree the sun sets in the West. This is a red herring argument.
Then Patry tips his hand. He shifts from arguing copyrights and patents are not property rights and thus not free from state intervention to property (such as your home, your car, your tools) is not free from state intervention. He goes on to catalog a litany of current events, economic crimes high and low in recent years, Bush era madness (although Obama era too, but not touched on) which he attributes to a belief that property rights are free from state intervention.
Did you follow that argument? By making a false claim copyrights and patents are a property right, bad things happen (I agree). By making a false claim copyrights and patents are a property right, the "bad thing that happens" is people escape their social responsibility inherent in the copyright and patent statutes (I agree).
Then comes the shift in his argument about bad things happening from the false claim being the bad thing, to the property right being the bad thing. According to Patry, by claiming property rights in real estate, tools, personal effects, etc, one escapes their social responsibilities.
Whoa...
1. There is something called property rights, existing in natural law.
2. There is no such thing as a property right in copyright or patents.
3. Yes, people who claim there is a property right in copyright or patents do so for nefarious ends.
What has 2 or 3 to do with 1? Nothing.
Patry does cite a half dozen leading lights who agree with him that property rights are NOT found in natural law, that property rights are a result of the state, and therefore subject to regulation. But he cites none of the overwhelming sources who disagree with those few people. He cites none of the sources that establish property rights as natural rights.
So in chapter five he made a gambit to argue all life is subject to the state. He reached too far, because that topic is way to big for a chapter, and his argument is poorly constructed even as it is. If I could spot its falsity, then it is a poorly executed argument indeed.
And in a book dedicated to deploring mischaracterisation as a means to an advantage, it is rather low to ascribe the evil of patents and copyrights to free marketers who in fact will have nothing to do with patents and copyrights. The problem, the abuses, come from people who believe in patents and copyrights. Patry himself does believe in copyrights and patents, although to a centrist degree.
I esteem Marxist writers for their unerring assembling of the facts. Through the first four chapters I marvelled at what Patry wrote, and began to assume he was a Marxist, high praise indeed form me. But chapter five reveals Patry has his facts on real property wrong, and his categories are confused, so he is no Marxist.
No, he is just another capitalist, the top copyright lawyer to Google, a long time Washington staffer working on the issue of copyrights. He is making his money off a system that is unsustainable, and will clearly fall apart. He is blaming the damage done by extremists in his camp on the opponents of his camp. "Google is OK, he says, because Google is centrist on copyrights. Movie Industry is bad, because Movie Industry is extreme on copyrights. Let's blame the people who do not believe in copyrights." Sorry, Bill, both Google and the Movie Industry believe in copyrights and neither believes in free markets. Don't blame us.
Chapter five he should have left out. He undercut the strength of the previous four chapters. I'll keep readings, and see what I find.
But I will say, the first four chapters alone are well worth the price of the book.
Update: It occurred to me I should check if my favorite patent attorney, Stephan Kinsella, had reviewed Patry's book, and indeed he did, partially. Apparently Patry approached Kinsella on the topic, and Kinsella discussed his book with Patry, IP attorney to IP attorney. Worth a read.
Feel free to forward this by email to three of your friends.
Patry nails the malevolent pro-IPR technique of claiming "IPR as property rights" to establish freedom from state intervention, which is a hallmark of property rights. And truly, government interference in your property is anathema to a free market and a free people. There is an internal contradiction in claiming a freedom from state intervention in something the state created for you. Free marketers could not agree more with Patry on this point. All hail William Patry for elucidating this wicked abuse of the law.
What Patry shows is there is no warrant in law or history for these extreme reactions to human action in relation to laws that are legal constructs made for the benefit of all. It is only by metaphors of piracy (case of copyrights) and The Plague (in regards to fresh milk) that laws calling for draconian punishments can be written for violations of doubtful statutory law. Like an enemy, the anti-freedom crowd so demonizes a negligible problem that it is beneficial for a grandstanding politicians to "do something" (beneficial in the sense of financial incentives to the legislator).
Patry does very well to note that copyrights and patents are not natural law rights, and never recognized so in courts. He does well to demonstrate they are purely the function of legislatures, and theoretically tuned to the greatest benefit for the greatest number, a utilitarian construct. He does very well to demonstrate the madness of harsh penalties for immaterial violations.
He notes if and when we find the laws concerning copyright and patents contrary to the common good, we can and do change the copyright and patent laws. As I said yesterday, these laws do not belong to Monsanto or Disney. The benefits of copyright and patent are not a kind of property right, but a provision by the community for the community. Very good work, Bill.
But in chapter five give Patry starts going off the rails. I don't know if he is is confused, uninformed, or being disingenuous. His argument is so bad I think it must be out of ignorance, because I don't think someone this smart would make an argument this bad.
So Patry demonstrates in law there is no property rights in copyright and patent. Very good, any free marketer would agree, and tell him that. In chapter five he begins to weave an argument with diverse threads to assert that there is a strain of "free market fundamentalism" that is the heart of copyrights gone bad problem.
Indeed, he cites wikipedia for the definition of free market fundamentalism and reproduces this snippet:
unfettered markets maximize individual freedom, that they are the best means to economic growth and that society should adhere to their ideas of progress.So let's sort this out:
1. This is a fair definition of free markets, although most devotees of the free market simply say "free to contract, free from force or fraud (or both). So there is a slight straw man argument being built here.
2. The wikipedia entry Patry cites STARTS by saying the term "free market fundamentalism" is pejorative. Now, is this not precisely the gambit he accuses the bad guys of employing? Fundamentalism is a bad word in American politics. This is an ad hominem argument.
3. The wikipedia entry is mostly about the tendentious arguments from both sides over the term. So he appealed to false authority.
How come?
Next he begins to make assertions such as
"It is economic freedom that permitted ASCAP to threaten to sue the Girl Scouts with a $100,000 fine and up to a year in jail if they sang songs like "Happy Birthday" around the campfire unless they paid a license fee." (page 98)Now I don't doubt ASCAP took such action. But since ASCAP's power to do so comes form the state intervening in the free markets on ASCAPs behalf, it is an internal contradiction to blame the free market for government intervention enabling ASCAP abuse. That is incoherent.
Patry tells us even Keynes denigrated the idea of a property right on patents and copyrights. Well OK, so he got one right. Perhaps the point is the god of moderate socialism, the man who recommended his work to Adolf Hitler in the German version of his magnus opus, would not care for a construct of rights where there is none. Well, so what? Keynes and free marketers agree there is no property right in copyrights and patents. They probably both agree the sun sets in the West. This is a red herring argument.
Then Patry tips his hand. He shifts from arguing copyrights and patents are not property rights and thus not free from state intervention to property (such as your home, your car, your tools) is not free from state intervention. He goes on to catalog a litany of current events, economic crimes high and low in recent years, Bush era madness (although Obama era too, but not touched on) which he attributes to a belief that property rights are free from state intervention.
Did you follow that argument? By making a false claim copyrights and patents are a property right, bad things happen (I agree). By making a false claim copyrights and patents are a property right, the "bad thing that happens" is people escape their social responsibility inherent in the copyright and patent statutes (I agree).
Then comes the shift in his argument about bad things happening from the false claim being the bad thing, to the property right being the bad thing. According to Patry, by claiming property rights in real estate, tools, personal effects, etc, one escapes their social responsibilities.
Whoa...
1. There is something called property rights, existing in natural law.
2. There is no such thing as a property right in copyright or patents.
3. Yes, people who claim there is a property right in copyright or patents do so for nefarious ends.
What has 2 or 3 to do with 1? Nothing.
Patry does cite a half dozen leading lights who agree with him that property rights are NOT found in natural law, that property rights are a result of the state, and therefore subject to regulation. But he cites none of the overwhelming sources who disagree with those few people. He cites none of the sources that establish property rights as natural rights.
So in chapter five he made a gambit to argue all life is subject to the state. He reached too far, because that topic is way to big for a chapter, and his argument is poorly constructed even as it is. If I could spot its falsity, then it is a poorly executed argument indeed.
And in a book dedicated to deploring mischaracterisation as a means to an advantage, it is rather low to ascribe the evil of patents and copyrights to free marketers who in fact will have nothing to do with patents and copyrights. The problem, the abuses, come from people who believe in patents and copyrights. Patry himself does believe in copyrights and patents, although to a centrist degree.
I esteem Marxist writers for their unerring assembling of the facts. Through the first four chapters I marvelled at what Patry wrote, and began to assume he was a Marxist, high praise indeed form me. But chapter five reveals Patry has his facts on real property wrong, and his categories are confused, so he is no Marxist.
No, he is just another capitalist, the top copyright lawyer to Google, a long time Washington staffer working on the issue of copyrights. He is making his money off a system that is unsustainable, and will clearly fall apart. He is blaming the damage done by extremists in his camp on the opponents of his camp. "Google is OK, he says, because Google is centrist on copyrights. Movie Industry is bad, because Movie Industry is extreme on copyrights. Let's blame the people who do not believe in copyrights." Sorry, Bill, both Google and the Movie Industry believe in copyrights and neither believes in free markets. Don't blame us.
Chapter five he should have left out. He undercut the strength of the previous four chapters. I'll keep readings, and see what I find.
But I will say, the first four chapters alone are well worth the price of the book.
Update: It occurred to me I should check if my favorite patent attorney, Stephan Kinsella, had reviewed Patry's book, and indeed he did, partially. Apparently Patry approached Kinsella on the topic, and Kinsella discussed his book with Patry, IP attorney to IP attorney. Worth a read.
Feel free to forward this by email to three of your friends.
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