Copyright: Forever and ever, amen?
Last Sunday, author Mark Helprin wrote an op-ed for the New York Times arguing that writers and their descendents should own the rights to their works in perpetuity, not just for 70 years after their deaths. The article has attracted a lot of online debate in the days since, and yesterday Gawker posted an “Ask an Expert” interview with Maud Newton, in which Newton haughtily dismisses most of Helprin’s assertions. The gist of her position is as follows:
Authors hold copyright for life plus 70 years, meaning that their heirs reap the benefits of exclusive rights for seven full decades after they die. But the purpose of exclusive rights like copyright and patent — both of which flow from the same twenty-seven words of the Constitution — is “To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts,” not to fund vacations for John Grisham’s great-great-grandchildren.
While we understand the grossness of celebrity spawn leeching off their parents’ life work, we have to wonder why authors should be treated any different from real estate moguls, say, or corporate bigwigs. Why do they get to pass on the benefits of their life’s work in perpetuity and not lowly artists?
One of the best counter-arguments we’ve seen was made by Lawrence Lessig, a Stanford University law professor and copyright expert. He has created a wiki-style page for the express purpose of rebutting Helprin’s argument, and in it he makes this fairly convincing point:
Physical property, such as real estate, is a finite resource that operates as a zero sum game. And the laws regarding physical property treat it as such. Intellectual works are abstract concepts and do not naturally operate as zero sum games.
(Thanks to the Chronicle of Higher Education for the Lessig link.)
I don’t think that heirs should get proceeds after the lifetime of the author. Of course, I might think differently if I ever get published, but the heirs may already get the benefit of the author’s wealth. Getting additional funds after the passing of an author seems redundant and extravagant - the heirs didn’t write the book, the author did.