***

You are right, I haven’t read it. But I saw enough red flags for grave concern.

You say that I might not agree with all of Patry’s book–I don’t have a problem with not agreeing. It’s that the approach most people take is bankrupt. Unless you have clear property rights principles–i.e. are basically a libertarian–there is no way to be very good on this. Only a few utilitarians are good–like Boldrin and Levine. Any honest, intelligent, informed utilitarian would be against copyright, not want to “improve” it.

I realize his book focuses on how copyright holders have twisted the law in their own interest. But look: I am an anarchist. I think the whole system is corrupt. I am not surprised that people “twist” it. That’s part of the system. People who expect it not to be twisted are naive. In fact it’s twisted by virtue of being state law. It’s impossible not to be twisted; it’s impossible for people to ignore incentives to twist it even further. As Mises wrote in Human Action, “No socialist author ever gave a thought to the possibility that the abstract entity which he wants to vest with unlimited power—whether it is called humanity, society, nation, state, or government—could act in a way of which he himself disapproves.”

In my view talk about how the system has been “abused” only serves to reinforce the state propaganda that the state is basically legitimate, that the basic system is “good” but has been corrupted. This is all nonsense. It just serves to keep the state in power and to perpetuate the myth that the system is basically legitimate and fair. It’s not. The state is quite literally just a mafia gang–the only difference being that it is largely perceived (falsely) as legitimate, partly because the people are so stupid and have been bamboozled by state propaganda–so the state cloaks its criminal actions with just enough of a veneer of legitimacy to keep up the pretense, to go on deluding the stupid populace that it’s really “their agent” and there for “their good.” It’s all just a big scheme.

The problem is not that copyright holders have twisted the law. The basic system, even without “ridiculous” twisting, violates individual rights.

You claim that the description on Amazon is misleading, that the book is all about how copyright law is consistently and repeatedly abused. Well, I hope so. I agree that pointing out abuses and excesses of the system is worthwhile. And if he calls for a shorter copyright term (say), that is an improvement, though in doing so he undercuts the principled case against it.

But the blurb does say he’s a centrist. That he is a “believer in appropriately balanced copyright laws”. Unless this is flat out mistaken, I believe it’s impossible for him to have a sound critique–given such a confused, unprincipled view (though yes, he could be good enough to point out bad consequences of the current system, as a reporter).

The blurb says: “Patry concludes that calls for strong copyright laws, just like calls for weak copyright laws, miss the point entirely”

If this is true, he’s against weak copyright law. This is terrible. The copyright law should be weaker. Even someone merely chronicling its abuses should see that this is an obvious response to that abuse.

“the only laws we need are effective laws, laws that further the purpose of encouraging the creation of new works and learning”

This seems to buy into the false notion that utilitarian concerns are what should drive law. It buys into the Constitution as legitimate and sensible. It’s neither.

“Our current regime, unfortunately, creates too many bad incentives, leading to bad conduct.”

If he is, as appears, just a mainstream statist (supporter of the state and our democratic-welfarist-socialist system), such critiques sound hollow. It’s like Bush or Obama talking about saving a million dollars in a pork bill, in the midst of trillion dollar boondoggles. It avoids making a radical critique of the regime per se.

“Patry calls for a remaking of our copyright laws so that they may once again be respected”

I do not want our copyright laws to be respected. I want them to be ridiculed and seen as what they are: illegitimate, arbitrary decrees by a criminal gang, issued at the behest of special interest lobbying groups. I realize that the criminal state survives on the false perception of legitimacy: I want this illusion to be burst. I don’t want the state or its laws to be respected. The only way civilization will advance is to throw off the shackles of its pathetic allegiance to the state–the entity that harms them most. We have a societal case of Stockholm syndrome.

Anyway–I’ll read the book and gladly print a retraction in the happy event that I’m wrong.