©ollectanea

My favorite copyright blogger, copyright guru, articulate, real, "from another planet" brilliant, Bill Patry crushed my spirits this morning: The Patry Copyright Blog: End of the Blog. I understand completely his reasoning for abandoning his blog, and even identify strongly with his second reason, for I feel the same way most of the time. But still, I am so, so sorry to know that this way of learning, this way of understanding, and seeing, will be closed to all of us now. I will miss his point of view and his incisive analysis. Such a keen observer.

Of course it makes me think of Lessig's departure. Granted he departed copyright altogether, not only blogging about it. But he too expressed (or so it seems to me) a sense of conviction that nothing could be done to change the wrong-headed push for more and more, and stronger and stronger, and longer and longer copyright (so he went off to fight the source of the problem, moneyed interests control in Congress). Yes, it is depressing.

It is still possible for those of us who interpret the law for others to actually help people deal with the realities of copyright, in their day-to-day lives. That has always been the part of being a copyright attorney that makes me happy. But having to face the absurdities, listen to the arguments, read each new and awful legislative proposal knowing that once again, we'll have to fight like crazy to keep things from getting worse, and on and on, this is depressing and makes me want to turn away too.

I really don't know where it will all go, when it will end. On the one hand, I wonder if it still has to get much worse before it will begin to get better ("give them enough rope..."). Or maybe, as I have suggested before, things are changing in the business world in ways that may take the pressure off the law to "protect" works (recognition that digital copies simply can't be controlled and metered, so find other ways to monetize the flow of digital content). And then there are the positive developments like the ones I discussed in my last post (fair use best practices) that seek to normalize healthy use and reuse of others' works for creative purposes), and cases that interpret fair use to have a broader scope in creative and transformative contexts (recent search engine cases, Grateful Dead case). But as Bill Patry observes, the positives are far outweighed by the negatives and it is hard to keep optimism alive in that kind of environment.

But Patry will still be facing all of this. He has his 7 volume treatise to keep up to date. He has his law practice. He is bombarded, I'm sure, with requests to participate in symposia and conferences. He may not be talking about all these depressing things on his blog every few days, but he will, I have to assume, still be depressed so long as he practices copyright law. Like the rest of us. Maybe we all should be supporting Lessig more and worrying about copyright less. He was probably right, that it's hopeless so long as we have the kind of legislative process we have now. The idea of a real, defensible public interest seems more absurd than anything.