Register here now for next Wednesday’s book forum.
There is certainly excellent Cato work on copyright and intellectual property that predates mine, but the starting point for my work in the area was the 2006 “Copyright Controversies” conference. Along with considering whether copyright is founded in natural law or utilitarian considerations, we examined the challenges to copyright posed by emerging modes of creation and by enforcement issues.
Since then, I’ve made it my practice to periodically return to copyright, intellectual property law, and other information regulations when I’ve come across a new book that brings new ideas to the table.
At our most recent book event, on the Mercatus book Copyright Unbalanced: From Incentive to Excess, the case for copyright reform made by Cato alumni Jerry Brito and Tom W. Bell was met with a strong, first-principles defense of copyright by Mitch Glazier.
Now comes Laws of Creation: Property Rights in the World of Ideas, in which Ronald A. Cass and Keith Hylton reject the idea that changing technology undermines the case for intellectual property rights. They argue that making the work of inventors and creators free would be a costly mistake.
Between Glazier’s performance and this new book, perhaps the intellectual tide is turning back to support for copyright and intellectual property law. But two data points are probably not enough to identify a trend.
On March 20th, we’ll have Cass and Hylton at Cato to present their work, with Jerry Brito providing commentary. It’s up to you do decide for yourself whether copyright is making a comeback. The question is especially acute with the recent ruling that unlocking one’s cell phone in order to use it on another network is illegal.
