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03 May 2012 / Jane Foulser McFarlane
Issue: 7512 / Categories: Blogs
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Book review: How to fix copyright

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William Patry, senior copyright counsel for Google Incorporated, not only has practical experience of copyright law in practice, he is also the author of several publications on the subject, including the eight volume treatise, Patry On Copyright.

Author: William Patry
Publisher: Oxford University Press (8 March 2012)
ISBN: 978-0-19-976009-1           Price: £13.99

In How to fix copyright, Patry sets out to identify the reasons why US copyright law is no longer effective to protect the rights of authors, artists and musicians in a global economy and why, in practical terms, such laws are in conflict with market forces and technology.

Copyright failings

Patry considers that Anglo-American copyright law is still firmly rooted in the 18th century, where artificial scarcity was an effective control on the dissemination of musical, artistic and literary works; fewer copies were distributed at a premium. In the modern world of digital abundance, where everyone has immediate access to everything, copyright law actually inhibits, rather than encourages creativity. Patry argues that, for example, extending the length of copyright

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