Comments on: Bill Patry Guest-Blogging

By: October 6 roundup

October 6 roundup — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 18:57:38 +0000

[...] models [BoingBoing] Copyright expert/author Bill Patry is guestblogging at Volokh Conspiracy [intro, first post, [...]

By: Gerald Barnett

Gerald Barnett — Sat, 03 Oct 2009 22:48:31 +0000

It will be interesting to see how copyright moves from a progress argument under the Constitution to that of an economic argument as the way of clearing the air. Same for the premise in Berne that an author’s right is natural, rather than statutory. While casting the discussion in its economic dimension is very useful, I can’t see how that is the end of it.

By: Curt Fischer

Curt Fischer — Sat, 03 Oct 2009 22:26:15 +0000

For readers of the blog on commas, note how the comma changes the meaning. With it, the “by using” phrase relates to “The book also seeks to explain.” Without it, the phrase relates to “have so often failed to respond to — or have even fought against — consumer demand.”

Maybe for you it meant that. The first time I read the sentence, though, I assumed (even though I saw the comma) that it was the copyright industries that were doing the using, not the book.

After I read your post I re-read the sentence, and I can how the comma might be construed to make the distinction you want it to, but it doesn’t seem dispositive to me.

By: PQuincy

PQuincy — Sat, 03 Oct 2009 20:24:07 +0000

Three cheers for a discussion of how language has corrupted the debate about copyright. I hope it includes a discussion of how the term “intellectual property” cleverly disguises the historical origins of copyright as a government-granted monopoly license justified explicitly by the public good! (Those drafters of the Constitution sure did lean in the socialist direction…good thing the courts feel free to ignore what they actually said.)

By: Cornellian

Cornellian — Sat, 03 Oct 2009 19:39:03 +0000

The Blog of “Unnecessary” Quotation Marks is much more fun.

By: troll_dc2

troll_dc2 — Sat, 03 Oct 2009 17:55:04 +0000

The book also seeks to explain why the copyright industries have so often failed to respond to — or have even fought against — consumer demand, by using the creative destruction theories of Joseph Schumpeter and the marketing theories of Theodore Levitt.

For readers of the blog on commas, note how the comma changes the meaning. With it, the “by using” phrase relates to “The book also seeks to explain.” Without it, the phrase relates to “have so often failed to respond to — or have even fought against — consumer demand.”