What do you think?
Rate this book
Copyright Unbalanced: From Incentive to Excess
Restoring the Balance between Protection and Innovation
The Constitution gives Congress the power to establish copyright “to promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts.” This requires Congress to engage in a delicate balancing act, giving authors enough protection that they will be motivated to create expressive works, but not so much that it hampers innovation and public access to information. Yet over the past half-century Congress has routinely shifted the balance in only one direction—away from access and freedom and toward greater privileges for organized special interests.
Conservatives and libertarians, who are naturally suspicious of big government, should be skeptical of an ever-expanding copyright system. They should also be skeptical of the recent trend toward criminal prosecution of even minor copyright infringements, of the growing use of civil asset forfeiture in copyright enforcement, and of attempts to regulate the Internet and electronics in the name of piracy eradication.
Copyright Unbalanced is not a moral case for or against copyright; it is a pragmatic look at the excesses of the present copyright regime and of proposals to expand it further. It is a call for reform—to roll back the expansions and reinstate the limits that the Constitution’s framers placed on copyright.
About the Editor
Jerry Brito is a senior research fellow at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University and director of its Technology Policy Program. He also serves as adjunct professor of law at Mason. He has written for both online and print publications, including the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Reason, Wired.com, Ars Technica, and The Atlantic. Brito is the co-author of Regulation: A Primer, with Susan Dudley.
About the Contributors
Tom W. Bell is a professor at Chapman University School of Law and an adjunct fellow of the Cato Institute. He is the coeditor of Regulators’ Revenge: The Future of Telecommunications Deregulation, with Solveig Singleton.
Eli Dourado is a research fellow at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University with the Technology Policy Program.
Timothy B. Lee is an adjunct scholar at the Cato Institute. He covers technology policy for Ars Technica and has written for both online and print publications, including Slate, Reason, Wired.com, and the New York Times.
Christina Mulligan is a postdoctoral associate in law and a lecturer in law at the Information Society Project at Yale Law School.
David G. Post is professor of law at the Beasley School of Law at Temple University, where he teaches intellectual property law and the law of cyberspace. He is the author of In Search of Jefferson’s Moose: Notes on the State of Cyberspace and coauthor of Cyberlaw: Problems of Policy and Jurisprudence in the Information Age, with Paul Schiff Berman, Patricia Bellia, and Brett Frischmann. Post is a regular contributor to the influential Volokh Conspiracy blog.
Patrick Ruffini is president of Engage, a digital media firm with clients including Fortune 500 companies, presidential and statewide candidates, technology startups, and issue advocacy campaigns.
Reihan Salam is a policy advisor at Economics 21, a contributing editor at National Review, a Reuters opinion columnist, and a CNN contributor. He is the coauthor of Grand New Party: How Republicans Can Win the Working Class and Save the American Dream, with Ross Douthat.
The Constitution gives Congress the power to establish copyright “to promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts.” This requires Congress to engage in a delicate balancing act, giving authors enough protection that they will be motivated to create expressive works, but not so much that it hampers innovation and public access to information. Yet over the past half-century Congress has routinely shifted the balance in only one direction—away from access and freedom and toward greater privileges for organized special interests.
Conservatives and libertarians, who are naturally suspicious of big government, should be skeptical of an ever-expanding copyright system. They should also be skeptical of the recent trend toward criminal prosecution of even minor copyright infringements, of the growing use of civil asset forfeiture in copyright enforcement, and of attempts to regulate the Internet and electronics in the name of piracy eradication.
Copyright Unbalanced is not a moral case for or against copyright; it is a pragmatic look at the excesses of the present copyright regime and of proposals to expand it further. It is a call for reform—to roll back the expansions and reinstate the limits that the Constitution’s framers placed on copyright.
About the Editor
Jerry Brito is a senior research fellow at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University and director of its Technology Policy Program. He also serves as adjunct professor of law at Mason. He has written for both online and print publications, including the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Reason, Wired.com, Ars Technica, and The Atlantic. Brito is the co-author of Regulation: A Primer, with Susan Dudley.
About the Contributors
Tom W. Bell is a professor at Chapman University School of Law and an adjunct fellow of the Cato Institute. He is the coeditor of Regulators’ Revenge: The Future of Telecommunications Deregulation, with Solveig Singleton.
Eli Dourado is a research fellow at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University with the Technology Policy Program.
Timothy B. Lee is an adjunct scholar at the Cato Institute. He covers technology policy for Ars Technica and has written for both online and print publications, including Slate, Reason, Wired.com, and the New York Times.
Christina Mulligan is a postdoctoral associate in law and a lecturer in law at the Information Society Project at Yale Law School.
David G. Post is professor of law at the Beasley School of Law at Temple University, where he teaches intellectual property law and the law of cyberspace. He is the author of In Search of Jefferson’s Moose: Notes on the State of Cyberspace and coauthor of Cyberlaw: Problems of Policy and Jurisprudence in the Information Age, with Paul Schiff Berman, Patricia Bellia, and Brett Frischmann. Post is a regular contributor to the influential Volokh Conspiracy blog.
Patrick Ruffini is president of Engage, a digital media firm with clients including Fortune 500 companies, presidential and statewide candidates, technology startups, and issue advocacy campaigns.
Reihan Salam is a policy advisor at Economics 21, a contributing editor at National Review, a Reuters opinion columnist, and a CNN contributor. He is the coauthor of Grand New Party: How Republicans Can Win the Working Class and Save the American Dream, with Ross Douthat.
154 pages, Kindle Edition
First published November 29, 2012
2 people are currently reading
57 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
January 17, 2023
Firewood.
A collection of blog post-ish essays, some poorly written. Focused on DMCA so instantly dated. Some good critiques of copyright overreach. There’s no reason to read this book, though. The last two essays were terrible. One of the essay authors is literally just a friend of the book publisher. I’m happy to be done with it, and unlike other recent non-fiction books I’ve read, there’s no reason to keep this one, as there’s nothing I would want to reference again.
A collection of blog post-ish essays, some poorly written. Focused on DMCA so instantly dated. Some good critiques of copyright overreach. There’s no reason to read this book, though. The last two essays were terrible. One of the essay authors is literally just a friend of the book publisher. I’m happy to be done with it, and unlike other recent non-fiction books I’ve read, there’s no reason to keep this one, as there’s nothing I would want to reference again.
August 15, 2014
Picked this up on a free table at a conference, largely because I've always been curious how libertarians reconcile being so strongly pro-property rights but far more divided on intellectual property. I was pleased to see that covered in the first few pages, but not too convincingly (certainly physical property law has a stronger common law background but it's not like governments invented copyright from whole cloth, and if it's the particular system that's flawed you'd expect more division on where the line should be for physical property).
None of the essays are mind-blowing, but most are well done. The book functions better as a laundry list of issues with the current system, and insofar as the goal is to convince that the current system is too strong I think they do that, although at least I didn't need much convincing.
The strongest essay is by Eli Dourado, who successfully goes further than the others and talks about how things might actually be different if the policy regime changed, by way of current industrial approaches to lax enforcement.
That is followed immediately by the last and worst essay, a piece of fantasy governance with little justification (other than some serious fetishization of the founding fathers) that reads on the level of a forum post rather than a book chapter. This does a somewhat better job addressing my initial question that got me to pick up the book (making the argument that IP isn't actually property).
None of the essays are mind-blowing, but most are well done. The book functions better as a laundry list of issues with the current system, and insofar as the goal is to convince that the current system is too strong I think they do that, although at least I didn't need much convincing.
The strongest essay is by Eli Dourado, who successfully goes further than the others and talks about how things might actually be different if the policy regime changed, by way of current industrial approaches to lax enforcement.
That is followed immediately by the last and worst essay, a piece of fantasy governance with little justification (other than some serious fetishization of the founding fathers) that reads on the level of a forum post rather than a book chapter. This does a somewhat better job addressing my initial question that got me to pick up the book (making the argument that IP isn't actually property).
September 15, 2013
Very good book of essays on the problems surrounding contemporary implementations of copyright law in the U.S., and why libertarians and conservatives should be dubious of so-called "intellectual property." I have been aware of the issues surrounding copyright for some time now, mostly through my work with Project Gutenberg — which, incidentally, has afforded me the privilege of having my name appear near Eric Eldred's, of Eldred v. Ashcroft fame, on a couple Hawthorne texts, though I've never met Eric nor had any "real world" contact with him — and I have largely been of the we-need-to-scale-back-copyright-restrictions opinion. So, in that regard, this book hit all the right buttons for me.
I won't say that I agreed with everything in this book, but it's definitely a great place to start if you want to understand why "strong" copyright laws actually hurt everyone, content producers included, and violate the very purpose of copyright as outline in the constitution.
I won't say that I agreed with everything in this book, but it's definitely a great place to start if you want to understand why "strong" copyright laws actually hurt everyone, content producers included, and violate the very purpose of copyright as outline in the constitution.
May 5, 2013
The title says it all: copyright law was designed to provide incentives to author new works, and yet somehow we've reached a point where copyright doctrine is excessive. This slim volume doesn't attempt to definitively explain how things went so far wrong, but it does provide one useful vignette after another of real-life problems created by excessive copyright doctrines. If you're like me and follow the online copyright battles carefully, there probably won't be too much in the book you didn't already know. In contrast, if you haven't been watching the copyright debates super-closely, I think it will be impossible to read this book and not get confused--and angry--about how we reached such a ludicrous place.
The chapters are short and tightly written, making the book a quick read, and the authors are leading experts in the field. If you view current copyright law neutrally or favorably and don't understand why some folks are so unhappy about copyright law, read this book. In less than 2 hours, this book will give you plenty to think about.
[Note: I got a free review copy]
The chapters are short and tightly written, making the book a quick read, and the authors are leading experts in the field. If you view current copyright law neutrally or favorably and don't understand why some folks are so unhappy about copyright law, read this book. In less than 2 hours, this book will give you plenty to think about.
[Note: I got a free review copy]
December 10, 2012
This collection provides not only a persuasive case on the need for copyright reform, but it makes that case for copyright true believers and skeptics alike. Taking many such perspectives on their merit, this book make the case, again and again, that the current regime is not optimal from any perspective.
Putting aside the central thesis of the work, it is also an essential guide to exactly what the current reality is. It includes an in-depth analysis of DMCA, as well as what SOPA would have entailed had it been passed--not to mention a detailed treatment of the encroachment of criminal prosecution into what has long been a civil matter.
This is not a book you should miss if you want your knowledge of the copyright system to remain relevant.
Putting aside the central thesis of the work, it is also an essential guide to exactly what the current reality is. It includes an in-depth analysis of DMCA, as well as what SOPA would have entailed had it been passed--not to mention a detailed treatment of the encroachment of criminal prosecution into what has long been a civil matter.
This is not a book you should miss if you want your knowledge of the copyright system to remain relevant.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews