Of all the creative work produced by humans anywhere, a tiny fraction has continuing commercial value. For that tiny fraction, the copyright is a crucially important legal device. For that tiny fraction, the copyright creates incentives to produce and distribute the creative work. For that tiny fraction, the copyright acts as an 'engine of free expression.' But even for that tiny fraction, the actual time during which the creative work has a commercial life is extremely short. As I've indicated, most books go out of print within one year. The same is true of music and film. Commercial culture is sharklike. It must keep moving. And when a creative work falls out of favor with the commercial distributors, the commercial life ends.

It is valuable copyrights that are responsible for terms being extended. Mickey Mouse and 'Rhapsody in Blue.' These works are too valuable for copyright owners…

Now that copyrights can be just about a century long, the inability to know what is protected and what is not protected becomes a huge and obvious burden on th…

Some people view the public domain with contempt. In their brief before the Supreme Court, the Nashville Songwriters Association wrote that the public domain i…

A huge parasite in the marketplace, feeding and fattening itself off of local television stations and copyright owners of copyrighted material. We do not like …

You can't incent a dead person. No matter what we do, Hawthorne will not produce any more works, no matter how much we pay him.

I am pimping it out for you at the Academy Awards.