Legal Commentary

The Solipsist and the Internet (a review of Helprin's Digital Barbarism)

By Lawrence Lessig

Exactly two years ago today, the New York Times published an op-ed about copyright by a novelist. The piece caused something of a digital riot. As we learn now from his book, Digital Barbarism (HarperCollins 2009) (note: if you buy from that link, Creative Commons gets the referral fee), Mark Helprin was at the time completely ignorant about the hornet's nest he was about to kick. For him, the op-ed was a professional rapprochement with the New York Times, a chance to make things right once again (though why they were then wrong is a story left mysteriously (and thankfully) out of the book).

(Read the rest of this insanely long review in the extended entry. You can download a better formatted PDF here.)

Full post as published by Lessig Blog on May 20, 2009 (boomark / email).