Intellectual Property Law

Google?s Patry Returns to Blogosphere

By David Kravets

Google’s chief copyright officer, considered one of the nation’s leading authorities on intellectual property, has resumed personal blogging following a year-long hiatus.

Patry’s latest copyright blog commenced Thursday and is named after his new book, Moral Panics and the Copyright Wars. He stopped blogging last year amid concerns that “the current state of copyright law is too depressing.”

He also said the public was confused, that he was often accused of writing on behalf of Google rather than himself. If those accusations continue, he said, his return to blogging will be “short-lived.”

The description of his book says, “As a government program, copyright must be regulated and held accountable to ensure it is serving its public purpose. Just as Wall Street must serve Main Street, neither can copyright be left to a Reaganite ‘magic of the market.’”

Ben Sheffner over at Copyrights & Campaigns, reminds that Patry, 59, helped craft current copyright law as a lawyer for the House Judiciary Committee. He also served as an adviser to the Register of Copyrights.

But that doesn’t mean Patry supports the current state of copyright affairs.

Patry should be read for the very reason he quit blogging:

“Copyright law has abandoned its reason for being: to encourage learning and the creation of new works,” he wrote on his former blog. “Instead, its principal functions now are to preserve existing failed business models and technologies, and to obtain, if possible, enormous windfall profits from activity that not only causes harm, but which is beneficial to copyright holders.”

See Also:

• RIAA Believes MP3s Are A Crime: Why This Matters ? Updated …
• Vote: Who Should Be the First U.S. Copyright Czar?
• Legal Titans Glare At Each Other Across Google-Viacom Battlefield …
• Google Plans Big Presence at Summer Political Conventions

Full post as published by Threat Level on August 07, 2009 (boomark / email).