[QUOTE=Giggleton;1958730]
Quote:
Originally Posted by Harmon
We did read it and found it to be mostly garbage. He assumes that whole sense of entitlement to other people's work thing. We are working under the assumption of the infinitely connected instantaneous universe over here, the I don't really exist.
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Helprin's argument, in a nutshell, is that copyright is what makes it possible for serious writers to have a sustainable economic existence without a day job. His further point is that without that possibility, you will not have very many people who can afford to be serious writers. So he says that if you value serious writing, you have to protect copyright.
I think that most of us on the internet view copyright as a tool used by publishers to maximize corporate profits at the expense of readers, and we assume that writers are part of the corporate side. What Helprin has to say demonstrates that writers are not on one side or the other, but have their own concerns. It's sort of like trying to fit libertarians into the conservative/liberal dichotomy. Sometimes there's a fit on one side, sometimes on another.
I think that on this point, Helprin is doing nothing more than informing us of the economic reality of the situation.