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I thought you said you had read his book. The article is a condensed version of his argument in the book. In the book, he states plainly that he is not arguing for unlimited copyright. So either you are insisting on disregarding context, or you think he argues one thing in the book, and another in the article. Either way, for those of us who consider context, there are two ways to read the article.
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It may be a condensed version, but he was the one who condensed it. I don't care what he said in his book, in this article, he explicitly calls for eternal copyright. So is he lying in his book or lying in the article?
Let us stipulate for the moment that property only exists as a creation of government. Helprin claims that copyright is a natural right, not a created right.
If I am mistaken in claiming that property is meaningless without law, and property is whatever government says it is, then Helprin is certainly mistaken in claiming that copyright is a natural right, let alone eternal copyright. If property is whatever government says it is, then the public domain can't possibly be "stealing", let alone analogous to slavery.
I am not arguing for the abolition of copyright, I'm not even arguing to shorten copyright, just that copyright should not be eternal. Continually extending copyright so that nothing again enters the public domain is no different than eternal copyright. Maybe we should just give a special copyright to Mickey Mouse so that other works can enter the public domain. Without the public domain, the great majority of works die.