I've been incapacitated of late thanks to another yet another virus acquired at the hands of a filthy fellow underground rider who couldn't be bothered to cover his mouth when sneezing, but I found this argument for perpetual copyright so outrageous that I felt driven to share it come what may. I'm never surprised to see any special interest group pleading its case for the opportunity to collect rents at the expense of the general public, but this has to be the first time I've seen it done with such eloquence.
Eloquent as he may be, however, Mark Helprin and his ilk are no different from the sugar-subsidy seekers, the textile protectionists or any of the other parasitical groups begging for special favor from the government: instead of thanking his stars that his monopoly "rights" (which only exist for the convenience of the general public to begin with) are protected at all, Helprin has the cheek to plead for said monopolies to be extended into perpetuity, and what is saddening is that thanks to craven legislators and an indifferent, ignorant public, the odds are weighed heavily in his favor - the Mickey Mouse Protection Act provides a glaring example of what I'm getting at. Any particular group of rent-seekers may be few, but they are determined in the pursuit of their selfish interests, and public choice theory tells us that they are likely to succeed in the face of public apathy, unless opposed by even more powerful special interests.
PS: A little Googling turns up this old post by Arnold Kling, in response to which a fellow by the name of Robert lays out an argument for bestowing copyright for only a finite term even when said right may have value in perpetuity. To put it concisely, assuming a reasonable positive discount rate, there will come a time when the value paid out to the copyright holder will have been more than half the total value of the copyright even into perpetuity, which seems a reasonable point at which to let the copyright lapse. Note that even if we decided to allow the copyright-holder to extract, say, 90% of the value, this time period would still be finite.
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