p2pnet - rss feed: Willam Patry goes offline. DAMN !!!
p2pnet news view P2P: | Freedom:- “Damn. Score one for the bad guys.”
That’s singer/songwriter/activist/writer Tom Barger on the news William Patry has shut down his The Patry Copyright Blog.
“Patry served as a copyright counsel to the U.S. House of Representatives in the early 1990s, where he participated in the elaboration of the copyright provisions of the Uruguay Round Agreements Act,” says the Wikipedia.
“Patry also worked as a policy planning advisor to the Register of Copyrights, and held a post as Professor of Law at the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law. He is also the author of a 7-volume treatise on U.S. copyright law entitled Patry on Copyright, arguably superior in breadth and depth to Nimmer’s Nimmer on Copyright. Patry is currently Senior Copyright Counsel at Google, Inc.”
Now, “I have decided to end the blog, after doing around 800 postings over about 4 years,” he says, saying two things have driven him to it:
- The Inability or Refusal to Accept the Blog for What it is: A Personal Blog
- The Current State of Copyright Law is too depressing
Under the first, “I concluded that it is no longer possible for me to have a blog that will be respected for what it is, a personal blog,” he states, going on »»»
I don’t draw any grand conclusions from this and hope others don’t either. The decision was 100% mine. No one at Google ever asked, suggested, or hinted that I should end the blog. To the contrary, in keeping with Google’s deep commitment to free speech, the company encourages blogs like mine, and has stood completely behind me.
And under “The Current State of Copyright Law is too depressing” »»»
This leads me to my final reason for closing the blog which is independent of the first reason: my fear that the blog was becoming too negative in tone. I regard myself as a centrist. I believe very much that in proper doses copyright is essential for certain classes of works, especially commercial movies, commercial sound recordings, and commercial books, the core copyright industries. I accept that the level of proper doses will vary from person to person and that my recommended dose may be lower (or higher) than others. But in my view, and that of my cherished brother Sir Hugh Laddie, we are well past the healthy dose stage and into the serious illness stage. Much like the U.S. economy, things are getting worse, not better. Copyright law has abandoned its reason for being: to encourage learning and the creation of new works. Instead, its principal functions now are to preserve existing failed business models, to suppress new business models and technologies, and to obtain, if possible, enormous windfall profits from activity that not only causes no harm, but which is beneficial to copyright owners. Like Humpty-Dumpty, the copyright law we used to know can never be put back together again: multilateral and trade agreements have ensured that, and quite deliberately.
It is profoundly depressing, after 26 years full-time in a field I love, to be a constant voice of dissent. I have tried various ways to leaven this state of affairs with positive postings, much like television news shows that experiment with “happy features.” I have blogged about great articles others have written, or highlighted scholars who have not gotten the attention they deserve; I tried to find cases, even inconsequential ones, that I can fawn over. But after awhile, this wore thin, because the most important stories are too often ones that involve initiatives that are, in my opinion, seriously harmful to the public interest. I cannot continue to be so negative, so often. Being so negative, while deserved on the merits, gives a distorted perspective of my centrist views, and is emotionally a downer.
So between the inability or refusal of some people to accept the blog for what it is — a personal blog — and my inability to continue to be Cassandra, I decided it was time to pull the plug. I thank profusely all those who have accepted the blog for what it is, and who have contributed so much to it and to my learning over the years. I intend to spend my free time figuring out a constructive way to talk about the difficult issues we face and how to advance toward their solution.
“In my mind, I try to make sense of it —- to accept the grief that haters and flamers cause,” says Barger.
“I know in my heart that Bill Evans took it all too seriously. I miss him.”
I miss him too.
Evans, who started Boycott-RIAA.com, but was later forced to sell it when he ran out of resources, killed himself last year.
He was a friend of mine as well.
Several times I seriously thought about closing p2pnet down, but in phone calls and emails, he encouraged me to stay online saying, in so many words, we need dissent now more than ever, even if it’s painful on the dissenters, and even if it means suffering the trolls and the people who believe freedom of speech is something to be strictly controlled, not enjoyed as a basic right.
Lately, I’ve been been wondering if it isn’t time fo me to pack it in. But I can’t forget Bill Evans and what he stood for while he was alive —- freedom of expression and freedom of speech.
If we don’t constantly challenge the status quo and the Powers That Used To Be, we’re lost.
Let’s hope Patry changes his mind.
Jon Newton - p2pnet
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August 4th, 2008 at 9:54 am
Typical insincere mealy mouthed drivel. Please! DO pack it in!
August 4th, 2008 at 11:04 am
Jon, I assume your viewership has grown exponentially. You have a site that everyone needs to check out on an hourly basis. I think Canada has some real hope, at least for the civic-minded legislators who say, “slow down.”
Lessons learned from the failure of DMCA.
Maybe it’s all for the best that Mr. Patry will write a book, “How We Got Here in this Mess.’ Should be a eye-opener. The RIAA and MPAA have been the bottom-dwellers of lobbyists. We must commit our task to draining of the Toxic Swamp in DC. (Good work. Kept my metaphors straight. I still refresh Orwell’s essay on the English language.)
Richard Florida seems to think Canada is a wonderful society built on diversity and is welcoming to artists. But even he is subject to ferocious attacks. Gay-baiting.
I never discussed politics with Bill Evans. We had a mutual admiration agreement. Perhaps things were not as partisan then.
It became increasingly obvious to me in the era of 2003 and beyond, that the RIAA tilted rightward. It was an authoritarian impulse that came out of the “fear of the Internet.” (Patry calls it–”moral panics and folk devils.”)
The RIAA hopes to achieve copylock through any– and every– means necessary, whether as a rider attached to a Satellite Bill, or Immigration, border control, you name it. The US Trade Delegation seems to be pushing a treaty that we cannot get at, residing in the Executive and beyond Congressional oversight. It seems unstoppable.
As to the rumor of impounding laptops at the border—that’s Secret! No one knows. And yet we shout at the restrictions of the Chinese Olympics and the draconian surveillance of journalists. Erase your hard drives, people!
Jury’s out on Obama. It doesn’t move the needle of polls. I have no reason to trust Obama. One of his vice-presidential candidates, Evan Bayh, is a balls-out supporter of copylock legislation.
August 4th, 2008 at 2:22 pm
given
Reader’s Write Says:
August 4th, 2008 at 9:54 am
post I guess THAT one is clear indication that Jon should NOT pack in.
Obviously sites like him’s are really a sting to the Content Mafia and their desire to rob the public of what is rightful theirs even more!
Down with the lawbreaking MAFIAA guys! All hail to site like RIvsTP p2pnet.net and those alike.