Writ 2010 - Ohio Northern University Pettit College of Law

FEATURED SPEAKERS
CARHART LECTURE
Patry Speaks on Copyright Law
As part of the Fred L.
Carhart Memorial Program
in Legal Ethics, copyright
expert William Patry spoke at
the Pettit College of Law on
Oct. 6, 2010. Patry’s lecture
titled “What Will it Take to
Fix Copyright Law?”, addressed the flaws of
modern copyright laws in the United States.
Patry is senior copyright counsel for Google Inc.
and author of five treatises on copyright law
including his most recent book, Moral Panics and
the Copyright Wars, which was published in 2009.
Patry’s lecture focused on the inherent problems
of U.S. copyright laws that arise from the moral
motivations behind these laws.
“There are perpetual problems with copyright
law that no one can agree upon because they
have different perspectives for different reasons,”
Patry said. “Those problems are business problems.
They are never conflicts caused by the
alleged show of moral shortcomings of others.
We use moral claims in debates about economic
issues.”
Using the music industry as an example, Patry
demonstrated that business solutions were the
best answer to current problems with copyright
law. In 1998, the U.S. extended the copyright on
music by 20 years, so that an artist’s music was
protected for 70 years after his or her death. The
law was created in the hope that this added protection
would stimulate more new works and
allow artists to make more money from their previously-released
music. However, Patry argued
that no empirical data has been collected to prove
that this extension of copyright has achieved the
intended effects.
“If we want effective laws, we can’t have that
if it’s based upon an alleged moral case,” Patry
argued. “For politicians or lawmakers to act in an
effective way, they have to act like economists.
You have to investigate the real world consequences
of what you’re doing and decide whether
those laws, if enacted, do the things you want
them to do.”
Pointing to economist Andrew Gower’s 2006
report on the impact of existing copyright law in
the UK, Patry said, “Data show that [music
copyright laws] don’t actually help the people
they are intended to help; but [lawmakers] are
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actually doing it
because there is a
moral case at the heart
of copyright law.”
According to Patry,
Gower concluded that
many artists sell a
majority of their
records in the first ten
years after their release.
So, extending the
copyrights on music
does little to help the
artist and actually
hurts the public by
limiting access to the
music.
CARHART SYMPOSIUM
ON LEGAL ETHICS
in conjunction with Ohio Northern
University Law Review
March 30, 2011
“Crisis in the Legal Profession”
©
“If we want effective laws, we can’t have that if
it’s based upon an alleged moral case,” Patry
argued. “For politicians or lawmakers to act in an
effective way, they have to act like economists.
You have to investigate the real world consequences of what
you’re doing and decide whether those laws, if enacted, do the
things you want them to do.”
“In the music world, the joke is that people
aren’t composing, they’re decomposing,” said
Patry.
Patry concluded that business solutions are
the best way to curb copyright infringement. He
28 OHIO NORTHERN UNIVERSITY COLLEGE OF LAW | Writ WINTER 2010
explained that online venues like iTunes, which
provide people with a legitimate way to buy
music, are far more effective than extended copyright
laws.
ABOUT THE CARHART PROGRAM…
The Fred L. Carhart Memorial Program in Legal Ethics, which was
established in 2007, brings eminent scholars, jurists, and lawyers to
Ohio Northern to actively engage in lectures, seminars and panel
discussions for the benefit of ONU Law students, the college and
university communities and the public. The endowment to fund the
program came from the estate of Dw ight L . C arh art, JD ’47, in
memory of his father, Fred L . C a r h a r t, BS 1902.