How to Fix Copyright: the video

Here's a video of Google's head copyright lawyer Bill Patry (one of America's foremost copyright scholars) discussing his brilliant latest book How to Fix Copyright with copyfighting record exec Jim Griffin.

Social Music Summit 2012 - How to Fix Copyright (Thanks, Joly!)

I write books. My latest is a YA science fiction novel called Homeland (it's the sequel to Little Brother). More books: Rapture of the Nerds (a novel, with Charlie Stross); With a Little Help (short stories); and The Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow (novella and nonfic). I speak all over the place and I tweet and tumble, too.

More at Boing Boing

Ants and Stars: Bruce Sterling and Jasmina Tesanovic visit the Sardinia Radio Telescope in Italy

The Snowden Principle

autark

Title & description are misleading. Biography of Bill would be more accurate. They actually discussed the book, or copyright, very little.
- Stephen Young
  
  rambling and unscripted at that
- Psimon2000
  
  Yes, kept waiting for them to get to it. Oh well, I guess we have to buy or steal his book.
- Griffin747
  
  Autark is right: The title is not mine. Rambling and unscripted, Stephen? Neither: Timeline is clear, choronological review of author’s life, well-researched in advance, but not “pre-prepared” such that his responses are more candid.
  
  Nonetheless, it is revealing throughout on the title issue because the author’s own creative underpinnings and motivations are metaphor for the larger issue of copyright. He reveals his full creativity, much greater than his two mass market books. He is also a musician, collects musical instruments, is raising musical children. He has written another 6,000 pages in a treatise on copyright that is not at all mass market and for which he receives little compensation. He himself does not hire an attorney to represent him in his own copyright negotiations. And so on.
  
  Most importantly, he creates because it is how he learns and grows.
  
  The assignment was a fireside chat with the author, not a copyright lecture or debate. I find Bill Patry an interesting guy; Judging from the mail I’ve received the audience did, too. A half hour of video is nowhere near enough to get deeply into the topic, but if you find the author interesting then you will like the books even more. As he observes in the video, they’re available instantly via torrent or $10 on a popular e-reader.
- http://twitter.com/paulyq Paul Quigley
  
  5 minutes in, still waiting for the interviewer to let Bill actually speak. ass-kissy introductions are polite, but damn boring.
Stephen Young

Talk about copyright starts at around the 25 minute mark
http://web.ncf.ca/shawnhcorey/ Shawn H Corey

How to fix copyright? Get rid of it, completely.
- yri
  
  I was about to say, is there any way to fix copyright without abolishing it? I haven’t figured one out.
  - http://web.ncf.ca/shawnhcorey/ Shawn H Corey
    
    Copyright hasn’t helped anyone but the rich because only they can afford the lawyers to enforce it. And it doesn’t help the little guy since the rich will only pay what they have to to get your copyright and then you can’t use anything you created unless you want to see it to them for even less. Why would you want to keep it?
Guysmiley

25 minutes of talking about something other than the topic and 5 minutes of the glittering generalities. Yep, that about sums up the state of copyright.
ialreadyexist

I wonder if a scan of this book (by Google’s head copyright lawyer) is available at Google Books?
Joly MacFie

What I can say is that, after this talk, I went and bought the book, and it’s an excellent read. Very accessible. And reads even better knowing as much about the author as I learnt from the chat.
retepslluerb

Asking a Google lawyer on how to fix copyright seems to me as reasonable as on how to ask a Goldman-Sachs lawyer on how to fix the financial market.
jonlebkowsky

I’m sure he’s very smart about copyright, but I wouldn’t trust this guy to make a cup of coffee. Not appreciating his dismissive remarks about Texas.
benher

How to fix copyright: Flout it and treat it with disdain