Mark Helprin and Copyright: A Moronic Idea Should Be Quashed Immediately

Mark Helprin, wrote an op-ed in yesterday's New York Times proposing that copyrights be made eternal, never expiring.

This idea is so completely bereft of merit that one cannot imagine a person of intelligence advocating it sincerely. Helprin has been a kazoo in the Right Wing Noise Machine since the Reagan years. It seems likely that what Helprin is trying to do is shift the Overton window in the discourse about intellectual property, an attempt to make a currently outlandish proposal seem less extreme by advocating a truly extreme proposal.

One good tug on the Overton window deserves another. Helprin's ridiculous propsal does not support the extension of creators' IP rights; rather, it is a compelling argument in favor the proposition that writers like Helprin should pay the public to compensate us for having to read their drivel. For too long, the public has borne the hidden costs from advocacy from blowhards like Helprin. It is high time that we be compensated for those hidden costs.