TREATING INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY AS PROPERTY

From the New York Times Opinion Section is an Op-Ed piece by Mark Helprin, a fellow at the Claremont Institute, and author of, among other works, “Winter’s Tale.” In it Mr. Helprin makes a common-sense argument for treating Intellectual Property (in his case copyright) as the constitution treats any other property (yacht, business, or farm). That is, allowed to flow from one generation to the next without any time limit (current copyrights expire 70 years after the death of the writer, patents 14 years after filing)

No one except perhaps Hamilton or Franklin might have imagined that services and intellectual property would become primary fields of endeavor and the chief engines of the economy. Now they are, and it is no more rational to deny them equal status than it would have been to confiscate farms, ropewalks and other forms of property in the 18th century.

Read the complete article here.