‘Portrait of the old man as a copyright miser’

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By David Rothman

“Carol Loeb Shloss’ suit against the Joyce estate sheds light on an ironic, and maybe inevitable, trend in intellectual property: As copyright becomes harder to defend, many copyright holders are becoming less realistic about the limitations of their ownership.” – L.A. Times. Photo is of James Joyce.

The TeleRead take: Did Joyce really have Bono and other fun on his mind when he wrote his classics? I am passionately for posthumous copyright to help survivors of authors lucky enough to rake in major cash over the long run, but life+70 is ridiculous—especially when estates war against fair use.

Related: Mark Helprin’s copyright tale, an earlier TeleBlog post. Also see Against Perpetual Copyright Wiki.

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