Skip to main content

Judge Posner on copyright incentives

By August 24, 2004law practice

I’ve told you that Judge Posner is blogging at Larry Lessig’s site, so what are you waiting for? Every post is wonderfully provocative. I especially liked his post about Licensing and Fair Use where he points out the ludricrousness of extending copyright terms as an incentive to get artists to create:

“as critics of Eldred and the Sonny Bono Act correctly point out, tacking on years at the end of an already long copyright term has only negligible effects on the incentive to create a copyrighted work in the first place. Who would refuse to create a work unless he could count on his heirs’ receiving income from it more than 50 years after his death?”

Judge Posner is such a clear-headed thinker. Why can’t we get more judges like this?


P.S. If you're a practicing lawyer, check out this Law Practice Assessment . After answering a few questions, you'll get detailed recommendations for improving five key areas of your practice.
Skip to content