I recognize that I seem to post most often about intellectual property, and my Google ads attest to this fact. They are as of this posting, for example, both ads placed by IP lawyers. Nothing wrong with that, unless I have aspirations to make a little money from this blog.

Nevertheless, this is an interesting op ed by Mark Helprin. In it, he argues that copyright law should be extended, not limited. He's a writer, and so he doesn't touch at all on the issue of "digital rights." Unless a book has been specifically digitized into an eBook format, it's not very likely to suffer from the widespread infringement "enjoyed" by music and video.

I don't agree with Mr. Helprin, of course. Again, he's not arguing for copyright, per se, but rather assumes that copyright is valid (a legitimate assumption) and argues instead that it should last forever--or, something close to it. As Ayn Rand wrote, however:

Material property represents a static amount of wealth already produced. It can be left to heirs, but it cannot remain in their effortless possession in perpetuity: the heirs can consume it or must earn its continued possession by their own productive work. The greater the value of the property, the greater the effort demanded of the heir. In a free, competitive society, no one could long retain the ownership of a factory or of a tract of land without exercising a commensurate effort.

But intellectual property cannot be consumed. If it were held in perpetuity, it would lead to the opposite of the very principle on which it is based: it would lead, not to the earned reward of achievement, but to the unearned support of parasitism. It would become a cumulative lien on the production of unborn generations, which would ultimately paralyze them. Consider what would happen if, in producing an automobile, we had to pay royalties to the descendants of all the inventors involved, starting with the inventor of the wheel and on up. Apart from the impossibility of keeping such records, consider the accidental status of such descendants and the unreality of their unearned claims. - Capitalism: The Unknown Idea, Ayn Rand, 1966.

The power of her argument here is how it highlights the vital importance of the individual in creating intellectual property. Mr. Helprin focuses on the long-term economic value of the property itself without recognizing its connection to the individual who created it. Those who argue against intellectual property in general, who like to say that "ideas want to be free," are making the same essential mistake.