Mark Helprin: All The Reviews Of My Book Sucked Because Publishers Assigned The People I Insult To Review It

from the interesting-theories dept

Mark Helprin, the well-known American author of many popular novels which are reasonably beloved, has painted himself into something of a corner, and now he seems to be lashing out at, well, everyone. You may recall that he wrote a silly, uninformed and downright ignorant op-ed piece calling for infinite copyright, a couple years ago. Of course, now he claims he wasn't calling for any such thing, but the original piece shows otherwise. He was so upset that tons of people showed up to prove him wrong, that he ended up writing an entire book on the subject. Yet, his real complaint in the book wasn't so much to push for infinite copyright (which, again, he insists everyone misread in his original column), but to smack around some silly commenters on blogs that made fun of him. He actually spends a lot of time dissecting anonymous comments right here on Techdirt in his book -- carefully selecting some of the more idiotic ones, while taking others completely out of context. He used that to support his thesis that those calling for weaker copyright laws were idiotic digital barbarians. Yet, of course, anyone could pick and choose some idiotic comments from copyright supporters and make the same silly argument.

Besides, there were many other problems with Helprin's book. It came across much worse than many of the commenters he attacked. It was filled with ad hominem attacks against these "digital barbarians" and repeatedly got basic facts wrong. Amusingly, considering he spends so much time mocking people for not understanding what he really was saying, the most incredible thing is that he does the exact same thing to almost everyone he criticizes. But, in the end, the biggest problem with Helprin's book was that it just wasn't very good. He gets so focused on his own use of language, that he fails to make a very strong point. And... nearly every single review of the book found exactly that.

But, Helprin is apparently not one to back down. Rather than respond to any of the complaints against his book -- including the massive factual errors -- Helprin has written up a 2,400 word screed slamming everyone for the poor reviews of his book. You see, it wasn't that the book was bad, but that, once again, no one actually understood what he was writing. And why? Well, according to Helprin, because every publisher assigned the book to the very "barbarians" he was trying to insult with the book. And, since we're all so clueless and inbred, of course we couldn't understand it:

Nearly every publication, left, right, and center, assigned the book, with digital in its title, to a resident digeratus, a member of the very tribe I provoke, and thus it was that I came to sell rosaries in Mecca.

Again, he fails to respond to a single point raised by any of the reviews. Instead, he just whines that people thought he was clueless, but he insists he's not. How could he be clueless? He quoted famous people!

It is why in making my argument I cite, and count as allies, Churchill, Thomas Hardy, Flannery O'Connor, Shakespeare, Yeats, Montaigne, and even Charles de Gaulle, among others.

But, the most ridiculous part of Helprin's whiny defense of how every single reviewer got his book wrong is his reference to one particular passage that many reviewers pointed to:

It would be one thing if such a revolution produced Mozarts, Einsteins, or Raphaels, but it doesn't. It produces mouth-breathing morons in backwards baseball caps and pants that fall down; Slurpee-sucking geeks who seldom see daylight; pretentious and earnest hipsters who want you to wear bamboo socks so the world doesn't end; women who have lizard tattoos winding from the navel to the nape of the neck; beer-drinking dufuses who pay to watch noisy cars driving around in a circle for eight hours at a stretch; and an entire race of females, now entering middle age, that speaks in North American chipmunk and seldom makes a statement without, like, a question mark at the end?

This bit of luddism provoked a bunch of responses, suggesting that Helprin was reaching the "get off my lawn, kids!" stage of life. However, the real problem wasn't just Helprin being an old fuddy-duddy, but the fact that he's flat out wrong. Mozart, Einstein and Raphael did what they did without copyright for the most part. Mozart's best works were actually highly derivative and he created his music at a time when copyright did not cover musical works. Raphael lived in a time before copyright. And Einstein's works had nothing to do with copyright at all.

Perhaps there's a simpler explanation for why no one liked your book, Mr. Helprin: it's just no damn good.

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Mark Helprin Stole From Techdirt Commenters (Using The Logic Of Mark Helprin)

from the where-should-he-send-the-check? dept

Last week, I wrote about Mark Helprin's error-filled Wall Street Journal op-ed that was really just an attempt to generate attention for his new book -- attacking everyone who criticized his 2007 NY Times editorial. I, of course, am one of those who challenged Helprin's reasoning at the time. Of course, as much as I write about this stuff, I'm no Larry Lessig or James Boyle, and I certainly never expected that Helprin would even bother to read what I wrote. And, as I've been reading his dreadfully written book, I didn't notice anything to indicate that Helprin was directly addressing any of the points I raised.

However, I was just reading Larry Lessig's long and thorough takedown of Helprin's book, and noticed something odd. Early on, Lessig states:

The product of this feeding, Helprin suggests, is just so much trash. The work of the Internet is an intellectual waste. No serious reader, or especially writer, should pay any attention to this waste.

But then here's the astonishing fact about Digital Barbarism: Though the Internet is a waste, though blogs are "subliterate" and wiki's are written "the way Popeye speaks," Helprin draws exclusively upon the Internet to form the knowledge he needs to launch his attack. He cites no book, or scholarly article, that might help explain the copyright puzzle that started him on his odyssey. Literally everything he points to to explain the weirdness that is copyright is either a blog, or a wiki, or an essay in an Internet publication.

Now I like the Internet as much as the next guy, and I guess I had never really had to think about the question before. But Helprin has convinced me that you can't understand the subject of copyright law by simply reading blog posts. To get it, or at least to get it well enough to write a frakking book about it, you're going to need to read something other than techdirt.com.

Emphasis mine -- obviously. Now, while this might seem like a bit of a slap at Techdirt, I actually agree -- wholeheartedly. I certainly hope that no one gets their copyright education solely from any blog, whether it's written by me or by William Patry. However, it struck me as odd that Lessig specifically called out Techdirt, seeing as I hadn't even noticed us being mentioned at all in the 1/2 (or so) of the book that I've gotten through (and I've never spoken to Lessig, nor seen him mention Techdirt in the past). So, I pulled out my copy of the book, and went to look at the endnotes for the first time... and realized that a rather large number of the quotes that Helprin spends his time deriding are pulled from Techdirt. But not from what I wrote... but from the comments (which he refers to, oddly, as "sections").

Now, I'll be the first to admit that we have all types of folks who show up in the comments -- from incredibly intelligent knowledgeable experts in the field of copyright law to interested amateurs to the totally clueless to trolls. To pick and choose a few crazy comments, and position them as if they're representative of the common views of folks questioning Helprin's logic, is incredible. I could equally pick out some of the more ridiculous pro-infinite copyright comments on Techdirt, and make the same nutty claims about those who support stronger copyright laws. Just yesterday, someone wrote in our comments:

There is never a proper debate for copyright theft. If you create it, then you own it. Many countries have unlimited copyright. Maybe that's what North America should consider. If it is created by your intellect then it is yours. You may pass it along as you wish, but it is yours forever.

Now, this is all sorts of wrong, but I assume this is one incredibly misinformed individual, rather than a representative of, say, the RIAA. However, Helprin has no such qualms. He takes random comments from up and down that Techdirt post, and assumes they represent the secret agenda of groups like Creative Commons (who he refers to as an "informal" group building software to abolish copyright -- again, all sorts of wrong).

Even more amusing? With at least a couple of the comments that Helprin quotes, he's clearly taking them totally out of context. For example, there is one point in the book where Helprin goes against people who pointed out that he had written a book called Winter's Tale, and assumed (incorrectly) that it was based on Shakespeare's The Winter's Tale. In it he quotes a commenter on Techdirt ("section 20") who wrote: "So then Halpron's the guy who did the "West Side Story" job for Shakespeare's The Winter's Tale?" and uses that as evidence of us morons critiquing him. Except, he left out the rest of that comment, which made it clear that the whole thing was a joke: "Was it any good? Have they made a movie out of it yet, or was it only on Broadway?"

And, of course, even for the people who legitimately thought that Winter's Tale was based on Shakespeare, that mistake is certainly no more egregious than the many, many, many mistakes that Lessig lays out in his review of Helprin's work -- specifically taking him to task for clearly not having bothered to read a single scholarly piece on copyright, but relying entirely on hand-chosen silly comments on Techdirt.

Among the errors are things like, "It would be one thing if such a revolution produced Mozarts, Einsteins, or Raphaels, but it doesn't," to which Lessig notes: "Helprin apparently didn't notice that none of those creators enjoyed anything like the "copyright" of today. One might as well say the world of non-copyright gave us Mozart, Bach and Beethoven, while the world of copyright gave us Britney Spears. That too would be a bad argument, but just [the] sort of argument that is at home in this book." It's actually even worse than that. Some of Mozart's greatest works were derivative works that likely would be considered infringing today. Helprin also seems to not know what was in the last copyright extension act, known as the Sonny Bono Copyright Extension:

Helprin writes: "Previously, a copyright assigned to a publisher or a studio would remain there for all the days of its life. Now, and thanks to Sonny Bono, if it is not a work for hire (which nothing should or need be), a licensee can keep it for only thirty-five years, after which the rights return to the author, the composer, the artist, or the heir." (127). Wrong. The Sonny Bono Act didn't create the termination right. It merely extended it.

Yet, Helprin believes that a random small error (which was actually part of a joke by an Anonymous Coward on Techdirt) gives him proof that all copyright critics are clueless? Even if you consider the "errors" of equal magnitude, we're talking about an anonymous quick jokey comment vs. a "professional" book by one of the nation's top authors, from a top publishing house with (one assumes) an editor.

Still, the most amusing part of all, was Helprin's attempt to defend copyright infringement as being the same as theft -- an old argument, and one that's been dismantled many times (including, of course, by the Supreme Court, who famously stated: "interference with copyright does not easily equate with theft, conversion, or fraud. The infringer of a copyright does not assume physical control over the copyright nor wholly deprive its owner of its use"). However, Helprin doesn't even bother to look at the intellectual arguments around this issue, preferring to use an emotional tale from his youth about "stealing" an ear of corn in the field, arguing with a farmer about it, and then realizing the incredible importance of never "stealing" anything.

Yet, as Lessig points out:

So should Helprin have been ashamed that he stole the farmer's food. Of course he should be! What kind of confused mind would think it right to take another person's property? There are a million reasons Helprin's juvenile behavior was wrong, not the least that it would deprive the farmer of a chance to profit from the food he was growing. Helprin's taking that ear of corn meant that the farmer couldn't sell it. It is inconceivable that this should even have been a question for him.

But what's less clear is what Helprin thinks follows from this moral tale. Does he think that it shows that one can't "take" another person's words? That when, for example, I quote a sentence from Helprin's book in this review, I am doing the same thing he was doing when he stole some corn?

Of course, as Lessig then notes, the quoting is fair use -- but according to Helprin's own corn-story description of the importance of never stealing even an ear of corn, any "taking" of one's words would also be stealing. So, by that reasoning, considering how he quoted (by my count) 12 separate comments from the Techdirt story, one can conclude that Helprin clearly believes he has stolen from the commenters here twelve times. If he's willing to send us our royalty check, I'll make sure the money is distributed to our commenters. Mark, we're waiting! In the meantime, I can't wait to see what comments you guys make on this post. Be sure to provide only the best quality stuff, since it may be the raw material for Mark Helprin's next book!

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If This Is The Sort Of Writing That Strong Copyright Creates... I'll Pass

from the let-it-go... dept

Two years ago, we were among those who piled on in response to author Mark Helprin's NY Times op-ed piece in which he argued that copyright should last forever. We explained why this showed a fundamental ignorance of the very purpose of copyright law. Of course, rather than inform himself, it appears Helprin spent the past two years fuming against those who tried to educate him. He's written an entire book bashing the "digital barbarians" who are trying to destroy society by picking away at copyright. I'm about halfway through the book, and I'd finish it faster if I didn't have to keep whacking my head against the wall wondering how someone could fail so spectacularly at basic fundamental logic and comprehension. I'm planning to write up something of a review (along with reviews of some other, much more worthwhile books) at some point soon.

In the meantime, however, the Wall Street Journal saw fit to give Helprin space to embarrass himself royally earlier this week. The piece attacks consumer rights advocates as being advocates for "thieves" (don't get me started...) and implies that those fighting against copyright extension are all part of a plot of some big tech companies to get all information for free (and destroy society at the same time). It goes on to suggest (despite the fact that copyright law has been changed in one direction and one direction only over the years) that those of us concerned about the massive expansion of copyright have been winning battle after battle with almost no opposition:

So here we have a city -- the hypothetical city and New York itself -- deeply dependent upon what copyright protects but unaware of the threat it faces, even as, sector by sector, it begins to fall. Are you -- were you -- in publishing? Are you, or were you, a journalist? A screenwriter, composer, architect, designer, photographer, writer, or in a business that brings the work of these people to the public? What have you done to protect your life's blood and to guarantee the continued independence of your voice? As distressed as you may be now or not long from now, should copyright go the way of all flesh, some of you may soon be unable even to recognize your own profession, if indeed it continues to exist.

As ridiculous as his book is, at least his argument there is laid out with a bit more effort. This piece is just pure tripe, backed up with nothing even resembling fact. It's odd that a publication like the Wall Street Journal would allow blatant falsehoods to be published in its pages, but if that's what it takes these days to defend copyright... I guess it shows how desperate the defenders of Big Copyright have become.

K Matthew Dames from Copycense has taken an initial stab at correcting many of Helprin's errors in great detail, citing numerous sources to show just how incredibly wrong Helprin is over and over again.

Still, the thing that struck me is that Helprin's argument does what many other "defenses" of the elitist (and purely imaginary) notion that there's some war between "professional content creators" and those weak-minded "amateurs" who are trying to destroy them seem to do: it disproves its own point. For all the talk about how copyright and other tools of "protection" against the riff raff guarantees higher quality output, all we get is totally indefensible material like Helprin's. The defense of copyright produces misleading, poorly thought out, poorly defended and flat out wrong content such as Helprin's. Meanwhile, the thoughtful, reasonable, useful analysis comes from sites like Copycense. In the end, that may be the best response to Helprin's work. His own words disprove his own thesis.

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