No one should have had to write Digital Barbarism. It’s common sense that copyright laws are important: They protect the creators of art against theft, making it possible for writers, composers, filmmakers, and countless others to pursue their callings full-time. Without copyright protection, we could only enjoy works produced for free — by hobbyists, the very rich, those supported by charity, and those dedicated enough to starve for their crafts. Not to mention the obvious immorality of taking a work that someone labored to create, without permission and without payment, and not to mention that the Constitution explicitly encourages Congress to protect copyright.

But someone did need to write this book, because today there is a war on copyright. The music industry fought the opening battle against Napster (a web site full of copyrighted music available for free download) in the late 1990s. Napster lost, but infringers still won: Better piracy software soon came out, making it possible for users to download files from each other, rather than from a central website. Since then, the problem has spread to movies and books.

The surprising part isn’t that people like to take things without paying for them, but that they think they’re morally entitled to do so. An army of activists, ranging from bratty teenagers to tenured academics, has made the case that copyright itself is outdated or flat-out counterproductive. Some economists have even claimed (ridiculously) that piracy doesn’t hurt sales.

Digital Barbarism: A Writer’s Manifesto charges fiercely into some of this war’s meanest fights, and the author, Mark Helprin, principally a novelist, is a terrific writer. He explains the history of copyright, offers interesting (if not always strictly relevant) anecdotes from his personal life, and bats down many of the anti-copyright mob’s arguments — even the silly ones he finds in Internet comment sections.

However, the book will not make a good gift for your favorite downloader, because Helprin does not offer (and to be fair, does not claim to offer) a clear, calm, comprehensive defense of copyright law’s status quo. Instead, he goes on the offensive, arguing that copyright protection should extend even further than it does now (70 years after an author’s death); viciously attacks groups of innocent people; and often comes across as a cranky old man blind to the good that has come from the digital revolution. Basically, Mark Helprin should write books, and someone should have written Digital Barbarism, but Mark Helprin should not have written Digital Barbarism.

The book began as an article for the New York Times, in which Helprin made his point regarding the 70-year law. Helprin’s case, outlined again in his book, is an interesting conversation starter — but it’s not really suited for changing minds in the current debate.

Helprin is on strong ground logically. He points out that if someone spends his life building a business, he can leave it to his heirs, who pay any required inheritance tax and go merrily on their way. If someone spends his life creating books or songs, however, the government simply makes those assets worthless after 70 years. It’s certainly unfair, at least insofar as it can be unfair to inherit less money than one might have otherwise.

This is an odd way to defend copyright in 2009, though, for several reasons. For starters, in terms of strengthening copyright (as opposed to fighting the weakening of it), the issue today isn’t so much policy as enforcement. New releases are pirated almost immediately, and from time to time, unreleased material even hits the Internet. Royalties 70-plus years down the road pale in the face of such flagrant, rampant violations. And very, very few copyrights are worth anything after the better part of a century anyway.

It also helps to remember that the Constitution defined the purpose of patents and copyright as, “To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts.” In that regard, what good is done by further delaying expiration? Will someone write the Great American Novel if his great-grandchildren will receive royalties, but not if only his grandchildren will?

More problematic are Helprin’s mean-spirited attacks on groups of people whose tastes he doesn’t share. He likens the enjoyment of violent video games to mental illness. He slams anyone who reads a thriller, even just for a plane ride. And here’s possibly the worst passage in the whole book:

[Modern digital culture] 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 won’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?

It’s fine for a novelist to hate everyone, but it’s best not to let such sentiments slip into a work (presumably) meant to persuade us dufuses and morons.

Then there’s the very next sentence: “What hath God wrought, and why didn’t He stop with the telegraph?” Despite (frequent) grouchy comments like these, Helprin insists he doesn’t categorically despise technology — indeed, a quarter-century ago, he pitched an idea similar to Amazon’s Kindle to a publisher. And in grouchiness’s defense, there’s a good case to be made that some modern technologies are hurting our youth and our culture. But too often, Helprin glosses over the immense good that has come to creativity via the digital revolution, focusing only on the bad.

Essentially, modern technology gives amateurs and hobbyists a chance to be seen and heard. Without spending a dime, weekend writers can blog. Aspiring Spielbergs can put their work on YouTube. For a few hundred dollars, unaccomplished musicians can acquire the tools needed to record their songs (at surprisingly high quality, if they work at it) and post the tunes online. Artists of all stripes can easily collaborate by sending files back and forth. Usually, projects like these produce awful results, but sometimes hobbies become careers.

Naturally, these folks don’t plan to make any money, and they want the biggest audiences possible. So, often, they don’t bother with copyright, or they acquire Creative Commons licenses. Creative Commons is a non-profit group that drafts legal statements that artists can use to convey six different policies regarding copyright. Creative Commons–licensed works are all free for private use, but creators can decide, for example, whether to let users alter the works. The licenses are purely voluntary — if you don’t want others giving away your work for free, get a regular copyright instead of a CC license.

Helprin doesn’t bother explaining all this, but he does express a rather over-the-top hatred of everything Creative Commons. In Helprin’s depiction, CC is a movement that presents an image of “selfless people contributing their work” — while actually being a “cover . . . for a well organized effort to cut away at intellectual property rights until they disappear.”

In the face of industry trade groups (rightly) lobbying for strict copyright enforcement, how might this movement accomplish that goal, especially while officially contending not to oppose copyright? Here’s the game plan via Helprin:

While [giving away one’s work for free] presumably [strikes] a blow at corporate giants like Microsoft, this demonstrates the generosity and selflessness of the [donating artist]. And it becomes in turn a premise that is promiscuously extended to those works the authors of which do not want to give them away, of whom the presumption becomes that they are not generous. Therefore, they should be brought around, one way or another, to the ideal — for the public good and to save their souls.

Apparently this group has roots in the Rube Goldberg school of advocacy.

Copyright infringement is everywhere, and anti-copyright beliefs are growing, so despite the book’s flaws, Mark Helprin deserves credit for writing Digital Barbarism. It is a useful and often entertaining read. Unfortunately, though, it is unlikely to persuade non-believers — so the world still waits for the definitive defense of copyright.

– NR associate editor Robert VerBruggen edits the Phi Beta Cons blog.