Big Content: Using "moral panics" to change copyright law

November 4, 2009

William Patry might not look from the outside like a man with a fire in his belly. A copyright lawyer for 27 years, Patry has written one of two definitive accounts of US copyright law (all 5,500 pages of Patry on Copyright can be yours for the low, low price of only $1,589). He served as a key counsel to the House of Representatives and is currently Senior Copyright Counsel at Internet behemoth Google—and if you ascribe his personal views to his employer, Patry will visit your house in the night and throw copies of Patry on Copyright through your largest windows. Trust me.

In short, he's an established and highly successful lawyer whose bio hardly makes him sound like a bomb-thrower. But, when freed from the shackles of legal writing, Patry can lob hand grenades with the best of them.