Her last paragraph makes an entirely justified criticism. What I should have written (and perhaps, though not certainly, meant to write) was that it would be comparatively easy to draft a properly neutral copyright law if only there were agreement among the various interest holders about what that law should provide. As Lilian rightly points out, there is no such agreement and little prospect of one. The treaties point is (or should have been) a structural rather than procedural one – because the participants in any discussion about copyright reform are government, rightsowner industries (as opposed to creators themselves) and to a limited extent, ISPs, such discussions take us no nearer to a resolution. Jessica Litman’s “Digital Copyright” contains a frightening account of the negotiations which led up to the US DMCA, and it’s the same cast behind the current crop of “three strikes” (or equivalent) laws.

I hope to have dealt with this issue more adequately in the forthcoming book, which will be (modestly) titled “Making Laws for Cyberspace”. If I can avoid the dementia which writing induces, OUP will publish it in April next year.