Copyright Protection

Re “Let a Thousand Googles Bloom,” Commentary, Jan 12: Lawrence Lessig may be right that requiring periodic copyright renewal would make it easier to determine what works are protected, but he ignores one major reason we eliminated copyright renewals in the first place.

The U.S. is a party to international treaties that prohibit copyright renewal requirements. We agreed to these treaties and eliminated our copyright renewal requirement after suffering many years of uncertain protection of American works in foreign countries.

At a time when the export of intellectual property is a significant portion of our economy, the U.S. needs to exercise caution before abrogating treaties that protect the works of its authors.

Dilan A. Esper

Los Angeles