I finished my copyrights exam the other day after 22 hours and 7 minutes straight with no eating or sleeping. We were limited to 6 pages so my preambular rant took some serious cuts, but here it is as it existed for submission:
Article I, Section 8, Clause 8 of the United States Constitution provides, in part, that “The Congress shall have Power . . . To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries.” Why confer this seemingly tremendous benefit upon authors?
It is significantly easier for me to comprehend the theory behind the patent system. The idea with respect to patents is that the government gives incentives to inventors who otherwise might sell their invention without disclosing the method of creating the product or designing the process. In return for the grant of a limited monopoly, inventors disclose the invention to the public in sufficient detail so as to enable a person of skill in the art to recreate the invention with minimal experimentation. The benefit to the public here is clear: the public domain gains useful information that it might otherwise not receive.
With respect to the copyright system, however, the benefit to the public is less obvious. When a creative work is made available to the public, a person of skill in the art is capable of recreating the work. Perhaps the reasoning truly is the desire to reward and therefore encourage creative endeavors. Although I am admittedly a descendant of Robert Frost, I happen to believe that he had the right to cash in on his genius. Why must the mechanism be copyright, though? Why do authors of creative works need so much more protection in their craft than in any other profession? Is there something so special about semi-original thought that we necessarily have to legislate around it? Unfortunately, while I could explicate ad infinitum, I must accept the copyright system as embodied within the Copyright Act of 1976 and seek to balance the theory of copyright with the current jurisprudence in the area; while it is my hope that the courts have done exactly that, I will strive to consider the underlying theory of copyright law as envisioned by the Framers during my analysis.
Incoming search terms:
- Article 1 section 8
No related posts.
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
If it makes you feel any better, in my “Law and the Internet” exam we had an essay question about privacy and subpoenas/civil procedure for ISPs in which the plaintiff’s husband in a divorce case was cheating on her with prostitutes he bought on the internet through myspace. I spent the entire essay question (in addition to my substantive answers) padding it with various synonyms for hookers, insulting the philandering defendant, calling him all sorts of insults etc. I figured fuck it, why not. Nobody can tell me with a straight face that this doesn’t happen in real-world complaints; nearly every complaint I’ve ever read while clerking has had some sort of description that the adverse party or opposing counsel is nigh upon the devil in their evil ways.
In other news, Jack Thompson alleges that I have no journalistic credibility.
@Dan, Haha, I’ve definitely been following that thread. I’m also amused at how a direct, unedited quote somehow equals biased reporting. Epic thread, right there.