On Dec 7, 2006, at 8:59 AM, John Howell wrote:
Lots of opinions being thrown around here, and NONE of us has seen the
inside of a law school, but this brings up a concrete question.
Do you know that?
I realize you're speaking metaphorically, and for the sake of clarity I
confirm that I am neither a lawyer nor a law student nor have I ever
been one. I did, however, in my youth spend quite a bit of time inside
a law school.
I don't believe anyone has stated this explicitly, so I'll go out on a
limb. Copyright in the U.S. is treated as a property right, and a
copyrighted work is treated as property. In fact, property and
property rights were extremely important to the founding fathers.
I think you're going out on the wrong limb here. This is a very
tangled argument for many reasons, not the least of which is that the
"founding fathers" were far from unified, but on the whole I think it's
incorrect to say that the founding fathers perceived copyright as a
personal property right.
Under American law, copyrights and patents are defined as exclusive
rights, not intellectual properties. "Intellectual property" is itself
an advocacy term, invented by those whose agenda was precisely what you
describe: to have the law treat copyrights, patents, etc, more like
personal property. The term did not come into common usage until the
1960s, corresponding with the founding of the World Intellectual
Property Organization. (Earliest known use of the term is 1845, but
it's rare until WIPO was formed in 1967. After that it almost always
appears in quotation marks until about 1980.)
I know you're looking for factual clarification, not a political
argument. I'm sorry to have to tell you that you can't get far
discussing "intellectual property" without it becoming political. It
is an inherently political term, like "death tax" or "woman's right to
choose".
mdl
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