{"id":1058,"date":"2008-03-07T09:11:36","date_gmt":"2008-03-07T14:11:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/2008\/03\/07\/on-copyrights-patents-and-the-constitution\/"},"modified":"2008-03-10T11:10:18","modified_gmt":"2008-03-10T16:10:18","slug":"on-copyrights-patents-and-the-constitution","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/2008\/03\/07\/on-copyrights-patents-and-the-constitution\/","title":{"rendered":"On Copyrights, Patents, and the Constitution"},"content":{"rendered":"

Techdirt: On The Constitutional Reasons Behind Copyright And Patents<\/a>:<\/p>\n

This short series of posts starts out really well – by quoting (of all people) Thomas Jefferson:<\/p>\n

“Stable ownership is the gift of social law, and is given late in the progress of society. It would be curious then, if an idea, the fugitive fermentation of an individual brain, could, of natural right, be claimed in exclusive and stable property. If nature has made any one thing less susceptible than all others of exclusive property, it is the action of the thinking power called an idea, which an individual may exclusively possess as long as he keeps it to himself; but the moment it is divulged, it forces itself into the possession of every one, and the receiver cannot dispossess himself of it. Its peculiar character, too, is that no one possesses the less, because every other possesses the whole of it. He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me. That ideas should freely spread from one to another over the globe, for the moral and mutual instruction of man, and improvement of his condition, seems to have been peculiarly and benevolently designed by nature, when she made them, like fire, expansible over all space, without lessening their density in any point, and like the air in which we breathe, move, and have our physical being, incapable of confinement or exclusive appropriation. Inventions then cannot, in nature, be a subject of property<\/strong>.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n


\n<\/span>The implication of course being that the founders did see the problems with giving exclusive control (ownership) of ideas to people (or companies) willy-nilly, and the need for balance.<\/p>\n

A really good examination of the subject, and well worth the read, IMHO.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Techdirt: On The Constitutional Reasons Behind Copyright And Patents: This short series of posts starts out really well – by quoting (of all people) Thomas Jefferson: “Stable ownership is the gift of social law, and is given late in the progress of society. It would be curious then, if an idea, the fugitive fermentation of… Continue reading On Copyrights, Patents, and the Constitution<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"webmentions_disabled_pings":false,"webmentions_disabled":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"activitypub_content_warning":"","activitypub_content_visibility":"","activitypub_max_image_attachments":3,"activitypub_interaction_policy_quote":"anyone","activitypub_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[125,89,126,392,97],"class_list":["post-1058","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-society","tag-copyright","tag-law","tag-patents","tag-society","tag-software","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pimUj-h4","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":5287,"url":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/2022\/11\/21\/technology-optimism-and-the-future\/","url_meta":{"origin":1058,"position":0},"title":"Technology, Optimism, and the Future","author":"Keith Survell","date":"November 21, 2022","format":false,"excerpt":"The idealistic dream of \"technology for good\" gives way to the realization that technology - like anything - is just a tool, and can be used for good or ill.","rel":"","context":"In "My Opinion"","block_context":{"text":"My Opinion","link":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/category\/personal\/my-opinion\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1196,"url":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/2008\/07\/08\/free-culture\/","url_meta":{"origin":1058,"position":1},"title":"Free Culture","author":"Keith Survell","date":"July 8, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"I just stumbled across a book called Free Culture by Lawrence Lessig. It's about copyright - but also about a lot more than just copyright. It's a freely available e-book (gotta love Creative Commons licensing), so please do\u00a0 download the book and give it a read - I highly recommend\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "society"","block_context":{"text":"society","link":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/category\/society\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1007,"url":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/2007\/12\/11\/applying-old-laws-to-new-technology\/","url_meta":{"origin":1058,"position":2},"title":"Applying Old Laws to New Technology","author":"Keith Survell","date":"December 11, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"You've probably heard of the RIAA and the MPAA (the Recording Industry Association of America and the Motion Picture Association of America, respectively) before. They've been in the news a lot lately \u2013 suing old people who don't have a computer for sharing mp3 files on the Internet and so\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "society"","block_context":{"text":"society","link":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/category\/society\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":4200,"url":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/2013\/03\/21\/copyright-gone-copywrong\/","url_meta":{"origin":1058,"position":3},"title":"How Copyright Has Gone Copywrong","author":"Keith Survell","date":"March 21, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"Yep, that's right - I'm talking about copyright again. Specifically, I'm following up on my previous post, Copyright & Fan Creations. In that post, I talked about how all fan art is copyright infringement - whether you sell it or not is irrelevant; as soon as you draw it, it\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "My Opinion"","block_context":{"text":"My Opinion","link":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/category\/personal\/my-opinion\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":840,"url":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/2007\/01\/30\/lessons-from-1984\/","url_meta":{"origin":1058,"position":4},"title":"Lessons from 1984","author":"Keith Survell","date":"January 30, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"We all know about George Orwell's 1984, right? Well, sometimes I think maybe we don't, because we keep doing stuff that seems to be taken straight from the book.","rel":"","context":"In "politics"","block_context":{"text":"politics","link":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/category\/politics\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1175,"url":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/2008\/06\/14\/copyright-cops-wtf\/","url_meta":{"origin":1058,"position":5},"title":"Copyright Cops?? WTF!?","author":"Keith Survell","date":"June 14, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Yep, that's right. H.R. 4279, the \"Prioritizing Resources and Organization for Intellectual Property\" Act would create a \"Intellectual Property Enforcement Division\" within the office of the Deputy Attorney General. Because this is clearly what we need - a police organization to enforce intellectual property rights in our own country. Riiiiiiiiight...\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "politics"","block_context":{"text":"politics","link":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/category\/politics\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1058","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1058"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1058\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1058"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1058"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1058"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}