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The Endless Copyright Monopoly |
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Ariticle 1, Section 8 of the United States Constitution provides for the creation of a temporary monopoly for authors and inventors on their written works and inventions.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; These words assign to the U.S. Congress the authority and responsibility to write law implementing what we call copyrights and patents.
These laws establish a two-way deal between the public and copyright holders. The citizens of the United States are obligated to pay for the defense of authors' exclusive rights. In exchange for this monopoly enforcement, the rights to those works must automatically transfer to the public domain after 'limited Times'.
The practical ownership of ideas and particular word arrangements doesn't occur naturally among humans. Such ownership is created for the authors by these laws alone -- and was never intended to be free (as in beer).
Unfortunately, Congress has caused the duration of copyrights to extend far past the lifetimes of the 'Authors' mentioned in the Constitution.
Copyrights now expire 70 years after the death of the author, or in the case of copyrights held by corporations, 95 years after the author's death. The legal distinction that provides an extra 25 years of protection for corporations may offer a hint about the motivation behind the continued extension of copyright duration.
While one might argue that a lifetime plus 95 years is indeed a 'limited Time', it still falls outside the bounds of the Constitution wording. The actual clause gives the rights to the Authors and Inventors for a limited time. Of course, a limited time monopoly to an author wouldn't necessarily extend to their death. And since one cannot continue to control their property from the grave, it could never extend beyond the author's life.
Further, with roughly a century of protection for any given work, the citizens who actually pay for the enforcement of the monopoly will not live to personally benefit from the public release of the work. Essentially, this means that extremely long copyrights are no longer a two-way bargain but rather a simple transfer of wealth from the taxpayers and to the authors', heirs, and corporations.
Or, to put it another way, modern copyright law is a way for citizens to pay for lawsuits against themselves for no return benefit whatsoever. Is it possible that this was the intent of the constitutional clause?
The copyright laws, as written, are inconsistent with the clear intent of the plain language of the Constitution. A permanent monopoly by an author is obviously not intended by the term limited Times. Extending the author's lifetime monopoly by almost a century and passing the free protection to a corporate heir isn't even hinted at by the authorizing text. |
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| mail this link | -Ray, April 23, 2007
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© 2008-2010 Ray Yeargin
r00t [at] [thisdomain]
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