Re: public domain question

On Wed, Mar 29, 2000, Karsten M. Self <kmself[_at_]ix.netcom.com> wrote:
>
> On Mon, Mar 27, 2000, John Lederer <johnl[_at_]ibm.net> wrote:
> >
> > On Sun, 26 Mar 2000, Joseph P. Riolo <riolo[_at_]voicenet.com> wrote:
> > >
> > > Copyright (as well as patent) is built on the concept of
> > > property, that is, land. Like land, copyright comes with
> > > a set of rights. When a copyright owner loses copyright in
> > > a work/property, the ownership of the work/property reverts
> > > back to the public.
> > >
> > > Don't quote me -- this is not a scholarly research.
> >
> > I was quite struck by this.
> >
> > Am I the only one who regards copyright and patent as basically a state
> > granted monopoly -- i.e. having very little to do with property, and
> > much more to do with a prohibition on competition?
>
> No. The monopoly aspect of copyright and patent (and also trademark)
> are significant. From an economic perspective (my own bent), this *is*
> the whole of the law. Even the language of III.8 "securing for limited
> times to authors and inventors the exclusive right" -- an exclusive
> right is a state-sanctioned monopoly.

Quite true, but the fact that a limited "monopoly" (or, better still, a bundle of exclusive rights) is granted to the copyright holder does not negate the earlier point that copyright is conceptually similar to real property. I think conceptualizing copyright as property adds more to our understanding of what a copyright is than simply calling it a monopoly. There is a tendency to drain all of the useful meaning out of the term monopoly when you say all authors have at least one.

Rod Dixon, J.D., LL.M.
http://www.cyberspaces.org/
rod[_at_]cyberspaces.org Received on Wed Mar 29 2000 - 12:35:08 GMT