Re: "Against Intellectual Property"

On Tue, Aug 29, 2000 at 06:43:03PM -0700, Jon Noring wrote:
> "Laurie Urquiaga" <Urquiagal[_at_]lawgate.byu.edu> wrote:
> >Linda said:
>
> >>I am a strong supporter of copyrights since that is the law, but I
> >>believe that we should be able to change the law to react to the
> >>times and protect creators against infringement as the Constitution
> >>gave Congress the power to do. But then I was talking about the
> >>government action of limiting the term of copyrights.
>
> >This doesn't seem to recognize that it is the CONSTITUTION that specified
> >that copyrights should exist for limited terms. The Constitution thereby
> >specifically prohibits Congress from granting perpetual copyright terms,
> >although they seem to be trying their best to circumvent that part of the
> >clause....
>
> I recall it being said here and on misc.int-property (a Usenet newsgroup)
> that prior court rulings seem to suggest that what constitutes "limited" is
> within the power of Congress to decide. That is, Congress can specify a
> copyright term of 1,000,000 years, and since that is "limited", it would
> be valid, even if in any real sense it is forever. (Eric Eldred can
> certainly shed light on this since I think his lawsuit centers on this
> very issue.)

There are several good histories of copyright that delve into this point. Legal historian Edward C. Walterscheid presents one at: http://eon.law.harvard.edu/openlaw/eldredvreno/walterscheid.html Or L. Ray Patterson, at:
http://www.lawsch.uga.edu/~jipl/vol1/patterson.html

In the Eldred v Reno appeal brief, see at http://eon.law.harvard.edu/openlaw/eldredvreno/appealbrief.html

  [FN16] And this, ultimately, is exactly what the CTEA's House sponsor,   Congresswoman Mary Bono, maintained: Sonny [Bono] wanted the term of copyright   protection to last forever. I am informed by staff that such a change would   violate the Constitution. I invite all of you to work with me to strengthen our   copyright laws in all of the ways available to us. As you know, there is also   [Motion Picture Artist Association President] Jack Valenti's proposal for a   term to last forever less one day. Perhaps the Committee may look at that next   Congress. 144 Cong. Rec. H9946, 9951-52 (October 7, 1998).   

Let's assume that "forever" is an infinite number. Then infinity + one is still infinite, as well as infinity - one, by mathematical convention. And any infinite number by convention is still unlimited. (Otherwise you get into some paradoxes--maybe they are what drove transfinite theorist Georg Cantor mad.)

What is the legal convention for "limited term"? Can a legislature on its own define the value of "pi"? If one legislature passes a law that sets up "limited terms" for its members, can the next legislature build on that by extending the "limited term" one more term--to forever minus one day? If the "limit" is to be found in what the Constitution or its amendments say, then why not for copyright and patents here?        Received on Sat Sep 02 2000 - 02:32:14 GMT