Re: Copyright Extension, Harmonization

The control factor gets a bit confusing - easements (both express and implied) along with covenants (both express and implied) may very well control what I can do with my property. Whether this is like intellectual property is arguable but certain one can stop some from building a house in the same way as the holder of a patent can stop one from building a machine.

Donald H. Berman
<berman[_at_]ccs.neu.edu>

At 02:33 PM 4/16/96 -0500, you wrote:
>
>On 4/15/96, Trotter Hardy <thardy[_at_]facstaff.wm.edu> wrote:
>>
>> Mark Lemley:
>>>
>>> This argument seems to assume, like many of the "copyright as property"
>>> arguments I have seen, that the right thing to do is to allow copyright
>>> owners to appropriate to themselves every last bit of value to their
>>> creation. I think this approach is inconsistent with competition, the
>>> rule which normally prevails in a capitalist marketplace. Copyright is
>>> an exception to the general rule of free competition;
>
> Trotter Hardy writes:
>>
>> Car companies compete selling cars. How well would they compete if
>> they couldn't own their cars in the first place? How well would
>> farmers compete selling grain if they couldn't own their grain in
>> the first place? It seems to me that for a great many markets, the
>> ability to own what you want to sell is an essential feature of
>> competition. How is it that copyright ownership is an exception to
>> this extraordinarily wide-spread rule?
>>
>***************
>
> Because copyright allows you to control what other people do, even
> though it doesn't affect your physical property at all. That is the
> fundamental difference between intellectual property and real or
> personal property -- the latter is tangible and depletable, but the
> former is not. Real property law won't prevent me from building my
> own car; patent law just might.
>
> Mark Lemley
> Assistant Professor, University of Texas School of Law
> Of Counsel, Fish & Richardson, P.C.
> mlemley[_at_]mail.law.utexas.edu
Received on Wed Apr 17 1996 - 16:00:49 GMT