copyright and natural law?

Moritz Roettinger <moritz.roettinger[_at_]dg23.cec.be> wrote:
>
> No. Intellectual property in literary works belongs right from the
> beginning to the author - and only to him and originally to him. This
> property right is not a derivated right and is not granted to him by
> anybody. In the moment of the creation of the work he becomes the
> author and automatically the owner of copyright. It is certainly not
> the public who acts in whatever way "generously". The public has
> nothing to say.
>
> Mr Phillips, I do not know where you come from and what you do. But
> what you write is contrary to all generally accepted copyright theories
> and doctrines, and it is contrary to US and European law and also to the
> constitution. Your argumentation reminds me of the very beginning of
> copyright in the early 19th century. Since then your approach is no
> longer consistent with law.
>

With respect to Dr. Roettinger, while his natural law approach may comport with some European laws, it is *not* the basis for U.S. law. Copyright in the U.S. is explicitly an instrumental grant, designed to give an incentive for authors to create. It is defined and limited by statute; if there were no statute, there would be no right of ownership. [And it's not even the case that the individual who creates something is always, or even usually, the copyright owner. Under U.S. law, the most recent statistics I have seen suggest that something more than half of all copyrighted works are in fact "works made for hire" in which the person who does the writing gets no rights whatsoever].

Mark Lemley
Visiting Professor, Boalt Hall School of Law University of California at Berkeley (fall 1998) mlemley[_at_]mail.law.berkeley.edu
Professor of Law
University of Texas School of Law
Of counsel, Fish & Richardson P.C.
mlemley[_at_]mail.law.utexas.edu Received on Thu Sep 10 1998 - 17:18:03 GMT