Re: Happy Birthday, Copyrighters!

On Tue, 1 Jun 1999, S. Martin Keleti <keleti[_at_]manifesto.com> wrote:
>
> On 6/1/99, Michael Lean <m.lean[_at_]qut.edu.au> wrote:
> >
> > The first Copyright Act was signed by President George Washington.
> > The act protected authorship rights over books, maps and other written
> > material. Rights of copy were only granted to US citizens, a mandate
> > that was kept in place for more than a century.
> >
> > More on the famous act:
> >
> > http://earlyamerica.com/earlyamerica/firsts/copyright/index.html
>
> Whenever I give a presentation on (U.S.) copyright law basics, I like
> to start with a bit of historical perspective, and note the passage
> of the Copyright Act of 1790 as one of the first legislative enactments
> under the Constitution of 1789. I also like to point out that the power
> for Congress to enact copyright laws is in the body of the Constitution,
> while such things as freedom of speech, freedom of religion, the right
> to bear arms, and so forth are mere afterthoughts (Amendments) to the
> Constitution; among the Framers' paramount concerns: PROPERTY.

Your observation cuts the other way. The founders initially took the rights of free expression, etc., for granted. Then, out of an excess of caution, to make sure that these rights over-rode others, wrote the Bill of Rights which, coming later, supersedes rights referenced in the Constitution in any case of unavoidable conflict. This reading is backed up in the case of intellectual property by the clause requiring that patents and copyrights be limited in time. Fortunately, copyright doctrines such as fair use and the idea/expression distinction allow the judges to avoid larger conflicts with the first amendment -- most of the time.

     Paul Geller
     Atty., L.A. (310.455.2087)
     Adjunct Prof., U.S.C. Law
     http://www-rcf.usc.edu/~pgeller/
     <pgeller[_at_]law.usc.edu>