Re: thought for the week

On Mon, 2 Aug 1999, Terry Carroll <carroll[_at_]tjc.com> wrote:
>
> On Sun, 1 Aug 1999, Peter D. Junger <junger[_at_]samsara.law.cwru.edu> wrote:
> >
> > All the dictionaries I have looked at define copyright the noun
> > as ``the exclusive right to reproduce, publish, and sell the
> > work'' or words to that effect.
>
> That's correct, but I was referring to the word's origin, not to its
> definition.

I am afraid that I did not make it clear that the dictionaries that I looked at purport to give the words etymology as well as its definition.

Here is the entry from the online version of the OED 2d:

Oxford English Dictionary      

   copyright 'kopIraIt, sb. (a.)
   f. COPY sb. + RIGHT sb.

1. The exclusive right given by law for a certain term of years to an author, composer, designer, etc. (or his assignee), to print, publish, and sell copies of his original work.

     1735 Parl. Coll., House of Lords 6 May (H.L.R.O.), The Editions 
     and Impressions of such Books made and published as well in Great
     Britain as in Ireland and Scotland by persons who have paid no
     considerations for the Copy-right of such Books. 1767 Blackstone
     Comm. II. 407 Much may also be collected from the several
     legislative recognitions of copyrights. 1791 Boswell Johnson an.
     1748, A considerable deduction from the price stipulated to be 
     paid for the copyright. 1832 Babbage Econ. Manuf. xxxiii. (ed. 3) 361
     The law of Copyright, is, in some measure allied to that of
     patents. 1875 Jevons Money (1878) 166 We have international
     copyright.

That is the sole enry for ``copyright'' as a noun in its own right, rather than as an adjective (or a verb).

Note that the earliest cited is 1735 and that that passage conforms to the definition given by the O.E.D. (and other dictionaries) and is inconsistent with the meaning that you claim to be original but for which you can cite no source.  

> > Under the current U.S. Copyright Act, by the way, a ``copy'' is a
> > tangible medium of expression -- e.g., a floppy disk or a magnetic
> > tape -- in which the copyrighted work is embodied.
>
> Of course, when the word "copyright" attained general use in the 18th
> century, they didn't have the benefit of the stautory definitions from
> the 1976 Copyright Act.

True, but the meaning of the term seems not to have changed in the slightest between the early eighteenth century and today. It appears that a copyright has always been the (exclusive) right to make a copy or authorize the making of a copy and that the term has never been used to refer to the right to the copy itself.

And when one thinks about it it should be obvious that the right to a copy is not going to be called a copyright, because it already has a good label, viz., ``ownership''. Thus one could reasonably say that ``I own a copy of that novel, but I don't own the copyright.'' I think it is inconceivable that it would ever have made sense to say ``I own (or have) the copyright to this book but only the author has the right to copy it.''

But of course, most people don't talk about ``ownership'' either -- which is a good thing, because about the only use that is made of that word is to cause confusion --: people just say ``that's my book.''

Or, at least, that's my opinion.

--
Peter D. Junger--Case Western Reserve University Law School--Cleveland, OH
 EMAIL: junger@samsara.law.cwru.edu    URL:  http://samsara.law.cwru.edu/
        NOTE: junger[_at_]pdj2-ra.f-remote.cwru.edu no longer exists