Subject:
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Jefferson on Copyright and Patent
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.off-topic.debate
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Date:
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Wed, 29 Oct 2003 15:31:35 GMT
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Viewed:
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123 times
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Thomas Jefferson to Isaac McPherson
13 Aug. 1813Writings 13:333--35
http://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents/a1_8_8s12.html
It has been pretended by some, (and in England especially,) that inventors have
a natural and exclusive right to their inventions, and not merely for their own
lives, but inheritable to their heirs. But while it is a moot question whether
the origin of any kind of property is derived from nature at all, it would be
singular to admit a natural and even an hereditary right to inventors. It is
agreed by those who have seriously considered the subject, that no individual
has, of natural right, a separate property in an acre of land, for instance. By
an universal law, indeed, whatever, whether fixed or movable, belongs to all men
equally and in common, is the property for the moment of him who occupies it,
but when he relinquishes the occupation, the property goes with it. Stable
ownership is the gift of social law, and is given late in the progress of
society. It would be curious then, if an idea, the fugitive fermentation of an
individual brain, could, of natural right, be claimed in exclusive and stable
property. If nature has made any one thing less susceptible than all others of
exclusive property, it is the action of the thinking power called an idea, which
an individual may exclusively possess as long as he keeps it to himself; but the
moment it is divulged, it forces itself into the possession of every one, and
the receiver cannot dispossess himself of it. Its peculiar character, too, is
that no one possesses the less, because every other possesses the whole of it.
He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening
mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me.
That ideas should freely spread from one to another over the globe, for the
moral and mutual instruction of man, and improvement of his condition, seems to
have been peculiarly and benevolently designed by nature, when she made them,
like fire, expansible over all space, without lessening their density in any
point, and like the air in which we breathe, move, and have our physical being,
incapable of confinement or exclusive appropriation. Inventions then cannot, in
nature, be a subject of property. Society may give an exclusive right to the
profits arising from them, as an encouragement to men to pursue ideas which may
produce utility, but this may or may not be done, according to the will and
convenience of the society, without claim or complaint from anybody.
Accordingly, it is a fact, as far as I am informed, that England was, until we
copied her, the only country on earth which ever, by a general law, gave a legal
right to the exclusive use of an idea. In some other countries it is sometimes
done, in a great case, and by a special and personal act, but, generally
speaking, other nations have thought that these monopolies produce more
embarrassment than advantage to society; and it may be observed that the nations
which refuse monopolies of invention, are as fruitful as England in new and
useful devices.
Considering the exclusive right to invention as given not of natural right, but
for the benefit of society, I know well the difficulty of drawing a line between
the things which are worth to the public the embarrassment of an exclusive
patent, and those which are not. As a member of the patent board for several
years, while the law authorized a board to grant or refuse patents, I saw with
what slow progress a system of general rules could be matured.
The link is but part of a much larger site that has a short version of an
annotated U.S. Constitution for those interested in specific areas. It’s by no
means comprehensive, its intent is to provide The Founders’ Constitution. I
take that to mean that the intent of the framer’s is given very strong emphasis.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Not to start off in a different direction, but really just for Kooties, here is
one bit from the same site on the 2nd Amendment:
House of Representatives, Amendments to the Constitution
http://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents/amendIIs6.html
“A well regulated militia, composed of the body of the people, being the best
security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall
not be infringed; but no person religiously scrupulous shall be compelled to
bear arms.”
Could the meaning be any plainer?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
-- Hop-Frog
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