The Sad Legacy Of Copyright: Locking Up Scientific Knowledge And Impeding Progress | Techdirt

"We've repeated this over and over again, but the Constitutional rationale for copyright is "to promote the progress of science" (in case you're wondering about the "useful arts" part that comes after it, that was for patents, as "useful arts" was a term that meant "inventions" at the time). "Science" in the language of the day was synonymous with "learning." Indeed, the very first US copyright law, the Copyright Act of 1790 is literally subtitled "An Act for the Encouragement of Learning." Now, it's also true that the method provided by the Constitution for the promotion of this progress was a monopoly right -- locking up the content for a limited time. But the intent and purpose was always to promote further learning. This is why, for years, we've questioned two things: First, if the monopoly rights granted by copyright are hindering the promotion of learning, should they still be Constitutional? Second, if the goal is the promotion of learning, shouldn't we be exploring if there are better methods to do that, which don't involve monopoly rights and limiting access. And this, of course, leaves aside all the big questions about how much copyright has changed in the past 227 years."