Constructing Copyright's Mythology

Abstract:     
The paper offers a narrative response to recent claims about copyright's historical meaning and the importance of constitutional restrictions on the copyright power. Specifically, I address two arguments advanced by the petitioners in Eldred v. Ashcroft: that a grant of exclusive rights is constitutional only if given in exchange for an authors' act of creation, and that the Framers constitutionally limited the duration of copyright in order to prevent publishers from exercising widespread control over the content of American works of authorship. The paper concludes that neither claim has an historical basis and cautions generally against two errors that persistently arise in attempts to ground modern copyright policy in some ideal of copyright as envisioned by the Framers.

Number of Pages in PDF File: 11

Accepted Paper Series