1. Why did the framers include copyright in the Constitution? Why did they think it was necessary at the time?
2. How did Thomas Jefferson influence early copyright philosophy?
3. Both articles talk about copyright's origin as a "balance" between the rights of creators/copyright holders and the public/users, but the articles also explain how that balance has shifted. What are some examples of that shift?
1. The issue of copyright was one of the most lively subjects which the founding fathers dealt with while creating the Constitution of the United States. George Washington believed copyright would enrich political culture by encouraging creativity and promoting enlightened The founding fathers believed copyright encouraged the production and distribution of the raw material of democracy.
2. Jefferson wrote to Madison that he was happy about the nine states ratifying the new Constitution. “It is a good canvass,” Jefferson wrote of Madison’s work, “on which some strokes only want retouching.” Jefferson wanted a Bill of Rights attached to the document. But he also desired an explicit prohibition against monopolies, including those limited and granted by the Constitution patents and copyright. Jefferson believed copyright was flawed because unlike tangible property ideas and expressions are not susceptible to natural scarcity. “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.”
3. The shift has happened because now people have begun to pirate and are very dishonest. It is sad our people have come to this, but it is realistic and we have to face it and stop this epidemic of lying.
