On 5/22/07, Alan <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> marbux wrote:
>
> One of the taxes targeted by the revolutionaries was the Tea Tax, so
> we find the event that triggered the Revolutionary War, the Boston Tea
> Party, dumping the cargo of a British East India Company ship into
> Boston Harbor, a carefully targeted action aimed at the first
> corporation established by the Crown.
>
That's one interpretation, of course.
The other being that a bunch of known smugglers didn't like the fact that
John Company was going to be allowed to play on the same level(not paying
taxes) as the smugglers themselves.
:-)
Oh, that too. I over-generalized. But I can't over-emphasize the fact
that corporations and monopolies were widely regarded as being as much
the enemy as the British military forces were by the time the
Revolutionary War ended.
I think the Supreme Court has it right in viewing the Patent and
Copyright Clause as a narrow exception to the prohibition of
monopolies, which implies that the scope of patentability and
copyrightability should be narrowly confined to what was specifically
authorized, patents and copyrights for for inventions and and works
with commercial potential. Otherwise the prohibition is invaded.
Whether copyrights and patents are constitutional as to non-commercial
works and inventions is, I think, fair grounds for litigation. I
think it points to at least a reasonable carve-out from the opt-out
system. E.g., is there any compelling reason for posts to web forums
and blog comments -- and email posts -- to be copyrighted? Isn't an
opt-in approach more suitable in such situations?
To be sure, here I postulate an untested legal theory. But the courts
are normally hostile to laws that can not be obeyed; Therefore, I
suspect that the Supreme Court in fact would be persuaded that carving
a constitutional exception to the opt-out model along the
comercial/non-commercial line is a reasonable place to draw the line.
After all, virtually all copyright litigation involves works with
commercial value, so I think the Court might decide that the exception
I suggest would not unleash a flood of lawsuits.
Other exceptions to the opt-out model that impact works with
commercial value -- such as the mirroring of web sites and the suits
brought against Google for allegedly infringing news organizations'
and book publishers' copyrights -- most likely would be framed as new
dimensions of the Doctrine of Fair Use of copyrighted works.
But who knows? Former Supreme Court Justice Robert H. Jackson once
famously remarked, "We are not final because we are infallible, but we
are infallible only because we are final." In other words, it ain't
over 'til it's over and we can be fairly certain that the final
decision won't be made by we few souls.
Best regards,
Marbux
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