246
Breyer, J., dissenting
why the copyright term is limited. It is limited so that its beneficiaries—the public—"will not be permanently deprived of the fruits of an artist's labors." Stewart v. Abend, 495 U. S. 207, 228 (1990).
That is how the Court previously has described the Clause's objectives. See also Mazer v. Stein, 347 U. S. 201, 219 (1954) ("[C]opyright law . . . makes reward to the owner a secondary consideration" (internal quotation marks omitted)); Sony, 464 U. S., at 429 ("[L]imited grant" is "in-tended . . . to allow the public access to the products of [authors'] genius after the limited period of exclusive control has expired"); Harper & Row, supra, at 545 (Copyright is "intended to increase and not to impede the harvest of knowledge"). But cf. ante, at 212, n. 18. And, in doing so, the Court simply has reiterated the views of the Founders.
Madison, like Jefferson and others in the founding generation, warned against the dangers of monopolies. See, e. g., Monopolies. Perpetuities. Corporations. Ecclesiastical Endowments. in J. Madison, Writings 756 (J. Rakove ed. 1999) (hereinafter Madison on Monopolies); Letter from Thomas Jefferson to James Madison (July 31, 1788), in 13 Papers of Thomas Jefferson 443 (J. Boyd ed. 1956) (herein-after Papers of Thomas Jefferson) (arguing against even copyright monopolies); 2 Annals of Cong. 1917 (1791) (statement of Rep. Jackson in the First Congress, Feb. 1791) ("What was it drove our forefathers to this country? Was it not the ecclesiastical corporations and perpetual monopolies of England and Scotland?"). Madison noted that the Constitution had "limited them to two cases, the authors of Books, and of useful inventions." Madison on Monopolies 756. He thought that in those two cases monopoly is justified because it amounts to "compensation for" an actual community "benefit" and because the monopoly is "temporary"— the term originally being 14 years (once renewable). Ibid. Madison concluded that "under that limitation a sufficient recompence and encouragement may be given." Ibid. But
Page: Index Previous 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 NextLast modified: October 4, 2007