Promting Progress
Article 1 Section 8 of the U.S. Constitution empowers congress “to promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries” - the beginning of a tumultuous history for copyright and patent legislation in the U.S.
There is a growing community of people who believe that sharing is a perfectly reasonable thing to do with something that they create. Furthermore they are more excited by the unrestricted possibilities that their creativity inspires in others than by the potential for direct financial gain. These movements are powerful, grassroots efforts to promote the the progress of science and useful arts without explicitly securing to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings an discoveries.
The only major risk to sharing, as far as I can tell, is that authors and inventors might not have full control of their writings and discoveries. Since the Constitution only grants Congress the power to secure these writings and discoveries for a limited time, authors and inventors are going to lose control of their writings and discoveries at some point in time anyways (Congress assumes after they are dead).
The largest risk to securing exclusive rights is that we fail to promote the progress of science and useful arts or even, dare I suggest it, hinder their progress. How can giving someone the right to their own writing or discovery hinder progress? Witness this insightful op-ed written by Michael Crichton for the New York Times:
For example, the human genome exists in every one of us, and is therefore our shared heritage and an undoubted fact of nature. Nevertheless 20 percent of the genome is now privately owned. The gene for diabetes is owned, and its owner has something to say about any research you do, and what it will cost you. The entire genome of the hepatitis C virus is owned by a biotech company. Royalty costs now influence the direction of research in basic diseases, and often even the testing for diseases. Such barriers to medical testing and research are not in the public interest. Do you want to be told by your doctor, “Oh, nobody studies your disease any more because the owner of the gene/enzyme/correlation has made it too expensive to do research?”
Why do we enact legislation that has the potential to criminalize an original essay?
Here’s my standard trailer: write your Congressmen, call your Senator, “wake up and do something or I’m voting you out!”