The U.S. Constitution’s intellectual property clause has foundations...
The U.S. Constitution’s intellectual property clause has foundations in philosopher John Locke’s “classical liberal” political philosophy, said Free State Foundation President Randolph May and FSF research fellow Seth Cooper Friday in an essay (http://bit.ly/13mkQvz). As the House begins to re-examine…
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copyright, an appreciation of these “foundational principles should be important,” May said in an email. Locke defined property to include “one’s person, one’s faculties, and the fruits of one’s labor,” May and Cooper said in the blog post. Locke’s philosophy, as interpreted by James Madison and other framers of the Constitution, “confirm the status of copyrights and patents as genuine forms of property, on par with real or personal property,” May and Cooper said. Some now believe that intellectual property “is not property, or that somehow it must be ‘reconstructed’ on different analytical grounds,” they said. “At bottom, such supposed ‘reconstruction’ of intellectual property is inconsistent with fundamental principles concerning our rights that our Founders firmly embodied in the American constitutional order."