The Accommodation of intellectual property law to the introduction of new technologies; Copyright and new technology; The Impact on the Law of Privacy, Antitrust and Free Speech Page: 10
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problem was glossed over by the recognition of the first as a
common law copyright, the second as the grant of a statutory
monoly. The Supreme Court in Wheaton V. Peters'17 its first
copyright case, adopted the positive law view of copyright,
rejecting the notion that statutory copyright was based on any
natural rights of the author. Nevertheless, the common law
copyright survived in this country until the 1976 Copyright Act.
The continued existence of the common law copyright meant that
the positive law concept of copyright was never completely
accepted, partly because copyright was continually characterized
as an author's right. There is much in a name.
This marriage of positive law and natural law in one legal
concept has never been wholly successful. It is responsible for
the weak conceptual basis of copyright and has resulted in
contrary decisions by the Supreme Court. In some decisions, the
Court applied rules of copyright law mechanistically to limit the
copyright monopoly despite an unjust result for authors,18 and in
others the Court judicially extended the coverage of copyright
beyond the words of the statute.19 Consequently, it is not clear
whether copyright should be viewed as a positive law or a natural
law concept.
The fact is that it is treated as both. The copyright
statute posits copyright as a positive law concept, but the
courts tend to interpret copyright issues as if copyright .were a
natural law concept. Thus it is not always apparent how the
policies of copyright intersect with the policies underlying the
law of privacy, antitrust and free speeeh. Once the
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Patterson, L. R. The Accommodation of intellectual property law to the introduction of new technologies; Copyright and new technology; The Impact on the Law of Privacy, Antitrust and Free Speech, report, 1984; (https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc97422/m1/10/: accessed April 23, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, UNT Digital Library, https://digital.library.unt.edu; crediting UNT Libraries Government Documents Department.