Authors and Users in Copyright Part I 45 Journal of the Copyright Society of the U.S.A. 1997-1998

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45 J. Copyright Soc'y U.S.A. 1 (1997-1998)
Authors and Users in Copyright

handle is hein.journals/jocoso45 and id is 7 raw text is: PART I
AUTHORS AND USERS IN COPYRIGHT'
by JANE C. GINSBURG2
It has become fashionable, among some thinkers and activists in copy-
right and related fields, to disparage or to deplore copyright protection.
For one drawn to copyright both for its intellectual fascination and its in-
spiring goals of fostering creativity and protecting authorship, I am dis-
tressed to learn that I am among the defenders of a fallen faith, that
authors' rights are misguided (if not pernicious) impediments to techno-
logical progress, and, worst of all, that copyright blocks freedom of
thought and speech in cyberspace.3 Digital agendas notwithstanding,
some of this derogatory discourse is not new; infringers have long found
eloquent, if somewhat cynical, ways to justify piracy in the name of pro-
gress (not to mention the First Amendment).4
1 This article is based on the 26th Annual Donald C. Brace Memorial Lecture,
sponsored by the Copyright Society of the U.S.A., delivered on Nov. 13,
1997.
2 Morton L. Janklow Professor of Literary and Artistic Property Law, Colum-
bia University School of Law. Many friends and colleagues offered helpful
suggestions throughout the evolution of this article. Thanks in particular to
Tom Lombardo, Josh Masur, Henry Monaghan, Shira Perlmutter, Kate
Spelman and George Spera, and to the Columbia Law School faculty sym-
posium. Special thanks for research assistance to Jacqueline Ewenstein, Co-
lumbia Law School class of 1998.
3 See. e.g., John Perry Barlow, The Economy of Ideas, WIRED, Mar. 1994 <http://
wwww.wired.com/wired/2.03/features/economy.ideas.html, visited 11/22/97>
(arguing that copyright on the Internet defeats the Jeffersonian purpose of
seeing that ideas are available to everyone regardless of economic station);
Pamela Samuelson, The Copyright Grab, WIRED, Jan. 1996, at 134, 135
(warning that the information superhighway is being turned into a pub-
lisher dominated toll road.) [hereinafter, The Copyright Grab] ; Rosemary
Coombe, Left Out on the Information Highway, 75 OR. L. REv. 237, 239
(1996) (lamenting that in the digital environment, communicational activi-
ties long encouraged by democracies with an Enlightenment faith in the
progress of arts and science, are viewed as trespassing on private property.)
[hereinafter, Left Out]
4 See, e.g., Columbia Pictures Industries, Inc. v. Redd Home, Inc., 749 F.2d 154,
157 (3rd Cir. 1984) (A defendant, however, is not immune from liability
for copyright infringement simply because the technologies are of recent
origin or are being applied to innovative uses.); WGN Continental Broad-
casting Company v. United Video Inc., 693 F.2d 622, 627 (7th Cir. 1982)
(The comprehensive overhaul of copyright law by the Copyright Act of

Authors and Users in Copyright

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