Copyrights and Copywrongs, Siva Vaidhynathan
Chapter 1: Copyright and American Culture: Ideas, Expressions and Democracy

Abstract
Beginning with a baseball analogy Vaidhynathan comments that the, “the public generally has more rights than networks, publishers, and record companies want to concede”.  The chapter distinguishes between the three main branches of “intellectual property”, patent, trademark and copyright. Vaidhynathan clearly defines the purpose and role of copyright along with a brief yet concise history of copyright law and it’s intentions and benefits for the public. He does a suburb job describing the intial intentions of copyright law from the perspective of the framers of the constitution. He illuminated that the

“framers and later jurists concluded that creativity depends on the use, criticism, supplementation and consideration of previous works. Therefore, they argued, authors should enjoy this monopoly just long enough to provide an incentive to create more, but the work should live afterward in “public domain” as common property of the reading public.” (21)

The purpose of copyright was to protect the work of the author for a limited period, so he can be compensated and encouraged to continue creating. The emphasis is placed on limited because the framers saw copyright as a form of monopoly, and one that should be granted for a short period of time, because they believed strongly in an accessible public domain. George Washington believed, according to Vaidhynathan, “that only through free and easy access to information could the public educate itself to be strong enough to resist tyranny and maintain a state that did not exceed its charges. Copyright encouraged learning, so it would benefit the republic, Washington reasoned“ (22). The Copyright Act of 1790 followed. The stated object of the act was the "encouragement of learning," and it achieved this by securing authors the "sole right and liberty of printing, reprinting, publishing and vending" the copies of their "maps, charts, and books" for a term of 14 years, with the right to renew for one additional 14 year term should the copyright holder still be alive.” Vaidhynathan also discusses the dichotomy of the idea/expression within copyright and some of its inherent fallacies and contradictions in the attempt to excavate where the ‘meaning’ of a work comes from.

Relevance
Vaidhynathan does an excellent job in describing and unearthing the initial intentions of copyright from the framers of the constitution. The emphasis of limited monopoly is of most interest to me under the current climate of copyright law and the ever-increasing terms of extensions. The framers never had any intention of leaving any room for ‘moral rights’ or any kind of extensive copyright protection, they had a greater appreciation for the public and had the vision to see how these creations benefited the public and encouraged education.  They wanted to uphold the interests of the commercial value of a work and thought the limited monopoly of an initial fourteen year term followed by an additional renewal would balance the author’s interest and the public’s right to have access to these works. The assertion of the encouragement of learning is a foundation to which I build my argument that media archives, such as Ubu Web, greatest function is offering free information and works to the public that help build a greater awareness and knowledge of culture. The constitution guarantees only a limited protection for the ‘author’, anything further would be a detriment to the public good.