Philosophy of copyright
Some take the approach of looking for coherent justifications of established copyright systems, while others start with general ethical theories, such as utilitarianism and try to analyse policy through that lens.
Thus, the normative or ethical theories that might naively be regarded as tests for copyright law to pass are often called "justifications" of it.
A related class of theories is called instrumentalism; it holds that copyright law must exist for clear, coherent and necessary purposes, without being so strict as to require that it maximise some kind of 'goodness' in its outcome.
Without a feasible way to recoup investments of creative time through copyright, there would be little economic incentive to produce and works would need to be motivated by a desire for fame from already affluent authors or those able to obtain patronage (with associated constraints on independence).
[4] Defenders of the present system of strong copyrights argue that it has been largely successful in financing the creation and distribution of a wide variety of works, especially those requiring significant labor and capital.
Many authors thought that this wording would actually require U.S. copyright laws to serve the purpose of "promoting the progress of science and useful arts".
However, the Court, in the case called Eldred v. Ashcroft, held, inter alia, that in placing existing and future copyrights in parity in the CTEA, Congress acted within its authority and did not transgress constitutional limitations.
The French droit d'auteur ("Rights of the Author"), which influenced the 1886 Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works, must also be noted as a significant alternative to the usual Anglo-Saxon concept of copyright.
The prolongation of copyright term is commonly attributed to effective corporate lobbying, based on a desire for the continuance of a profitable monopoly.
The recent success of free software projects such as Linux, Mozilla Firefox, and the Apache web server has demonstrated that quality works can be created even in the absence of a copyright-enforced monopoly rent.
[10] These products use copyright to enforce their license terms, which are designed to ensure the free nature of the work, rather than securing exclusive rights for the holder for monetary gain.
This has the benefit of providing a structured scheme under which authors can loosen some of the barriers that copyright imposes on others, allowing them to partially contribute the work to the community (in the form of giving a general grant on copying, reproduction, use or adaptation subject to certain conditions) while retaining other exclusive rights they hold in it.
Robert Greenwald, a director of Uncovered: The Whole Truth About the Iraq War documentary was refused the right to use a clip of a George W. Bush interview from NBC's Meet the Press.
Although the fair use provisions of statute and common law may apply in such cases, the risks of loss in court should there be a lawsuit and pressure from insurance companies, who regard use of almost anything (e.g., three words forming the opening of a song,) without permission as too risky, usually precludes use of materials without explicit permission, and so without a license fee.
Others[12][13] disagree, believing that copyright (which in the United States system, for instance, arises from provisions in the U.S. Constitution), has made and continues to make a valuable even essential contribution to the creation and dissemination of works.
