Question

For most of the 1800s, the United States did not recognize the copyrights of books written by foreign authors. As a result, many U.S. publishers printed “pirated”—unauthorized—editions of Charles Dickens and other British authors without paying them royalties. A history of book publishing noted, “[U.S.] publishers claimed that pirating [foreign] works allowed their prices to remain low, which in turn made the works more accessible to the public at large.” There were (eventually successful) attempts in Congress to recognize foreign copyrights in exchange for other countries recognizing U.S. copyrights. At the time, one U.S. publisher described these efforts as the “clamor of two hundred authors against the interests of fifty-five million people.” Do copyright laws benefit authors at the expense of readers? If so, why does the U.S. Constitution give Congress the right to enact copyright laws?

Answer 1

Copy right laws or the patents have remain a point of negotiation for the longest time in history. Copy rights is defined as nothing but the right of the owner or creator of anything new in any field has to be given a royalty in order to use concern person's orginal ideas anywhere in the world. The given example is of books and literature pieces . Outside this area , the use of innovations and technology, medical advancements and findings etc. also have the area of debate for the longest time.

Let us introspect what the world would offer to the innovators and creators from across the world, whose orginal innovation are being used to not only make lives better, but also ensure growth and continuous growth of human kind. The answer is without a thought, nothing. It is no news that creators are already payed minimum since any new creation, be it in any field requires years for dedication, practice , test, trial and errors etc. And the pattern of most creators and innovators being from upper middle class families is a direct result of this in the past. Now with booming technology and world interconnectivity which is again the result of hard work of multiple creators , the credit is due and now recognised as an essential need to reward them for their hardwork.

As given in example, pirated material was having a larger reach for the people , mostly on the grounds of how cost effective it was. With no royalty or credit beingpayed to the original producers, it causes a wave of discouragement for the upcoming talent as to why would they invest their time and money when the credit will be extracted by easy means of copying. Imagine a world where this continues, we would have been stuck atleast 50 years back , as to a rational person there is no cost benefit in situations and seeing others cashing out on your talent is emotionally taxing as well.

Hence patents have to issued , to carry the cycle of innovations, and producer encashing as much profit as they can, and the rest can immitate the same technology, and make it cost efficient with time. But original and timeless works like literature, credit should be given , as imagination is not everybody's field play and those who has the gift, must be noted and celebrated.