Wrap anything in a preface that includes "The Founding Fathers" or "According to the Constitution" and you'll usually find what comes after is a mixture of bad history and/or urgent activism for a greedy cause.
That's not the case for Michael Masnick of TechDirt. He's put together a sort of primer on some of the original thoughts by our founding fathers about copyrights and patents over on TechDirt. He promises more to come. Michael stresses, what those that bother to dig a bit beyond the surface of history, that Jefferson and Madison (as well as others) had some serious reservations about extending copyright and patent protection for the sake of the common good. Some of the documents he alludes to should be required reading because I'm sure most folks don't have a clue to the debate that went on around this or the reasons behind it. Those that do are understandably perplexed and often angered when we read the current rhetoric about Intellectual Property the way it is viewed in this day and age. But, sad to say, that can be said about so much these days.
Oh, and if you're looking for some more reading on this, here's another primer on the subject that I dredge up from time to time.
Read both. I bet you'll be surprised.
