How Copyright Got a Bad Name for Itself
![handle is hein.journals/cjla26 and id is 69 raw text is: Essay-How Copyright Got a Bad Name For Itself
Jane C. Ginsburg*
Over the last several years, copyrighted works have come to account for a
healthy portion of our GNP, and an even more substantial share of U.S. exports.1
Nonetheless, copyright is in bad odor these days. Many of the developments over
the last years designed to protect copyright have drawn academic scorn, and
intolerance even from the popular press.2 I have a theory about how copyright got
a bad name for itself, and I can summarize it in one word: Greed.
Corporate greed and consumer greed. Copyright owners, generally perceived to
* Morton L. Janklow Professor of Literary and Artistic Property Law, Columbia University
School of Law. This Essay is based on a lecture given at the 101h Annual Fordham International
Intellectual Property Conference, and at a faculty workshop at DePaul University College of Law. It has
benefited from the insights of Professors Jessica Litman, Graeme W. Austin and Henry Monaghan.
Many thanks as well for suggestions and research to Sam Lambert, Columbia Law School class of 2002,
and for additional research to Carolyn J. Casselman, Columbia Law School class of 2003.
1. See, e.g., Susan Tiefenbrun, Piracy of Intellectual Proper, in China and the Former Soviet
Union and its Effects Upon International Trade: A Comparison, 46 BUFF. L. REV. 1, 35 (1998)
(Approximately twenty-five percent of American exports consist of intellectual property.); Copyright
Term, Film Labeling, and Film Preservation Legislation, Hearings Before the House Subcomm. on
Courts and Intellectual Property of the House Comm. on the Judiciary, 104th Cong., 1st Sess. (1995),
LEXIS 96 CIS H 52136 (statement of Bruce A. Lehman, U.S. Commissioner of Patents and
Trademarks), (As a result of the strong protection afforded by our copyright law, the U.S. copyright
industry has become one of the largest and fastest growing parts of the U.S. economy. The U.S.
copyright industry contribute[s] more to the U.S. economy than any other manufacturing industry and
comprises almost four percent of the nation's Gross Domestic Product. Further, the annual growth rate
of the core copyright industries has been more than twice the growth rate of the whole economy.); id.
(Charlene Barshefsky, Deputy United States Treasurer, testifying that U.S. copyright-based industries
contribute over $30 billion in foreign sales and are growing at twice the annual rate of the economy);
Copyright Term Extension Act of 1995, Hearings Before the Senate Judiciary Comm., 104th Cong., 104-
817, LEXIS 97 CIS 52142 (statement of Sen. Orrin G. Hatch) (Intellectual property is ... our second
largest export; it is an area in which we posses[s] a large trade surplus.); id. (statement of Bruce A.
Lehman) (In 1994, the U.S. copyright industry contributed approximately $40 billion in foreign sales to
the U.S. economy.).
2. See, e.g., LAWRENCE LESSIG, THE FUTURE OF IDEAS: THE FATE OF THE COMMONS IN A
CONNECTED WORLD (2001); SIVA VIADHYANATHAN, COPYRIGHTS AND COPYWRONGS: THE RISE OF
INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY AND How IT THREATENS CREATIVITY (2001); James Surowiecki, The
Financial Page: Righting Copywrongs, NEW YORKER, January 21, 2002, at 27 (on The Future of Ideas);
Daniel Zalewski, Thinking These Thoughts Is Prohibited, N.Y. TIMES, Jan. 6, 2002, § 7, at 10
(reviewing Lawrence Lessig, The Future of Ideas: The Fate of the Commons In a Connected World
(2001)) (Lessig's passionate new book.., argues that America's concern with protecting intellectual
property has become an oppressive obsession.); Copyright Forever?, WASH. POST, Mar. 5, 2002, at
A 18 (criticizing copyright term extension, which was pressed by an assortment of influential and deep-
pocketed copyright owners).](ViewImageLocal?handle=hein.journals/cjla26&div=9&collection=&method=preview&ext=.png&size=3)
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How Copyright Got a Bad Name for Itself
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