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45 Colum. L. Rev. 503 (1945)
Reflections on the Law of Copyright: I

handle is hein.journals/clr45 and id is 535 raw text is: COLUMBIA LAW REVIEW VOL. XLV JULY, 1945 NO. 4 REFLECTIONS ON THE LAW OF COPYRIGHT: I* ZECHARIAH CHAFEE, JR. Copyright is the Cinderella of the law. Her rich older sisters, Franchises and Patents, long crowded her into the chimney-comer. Sud- denly the fairy godmother, Invention, endowed her with mechanical and electrical devices as magical as the pumpkin coach and the mice footmen. Now she whirls through the mad mazes of a glamorous ball.' A thoroughgoing revision of the Copyright Act is badly needed in view of the vast increase in the pecuniary value of literary and artistic property, and the complex problems concerning its protection which have been raised by the motion-picture, the radio, and other novel methods of creation and infringement. The main purpose of this article is to explore general principles which underlie the subject. I want to stand a little way off from the Copyright Act and the judicial decisions, and look at them in the large. What is it that the law of copyright is really trying to accomplish? How far is the existing law desirable, and how much of it is merely here because it's here? In what direction is the law likely to move during the next few years? Copyright admits of philosophic thinking more than most other parts of the law. Yet the philosophy of the subject has been somewhat submerged in the statutes and case-law because of the pressure of prac- tical problems of narrow scope which demanded immediate solution. Fortunately, in surveying the principles of copyright reform we can get help from outsiders. Probably no branch of the law has, received so much valuable comment from laymen. Because copyright law benefits men who know how to write, several of them have discussed it with shrewd- ness and brilliance, notably Dr. Johnson and Macaulay. Their aid will be freely used. Naturally, this search of general principles cannot hope to cover the entire field of Copyright. Some important matters like the rules for * This article is substantially the closing lecture of a series on Copyright Law conducted by the Practising Law Institute during the winter of 1944-45. 1. See Chafee, Book Review (1939) 52 HARv. L. RaV. 1378.

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