Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/11pdf/10-545.pdf
Page Number: 50.0

Cite as:  565 U. S. ____ (2012) 

5 

BREYER, J., dissenting 

(Oct. 17, 1788), in 14 id., at 16, 21 (J. Boyd ed. 1958).  But 
he  argued  that  “in  certain  cases”  such  as  copyright,  mo­
nopolies  should  “be  granted”  (“with  caution,  and  guarded 
with  strictness  agst  abuse”)  to  serve  as  “compensation 
for  a  benefit  actually  gained  to  the  community  . . .  which 
the owner might otherwise withhold from public use.”  Mo­
nopolies.  Perpetuities.  Corporations.  Ecclesiastical  En­
dowments.  in  J.  Madison,  Writings  756  (J.  Rakove  ed.
1999)  (emphasis  added).  Jefferson  eventually  came  to 
agree  with  Madison,  supporting  a  limited  conferral  of
monopoly rights but only “as an encouragement to men to 
pursue  ideas  which  may  produce  utility.”  Letter  from 
Thomas Jefferson to Isaac McPherson (Aug. 13, 1813), in 6 
Papers  of  Thomas  Jefferson,  at  379,  383  (J.  Looney  ed.
2009) (emphasis added).

This  utilitarian  view  of  copyrights  and  patents,  em­
braced by Jefferson and Madison, stands in contrast to the 
“natural  rights”  view  underlying  much  of  continental
European  copyright 
law—a  view  that  the  English
booksellers  promoted  in  an  effort  to  limit  their  losses
following the enactment of the Statute of Anne and that in
part  motivated  the  enactment  of  some  of  the  colonial 
statutes.  Patterson  158–179,  183–192.  Premised  on  the 
idea  that  an  author  or  inventor  has  an  inherent  right  to
the  fruits  of  his  labor,  it  mythically  stems  from  a  legend­
ary 6th-century statement of King Diarmed “ ‘to every cow 
her  calf,  and  accordingly  to  every  book  its  copy.’ ”  A. 
Birrell,  Seven  Lectures  on  the  Law  and  History  of  Copy­
right  in  Books  42  (1899).    That  view,  though  perhaps
reflected in the Court’s opinion, ante, at 30, runs contrary
to the more utilitarian views that influenced the writing of
our  own  Constitution’s  Copyright  Clause.    See  S.  Rick­
etson, The Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary
and  Artistic  Works:  1886–1986,  pp. 5–6  (1987)  (The  first 
French  copyright  laws  “placed  authors’  rights  on  a  more
elevated  basis  than  the  Act  of  Anne  had  done,”  on  the