Z:gnu-www-ja-moglen-harvard-speech-2004--b727b3-The copyrights clause is an pa/en

The copyrights clause is an particular legal embrace of the idea of perfectability through access to and the sharing of knowledge. We, however, the 21st century inheritors of that promise, live in a world in which there is some doubt as to whether property principles, strongly enforced, with their inevitable corollary of exclusion &mdash; this is mine, you cannot have it unless you pay me &mdash; whether property principles best further that shared goal of the perfectability of human life and society based around access to knowledge.