Why should intellectual property rights be respected AT
ALL?
The U.S. Constitution provides an answer. Unlike
"inalienable"
rights--life, liberty, and property--is an "artificial"
right,
intolerable if for more than a limited period, and recognized at all only
if it
gives some specific benefit to society ("To promote the Progress of
Science
I think you are confused. The list of "inalienable
rights" appears in the
Declaration of Independence, not the U.S. Constitution.
The Declaration of
Independence is not the law of the land. And, although it
is
open ended, the list of inalienable rights enumerated in the Declaration of
Independence doesn't include an reference to "property" at all -- either real
property or intellectual property.
Also, I think that if you read through
the U.S. Constitution, you will find
only 4 mentions of the word "property."
The first concerns the power of
Congress to dispose of and make rules regarding
the property of the United
States. The second and third appear in the 5th
amendment, concerning
the government's right to take private property and due
process. The fourth
concerns the right of the states to take property, and
appears in the 14th
amendment, ratified only in 1868.
Perhaps the "life,
liberty, and property" you refer to are the mentions of
these items in the 5th
and 14th amendment. But the power of Congress to
secure to inventors the
exclusive right to their inventions for limited periods
of time appears right
in the text of the Constitution itself, at Article I, Section
8. So one could
plausibly argue that the basis for this right is even more
fundamental in our
Constitution than the general right to life, liberty, and
property.
I don't
know what the Constitutional Convention would have done about
software patents.
But the enshrining in the Constitution of the fact that
intellectual property
rights can be granted by Congress rather dramatically
undercuts the basic
premise of your argument that these rights shouldn't be
respected at all.
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