privacy/property
Mike Godwin
mnemonic at eff.org
Fri Nov 12 09:19:32 PST 1993
Dark writes:
> No question of statutory copyright is involved. The sole
> question for our consideration is this: Was the International
> News Service properly enjoined from using, or causing to be used
> gainfully, news of which it acquired knowledge by lawful means
> [...] _International News Service v. The Associated Press_, 248
> U.S. 215, at 249 (Brandeis, J., Dissenting).
I note that the ruling against INS would probably not occur today in the
post-Feist world.
> As for the hook in on property and privacy, consider:
>
> The general rule of law is, that the noblest of human productions
> - - knowledge, truths ascertained, conceptions, and ideas - become,
> after voluntary communication to others, free as the air to
> common use. Upon these incorporeal productions the attribute of
> property is continued after such communication only in certain
> classes of cases where public policy has seemed to demand it.
> _International News Service_, 248 U.S. 215 at 250 (Brandeis, J.,
> Dissenting).
I don't see how this reads as Brandeis's having a reservation about
privacy. Perhaps the premier legal theorist about privacy issues in the
last 100 years, Brandeis is simply noting that privacy isn't a given--one
must actively work if one is to preserve it. This is perfectly consistent
with cypherpunk philosophy, IMHO.
--Mike
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