Intellectual Property: Copyright, Trademark, Patents, and Fair Use

The Constitutional Provision Respecting Copyright

The Congress shall have Power . . . To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Tımes to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries.

United States Constitution, Article I, Section 8. [Constitutional Committee on Detail] 1787

In 1947 United States Copyright Law became Title 17 of the U.S. Code.

The purpose of copyright is to offer authors financial incentive to create and share their work.  Initially, the term of exclusivity was no more than twenty-eight years.  By 1998, the term had been extended to seventy years plus the life of the author.

For more recent legal decisions related to fair use, see these summaries of recent cases.