History and Arguments
In Anglo-Saxon property law, exclusive rights have often been the codification of pre-existing social norms with regard to land or chattels.
In continental Europe there is a view that copyrights, patents, and the like are the codification of some kind of moral right, natural right, or personality right. However, such arguments can only be consistently justified through instrumentalism or consequentialism, as exemplified by the reasoning inferred in Article One of the United States Constitution that copyrights and patents exist solely "To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts."
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Famous quotes containing the words history and, history and/or arguments:
“We aspire to be something more than stupid and timid chattels, pretending to read history and our Bibles, but desecrating every house and every day we breathe in.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“It takes a great deal of history to produce a little literature.”
—Henry James (1843–1916)
“What can you do against the lunatic who is more intelligent than yourself, who gives your arguments a fair hearing and then simply persists in his lunacy.”
—George Orwell (1903–1950)