Publishing, property, and the national information infrastructure

Abstract

Upon reviewing thePreliminary Draft of the Report of the Working Group on Intellectual Property Rights, given the titleIntellectual Property and the National Information Infrastructure, one immediately confronts the grand ambiguity that resides in the two words: “intellectual property.” That the task force on the information infrastructure, enshrined with the acronym NII, had to locate precedent for its missioning Supreme Court Justice Story's 1841 observations on copyright issues as an area involving the “metaphysics of the law” indicates what a long reach the very notion of intellectual property entails in a democratic society.