Dan Sherrier

Conservatives and libertarians often complain about the current form of our federal government, and with good reason. I’ve certainly added my own criticism in recent months. But no one I know is anti-government.

So, as a nice change of pace, I shall speak favorably of a federal agency: the U.S. Copyright Office. Protecting intellectual property is precisely the sort of activity the federal government should undertake.

"C" isn't just for cookie.

The Constitution spells it out in Article I, Section 8: “The Congress shall have Power … To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries; …”

Being included in the Constitution makes it a legal activity of the federal government, but that alone is not an explanation for why it’s a good idea. After all, the Post Office is listed right above it, demonstrating that even the most ingenuous documents have at least one glaring mistake.

To realize the necessity of the Copyright Office, imagine life without it. An up-and-coming novelist would fear showing anyone his new work, in case a dishonest soul might seek to claim ownership for himself. Imagine pouring your heart and soul into a book, and then everyone believes someone else wrote it–and that someone else reaps the benefits of your efforts. Same for an aspiring songwriter, who might feel inclined to keep her songs to herself rather than risk someone else becoming famous for her work.

Creative expression would be stifled in the absence of legal protection. The related industries, such as Hollywood and book publishing, would be a fraction of their current selves. Television would feature little more than reality shows and game shows, which is a truly frightening notion.

The Copyright Office offers peace of mind to authors of all sorts, allowing them to create freely. Just as the law protects our physical possessions from theft, our intellectual possessions deserve similar insurance–at the very least. If a new computer is stolen, it’s a painful financial hit, but there are always other computers available for purchase. If a unique idea is stolen, that’s deeply personal and irreplaceable.

It helps promote a person’s liberty and pursuit of happiness without seeking to guarantee or equalize any outcomes. This isn’t the National Endowment of the Arts subsidizing artists’ projects at the taxpayers’ expense. This is simply protection of property, so the owner can do with it whatever he or she likes.

I, too, have made use of the agency over the years. The protection it provides allows me to market my play scripts through the Internet, and if other people dare to pass off my work as their own, I have legal recourse.

It’s not foolproof. It’s entirely possible people can find my play scripts online and perform them without paying me–and if they’re careful, I might never find out. Nothing’s risk-free. But people can’t claim that they–and not I–wrote any of my plays. (Well, technically, people can claim anything, but they probably won’t get the desired results.)

In addition to being a valid function of government, the Founding Fathers were correct to establish the copyright system at the federal level. If the states or localities handled this, we would still need some sort of inter-state copyright department for issues that arise across state lines. Also, states would be ill-equipped to deal with international situations of intellectual theft, and the federal government is supposed to manage foreign affairs on behalf of the states anyway.

I’m all for reducing the size of government, but the U.S. Copyright Office can stay.

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