appears. The US Copyright Office itself flatly states that "ideas" cannot be copyrighted; yet Warner Brothers claims "ideas" as its "property," along with such dubious things as "suggestions" and "concepts." I don't mean to portray Warner Brothers as being some kind of big corporate villain here. It is just another company trying to maximize its profits, which is what companies do. Its competitors in the media business, all of whom have similar policies in their "Terms of Use" statements, are in the same situation. It is difficult to believe that a company like Warner Brothers would not have such a policy; still, we must face the fact that there are some real differences between the letter of the laws which are on the books and the policies which large media corporations attempt to enforce--when they can. If "Terms of Use" like those of Warner Brothers do not actually reflect the law, in either the Constitution or the statutes, how confidently can copyright holders trust the law to solidly maintain the integrity of their "inventory"? What of actual case law? How well do judges defend the rights of copyright holders when push comes to shove? Here, too, one's confidence may be shaken by the facts. Within the limited scope of this paper, one example will suffice. In the case I am about to relate, the intellectual property involved was software; but this case has implications far beyond its original scope. The defendant, David LaMacchia, posted a number of commercial programs on his electronic bulletin board and allowed computer users to download copies of the programs for free. Originally, the charges brought against him were under federal "wire fraud" statutes; however, Judge D. J. Stearns found that these specific statutes did not apply when no personal profit was involved. Ultimately, he dismissed the charges. Congress later passed the "No Electronic Theft" or "NET" Act to make sure that no future LaMacchias would be able to escape sc...
