Quote:
Originally Posted by darryl
@pwalker8. I'm sorry to say so, but your posts display a fundamental misunderstanding of this area. For example:
Many of the surrounding sections in the Copyright Act in the US code make the situation very clear.
At least in the US as provided by the Constitution and discussed previously, Copyright is clearly not a legal construct between the owners and the government. So far as books are concerned, it is designed to promote the writing of more books by giving the author a statutory monopoly for a limited period. Any benefit to the author is incidental to this.
So far as contract law being mainly common law, this is simply not true. The basics of contract law derive from the Common law, but much of contract law is governed by legislation, particularly in the US which extensively codifies many of its laws. Even if you were correct, common law is not a free for all as you imply. Judges are bound by precedent which ensures some consistency, particularly given there is an appeals process, and few judges like to be overruled by a higher court.
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Well, it is true. The thing that you are missing is that there are many contradictory rulings in precedent, so for all practical purposes, the judge decides which precedents apply to a specific case. If it were as cut and dry as you seem to think, people would rarely go to court. The whole art of being a lawyer is finding precedents that support your client's case and persuading the judge that your precedents are more valid than the precedents that the other side's lawyer is citing. When I took introduction to contract law, many years ago, most of the discussion was on how to find and cite precedents to your clients advantage. I think you will find that for the most part, contracts are only covered by legislation in the broadest sense. Contracts tend to be very individualized though there is a lot of standardized boiler plate as well.