Quote:
Originally Posted by Hitch
Sorry, but, no. See Wheaton v. Peters, 33 U.S. 591 (1834) https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/33/591/ , (130 years prior to the 1970's), in which Justice McLean stated (writing for the majority):
(bold emphasis added).
That a typical dictionary didn't discuss copyright as property is utterly meaningless. There are innumerable legal terms, statutes, etc., that you would not find discussed in the OED (unabridged) today. That is irrelevant.
Copyright has been a PROPERTY right under all applicable laws and statutes and Acts since the Statute of Anne. (And I'm not even getting into the earlier laws and acts, which also discuss it, like the Licensing Act of 1662.) With all due respect, you really are arguing that the sky is not blue and that water is not wet.
Hitch
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"since the statute of 8 Anne, the literary property of an author in his works can only be asserted under the statute. . . . That an author, at common law, has a property in his manuscript, and may obtain redress against any one who deprives him of it, or by improperly obtaining a copy endeavours to realise a profit by its publication cannot be doubted;
but this is a very different right from that which asserts a perpetual and exclusive property in the future publication of the work, after the author shall have published it to the world."
Even this ruling supports the concept that copyrighted "property" is different from what is commonly thought of as property.