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"He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without
lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without
darkening me. That ideas should freely spread from one to another over the
globe, for the moral and mutual instruction of man, and improvement of his
condition, seems to have been peculiarly and benevolently designed by
nature, when she made them, like fire, expansible over all space, without
lessening their density in any point, and like the air in which we
breathe, move, and have our physical being, incapable of confinement or
exclusive appropriation. Inventions then cannot, in nature, be a subject
of property. Society may give an exclusive right to the profits arising
from them, as an encouragement to men to pursue ideas which may produce
utility, but this may or may not be done, according to the will and
convenience of the society, without claim or complaint from any body."
-Thomas Jefferson, letter to Isaac McPherson, 1813 |