My Position on Copyright is Nothing New

Lord Thomas Macaulay was a 19th Century Whig member of the British Parliament. He was also an accomplished historian and literary figure. While reading Eric Anderson's history of copyright during the 1800s and he points to this wonderful quote by Lord Macaulay:

"Copyright is a monopoly [and...] the effect of monopoly generally is to make articles scarce, to make them dear, and to make them bad. [...] It is good that authors should be renumerated; and the least exceptionable way of renumerating them is by a monopoly. Yet monopoly is an evil. For the sake of the good we must submit to the evil; but the evil ought not to last a day longer than is necessary for the purpose of securing the good."

If you are so inclined, all of Macaulay's speeches on copyright are here.