“Civilization advances by extending the number of important operations which we can perform without thinking about them.”
…. such as copying.
http://www.quotationspage.com/quote/30283.html
“Let us look at this question like legislators, and after fairly balancing conveniences and inconveniences, pronounce between the existing law of copyright, and the law now proposed to us. The question of copyright, Sir, like most questions of civil prudence, is neither black nor white, but grey. The system of copyright has great advantages and great disadvantages; and it is our business to ascertain what these are, and then to make an arrangement under which the advantages may be as far as possible secured, and the disadvantages as far as possible excluded. ”
“Copyright is monopoly, and produces all the effects which the general voice of mankind attributes to monopoly…”
“And I may with equal safety challenge my honourable friend to find out any distinction between copyright and other privileges of the same kind any reason why a monopoly of books should produce an effect directly the reverse of that which was produced by the East India Company’s monopoly of tea (i.e. bad), or by Lord Essex’s monopoly of sweet wines (i.e. bad). Thus, then, stands the case. It is good that authors should be remunerated; and the least exceptionable way of remunerating 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.”
“The principle of copyright is this. It is a tax on readers for the purpose of giving a bounty to writers. The tax is an exceedingly bad one; it is a tax on one of the most innocent and most salutary of human pleasures; and never let us forget, that a tax on innocent pleasures is a premium on vicious pleasures.”
“If the freedom of speech is taken away then dumb and silent we may be led, like sheep to the slaughter.”
George Washington
“The Constitution is not an instrument for the government to restrain the people, it is an instrument for the people to restrain the government – lest it come to dominate our lives and interests.”
Patrick Henry
“Government is not reason, it is not eloquence, it is force; like fire, a dangerous servant and a fearful master. Never for a moment should it be left to irresponsible action.” George Washington
Justice Brandeis suggested the First Amendment was intended to make it possible for all of us to: ‘to think as we please and speak as we think.’”
http://www.law.duke.edu/news/story?id=2785&u=11 (the freedom of speech doctrine covers freedom of expression. You cannot have one without the other)
First Amendment to the United States Constitution:
“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”
No Law: Intellectual Property in the Image of an Absolute First Amendment
http://www.law.duke.edu/news/story?id=2785&u=11
“Copyright is monopoly, and produces all
the effects which the general voice of mankind
attributes to monopoly. 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 remunerated; and the
least exceptionable way of remunerating 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.”
“The principle of copyright is this. It is a tax on readers for the purpose of giving a bounty to writers.”
“If nature has made any one thing less susceptible than all others of exclusive property, it is the action of the thinking power called an idea, which an individual may exclusively possess as long as he keeps it to himself; but the moment it is divulged, it forces itself into the possession of every one, and the receiver cannot dispossess himself of it. Its peculiar character, too, is that no one possesses the less, because every other possesses the whole of it. 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 (and creations) then cannot, in nature, be a subject of property.”
http://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents/a1_8_8s12.html
Sharing is Liberty 
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