anaesthetica's Journal: James Madison on Intellectual Property

The Volokh Conspiracy, a legal blog, writes about James Madison and his opinion on intellectual property. Madison, "Father of the Constitution" and author of the Bill of Rights, disliked the idea of intellectual "property," viewing it as a dangerous grant of monopoly. While he stressed that such grants ought to be strictly limited, he apparently went further saying that the government ought to be able to buy back the grant of monopoly to protect the public from being fleeced or placed under inconvenient restrictions.