Vol 7 No 1 - Roger Williams University School of Law

elationship of power between the Commonwealth Parliament andthe people in legislating intellectual property rights is notabsolute.112 In their silence on this issue, the majority raisesconcerns and uncertainty as to the limits of intellectual propertyrights in the information age.113 We must be mindful that in anera when information is a core economic and cultural resource, itis vital as democratic principle that the legal process ofcommodifying information through intellectual property law beclearly defined and understood.D. Fixed in a Tangible Medium?A hallmark of copyright and patent law is that the intellectualknowledge must be embodied, manifested or fixed in a tangiblemedium. A recent Australian report by the Copyright LawReform Commission suggests that in the realm of copyright lawthe whole notion of fixation in a tangible medium is redundant inthe digital age and should be removed or at least reconceptualisedas a criterion for copyright protection.114While there is no express requirement for fixation in atangible medium in the Australian or Canadian Constitutions, theword “writings” in the United States clause implies some notion offixation. The issue was raised but not finally resolved inMoghadam. That case concerned the constitutional validity of ananti-bootlegging statute115 criminalizing the unauthorizedrecording, transmission to the public, and sale or distribution of or112. See generally Brian F. Fitzgerald, Proportionality and AustralianConstitutionalism, 12 U. Tas. L. Rev. 263 (1993) (discussing the notion of sovereignty inAustralian constitutional law).113. See, e.g., Carl Shapiro & Hal R. Varian, Information Rules: A Strategic Guideto the Network Economy (1999); Benkler, supra note 10; Felix S. Cohen,Transcendental Nonsense and the Functional Approach, 35 Colum. L. Rev. 809, 814-17(1935); Rochelle C. Dreyfuss, We Are Symbols and Inhabit Symbols, So Should We BePaying Rent? Deconstructing the Lanham Act and Rights of Publicity, 20 Colum.-VLAJ. L. & Arts 123 (1996); Rochelle C. Dreyfuss, Expressive Genericity: Trademarks asLanguage in the Pepsi Generation, 65 Notre Dame L. Rev. 397 (1989); Brian F.Fitzgerald, Conceptualising the Digital Environment, in Going Digital 2000: LegalIssues for E-Commerce Software and the Internet 1 (Anne Fitzgerald et al. eds., 2d ed.2000); Michael A. Heller, The Tragedy of the Anticommons: Property in the TransitionFrom Marx to Markets, 111 Harv. L. Rev. 621 (1998); David Lange, Recognising ThePublic Domain, 44 Law & Contemp. Probs. 147 (1981); Ejan Mackaay, The Economicsof Emergent Property Rights on the Internet, in The Future of Copyright in a DigitalEnvironment 13 (P. Bernt Hugenholtz ed. 1996).114. Copyright Law Review Committee, supra note 60, at paras. 5.48-.53.115. 18 U.S.C. § 2319A (1994 & Supp. V 1999).