> Isn't the way the law is written the real root cause here? Judges and courts don't write laws...
This is a complicated question, but I would argue that the answer is no. Congress trying to anticipate every corner case ahead of time would be a nightmare, so instead the courts exist to take general laws and apply them to specific cases.
Even if congress tried to write a law with no unspecified edge cases, they would fail, because any law they pass has to be within the powers granted to them by the constitution, and those powers are vague. The relevant power here is literally "[the United States Congress shall have power] To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries". That's it, one sentence, it's vague and there is no fixing it. If congress tries to legislate something that falls a bit outside of it, or that violates any of the various rights and freedoms specified in equally vague sentences, the law, at least as applied such that is violates the constitution, doesn't exist.
It's also not quite true that judges and courts don't write law in our common law system. They do, that's what the "common" part is about. Statutory law takes precedence, common law fills in the gaps. Here's an example of a case where the Texas Supreme Court directly addresses that they are creating new exceptions to the law, and that they can do so because the relevant law in the first place was invented by the courts: https://www.casemine.com/judgement/us/59148e86add7b04934555a...
This reply I already wrote serves as a good answer to that question (though I'm not the person you asked): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21550702
> Isn't the way the law is written the real root cause here? Judges and courts don't write laws...
This is a complicated question, but I would argue that the answer is no. Congress trying to anticipate every corner case ahead of time would be a nightmare, so instead the courts exist to take general laws and apply them to specific cases.
Even if congress tried to write a law with no unspecified edge cases, they would fail, because any law they pass has to be within the powers granted to them by the constitution, and those powers are vague. The relevant power here is literally "[the United States Congress shall have power] To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries". That's it, one sentence, it's vague and there is no fixing it. If congress tries to legislate something that falls a bit outside of it, or that violates any of the various rights and freedoms specified in equally vague sentences, the law, at least as applied such that is violates the constitution, doesn't exist.
It's also not quite true that judges and courts don't write law in our common law system. They do, that's what the "common" part is about. Statutory law takes precedence, common law fills in the gaps. Here's an example of a case where the Texas Supreme Court directly addresses that they are creating new exceptions to the law, and that they can do so because the relevant law in the first place was invented by the courts: https://www.casemine.com/judgement/us/59148e86add7b04934555a...