The US law, and the British law it was modeled after, were both trying to solve an existing problem of theft. You’re right that the rationale did include the notion that granting protection would be good for society and encourage creation of new work (because the alternative they witnessed in practice was to make money copying someone else). You’re right that this was part of the purpose, but the stated purpose from the very beginning was in fact to protect authors’ and publishers’ rights to make money. Not only was that always the primary point, but it is also the very mechanism by which they promoted new work: the only incentive to create new work is that you have legal protection from copiers for some time so you can make money. This is why these two reasons are inseparable, right?

> The US law, and the British law it was modeled after, were both trying to solve an existing problem of theft.

No, it wasn’t. Creation of novel property rights is never to solve a problem of theft, because theft only exists in the context of existing property rights.

> but the stated purpose from the very beginning was in fact to protect authors’ and publishers’ rights to make money

The original British copyright law did not apply to authors at all, but to printers only. As D f goodzw

> theft only exists in the context of existing property rights

Obviously. Yes, the law didn’t exist, but copying others’ content was viewed as stealing, which is why there was a push to turn it into real, legal theft. Apologies for using shorthand. What words would you have chosen? Maybe you can make my point for me, because the law was written in response to am actual problem people had of being able to recoup their investments.

I don’t agree that ‘theft’ requires existing legal property rights to exist, that is not the definition of the word, so your claim in inaccurate. Theft is the act of stealing, which is taking something without permission. It can one-sided from the perspective of the person who was taken from, and still be theft.

> Of course the law didn’t exist before it was written, but copying others’ content was viewed as stealing,

But the first copyright laws in Britain gave no rights at all to creators.

They weren’t about moral rights founded in creation of works, the basis of rights was the capital investment of setting up to print the work.

Right yes, to my broad point here that the law’s whole point was to protect profits, and I agree originally it was publisher’s profits not author’s.