Progress

Article I, sec. 8, cl. 8 of the Constitution says "[The 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". This clause is the legal authority of copyright and patent 'intellectual property' in the U.S.

There is an important distinction to be made here. The purpose of the law is to promote the progress of science and useful arts. The methodology that is currently employed to attain that goal is the creation of IP. However, there must be some kind of metric for progress (or its promotion) independent of the implementation. Otherwise, the metric is corrupted by what we think is right now, and we lose perspective. For example, measuring progress by the number of copyrights filed is wrong, since progress could be had without the existence of copyright law. The trick is coming up with a metric which isn't tied to a particular implementation scheme.

To paraphrase: the goal is X, and the way we're going to get to that goal is Y. If all we do is concentrate on doing Y or measuring Y, then we lose sight of X. That describes the state of IP in this country, and I think it's time we got back to focusing on X again.