Well, there was an interest in having a uniform rule, and that's precisely why the Framers created the Copyright Clause in the Constitution, but there was copyright protection in some States, there wasn't copyright protection in other States, and what we know from the decision of this Court in the Wheaton decision is that there was not a common law copyright in existence. This Court explicitly held that. Now, the petitioners make this quid pro quo to draw the line as well as in how long a line
Copyright protection existed in Virginia since the constitution days.