Dark writes:
No question of statutory copyright is involved. The sole question for our consideration is this: Was the International News Service properly enjoined from using, or causing to be used gainfully, news of which it acquired knowledge by lawful means [...] _International News Service v. The Associated Press_, 248 U.S. 215, at 249 (Brandeis, J., Dissenting).
I note that the ruling against INS would probably not occur today in the post-Feist world.
As for the hook in on property and privacy, consider:
The general rule of law is, that the noblest of human productions - - knowledge, truths ascertained, conceptions, and ideas - become, after voluntary communication to others, free as the air to common use. Upon these incorporeal productions the attribute of property is continued after such communication only in certain classes of cases where public policy has seemed to demand it. _International News Service_, 248 U.S. 215 at 250 (Brandeis, J., Dissenting).
I don't see how this reads as Brandeis's having a reservation about privacy. Perhaps the premier legal theorist about privacy issues in the last 100 years, Brandeis is simply noting that privacy isn't a given--one must actively work if one is to preserve it. This is perfectly consistent with cypherpunk philosophy, IMHO. --Mike